Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 572 - 555: Earning Gold Coins by the Day

Chapter 572: Chapter 555: Earning Gold Coins by the Day

Zhuge Jun suddenly sat up from the bed, "I just received it, too. Could this be a world task pushed according to the server time?"

"Qing Lin... isn’t that the character you first got from the gacha?"

Both of them found it strange. The triggering method of this world task was quite odd, wasn’t it?

Generally speaking, there are two most common types of punishment mechanisms for such tasks: one is unlocked with the progression of task lines, for example, after a player completes all the main quests, a special world task is unlocked; the other is triggered by region, meaning as soon as a player arrives at a certain area or meets a certain character, the task triggers.

And this time, the task was triggered with the server time.

Is there such a practice? Of course, there is. For example, when a game updates a version and launches a new event task, it is pushed to all players according to server time.

But the push from Nitiandang came without any warning, because this wasn’t the normal time for server updates, and there was no need for so many complex updates during a closed beta.

Most importantly, everyone knows that once a game from Nitiandang is released, it wouldn’t change, and the same is true for online games like Shadow World; so this task was most likely set from the start.

It was precisely this time that was updated.

Then... why?

Zhuge Jun and Hou Ji didn’t think too much about it; since there was a task, they might as well do it.

The two went to the Earth Country’s region and received the task from Qing Lin.

Overall, the task was quite simple; it was nothing more than Qing Lin feeling powerless while combating the enemies from Earth Country and Fire Country, thinking she was too weak, so she decided to undergo special training from an Immortal.

And the Hero was to accompany her in completing the training.

During this process, players could also switch characters, control Qing Lin, which is similar to the "Character Legend Tasks" found in some games, providing better supplements to character stories and acting as a promotion.

Soon after a series of puzzles and battles, they completed the task.

In other games, this would typically result in some rewards for the player, and that would be the end of it.

But in Endless Fantasy Legend 2, a special interface popped up.

It clearly showed the effects of Qing Lin’s special training: her attributes had greatly increased!

Her base stats, skill multipliers, everything had changed accordingly.

Zhuge Jun was stunned, "Huh? What does this mean? A character’s attributes can change??"

In other games, there were systems for character upgrades, like leveling up, star upgrades, or evolutions, but those were fixed from the start.

Endless Fantasy Legend 2 was different. Beyond the traditional character enhancements, this special training task directly boosted the fundamental numeric settings of the character!

That is to say, every level had improved compared to before!

Hou Ji was dumbfounded, "Really? Let me check."

He hurriedly switched back to his previous account and redid Qing Lin’s special training task.

After completing the task and seeing the attribute improvements, Hou Ji randomly picked a few strong monsters to test.

The conclusion was shocking: she indeed had become stronger, and not by just a little!

Don’t underestimate the boost in stats; oftentimes, all strength is built on the foundation of numbers.

Although Qing Lin was a Wind Attribute character and was at a mechanical disadvantage against Fire Attribute enemies, the enhanced Wind Attribute skill damage and crowd-control effect were tangible after the empowerment!

Previously, using Xi Yun to tank, followed by Qing Lin’s use of a hurricane for crowd control and to spread attributes, could produce a decent combo effect. However, due to a lack of stats, the damage was insufficient.

This led to a break in the attack rhythm because there was a wait for two major skills to charge. During this time, combat became quite difficult, leaving them to be battered by monsters.

But now, Qing Lin had not only received an increase in attributes and skill range and damage, but the cooldown reduction of her ultimate also shortened considerably.

Coupled with the almost invincible crowd-control effect of her ultimate, a character that was previously scoffed at had suddenly made a huge turnaround.

With a bit of cultivation and pairing with other characters for elemental reactions, one could wipe out groups of enemies with a single combo, significantly escalating the game experience.

So, all problems with balance, at the end of the day, come down to number issues!

Without the numbers, even the best mechanisms can’t perform; but with the numbers, even the trashiest mechanics become playable.

The boost in Qing Lin’s stats was a complete turnaround, transforming her from a character no one cared about to an indispensable link in team composition.

Hou Ji was dazed. He looked at the account with Qing Lin, then at the other account with Cold Frost.

Doesn’t Qing Lin seem more desirable now?

Then why did I go to the trouble of starting another account for Cold Frost? What was the point?

If I’d known, wouldn’t it have been okay just to stick with my Qing Lin account?

Hou Ji felt helpless, but a quick browse on the forum revealed that he wasn’t the unluckiest one.

Those who had always chased after the strongest heroes but managed to miss them precisely were the real unlucky ones!

Players who initially did not pull Lei Tu burrowed into playing for a few hours, only to see online discussions and decide to start a new account to draw Lei Tu.

After pulling Lei Tu, Cold Frost came out, so they decided to pull for Cold Frost as well.

They barely got Cold Frost trained up when, lo and behold, Qing Lin suddenly became super strong!

Looking back at the very first character they pulled, what do you know, it’s not Qing Lin but some other character—surprised or what, huh?

As you can imagine, these people were extremely angry.

They felt like they were being led around like dogs.

Of course, at this time there were also players who enjoyed the drama and didn’t think the situation was too serious: "The other characters are not unplayable, who told you that you must draw the strongest characters?"

But obviously, these players’ anger was also justified.

Because in other games, a character blowing up with Gold Coin is measured in years;

But in Nitiandang, Gold Coin explosions are measured in days!

The public beta lasted only a week, yet first Cold Frost blew up Lei Tu, and then Qing Lin blew up Cold Frost.

Who does it like this, are we not following the basic laws of gacha games anymore?

Of course, some people said, it’s just an internal test and there’s no real money involved, so what’s there to be angry about?

But obviously, this argument did not quell the rage.

Firstly, even though no money was spent, these people had invested real time and effort;

Secondly, if money had been spent, then wouldn’t this Gold Coin explosion be a scam? My purchased character is depreciating in value; if that’s not a greater reason to cause an uproar, what is?

In short, the internet was in a heated uproar.

Hou Ji saw these players with their defenses utterly broken and actually felt he wasn’t so unlucky himself, even feeling somewhat blessed.

After all, one of his accounts had Qing Lin and the other had Cold Frost, both providing great game experiences, much better than those unlucky fools who miss the hype every time.

...

Evening.

Lilith was excitedly browsing through the online discussions of the players.

"Very good, Gu Fan, very good!

"I am very satisfied with the effect of the internal test; this proves the plan is completely viable!

"We must do the same for the official version, and even step it up a notch!"

Seeing the word-of-mouth of the internal test version, Lilith couldn’t help but feel supremely confident.

Obviously, the real purpose of this internal test version was completely different from what the players had guessed.

The players thought the internal test of Nitiandang would be similar to other game companies, right? Just testing for bugs, checking player feedback, and such.

They were right, but also wrong because Lilith indeed wanted to see the players’ feedback, mainly the feedback on negative emotions.

Clearly, this was just an appetizer, precisely to validate the gacha mechanism designed by Gu Fan before.

So far, the "the more you draw, the worse it gets" part hadn’t been tested yet; it was only the "Gold Coin burst" and "character stat balance" parts that were tested.

The results of the test were very satisfying!

This is the charm of gacha games, just a little tweak in the data of the drawn characters, and it’s enough to elicit a lot of negative emotions.

In addition, other negative criticisms of "Endless Fantasy Legend 2" were also roughly within the expected range.

It’s just the usual criticism of cross-platform compatibility, cash-grab mobile games, gacha, cutting mechanics, and so on—all within the expected curses.

At this point, Gu Fan felt a bit of regret.

"President Li, I suddenly feel that if we were to start a new company to make this game, maybe we could have an even better effect.

"Nitiandang’s reputation is still a bit too solid."

If it were a new company making this game, they certainly wouldn’t be able to leverage these IPs anymore, and everything would have to go the knockoff route. That could probably draw even more criticism.

For collecting negative emotions, it might have been an even more perfect start.

However, Lilith wasn’t too concerned about that: "It doesn’t matter, no big deal.

"Starting a new company certainly has its benefits, but there’s also a problem, which is that we can’t capitalize on Nitiandang’s reputation.

"In any case, we must capitalize this time and turn all the good reputation we’ve built up into negative emotions!"

Lilith spoke with an air of confidence and ambition.

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