Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 578 - 561 Is There a Problem with Gacha?

Chapter 578: Chapter 561 Is There a Problem with Gacha?

Instructor Ding tested the effects of two full-star characters with somewhat diminished enthusiasm.

The conclusion remained the same: the Glacier General was still the one more recommended for gacha, while Xing Ying wasn’t much of an improvement compared to the permanent pool characters.

Even in terms of strength, he couldn’t surpass Lei Tu, a strong permanent pool character.

Of course, each player has a different play style and understanding of strength, but generally speaking, everyone could see Xing Ying’s stinginess in terms of numbers.

And as for mechanical flaws, well, they were all too apparent at a glance.

"Alright, gacha time is over, let’s continue playing.

"Let me check first, I’ll put together a pure five-star team.

"Ice, Wood, Lightning, hmm, who should I add...

"Why are there still people who want me to help them gacha? Dude, do you see how unlucky I’ve been, and you still want me to gacha for you?

"No, no, I just changed my luck from unlucky to European, you want to absorb my luck! Excuse me, I’ll take my leave!"

Instructor Ding researched his team composition while chatting with the stream’s comments.

Truth be told, there really were people in the comments who wanted him to help gacha.

This had become a fixed segment for mobile game streamers, where fans would save up and ask the streamer to gacha for them; if they got lucky, everyone would be overjoyed, and if they got unlucky, it would provide entertainment for the audience.

Of course, streamers usually offered some compensation for particularly unlucky players, such as gifting a small monthly card if they missed an UP pool character, and so on.

So naturally, Instructor Ding’s fans also wanted him to gacha on their behalf.

But for now, Instructor Ding wanted to focus on streaming the game content; gacha could wait.

Instructor Ding quickly assembled his team, an all five-star team composed of two-star Lei Tu, one-star Qing Lin, full-star Xing Ying, and full-star Glacier General.

Lei Tu and Qing Lin were characters from the general pool and had been obtained by chance through gacha, so of course, they had to be utilized.

This way, he had assembled what was on paper the currently strongest team.

It didn’t exclude the possibility that some whales with deep pockets might have charged money into the general pool right from the start to max out all the general pool characters, but that would certainly be a minority.

Instructor Ding had no plans to do that.

Because general pool characters could potentially be obtained from the UP pool by chance, and with enough luck, they’d all reach full stars, so spending money on them now would really be a loss.

Of course, there were some risks with this team, such as having too many Wood attribute characters.

But there was no helping it, as the current card pool composition in Legend of Infinity Fantasy was such; there were just too many Wood attribute characters, making it difficult to create a particularly perfect team.

Instructor Ding had only tentatively decided on this team composition; he also wanted to level up and test some of the random four-star full-star characters he had acquired to see if any of them were exceptionally strong six-star Good Cards.

This wasn’t out of the question, as some games at launch overpowered four-star characters, either to make the game more beginner-friendly or purely by design mistake, making them stronger than five-star characters, thus being jokingly referred to by players as "six-star warriors."

Looking for these six-star warriors was naturally one of the players’ delights.

Instructor Ding continued playing the game, but the forum was starting to buzz.

Soon enough, the internet gathered a bunch of players who were frustrated with gacha!

"Is Nitiandang’s gacha rates normal?

"I haven’t played Nitiandang’s games before, only some other gacha games. Endless Fantasy Legend 2 seemed to suit my tastes, so I thought I’d spend a few 648s to support them.

"But why do I get more unlucky the more I gacha? The initial rates seemed alright, but then it just plummeted, I even had one instance where I got gold after 120 pulls! And it went off-track! Is this card pool designed by humans?"

Many players who spent money also expressed the same anger.

"Coincidentally, I went from lucky to unlucky as well! Just that the actual number of pulls is different from yours."

"Damn it, I’ve always been an unlucky person in games, thought my luck had finally turned, happily spending 648 for a double, but I was duped!"

"Nitiandang must be fishing for money, right? I highly suspect they purposefully set higher rates at the beginning just to trick us into spending!"

"I went to watch some gacha streamers, and it seems like the rich guys who spent a lot today all faced similar issues. Haven’t seen a single one who was lucky from start to end, usually got their first full-star five-star after 400 pulls, then another 600 pulls for the second full-star five-star."

"Could it be a pre-designed probability?"

"No way! It can’t be that rigged!"

As for those who didn’t spend money and were just watching for fun, they were much more relaxed.

"Come on, you’re rich guys but why such a bad attitude, is it your first day playing a gacha game?"

"You spend a few 648s like drinking water, why fret over whether you’re lucky or unlucky."

"The price is about the same as other games, isn’t it? If we’re talking about the number of pulls per top-up or the cost of a full-star character, it’s even cheaper than other gacha games."

"Yeah, don’t play dumb after getting a bargain. 400 pulls for a full-star is pretty good in other games."

"Is there a problem with the probability? I don’t think so. I got both UP pool characters with just the free 50 pulls, and now I’m grinding maps like crazy, feeling great!"

"Exactly, I’m saving the rest of my pulls for the next UP pool."

"Nitiandang might sell star ratings too, but I think even a non-payer can play just fine. The mechanics are fairly complete. Rich man, stop fretting about whether your characters are full star or not, the next card pool is just a roll with the punches."

Faced with this misunderstanding from the non-paying players, the rich men tried to explain.

"It’s not like that! I’m not saying this gacha pool is too expensive or not worth it. It’s hard to explain, but the probability seems fine, it’s more about the feeling of gacha, do you get me? The feeling, the experience!"

"It’s just that after pulling, it feels so empty and frustrating."

But obviously, this explanation doesn’t hold much water.

"Pfft, I get it, the feel’s not right. So what kind of feeling do you actually want?"

"Gacha is like this by nature; there are lucky and Unlucky people. What kind of great feeling do you want? Do you expect every pull to yield gold and never go astray? That’s impossible."

"Drawing gacha for a good life is not the way. Who says this gacha pool is a scam? I think this gacha pool is pretty good."

Clearly, these two groups are not on the same page.

This is because the initial gacha experiences of non-paying and rich players are fundamentally different.

The gacha system in "Endless Fantasy Legend 2" is designed to make you increasingly unlucky the more you pull, with a cycle of 1000 pulls.

Non-paying players get 50 free pulls on the first day and maybe a few dozen more from grinding maps, experiencing the luckiest part of the gacha pool.

They happily obtain two UP characters, naturally feeling that there’s nothing wrong with the gacha pool.

After all, in other games, it’s tough for non-paying players to get a five-star UP character; getting even one would be considered very good. To max out a character’s stars might take them a year or more.

In the following days, Nitiandang will continue to give out free pulls, making non-paying players extremely happy.

But after the rich players top-up, they prematurely reach the latter half of the gacha pool, which is where it gets increasingly unlucky.

If they are aiming for just one full-star character, the number of pulls will just happen to be around 400 to 500, and from here to 1000 pulls is the most painful time.

Of course, there’s also a tiny minority of big spenders who directly go for two full-star characters like Instructor Ding, reaching a thousand pulls and consequently returning to a luckier phase.

But no matter the case, they feel more pain than joy.

Is there something wrong with how the big spenders feel?

Of course not.

The system is designed to be lucky first, then unlucky, precisely to harvest negative emotions. If someone actually manages to feel happy from this system, that’d be a real problem.

But the ingeniously frustrating part of the system is this: the big spenders and the regular players should be allies, as they are both disgusted by this gacha system.

However, when the rich are unlucky, the regular players are getting lucky, so the regulars do not sympathize with the rich at all, even taking pleasure in their misfortune.

When the regular players become unlucky, the rich players have already become lucky again and don’t support them, thinking about how they were mocked earlier.

This misalignment is precisely the effect Nitiandang wants to achieve.

...

At the Nitiandang experience store, Zhuge Jun and Hou Ji continue to try out the game.

While playing, Hou Ji leans in.

"Really, is that physical book actually that much fun?"

Initially, Hou Ji didn’t care much, and his review of the physical book was just four words: needlessly fancy.

The game’s content alone was plentiful; what use was a physical book?

Hou Ji believed Zhuge Jun was just amused by its novelty and might use that clunky controller to tap a few times, but he’d soon cast it aside and focus solely on playing the game.

In the end, the physical book was nothing more than a setting collection destined to gather dust.

However, as he played, Hou Ji started feeling that something was off.

As Zhuge Jun explored in the game, he tapped away at the physical book, thoroughly enjoying himself.

It was mainly because every time he interacted with the physical book, there would be a corresponding response in the game: a virtual "Fantasy Book" would open, and Little Lolita Xi Yun would provide an introduction. Even some of the game tasks would offer additional guidance.

Moreover, there seems to be something to say about the connected controller.

The controller had a little speaker on it, and while its sound quality was nothing to write home about, it added greatly to the atmosphere.

When scanning the physical book, this little speaker often produced corresponding sounds, mostly ambient noises such as the sound of the wind, water, and birds calling, enhancing the sense of immersion.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.