Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 58: Who Made You Use fake-AI?

Chapter 58: Chapter 58: Who Made You Use fake-AI?

Unknowingly, Gu Fan once again unleashed the art of shifting the blame.

Although it appeared that he had taken on a bit of responsibility on the surface, this responsibility was minuscule, the bulk of the blame was still firmly placed on Lilith’s shoulders.

However, Lilith’s expression suddenly became sharp.

"Wait a minute, something doesn’t seem right here?"

Lilith seemed to have spotted a blind spot, she stood up and walked a few quick steps as if possessed by the spirit of a great detective.

"Let’s not talk about the ’Brocade Bag’ or the differentiation between ’Wolong Strategy’ and other standard tactics for the moment."

"Let’s start with ’Observing Stars’!"

"Gu Fan, if I’m not mistaken, ’Observing Stars’ was originally designed just for players, its function only included displaying the attribute panel of NPCs on the interface for players.

"If you didn’t write specific code for it, how could this function affect NPCs? AI doesn’t have eyes and can’t see the attribute panel, so how were their decisions influenced by ’Observing Stars’?"

Lilith stared at Gu Fan, full of skepticism.

"When players use the ’Brocade Bag’, you didn’t gray out the other Wolong Strategy options or put a cover to prevent players from clicking. I let that slide because it wasn’t written in my design proposal. It’s a design flaw, so I can’t be too harsh on you.

"But why would ’Observing Stars’ work on AI? Apart from you doing it intentionally, is there any other reasonable explanation?"

Clearly, at this moment, Lilith’s suspicion of Gu Fan had reached its peak.

Even she, who wasn’t very knowledgeable about programming, began to doubt that this BUG was too preposterous and absolutely illogical!

Indeed, why would a design that was originally for players affect NPCs?

If a bug inherently lies within the game mechanics, it could be chalked up to chance.

But if a bug suddenly possessed a special function beyond the game mechanics?

It must be the programmer secretly adding their own agenda into the code!

Lilith was aggressive and confident, even plotting in her heart how to settle the score with Gu Fan.

However, Gu Fan was even more righteously indignant.

"Why wouldn’t ’Observing Stars’ work on other AI? It’s strange that you even have such a thought!

"It’s clearly directly linked to the underlying mechanism you designed!"

Lilith’s pupils shook in a moment of shock, her previously arrogant demeanor crushed.

She couldn’t believe her ears, "What are you talking about?"

Gu Fan sighed, seemingly exasperated by Lilith’s complete lack of understanding of coding.

"I’m asking you, it was your requirement that all characters in the game should be controlled by fake-AI, right?"

Lilith nodded: "Right."

Gu Fan said, "You wanted each game to have a degree of randomness, so these AIs not only need to follow a framework allowing the development of the game to be consistent with actual history but also require a multitude of details to have various possibilities. This is to prevent players from being able to use specific cheats to pass the game. Isn’t that also correct?"

Lilith replied, "Yes, that’s correct, but what does this have to do with the ’Observing Stars’ feature!"

Gu Fan shook his head decisively: "It has a big connection!

"Do you think that simply applying the fake-AI template directly would achieve this function? Doesn’t it need subsequent development and adjustments?"

Lilith was stunned: "It doesn’t?"

Gu Fan was speechless: "What are you thinking, of course it doesn’t!

"It’s simple. Suppose I say to the fake-AI, ’You are now playing the role of Cao Cao, at this moment discussing heroes over wine, what decision should you make?’ Then the fake-AI will most likely just go ahead and finish off Liu Bei."

"Because the original fake-AI digested a massive amount of historical data, it could completely determine that Liu Bei was a formidable adversary in its lifetime, so it would inevitably kill off Liu Bei."

"But doing so would not meet the requirements you proposed!"

"Clearly, what we need in the game is not simply a ’Cao Cao played by a fake-AI,’ but a ’Cao Cao played by a fake-AI who is only aware of current historical information’!"

"This way, he would identify Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu, Tao Qian, Liu Biao, Lü Bu, and others as his main enemies, rather than going straight for Liu Bei."

Lilith was already a bit confused, "So what then?"

Gu Fan sighed, as if heartbroken over the numerous flaws in Lilith’s design, "So, in order to patch up your design flaws, and to better implement this function, I went to great lengths to block the part of the fake-AI that ’predicts the future,’ trying to get these AIs to make judgments based on the current situation.

"To achieve this, the three of us programmers worked overtime to the max, our computers nearly burned out!"

Lilith was even more confused, "Okay, okay, I know you guys have worked hard, but still, what does this have to do with ’Wolong Strategy’?"

Gu Fan continued to explain, "The key lies in the specific operating method of this AI!

"Just like I said before, we blocked off the fake-AI’s ability to predict the future, which would allow it to make decisions that roughly align with historical trends based on the current situation.

"But then your design document stated that generals must have seven-dimensional numerical values as well as biographical content.

"If the fake-AI could read the game’s general data and biographies directly in the game program, wouldn’t it still be predicting the future?

"So, I specifically encrypted and hid this information within the program, so that the fake-AI couldn’t access it.

"And the ’Observing Stars’ function is actually not ’displaying backend data’ but ’transmitting backend data’!

"Because this data is encrypted within the program, the ’Observing Stars’ function is essentially ’decrypting the encrypted data within the program and transmitting it to a specific general’."

Lilith interjected with confusion, "Wait, why is it transmitted to a specific general, not to ’players’?"

Gu Fan explained, "It’s still the same reason as in the beginning! Since each general is controlled by a different fake-AI, there’s no fundamental difference between the actions of players and AIs, so we standardized the coding for players and AI-controlled generals.

"The player-controlled Zhuge Liang is 001, while the fake-AI-controlled Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and other generals are respectively 002, 003. There’s no special code that represents ’player’ in the general code library.

"’Observing Stars’ is basically decoding and packaging the information to send to code 001’s Zhuge Liang, or you could say, the system program allows the general with code 001 to view all hidden general data.

"As a result, within four turns, the player obtains the corresponding permission, and by clicking on other generals, they can see their specific information.

"But due to a design flaw, it wasn’t specified in the design document that ’Observing Stars should not work on any generals other than 001,’ so we didn’t restrict it particularly while coding.

"For example, if code 002 is Liu Bei, and a player uses a Brocade Bag, Liu Bei receives the Observing Stars effect, then the system will send all the general data to the general with code 002.

"And the general with code 002 is actually a fake-AI, which is constantly processing various pieces of information and making decisions about its next move.

"At this critical moment, the system sends it a massive amount of data, including other generals’ loyalty, Attribute values, and biographical information.

"The AI would inevitably adjust its decisions based on these data..."

Lilith couldn’t help being agape, by now she had basically understood the cause of this BUG, but she still didn’t want to admit so simply that it was her fault, and still wanted to argue a little.

"But why did you make this function so complex? Couldn’t you have made a purely display effect?"

Gu Fan shook his head, "No way!

"It’s still for the same reason I mentioned before. The fake-AI is always collecting information and thinking, if it’s not ’encrypting and then redirecting the data’ but ’just throwing this information into the program unencrypted,’ it’s like giving the fake-AI access to this information at any time.

"That would mean all NPCs would permanently have an Observing Stars effect!

"Wouldn’t that be a hundred times worse than the current situation?"

Lilith was utterly confused; she wilted completely, her twin ponytails drooping as she slumped into the corner’s beanbag, "So... the root of all this is ’using fake-AI’? And all the subsequent series of bugs were triggered by the strict fulfillment of this design requirement?"

Gu Fan nodded, assertively saying, "Yes."

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