Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 602 - 585: Even Crooked

Chapter 602: Chapter 585: Even Crooked

The uproar about the storyline is still echoing online.

However, many players don’t care much about the story; they focus on the game’s content.

Like Heilong.

As a hardcore player who enjoys speedruns, Heilong has always had a very stable character setting, which is that of a brainless brawler.

When playing "Ascension," he formed the "Blind Lame Duo" with Wang Dawei, with Heilong being "Blind" since he couldn’t understand the storyline at all and relied entirely on Wang Dawei for directions; Wang Dawei was "Lame," with fragmented skills, only capable of monster-hunting with Heilong’s help.

Playing "Blood of Lies," Heilong basically never got involved in interpreting the storyline, just focusing on grinding GP and publishing guides.

With Heilong’s skills, the difficulty of "Endless Fantasy Legend 2" is a bit low.

However, even though it’s low, there’s still lots for a skilled player like him to work on in the game.

Like, how should one assemble a team to one-shot the world boss?

How to use an all four-star character team to get through some of the more challenging levels?

How to reasonably arrange a team when fans’ character levels aren’t sufficient and use their own noble hand-eye coordination to help fans pass difficult levels?

These can also be content for live streaming.

Heilong knows his strengths, so his live streams mainly focus on researching the game’s combat system; as for the storyline’s pacing, just pretend not to see it.

Anyway, his fans are already used to his character setting.

"Okay, today let’s test how the new UP pool character, Lie Hunter performs at low star levels.

"Yesterday we tested max stars, today we switch to an alt account, and we’ll check the low-star performance."

The UP pool characters for this period are Lie Hunter and Priestess Xie, and it seems that Priestess Xie’s strength has been basically confirmed to be a very useful backline healer.

Although her stats are average, as one of the rare backline healers in the game, she can just scrape by and fit into some mainstream teams.

So the only one with strength controversy left is Lie Hunter.

As an important character in "Blood of Lies," players’ evaluations of Lie Hunter’s strength are polarized; some think that even though his stats are good, his mechanics are worrying, with no future to look forward to; others think that when everyone feels the character has no future, that’s when he is bound to get a boost.

If you think about it, both groups are saying the same thing.

That is, Lie Hunter’s stats are good, but his mechanics aren’t.

But under "Endless Fantasy Legend 2"’s setting of regularly strengthening weaker characters, the same view gives players completely different expectations.

"Alright, let’s start gacha!

"My main account got a max-star Lie Hunter only after three off-banner pulls, my alt just needs to pull three times, hoping not to go off-banner again."

After saying that, Heilong begins gacha.

In the game, the max star level for characters is five-star, but overall, strength can be divided into three different tiers: zero-star, two-star, and five-star.

Two-star gives a significant boost in stats, so for many players pursuing power, a two-star character is a cost-effective choice.

Three-star might have some small changes in mechanics or optimizations in handling and comfort, but there isn’t a big increase in stats, so many common players prefer to save that gold and allocate it to subsequent UP pool characters.

So when Heilong tests the performance of low-star characters, he usually focuses on zero-star and two-star.

"Alright, let’s charge two 648s, let’s start pulling!

"I’m about to hit a rough patch in my cycle, so on average it should be about 100 pulls per gold, and it might even get rockier later on.

"But it’s okay, I’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel after getting through this.

"50 pulls.

"70 pulls.

"120 pulls now! Come on, it should be appearing!

"Here it comes! A water-element male character!

"’I smell the scent of lies!’"

The last line Heilong shouted was the catchphrase of Lie Hunter when he enters the scene.

However, Heilong is stunned by the silhouette he sees on screen.

Indeed, it’s a water elemental male character, but...

"’I am the tide of the forest!’"

Heilong’s expression freezes completely, and he slumps in his chair.

At the same time, many "hahaha" messages float across the screen.

Off-banner!

Pulled a permanent character!

In "Endless Fantasy Legend 2," the chances of pulling a permanent character off-banner are 40%; although lower than many games, it’s still a common occurrence.

As everyone knows, in gacha games, it’s not about getting early golds; it’s about pulling less off-banner.

Because whether you get an early gold or not is just a matter of pulling on the fortieth or seventieth attempt, but if you go off-banner, those previous tens of pulls are just like throwing money down the drain.

And what makes Heilong even more frustrated is that this character is one of those nobody from the permanent pool would use!

His name is "Undying Spring" Gerlin, and according to the story setup, this name means "Sea of the Forest" in the Elvish language.

The Wood Country has a large area of lush forests, and although this region has not been fully opened yet, some characters have already debuted.

Like Gerlin, he is the embodiment of the "Undying Spring" in the woods, a majestic and domineering adult male figure; in the story setting, he should be a character of high status.

But the problem is that Gerlin’s actual performance is indeed hard to put into words.

As a dual Wood and Water attribute character, he even performs worse than the free four-star character, Little Lolita Xiyun.

At least Xiyun’s little dragon, whether it’s for healing or damage, is stronger than Gerlin.

As a five-star character from the Permanent Pool, his strength is worse than a freely given four-star, so Gerlin has long been in a state of universal detest, basically no one uses him.

Even many people feel their vision go dark when they hear the three words "I am but" during gacha.

Of course, this could be explained if we really had to because the forests of Wood Country are currently sealed off, so the embodiment of the Undying Spring, Gerlin, would significantly weaken outside of the forest. But this is just a forced explanation, after all, players all know that whether a character is strong or not ultimately depends on a single word from the developers.

This guy has just got it so wrong; it’s the worst-case scenario.

Because other Permanent Pool characters, like Lei Tu, still have strength and aren’t bad for a star upgrade.

Heilong’s account is an alt, and it doesn’t have any max-star characters yet, so using them for star upgrades wouldn’t be a waste.

But this account is indeed too unlucky, getting Gerlin bent out of shape three times before; this is the fourth time, he’s bent all the way to three stars.

"Whatever, it’s as if nothing happened.

"The next one is a big safety net; it won’t bend."

Sure enough, after 130 draws, he finally gets the first Lie Hunter.

Heilong sighs and continues to spend money.

Just for this UP character, he spent 250 draws, making him feel like a complete fool.

Even though he already knows that "Endless Fantasy Legend 2" has lucky and unlucky cycles, and it’s currently in a less lucky phase, this number is still hard to accept.

He thought he could just hang in there and luck would turn around, but it turns out that bad luck can persist.

"’I am the forest’s...’"

"Pfft!" Heilong almost spat out a mouthful of blood in frustration, another misfire!

There’s a 40% chance of getting the wrong character, but out of all Permanent Characters, why is it always Gerlin? Is this probability scientific?

You should know that when others do gacha, getting Gerlin doesn’t happen that much; all characters in the Permanent Pool have the same chance of bending.

Heilong is also puzzled, why is it that when it’s his turn, he seems deeply bound to Gerlin?

He refuses to believe in bad luck and continues to draw.

A few minutes later.

Heilong looks at the two-star Lie Hunter he finally obtained and then at the already max-star Gerlin, and is utterly speechless.

"This isn’t really the Lie Hunter’s UP pool at all.

"This has to be a Gerlin’s UP pool!"

Heilong would have never imagined that his alt account’s first max-star character would be Gerlin.

"So here comes the question.

"What to do with this max-star Gerlin?"

The barrage was full of suggestions and advice.

"Now that it’s max-star, just nurture it and have fun!"

"Swap out Xiyun."

"Don’t joke, this character is honestly not as good as Xiyun; nobody would impose a handicap on themselves."

"We are facing Water and Golden Countries right now, and Water Element is inherently a disadvantaged element against counters, Xiyun herself is barely fit to compete, how could you bother bringing Gerlin along?"

"Make him a warehouse manager."

"Ah, that’s sad, really sad! The lousiest five-star character in the whole game, and you just had to max him out."

"No worries, keep him, maybe one day he’ll get stronger. It’s impossible in other games, but not necessarily in this one."

"Hahaha, talk about getting stronger, might as well believe that I am Emperor Qin Shi Huang."

Watching the discussion in the barrage, Heilong also felt a headache coming on.

It’s truly hard to keep it together!

In terms of strength, Gerlin is indeed one of the weakest losers in all permanent pools, with barely anyone playing him and very little related strategy content available online.

Initially in the first version of the game, some people used Gerlin and Xiyun together as a dual Water team to fight the creatures of Fire Country, and although sometimes their Water Elements would get evaporated when hit by the enemy, overall they could still be considered barely usable.

Now, fighting against these enemies of Water Country, many have very high water resistance or even water immunity effects, making it hard for even Xiyun to get on stage, let alone Gerlin.

You should know that there are two very special characters in this game that look like four stars, but actually have a status higher than five-star characters.

Those are the two protagonists, Hero and Little Lolita Xiyun.

These two characters, although four-star templates, get adjusted as the plot progresses, whether it’s numerical changes or attribute changes; in any case, they have good growth potential.

Their strength is always just a notch below the currently popular UP five-star characters.

And Gerlin was already weaker than Xiyun, now he is even more so.

As for whether Gerlin will ever be enhanced?

In any other game, there’d be no chance; a Permanent Pool character that starts off weak can expect to stay weak forever, forever relegated to being a warehouse manager.

"Endless Fantasy Legend 2" does still offer a glimmer of hope.

But the problem is, there are many weak characters in this game, and it’s hard to tell which one might get enhanced.

Perhaps Gerlin will be enhanced in the future, but what if that comes in three, five months? Who would wait until then?

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