Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 621 - 604: Creating an Involution Environment

Chapter 621: Chapter 604: Creating an Involution Environment

Gu Fan’s perspective made everyone feel enlightened.

Huh? Why didn’t we think of this kind of gameplay before?

Involution is obviously a negative term.

Its original meaning is meaningless malicious competition.

Similar to Henggang Middle School Simulator, no matter how hard students try, the exams are selective rather than passable. This means only a few percent of the best can get into a decent university.

Under this "proportional admission" mechanism, what difference does it make if students roll their scores from 600 to 700? Still, only so many can be admitted.

And during this involution process, all the students have truly been through hell.

It’s a bit like the cinema principle; when some people stand up to watch the movie first, others are forced to stand up too, resulting in everyone standing through the movie.

But according to Gu Fan’s analysis, this involution system can be leveraged.

Because it can actually be broken down:

Macro-environment involution and micro-environment mutual benefit, this is the most confusing trap.

The so-called macro-environment can be all the universities and students within a province; while the micro-environment pertains to students of a specific university.

If both macro and micro-environments are about involution, then it becomes a suffocating, negative emotion-exploding system, which, despite generating a lot of negativity, is hard to maintain and easy to collapse.

For instance, if the school internally turns into a zero-sum game, students will attack each other, report each other, using all sorts of means.

Whereas if both macro and micro-environments are mutually beneficial, it forms an uplifting atmosphere, with no interest entanglements among each other, hence not much negative emotion arises.

A mutually beneficial macro-environment with a micro-environment of involution is almost impossible.

Only a macro-environment of involution but a micro-environment of mutual benefit fits President Li’s needs best.

A mutual benefit in the micro-environment, like within a class of a university, students explain problems to each other—you are good at math, I am good at physics, and we help each other improve on both subjects—is positive feedback and benefits both.

It’s not a case of "you get better at math, so I get worse."

However, involution in the macro-environment means the whole province still admits the same number of people; one more point than me, and they might be admitted instead of me.

Despite this, students don’t see classmates as direct competitors.

In such an environment, students encourage and help each other without excessive internal consumption. This, however, precisely leads to the macro-environment being more involuted and elimination being more brutal.

Students find it hard to recognize this, or even if they do, there’s no way to change it.

In such a framework, negative emotions can continuously be generated, undoubtedly Lilith’s favorite way.

As for the Henggang Middle School Simulation game, its idea does not have too many problems, and it indeed harvested a lot of negative emotions, which counts as a successful experience and has high reference value.

Of course, the only issue here is: Henggang Middle School exists in reality, and students have no choice but to involute for a better future.

But Reverse Heaven is just a game, so why should non-paying players even play?

Even if they aren’t repeatedly killed by whales, it doesn’t mean they would come to play. After all, there are many equally excellent single-player games, whether standalone games or those with single-player mechanics on the market.

Not to mention, even the old but renowned game Endless Fantasy Legend 2 by Nitiandang itself might still take away a large portion of players as it’s entering the final phase of operation.

Gu Fan’s solution is simple and crude, just give money!

This is like some games where you can earn by grinding or enjoy rewards.

No-pay players can rely on luck or skill to obtain items that can be directly traded on the platform or other tradable things.

As long as they can earn a small amount of money, getting occasional rewards, they will continue to play enthusiastically.

For other companies, this is difficult because doing so means the company has to share profits or even incur losses.

With a fixed game size, the amount whales would spend is limited, and giving more to non-paying players means the company earns less, which most companies can’t accept.

After all, their ultimate goal is to make money, and earning less is worse than killing them.

But Nitiandang is different. President Li is not concerned about making money.

At this point, Nitiandang is wealthy, with a lot of money lying in the account, enough to support this system. If it can collect enough negative emotions, it would be quite cost-effective for Lilith.

Lilith was delighted, "Great! Use this framework for Reverse Heaven!"

"Now... Wei Chengjie, think about the specific framework!"

She still intentionally dispersed the designers, not allowing Gu Fan to finalize all the designs, as that would make the risks uncontrollable.

Suddenly being named, Wei Chengjie was a bit stunned, but upon careful consideration, he offered a more detailed answer.

After all, before joining Nitiandang, Wei Chengjie worked many years in pay-to-win traditional games at Shengjing Group and is quite knowledgeable in this area.

"Assuming we are to replicate the Henggang Middle School model in the game...

"Then I think there are two key points.

"First, a relatively complete regional matching mechanism.

"Second, the elite picking mode.

"The so-called regional matching mechanism is like Henggang Middle School Simulator, where nearby schools’ levels should be similar, letting these ordinary colleges compete intensely, thus driving their motivation.

"If the gap between the two schools in comparison is too big, they can’t spur each other.

"The same applies in the game.

"Suppose we allow players to establish various sects or caves, or the official sets up sects or caves for players to join, then we must ensure the power of sects or caves in the same region is not too different so that they compete with each other.

"The elite picking mode ensures that amidst similar overall strength, there’s a special picking mechanism within a certain region, where exists a super giant.

"Just like Henggang Middle School.

"Through the elite picking mode, it can attract the best students from other schools. Thus, students strive doubly hard to get into or stay in Henggang Middle School.

"In Reverse Heaven, though sects or caves in a region have similar strength, there must still be a super giant sect within the area.

"This sect can pick the best, master various resources, and offer players better benefits. But its internal elimination mechanism is brutal.

"Moreover, there’s also competition between the giant sects in different regions.

"If these details are well executed, I believe, even in an involuted system, we can attract enough players to play."

Zhou Yang nodded slightly, "Hmm, that sounds quite good.

"But... won’t it make the game too grindy?

"Like having another job.

"I think it’s better not to make it too grindy, or it might drive players away. It’s best to have them log in daily but not have the basic game time exceed two or three hours each time."

Clearly, this is also a crucial issue.

The system designed by Wei Chengjie seems great, but since the competition is so fierce, players with more time will naturally have an advantage.

If players involute in this aspect, it might end up like a deadlock similar to MMORPG games: players with more time upgrade much faster than others, making the game feel like a job, ultimately driving away a large number of casual players and unable to sustain player numbers.

Wei Chengjie nodded, "Of course, we must impose restrictions on this point.

"This is easily done by setting an ’offline cultivation system.’

"The spiritual energy generation speed in players’ individual caves is limited. Cultivation is much faster with spiritual energy. But once the spiritual energy is exhausted, players’ cultivation speed is similar to offline cultivation.

"Of course, players can also buy better caves for money.

"This is essentially the same as the stamina system in other games, just differently packaged."

Gu Fan added, "Since it’s a highly social game, grindy play is inevitable, and playing like a job is inevitable as well.

"All we can do is try to schedule fixed activities at noon and evening, to ease players’ burden as much as possible.

"But we can’t completely favor casual players; otherwise, if players aren’t involuting at all, how will our system work?

"Lazy players can receive some small outputs from the game regularly, like selling their cultivation results or withdrawing from the official channel, earning tens of dollars occasionally for a meal, but the earnings are far less than those for full-time players."

After listening to everyone’s discussion, Lilith’s eyes gradually sparkled, and the thought process became clearer.

"Great, brainstorming indeed brings out the big framework, doesn’t it?

"We will divide the cultivation world into different states, different servers, and set up various sects in each region.

"There are fixed NPC sects, and players can also choose to establish their sects. But although these are called sects, they are actually more accurately described as schools or strictly managed companies.

"All cultivators are essentially students or employees, cultivating in the sect with the goal to ascend to higher-level sects, such as from Qi Refinement sect to Foundation Establishment sect, then to Core Formation sect.

"During this ascension process, there will be a promotion rate, eliminating the majority.

"Although there will be PVP activities between sects or joint battles against external demons, generally speaking, there is no direct confrontation between players.

"The focus is not on PK between players, but on trying to find a way to pass the ascension mechanism."

Zhou Yang posed a new question, "But... what about players who quickly ascend through spending? What if they have nothing to play anymore?"

Wei Chengjie also asked, "How do we solve the issue of game studios?"