Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 622 - 605: Whale Exit Mechanism

Chapter 622: Chapter 605: Whale Exit Mechanism

Lilith fell into deep thought.

After a moment, she apparently hadn’t come up with any constructive answers and turned to Gu Fan.

"This question... it’s not difficult! Gu Fan, you answer it."

Gu Fan’s mouth twitched slightly, but he continued, "Of course, there are ways to solve these issues, it’s just a matter of whether we are willing to pay the corresponding price.

"If it were other pay-to-win games, these two problems wouldn’t really exist.

"First, after whale players reach the top, they can continue to kill regular players, enjoying this fun without quitting the game; in addition, game developers can continue to increase game values, introducing stronger sets and cooler weapons to maintain freshness.

"Of course, value inflation may lead to regular players quitting, so there will be a kind of mutual force between regular players and whales. Regular players don’t want value inflation; whales want inflation to become stronger.

"Game developers just need to handle this mutual force properly, prolonging the time of value inflation as much as possible.

"When the entire system almost collapses, they can merge servers or launch new games, having already earned enough.

"Secondly, the issue of studios basically does not exist, because pay-to-win games try to reduce the return from players farming, to preserve the purchased currency’s value for players.

"Low farming yields naturally prevent studios from gaining a foothold. On the contrary, those non-pay-to-win games relying purely on time become a paradise for studios and are nearly impossible to resolve.

"However...

"’Reverse Heaven’ uses a completely different structure, so we cannot adopt these obviously outdated mechanisms.

"We must come up with new ways to solve these two problems.

"My idea is... the ’Ascension’ mechanism."

Lilith listened intently, "Tell me more!"

Gu Fan explained, "In this ’Ascension’ mechanism, there are three different ways to solve this problem:

"First, in a relatively traditional way, we still need to design certain levels, like the ten realms common in cultivation: Qi Cultivation, Foundation Establishment, and so forth. Prolong this upgrading process.

"At the same time, we also need to combine plot, big map exploration, and special dungeons to provide players with ample game content and extend their gameplay time as much as possible.

"Second, we need to establish an elimination mechanism. In other words, the ’power’ competition.

"When players reach the peak state, the character will hold the corresponding ’power,’ the strongest on this path. However, this top spot can be taken by others.

"If players want to maintain this power hold, they need to compete with others and keep striving.

"Third, assuming a super whale emerges, who can’t be overtaken even if AFK and is bored enough to quit, the final ’Ascension’ mechanism will be triggered at this time.

"His account will be repurchased by the company at a certain discount."

The first two points were more or less within everyone’s expectations, so Lilith’s expression didn’t change much.

But the third point was truly unexpected.

"Buyback? We’ll need to pay a lot extra money," Zhou Yang subconsciously said.

Lilith waved her hand, "Money is not an issue!"

Gu Fan explained, "It’s alright, the money we give to regular players isn’t unlimited, and the refund for whales also isn’t unlimited, all must undergo strict numerical calculations.

"When we repurchase an account, it’s as if the account is deleted and won’t circulate in the market anymore. This will make the entire server’s ecology healthier and provide more progression opportunities for others.

"Besides, account repurchase can’t be a full refund. I think refunding half of the total recharge should be sufficient. For players, this condition is quite generous.

"Finally, the trigger for the Ascension mechanism has strict requirements and can only be triggered by the top whales on the server, not just anyone who quits can get a refund."

Zhou Yang nodded in enlightenment, "Ingenious!"

Carefully pondering, one would find this mechanism truly magical.

In many pay-to-win games, server balance collapses because there’s simply no way to balance the experience of whales and regular players.

Whales have money, can keep spending, and regular players don’t, barely able to spend at all. Over time, the gap between both grows wider, whales get increasingly bored, and the entire server stagnates and dies.

Whales may quit, but even if they do, their accounts remain, or they sell or gift them to friends, and this big shark continues to bully regular players until there’s no one left to bully, and the server eventually dies.

But now, with Nitiandang’s official Ascension mechanism, the account isn’t transferred to anyone else but is directly deleted, leaving only an electronic record.

This way, almost everyone is satisfied:

For the wealthy, originally selling their account would get back at most 5% or 10%, but now they get 50%, equivalent to a half-price recharge, which is certainly cost-effective—a truly unprecedented ethical mechanism;

For regular players, after the wealthy ascend, the account disappears entirely, and there’s one less person to bully them, improving the game experience. As for the second-tier wealthy, with the untouchable top-tier whale gone, perhaps they can become the top now? Rekindling their passion for the game.

And for Nitiandang, it’s not really a loss. It’s just sharing a bit of profit, earning slightly less, but better maintaining the server’s ecology.

Gu Fan continued, "Regarding the studio problem, I think at its core, it’s an issue of ’time profit.’

"Any game with relatively high time profit can hardly eradicate the studio problem. If players can earn ribs by staying online for a long time, then studios will always earn more.

"The solution I thought of is this:

"First, we need to strictly control the output obtained through playing time in the game, limiting players’ active game time to two to three hours a day. In other hours, regardless of being online, all have the same efficiency in offline cultivation.

"Second, we must strictly combat multi-accounting, forcing each account to bind with a phone, a real name, and an official account, and prohibiting more than two accounts on the same device. Encourage players to report studio or bot accounts, and verify for bans. Many games have implemented such measures.

"Lastly, we must level the value gap for players who join the game at different times, providing enough compensation for latecomers and establishing a relatively balanced ’catch-up mechanism.’

Zhou Yang asked with some confusion, "Catch-up mechanism? So, does it mean players who join late will get more resources?"

Gu Fan explained, "Suppose this server opened in March, players who played from the start of March with full attendance effectively own vastly different resources compared to those who join in December.

"In a single-player game, this would be fine, but in an online game, it leads to natural discrepancies among players from different times, discrepancies not easily remedied even by spending.

"Therefore, players prefer new servers, and old servers only gradually die, which is not a healthy ecosystem.

"And because time is crucial, it naturally provides room for studio operations.

"They can maintain many zero-spending accounts at low costs and then sell them to players who want to start later, which is undoubtedly unreasonable.

"This ’catch-up mechanism’ means that if a player starts playing a server opened in March, but joins in December, they can gain double the cultivation progress of an older player each day to accelerate catching up.

"New players get resources about 75% of those obtained by full attendance from older players through this mechanism.

"In other words, full attendance remains the most profitable behavior, but even without full attendance, starting late or not logging in daily won’t drastically widen the gap compared to full attendance players.

"Through these measures, while it’s impossible to completely eradicate studios and manual play substitutes, at least we can ensure a better game experience for regular players and maximize their chances of obtaining ’ribs’ in-game."

After a comprehensive discussion, the plans for ’Reverse Heaven’ became generally clear.

Overall, its basic gameplay is similar to ’Endless Fantasy Legend 2’ or ’Shadow World,’ with big maps, basic storylines, wild monsters, and bosses, but its multiplayer content increases significantly, requiring players to collaborate and compete to achieve maximum benefits.

Its innovation mainly lies in transforming the traditional "player versus player" rough PvP mechanism into "competition without direct conflict," incorporating special systems like ’Ascension’ and ’catch-up.’

Of course, the most distinct trait is using the "horizontal ridge mode" to reinterpret the Immortal Cultivation World, providing an experience totally different from the previously known cultivation world.

Lilith nodded with satisfaction, "Excellent, a stable framework is now set up!

"Next, it’s my turn to devise some ’highlights’ for it!"

In plain terms, that means Lilith plans to add methods to effectively gather negative emotions within it.

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