Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 627 - 610: Newbie Village

Chapter 627: Chapter 610: Newbie Village

"Dear friends, welcome to our technical streamer channel, cultivation relies on brains, not spending money!

"So what if it’s a Great Sect? Haven’t you read cultivation novels? The true protagonists always climb out from the villages.

"Today, we’re going to showcase a perfect mortal cultivation, stepping on all those Great Sect prodigies, that’s what I call exhilarating.

"What? Got bitten to death by a stray dog as soon as you stepped out?

"No way, no way, I believe Nitiandang isn’t that impossible. Playing games for free isn’t a crime, they can’t specifically target me, right?"

Chen Tingquan chose his identity, and then arrived at the character customization screen.

"Eh, the art style is suddenly normal now.

"Look, regardless of gender, everyone looks pretty good, this is the proper Immortal Cultivation style.

"Even though they’re wearing patched rags and looking dusty, their natural beauty is still hard to conceal.

"Once I get some proper gear, I’m sure I’ll be eye-catching."

After all, Reverse Heaven is a pure PC game and doesn’t sync with the mobile version, so it requires higher configuration, and the graphics are naturally more exquisite.

The initial character is vastly different from those square immortals in the CGs; both males and females have tall figures, fitting the normal aesthetic.

Men are handsome, women are beautiful, and the difference between genders is quite clear.

"Stick to the principle, always choose a female character unconditionally!

"Anyway, I don’t want to look at a male character’s butt in the game."

Chen Tingquan quickly confirmed the character’s gender and swiftly passed the character customization screen.

The system provides many appearance templates, and they all look quite good. Chen Tingquan himself isn’t too concerned about the facial details.

So he decided to enter the game quickly and start cultivating as soon as possible, to get ahead of others.

Cultivation, after all, is all about the principle of diligence rewarded by the heavens, striving for self-improvement!

After selecting a character, Chen Tingquan glanced at the barrage.

"Why does it seem like the higher the initial identity, the uglier the character?"

This statement caught Chen Tingquan’s attention.

Among the audiences in the livestream room, some are watching while playing the game themselves, and some are switching between two streams, so they know about the situations with other identities.

No matter whether it’s the initial screen or the character customization, the differences among the three identities are noticeable.

The biggest difference among them is the body shape!

Villagers have normal body shapes, while Inner Sect disciples of a Great Sect are extremely... brawny.

And these body shapes are non-adjustable.

The character customization system in Reverse Heaven is very free; for example, eyelash length, eye corner angles, nasal bridge height, etc., can all be adjusted infinitely across 100 levels, theoretically allowing you to create any face you want.

However, for body shape, only height can be defined, you can’t define body weight or muscle mass.

The villagers’ muscle mass is normal, whereas the higher the identity, the stronger the body becomes, and the muscle mass becomes more exaggerated, making it look unattractive and not in line with general aesthetics.

"Perhaps this is some kind of benefit for free players from Nitiandang?

"Compared to paying players, free players may lack in stats, but their characters are more beautiful, serving as a balance in some sense?

"That sounds pretty good."

Chen Tingquan mistakenly thought this was some kind of compensation for ordinary players, still delighting in it.

Soon, he entered the game screen and familiarized himself with the controls.

The controls are relatively simple, similar to the action games from Nitiandang previously, with the combat system broadly divided into three different systems:

The first system is the basic melee system, including light attack, heavy attack, jump, dodge, sprint, etc.

Once certain Divine Skills are mastered, the character’s mobility performance increases, such as turning the jump key into flight in the air, and pressing sprint during flight for rapid flight.

However, Chen Tingquan currently can’t access these yet.

The second system is the Magic Artifact system, allowing you to equip many different Magical Treasures simultaneously, including active and passive types, with a dedicated button to manipulate these treasures.

Depending on the type of Magical Treasure, some automatically orbit and attack when selected, while others require manually selecting the effective range and have certain cooldowns.

The third system is the Magic system, where magic can be learned and equipped, consuming Divine Sense to use.

Both Magic Artifacts and spells have corresponding buttons, which can be combined with light and heavy attack buttons to form combo buttons.

The system is quite rich, but Chen Tingquan, with his villager background, has nothing.

Both his Magic Artifacts and spells are empty, and he can only wield an inherited rusty iron sword to make regular attacks.

Besides the combat system, the character also has a development system, which looks complicated at a glance.

Other games, like Legend of Infinity Fantasy 2, generally have a character development system divided into three parts: character level, character equipment, and other derivative systems such as skill levels.

Whereas the character development system in Reverse Heaven, besides character level and derivative skill levels (such as spell and cultivation mental method levels), it has separated character level into three different systems.

These are: physique, divine sense, and viscera.

Physique and divine sense are easy to understand; they are physical fitness and mental qualities.

Physique directly affects character performance, a higher physique means a One Sword will hurt more.

While divine sense affects the power of spells, as well as the character’s mana pool, the stronger the divine sense, the more powerful the spells, and the cooldown is correspondingly shortened.

Additionally, these two attributes slightly affect the power of Magical Treasures, although this influence is mainly threshold-like.

When the attributes don’t meet the standard, the full power of the Magical Treasure cannot be exerted, but exceeding its required value significantly won’t yield much extra boost.

Once physique and divine sense meet the standards, a breakthrough can be made, such as from Qi Refinement to Foundation Establishment, and then breaking through to Core Formation, and so on.

Of course, each major level breakthrough also requires preparing special breakthrough materials and completing specific breakthrough tasks.

Currently, for Chen Tingquan, such breakthroughs are still far away.

What particularly catches his attention is this "viscera".

On the surface, this seems to have little relation to character development, adding no attributes, and whether high or low doesn’t affect character breakthroughs.

Moreover, this thing is shrouded in mystery, while physique and divine sense have clear values, viscera does not.

Not only is there no definite value, there isn’t even a visible progress bar; the interface merely shows a character sitting cross-legged, with clusters of gas swirling in the viscera, and these clusters of gas continuously change color.

"So what is the viscera really for? I don’t understand.

"There’s a gourd next to the character, maybe it’s related to Elixir Pills?

"Forget it, I don’t have any Elixir Pills right now anyway.

"Let’s just explore around for now."

The character’s initial starting point, just as expected, is a small mountain village, with some thatched cottages, a clumsy blacksmith, and occasionally a traveling doctor or peddling trader.

Although small, it has all the essential organs.

Currently, Chen Tingquan is penniless, so he can only take his inherited rusty sword down the mountain to hunt, or accept some tasks from NPCs, like finding the village’s missing cows, or hitting rogues trying to sneak into the village to steal things.

As for combat, it’s just so-so.

Actions are smooth, you can parry and deflect attacks, the experience is fairly decent.

Nitiandang has a wealth of experience in creating action games, their basic skills are rock solid.

But after playing for a while, Chen Tingquan discovered two very troubling problems.

Firstly, isn’t this combat way too monotonous?

Clearly, the system includes Magical Treasures and spells, yet Chen Tingquan’s character can do nothing but use a rusty sword to hack, not even having any special combat skills.

For the first five or ten minutes, it was okay. Dodge more when fighting beasts, and parry more against bandits, providing the most basic fun of an action game.

But after a while, it’s all the same old moves, with hardly any attribute improvement, which becomes quite frustrating.

Secondly, why is this big map so desolate!

Reverse Heaven seemingly utilizes a seamless large map technology; whether it’s the mountains in the distance or the smoke-billowing villages, they can all be reached.

But the key issue is, this big map is just too empty!

In stark contrast, we have Endless Fantasy Legend.

Endless Fantasy Legend and Endless Fantasy Legend 2, as flagship works of open-world gameplay, have achieved something every few distances embodying a playable element, be it combat chests, puzzle chests, or collectibles.

With various main and side quests, players always have something to do while playing, offering a fulfilling gaming experience.

Reverse Heaven, however, is exactly the opposite.

Seeing a dense forest, Chen Tingquan subconsciously thought, as a landmark area, there should definitely be something special, right? Whether a formidable beast, a sage’s abode, or a unique collectible, there should be something to conform to common sense.

But after wandering around, apart from encountering a wild boar and chopping some wood, there was nothing else.

After leaving the small village, Chen Tingquan controlled his character to wander aimlessly, questioning his life’s decisions, not knowing what to do.

I can only say, it’s too darn realistic!

A real-world Immortal Cultivation World is probably just like this. Just like ancient societies, human activity areas were very limited; apart from small villages and towns, most places were wilderness, devoid of people or many animals.

But this is a game, if so realistic, what are players supposed to play?

Fortunately, Chen Tingquan had some presence of mind and stayed on the road, so after leaving the original small village, he arrived at another small village.

This small village also had NPCs, allowing him to sell animal skins and meat obtained from hunting, and accept tasks to earn some money.

If he hadn’t followed the road and plunged into the deep mountains and forests... it would be very difficult to come back, essentially turning the game into a survival hunting simulator.

Moreover, Chen Tingquan found another very annoying issue.

This character eats a lot!

In Endless Fantasy Legend, although there is a food and cooking system, it wasn’t that important.

Food could restore health when low and increase stamina or attack power, but long periods without eating posed no problems for players.

But Reverse Heaven is different; long periods without eating will cause the viscera status bar to change significantly, and the gas in the viscera will turn abnormal colors.

The viscera even visibly withers.