When I write a bug it becomes the core gameplay.

Chapter 300 The Balance of the Game

Gu Fan continued:

“The second step is to seize the time to develop more powerful healing BDs, such as BDs that can directly apply hot to the whole group, or BDs that can add buff effects to the whole group when adding blood, etc.

“The third step is to wait until these new treatment BDs are developed and players begin to accept them, and after some Starlight Milk players switch to BD, then make subsequent numerical balance adjustments to the Starlight Milk to bring it back to normal levels.

“For example, if you open a new healing BD, the healing effect of Starlight Milk will be cut by 10%. If you open a new one, the healing effect of Starlight Milk will be cut by 10%.

"After three cuts like this, plus the previous debuff effect, the healing amount of Starlight Milk has almost returned to the normal level. Although the operation is still much simpler than other healing BDs, other healing BDs can also be played. ”

Gu Fan's words made Lilith stunned for a moment.

"Huh? Instead of fixing the bug, just change the text description?"

Gu Fan nodded: "Yes, can't it? The so-called bug is nothing more than the inconsistency between the game design and the program performance. Since the players like the current program performance, I changed the game design and made them different again. There’s nothing wrong with being consistent, right?”

Lilith was a little confused, but after thinking about it carefully, there was nothing wrong!
In fact, there are a group of "fundamentalists" within many game companies and even among player groups.

Even the classic mechanisms and gameplay of many games are themselves born out of bugs.

“The best way to repair a mountain of shit is not to pull out all the firepower and let it collapse, but to repair it, or add some new code to it, or slightly adjust its values.

“Because fixing the bug is equivalent to completely destroying the original underlying mechanism, which will cause the gameplay to be directly uprooted, without any room for maneuver.

In the final analysis, whether something is a bug or a mechanism is not strictly defined.

If you say it is a bug, it is a bug. If you say it is a mechanism, it is a mechanism.

It's just that some smart companies turned bugs into mechanisms, thereby creating a great game IP, while some stupid companies came up and fixed the bugs regardless of the situation, and then killed the other game forever. possibility.

Wasn't the original design also designed by humans?

That is, no matter what the game is like, if there is anything different from the original design, it is a bug, and it must be fixed until it is consistent with the design.

Gu Fan continued: "Moreover, even if you want to modify it, you can't fix the bug directly.

But the question is, is this a bug? Is it not a matter of a word from the designer?

As long as it is designed by humans, there is right and wrong. Since players like this bug, let’s simply change the design and confirm this bug as a mechanism.

“It’s simple and low-risk, it’s the best of both worlds.”

Obviously, Gu Fan's proposal of "adding a debuff" appears to be to modify the mechanism, but in fact it is to modify the value.

There are many similar methods, such as directly cutting the healing amount of the skill Starlight by half, or even by a quarter. But whether it is directly cutting the healing amount simply and roughly, or cutting the healing amount in disguise by adding debuffs, the value itself is modified, and the fundamental mechanism of this BD is not touched.

“Actually, there is no fundamental conflict between maintaining game balance and preserving players’ gaming experience.

"Many people have only seen that infinite starlight milk will affect the balance of the game, making other treatment BDs unplayable, but they have not quantified how long this impact will last? How big is the impact? In other words, if it must be cut, As for part of it, can it return its value to normal levels while retaining the core fun of this BD as much as possible?
"After all, this is just PVE gameplay. To put it to the extreme, what if everyone can pass the legendary T3 group book?

“If it’s a team of 25 people, and a set of the highest-level suit drops every week after clearing the level, then it will take at least 25 weeks for all members of the 25-person team to graduate, which is nearly half a year.

“In the past six months, the project team has enough time to develop one or two more difficult and higher-level raids.

“What is the core pleasure of Infinite Starlight Milk?
"Single-person milking a team of 25 people is certainly a cool thing, but it obviously has other cool features, such as: its operation is very simple, it only needs one button to work, and novices can get started quickly, Playing a role in the team gives you a good sense of participation; at the same time, it is also a relaxing game experience, because when the starlight is cut off, the player has to find a way to get it out quickly.

“So, if the values ​​are modified, although it will no longer be possible to achieve a group of 25 people with a single player, the advantages of simple operation and high lower limit can still be retained.

"The same goes for Dark Chain. Although part of its coolness comes from its powerful AOE ability, a large part of it comes from its cool special effects.

“When a lightning chain passes, various dark skills are triggered, and the screen is instantly filled with cool special effects. This in itself is also a cool point with excellent visual effects.

"Therefore, powerful AOE abilities can be limited by numerical values. For example, the more skills are triggered at the same time, the damage of each skill will be reduced accordingly; or the triggered skills will also consume a certain amount of mana. quantity.

“However, the full-screen special effects after triggering are still retained, so that players can still experience the thrill of this lottery.

“如果说原本不触发技能的伤害是10，触发10个技能的伤害是100；那么修改后，触发10个技能的伤害是70甚至60。

"Although the value has been weakened, this BD still has a strong AOE ability. Players can still accept it reluctantly.

“In this way, even if these two BDs are weakened, some players will still be angry and quit the game, but obviously more players will stay.

“The next step is to use the method of ‘add more flour to more water, and more water to add flour’ to continuously improve the intensity of other BDs.

"If you feel that Starlight Milk is too strong, then strengthen the BD of other milks. There is no need for any particularly complicated mechanism. Just target the skill value of the core BD and increase it several times.

“If three times doesn’t work, then five times; if one zero doesn’t work, then two zeros.

"If the milk volume overflows, then simply increase the blood volume limit of all members, especially the tank profession.

“If the tank is too hard and the damage is too high, then open a higher difficulty and increase the values ​​​​of the monsters in the dungeon.

"Just like the endless mode in some games, the monster values ​​increase exponentially, and players can obtain equipment with higher attributes every time they pass a level."

(End of this chapter)