When I write a bug it becomes the core gameplay.

Chapter 413: Cover-up of the plot mode

Lilith thought about it carefully and felt that Qin Fengliang's idea was indeed feasible.

Of course, there are still many details that need to be improved.

Although the ready-made mechanism has been thought out, it is still very unfriendly to players. If you want to make it as confusing as possible, you must use appropriate plot guidance and appropriate difficulty design to make players accept it as much as possible from the beginning.

The longer it takes players to realize something is wrong, the more negative emotions the game will continue to generate.

However, Qin Fengliang is definitely not capable of such detailed design.

She is not a professional game designer and she can come up with some ideas, but it is too much to expect her to complete a plan.

Lilith immediately decided to complete the design framework herself, that is, the design concept draft, and then hand it over to Nitiantang to complete the detailed settings.

Especially in terms of the plot, a lot of effort still needs to be put in.

"Okay, if this new game is successful, I'll give you a great credit!
"I'm going to go back and get busy now. If I have good news later, I will share it with you as soon as possible!"

Lilith disappeared happily after she finished speaking. It was obvious that she wanted to come up with the concept draft of the game as soon as possible and then give it to Against Heaven to start research and development!
……

……

Two days later.

At 7 o'clock in the evening, Lilith, Gu Fan, Zhou Yang and Wei Chengjie held a meeting in a small conference room.

Lilith confidently distributed the design concept draft she had already written to the three people.

Although she looked at the three people with suspicion, Lilith had to admit that these three people were the only three people in Against Heaven who had the ability to lead projects.

Although Lilith also wanted to promote a new producer from scratch, the matter was of great importance. If any problem occurred, it might seriously affect the development progress of the new game, so she still had to take a long-term view.

The reason why we called all three people here this time is to infer from their speeches and select the most suitable project producer.

And this producer may also be among the three.

Gu Fan took the design concept draft calmly and glanced through it briefly.

Strictly speaking, this is not a standard design concept draft because a lot of content is missing.

There is no specific plot, no specific level design, and even the name of the game has not been finalized.

The only two parts that are written in more detail are the "dynamic difficulty mechanism" and the "world view and plot background setting".

Obviously, this is another example of Lilith's reading comprehension.

At least on the surface, Gu Fan and others must understand the deep meaning behind the "dynamic difficulty mechanism" and "world view background setting", and improve the relevant combat system, plot and level design, and wrap this game with beautiful sugar coating to confuse players.

As for how to fix the bugs in this game...that is something we can consider later.

Wei Chengjie was a little surprised: "It's Cthulhu style? It's a bit niche.

“Although our company is relatively good at making Western fantasy-style works, we have definitely never made Cthulhu.”

Zhou Yang coughed twice and corrected, "Why haven't you done it? Ascension is Cthulhu, but it's Chinese Cthulhu.

"Our company is good at Western fantasy art themes, and we have the successful experience of "Ascension". It should be a sure thing for us to produce a standard Cthulhu theme."

Wei Chengjie suddenly realized: "Oh, yes."

Cthulhu itself is a niche subject, but in recent years, due to the emergence of various excellent works, its popularity in China is increasing. Therefore, making a Cthulhu-themed game at this time is not a big risk.

What's more, Against the Heaven also has the successful experience of the game "Ascension".

So far, many players still think that "Ascension" is the best Chinese Cthulhu game, bar none. Especially the kind of madness of the two worlds transforming into each other, which can be said to perfectly show the spiritual core of the Cthulhu theme.

The only problem is...

Given that there is already a game called "Ascension", can Against the Heaven make some new breakthroughs in this subject matter?

It would be embarrassing if you made an orthodox Cthulhu game, using the Western fantasy art style that you are more proficient in, but the final result was not as good as "Ascension".

"Ascension" is a great success with such excellent quality that it is highly likely that it will not be surpassed.

Lilith cleared her throat and said seriously, "Have you finished reading the concept draft? In short, the two basic settings in the concept draft, including the 'dynamic difficulty mechanism' and the 'lying mechanism', must be carefully considered and strictly followed!

“Based on these two mechanisms, you can speak freely, expand your thinking, and improve this game.

"Now is the brainstorming time. Please share your views on this game and your general design ideas."

Lilith's eyes glowed faintly, sweeping across everyone like a searchlight.

Obviously, she has put aside the failure of "Heartbeat Dream" again and put 120% of her expectations into developing this new game.

It was called a brainstorming session, but in fact it was also an attempt to catch a traitor.

Lilith wanted to see through the intentions of the three people as much as possible in this way, and by the way, find a more suitable development model for this game and determine the best producer.

Gu Fan, Zhou Yang and Wei Chengjie looked at each other, and they all knew what was going on.

However, as highly professional actors, they certainly would not have any unnecessary communication and would just perform the script according to their own ideas.

Zhou Yang spoke first: "Boss Li, this lying system, strictly speaking, should be considered a part of the dynamic difficulty system, right?
“Players can actively adjust the dynamic difficulty by lying.

“It’s just that once the lies are exposed, they will all come back even more fiercely.

“I think this mechanism must be covered up in the story mode, otherwise it will just be a two-choice question, which is not complex enough and players will quickly see through it.

"We have to add some other incentives to make the system more confusing."

Lilith raised her eyebrows. She didn't expect that one of the traitors she suspected would come up with such constructive suggestions right away.

It does!

Qin Fengliang did not realize this when he proposed this system. The lying system is a binary choice, that is, there must be one true and one false. If it is not necessary, do not add entities. There is no need to set more than two options, and doing so is meaningless.

But the "choose one of two" approach also means that the lying system is not confusing enough for players.

If the player is a little smarter, they will soon realize that there is no benefit in telling the truth, it can't reduce the difficulty of the battle, and there is no way to get extra rewards. Although lying may seem to have benefits, it may be exposed, and after that, the difficulty of the game will return to normal.

So players will quickly realize that this is a scam.

So at this time, it is necessary to introduce another reward variable.

There are other benefits to telling the truth, too. The more types of rewards there are, the more things players have to weigh, which can greatly delay their progress in discovering Against Heaven's true intentions.

"What other rewards are there?" Lilith asked.

Zhou Yang thought for a moment and said, "As an action game, there are only two types of truly useful rewards: one is linked to combat power, and the other is linked to the plot.

“Let’s talk about the plot first.

"An intuitive assumption is that if you tell too many lies, the NPC will no longer trust you, and the possibility of being questioned and exposed will increase. On the other hand, if you tell the truth too much, the NPC's trust should increase, and the lies at some key points will be more effective.

“At the same time, this kind of game must have multiple endings, so a ‘certain amount of truth’ should be a necessary condition for a good ending.

“As for the rewards tied to combat power, I thought of some of the traits affected by lying in the concept draft.

"Dolls are not good at lying, have higher defense, more health, and faster ways to repair or restore health. As they lie more, they will become more and more like humans, with lower defense and less health.

“And if humans lie too much, there will be a side effect, which is the improvement of clairvoyance.

“In the Cthulhu setting, clairvoyance is the inner eye, or in layman’s terms, the ability to see dirty things like the ancient gods.

“In similar themes, there is a saying like ‘whatever is said must be known’, so it is a reasonable setting that lying can enhance the ability to see dirty things.

"Then players can lower their clairvoyance by telling the truth, which is a kind of reward in itself. After all, this world looks more normal, with fewer terrifying monsters, which is equivalent to reducing the difficulty of the game in disguise.

"In general, I think that we cannot let players choose to lie or tell the truth without thinking, but we should make a judgment based on multiple factors.

“First, we need to look at what the current state of the game’s dynamic difficulty is;
“Secondly, it depends on whether the players are willing to choose a quick but less rewarding game process, or a tedious but more rewarding game process;

“In the end, it all depends on the players’ attitude towards the game’s plot and NPC side quests.

"Combining these factors to create a chaotic system can further increase the confusion of the system, allowing players to endure the discomfort and continue to play."

Lilith nodded frequently after hearing this: "Yeah, that makes sense!"

After Zhou Yang's modifications, the confusion was indeed improved a lot.

When a player decides to lie, he has many things to consider:

First, the player needs to consider the change in difficulty. If the difficulty is too high at this time, he can temporarily reduce the difficulty by lying; or, the player can also "save interest" by telling the truth, making it less likely to be exposed when he lies in the future.

But you can't keep lying, because once you exceed a certain critical value and your clairvoyance becomes too high, it will bring about a series of uncontrollable negative effects.

Secondly, whether you lie or not, you can skip certain steps in the game.

For example, in some levels, if you tell the truth you can only enter through the main gate, but if you lie you can go through the side door; on the contrary, in other levels, if you lie you can advance normally, but if you tell the truth you will be caught and thrown into jail.

If the player follows the normal process, there will be a lot of battles, but there may also be some useful rewards in the process.

Whether or not to skip it should also be taken into consideration.

Finally, there is the plot. There will be various NPC side quests in the game, and the player’s truth or lies will determine their fate to some extent.

For example, if the player deliberately lies and points a good NPC in the wrong direction, he may die in that place.

Players have to judge whether this NPC is a good person, whether they approve of it in their hearts, and whether there will be more good rewards in the subsequent quests if they keep this NPC. If there are no rewards in the future, it is better to kill him right away and get his clothes and weapons.

These complex factors combined, if designed well, are enough to overload the player's brain.

Because there are so many factors affecting the rewards, players need to think carefully every time they make a decision, and it is impossible to see the optimal solution at a glance.

And once they make their own decisions, they can greatly improve their tolerance.

In this way, even if the game becomes more difficult or produces some unacceptable consequences, players will feel that the main responsibility lies with themselves. Who made them make the wrong choice?

That way, they have a greater chance of sticking with it.

Wei Chengjie said: "But this will make the game's plot design more difficult."

Obviously, the plot is like a package. The more things you want to send, the bigger the package should be.

If it is just to satisfy the original two mechanisms, the plot does not need to be too complicated. But if it is to meet Zhou Yang's requirements, the plot must become more grand.

Lilith looked at Wei Chengjie: "So what do you think about the plot?"

Wei Chengjie thought for a moment and said, "I don't have much to think about for now, but if I want to string all the current contents together, I have to at least give a reasonable explanation to many of the existences in the game.

“For example, this world can have ancient gods, humans, puppets, and beast-like zombies all at the same time, and they can even transform into each other. This requires some rationality from the plot.

“Here’s what I think. The background of the story could be a large-scale experiment in becoming a god, which is humans’ research on ancient divine creatures.

“Dolls, zombies, human beastly diseases, etc. are essentially byproducts of this god-making experiment.

"Humans have injected the blood of the ancient gods into their bodies, and their blood will gradually turn into unclean blood. The so-called unclean blood is blood that will gradually coagulate and no longer flow. Unclean creatures are bred in this blood, and they will gradually erode human life like parasites and affect human consciousness.

"After a human dies, the blood will solidify and form crystals. Because the power of the ancient gods exists in these crystals, they carry the memory and life essence of humans. Therefore, although they are dangerous resources, they can also be used directly.

“When humans use this special crystal as a source of power, powered puppets are created.

“By constantly absorbing crystals, the puppet can gradually improve its humanity and become more and more like a human.

"Of course, the reverse is also true. Humans can transform their bodies and change their way of thinking, becoming more and more like puppets. However, it is more complicated and tedious than for puppets to become humans."

(End of this chapter)