When I write a bug it becomes the core gameplay.

Chapter 458 Difficulty level bug?

"Wait a minute, is there really no hidden mechanism, or am I just not finding it?"

If it was a game from other companies, Zhuge would definitely cry out that it was a rip-off, give up on this meaningless challenge, and then go to the official platform to give a bad review.

But this is a game against heaven.

As we all know, almost every game before Against the Heaven has a special hidden mechanism, and those designs that seem unreasonable at first glance are later proven to have deeper meanings.

Therefore, Zhuge Jun decided to give it another chance.

Look patiently, maybe there really is some hidden mechanism that hasn’t been discovered yet?

Against the Heaven is indeed getting better and better at hiding.

For the first few games, players would find the hidden mechanics within a day or two of release. But for the latest games, it takes longer and longer for players to find the hidden mechanics, from a week to two weeks, and even close to a month for some games.

But this makes finding hidden mechanisms more rewarding.

Zhuge Jun began to reason seriously: Assuming that there really is a special hidden mechanism in "Blood of Lies", and this special hidden mechanism can just solve the unreasonable design of the current ending of becoming a god, then where is this mechanism most likely to be hidden?
"Perhaps the answer is... there is some simple way to maintain the dynamic difficulty in the game and greatly increase the success rate of GP?"

After some reasoning, Zhuge Jun immediately came to this conclusion.

His reasoning is not complicated, because looking at the conditions required to achieve the god-like ending, the most difficult ones are actually the dynamic difficulty and GP success rate.

No matter how other mechanisms change, as long as these two mechanisms remain in place, the god-like ending is not something that ordinary players can achieve.

On the other hand, if ordinary players can also achieve these two points relatively easily, then the remaining conditions, whether it is choosing a specific lying option or insisting on "not killing" the boss for one minute, will not be too difficult.

But then again, neither of these seems likely.

Because dynamic difficulty and GP judgment frames are the underlying mechanisms of the game, players have not found any way to actively adjust them so far.

Will the authorities leave a backdoor here?

From a game design perspective, no.

But based on the prediction of Against the Heaven's usual behavior, it does not seem to be completely impossible.

"Never mind, I'll study it first!"

At this point, players who are more confident in their own operations have begun to follow the method of Lao Wang next door to try to achieve the god ending.

But Zhuge Jun thinks that sharpening the knife does not delay the chopping of wood, isn't it the case with every game before Against the Heaven? Find the hidden mechanism before playing to get the best gaming experience.

"Maybe I should test this dynamic difficulty system to see if there are any problems?"

Faced with a choice between the two, Zhuge Jun decided to try the dynamic difficulty first.

Because comparatively speaking, the success rate of GP is relatively easy to achieve, as long as the player only performs some specific actions in GP.

It is very difficult to GP all the boss's attack moves, and Zhuge Jun can't do it now. But if you only GP some of the moves, it will not be difficult and can also weaken the boss.

Therefore, the most important thing to overcome is the dynamic difficulty problem.

Zhuge Jun directly started trying with his second round account. He didn't consider getting the god ending for the time being. He just used this account to advance the map normally while keeping an eye on the dynamic difficulty score changes displayed on the plug-in.

This plug-in displays the game's internal data, and the specific numbers are divided into two parts.

One is difficulty rank, which means difficulty level; and the other is difficulty point, which means difficulty points.

These two words are directly taken out of the code, so the writing method in the code is directly adopted.

Zhuge Jun did some simple experiments and quickly determined the range of these two values.

The difficulty levels range from 1 to 6, and the initial default difficulty level is 3.

Within each dynamic difficulty level, there is a maximum difficulty point of 5000 points.

Simply put, when the player first enters the game, or resurrects from a checkpoint, the initial default difficulty is: difficulty level 3, difficulty point 0.

When players perform some operations without taking damage in the game, or pass certain specific checkpoints in an invincible state, difficulty points will be deducted.

The extent of the point deduction varies depending on the player's behavior.

For example, if the player parkours the entire process without being hit, running from one gas lamp to another, the game will deduct 500 difficulty points; if the player kills a boss without being hurt, the game will deduct 1000 difficulty points.

In addition, if the player kills monsters or picks up items without taking any damage, similar actions will also deduct different dynamic difficulty points.

Assuming that 500 points are deducted, the difficulty level becomes: Difficulty Level 2, 4500 difficulty points.

Because the maximum points for each difficulty level is 5000 points, once it reaches 5000, it will automatically enter the next difficulty level, so when the points are 0, the dynamic difficulty level will drop when points are deducted.

The same applies to bonus points.

When the player is beaten or dies, points will be added.

Regardless of whether it is adding points or deducting points, there is an extreme range of dynamic difficulty.

The lowest score is difficulty level 1 (0 points), and the highest score is difficulty level 6 (5000 points). When the difficulty level reaches the highest, no matter what the player does or how many times he dies, the difficulty level will not increase further.

The difference between difficulty 1 and difficulty 6 is still very obvious.

At the lowest difficulty, the boss's health is greatly reduced, his attack power is also reduced, his desire to attack is also very low, and the moves he uses are all repetitions of simple moves.

On the contrary, at the highest difficulty, the boss not only has high health and attack, but also has a desire to attack like a mad dog, and his moves can derive various combos.

This is also why speedrunners feel bored when fighting against expert players.

此外还有一点要特别注意：虽然看起来低难度只有动态难度1、2这两个难度，而高难度则有动态难度3、4、5、6这四个难度，但实际上玩家打出动态难度1是极其困难的。

Because it is difficult to stay uninjured all the time, but it is very easy to get injured or miss items for any reason, so in most cases, no matter how hard ordinary players struggle, they can only struggle around dynamic difficulty 3.

It takes a lot of effort to maintain the normal difficulty, and it is not easy to keep the difficulty lower.

“Damn, this is really hard!

"It looks like this numerical system is very rigorous, and there don't seem to be any loopholes. Oh no, there's no hidden mechanism."

After playing the game for a while, Zhuge Jun felt a little discouraged.

Because he has absolutely no clue.

The score is controlled very strictly, there is even a decimal point after the score, it is made very carefully.

Various subtle actions will add or subtract different points, and even some monsters' throwing skills will continue to add points. The points will stop when the player breaks free.

If you want to keep the game at dynamic difficulty level 70 for 1% of the time, it seems that you can only play without taking damage.

no progress.

"Forget it, let's go fight an old friend first."

Zhuge Jun looked and saw that he had arrived at the familiar workshop area again, and could go and fight the beast furnace craftsman from the second round.

This one can be considered a new killer. It does not fit the stereotype of "hairy and weak to fire" at all. After being ignited by the flame, its entire body is enchanted with hair, which burns the players to death.

Therefore, there are also many "enthusiastic good brothers" who will post the "Furnace Craftsman Weak Fire" meme on the Internet to deceive the newbies.

Zhuge Jun was also prepared to suffer.

He took a look at his current dynamic difficulty, which was difficulty level 6 (3999.34 points). This score was already very high. If he added another thousand points or so, it would reach the ceiling.

The main reason was that when he was testing before, he deliberately used various skills of various monsters to observe the changes in the difficulty score. As he watched, the score went up.

Zhuge Jun didn't care too much about it. After all, if he died once, the dynamic difficulty level would return to difficulty level 3, which is 0 points.

Come and experience the most difficult mad dog boss.

However, as soon as the fight started, Zhuge Jun instinctively felt that something was wrong.

Why does this boss have so little health? And his moves are so simple?
This seems much simpler than when we first met, right?
Zhuge Jun was completely confused, he had already prepared himself mentally to be beaten up.

At this difficulty level, the boss will definitely use all kinds of fancy combos to beat him to a pulp. Even if you have already defeated him in the first round, the specific fighting methods and the feel of the game will have long been forgotten by now, and it is inevitable to suffer again.

However, the battle was much simpler than Zhuge Jun had imagined.

Even three minutes later, when the boss fell to the ground with a loud bang, Zhuge Jun was still a little dazed.

That's it?

Is this dead?

This seems to be much simpler than the first week, right?
Is it because the second round is a fun round? No, that's not the case in Blood of Lies!
From previous experience, the difficulty of the second round did not decrease, but increased slightly. So why is the difficulty of the furnace craftsman so much lower than that of the first round?

Zhuge Jun was puzzled. He quickly took out his mobile phone and searched for the keywords "Blood of Lies, Second Round, Furnace Craftsman" on the video website.

However, judging from the situations in these videos, the Furnace Craftsman in the second round has not been weakened at all. It is still as tough as in the first round, and even makes many players who have just entered the second round suffer setbacks.

Especially after entering the second stage where the whole body is on fire, it is possible that even some big players will be defeated.

"It feels like... the difficulty is wrong?"

Zhuge Jun also watched some videos of speedrunning masters, but few of them were so smooth.

Because as long as you revive from the gas lamp and fight directly, the default difficulty is level 3. If you want to lower the difficulty during the battle, you need to succeed in continuous GP while remaining uninjured or cause a lot of damage to the boss, which is difficult.

Those real speedrunning masters will reduce the difficulty to 1 by killing monsters or other means before entering the boss room.

Only in this case would the difficulty be similar to the battle Zhuge Jun had just fought.

"Did I accidentally encounter some kind of bug? The highest difficulty became the lowest difficulty?
"So how exactly did I do that?"

Zhuge Jun hurriedly thought carefully about his previous series of operations and tried hard to reproduce them.

(End of this chapter)