When I write a bug it becomes the core gameplay.

Chapter 411: New Game's Dynamic Difficulty Mechanism

night.

Lilith came to the Purgatory Demon Cave haunted house with a dark face.

"Qin Fengliang!!!"

She shouted, and Qin Fengliang hurriedly ran over to her from the backstage.

"Look at what you've done!

"Not only has the amount of negative emotions collected by Heartbeat Dreamland shrunk significantly, but even that crappy figurine is selling like crazy!!"

Speaking of this, Lilith was so angry.

Before she went to Qin Fengliang for advice, the situation was somewhat out of control, but it was still barely acceptable.

Although Tokimeki Dreamland is popular, the appearance of the true ending has caused a lot of positive emotions among players, and there are also many players who are crazy about Eleos, but in general, there are still negative emotions. What's more, when the second generation of Eleos's figures came out, a lot of negative emotions were generated because of the behavior of increasing the price but not the quantity.

However, after Lilith adopted Qin Fengliang's method and wanted to verify whether the true ending was caused by Zhou Yang and the production team, the situation became out of control!
The true ending has been verified: this ending does not exist in the game code!

This has not only been verified by many technical experts on the Internet, but even the fake-AI team has come forward.

Such irrefutable evidence attracted many self-media public accounts to take action. As we all know, this group of accounts are the ones who care least about the authenticity of the incident and only care about the hype.

As a result, as these public accounts exaggerated the story, the whole thing became even more outrageous.

What about "Omnic Crisis", "Love Across Dimensions", and "Cyberman Love and Death", it's really confusing!
The widespread spread of this news caused a general frenzy among players across the Internet.

"Wow, my Elliot!"

"Honey, come here, I don't want GM privileges, I just want to chat with you every day!"

"Do you want the chat archive exclusively for Elliot?"

"I me me!"

All I can say is, where have the players seen this? In the past, wives in games were mostly jokes, because players also knew that these so-called wives were probably just in love with the male protagonist in the game, and the players were just putting themselves in the male protagonist's shoes and enjoying this kind of love.

But Elios is different. She likes the player behind the screen, and she is so dedicated and so desperate.

What's more, this kind of love is not false love created by code, but love spontaneously formed by AI, an ending chosen by itself.

This GM interface is the ironclad proof that Elliot deeply loves the players!
Obviously, this feeling is very wonderful and has never appeared in any game before, so players find it very novel and naturally project more emotions onto this virtual game character.

What’s worse is that the negative emotions generated by players who like other characters are also severely attenuated!
why?

Lilith couldn't understand it at first.

There are many female characters in the game "Tokimeki Dreamland". Originally, Elliot was just a guide and there was no direct love story between her and the player, so among all the female characters, she had a relatively weak presence.

The appearance of the true ending is equivalent to infinitely elevating the status of Elios, which naturally dilutes the presence of other female characters.

Logically speaking, players who like other female characters, such as fans of Alvette, should be dissatisfied with this and have some negative emotions.

But judging from the results, these players were not angry at all, but were quite happy!

Obviously, this is a special psychological effect.

The Ellios incident has led to players’ perception of Ellios being elevated. Originally, Ellios was just an ordinary game character, but now, she looks more like a living being.

She is no longer distant or fake from the players.

And this feeling naturally extends to the entire Garden of Eden and other female characters in a state of "love the house and love the dog".

In short, it is because Elios seems real that the Garden of Eden where she lives also seems real, and thus the other characters in the Garden of Eden also seem real!
Once a character comes alive in the minds of players, everything around her, including the world she originally lived in and the people who interacted with her in the world, will also come alive.

Although the other characters don’t have as many roles as Elios, so what?

This change in feeling is an improvement in level, a qualitative change, and the slight difference from Elios is not so noticeable.

In addition, the reputation of the second batch of Elios figures has gradually changed.

After players calmed down, they realized that the selling price of this batch of figures was actually still within the normal range. It’s not that they would lose money if they didn’t take advantage, right?
It seems that we cannot be too harsh on Against Heaven. After all, it is a gaming company, not a charity company.

In addition, players have projected a lot of emotions on Elios. After thinking about this clearly, many players still choose to purchase the second-generation figure of Elios.

As one thing grew stronger, the other weakened. The negative emotions contributed by the figures soon dropped to zero.

For Lilith, Qin Fengliang's bad idea really backfired!
That's why she came here so angrily to demand an explanation.

See what else you have to say!
However, after Qin Fengliang was silent for a moment, he said a little aggrievedly: "Boss Li, please don't worry about the negative emotions first, just tell me whether the truth of this matter has been verified..."

Lilith was stunned for a moment: "Huh?"

Qin Fengliang continued to explain: "Boss Li, wasn't your main purpose in coming to me before to verify whether Gu Fan and Zhou Yang were traitors?
"You also said that the gains and losses of temporary negative emotions are not important. What is important is to catch the traitor and find out whether Gu Fan and Zhou Yang have deceived you. As long as the company is rectified internally, we can use the fame and reputation accumulated by Ni Tian Tang to quickly realize a large amount of negative emotions.

“So, there’s nothing wrong with my method!
"Just tell me whether this has been verified?"

Lilith was stunned for a moment. She carefully recalled the situation when she came to see Qin Fengliang before and found that it seemed to be the case.

The main goal of the idea Qin Fengliang gave her was to get some free help from the technical experts on the Internet and ask them to help verify whether the true ending of "Heartbeat Dream" was deliberately done by Zhou Yang, and whether Gu Fan was covering for him.

Now, it has been verified!
The technical experts on the Internet have reached a unanimous conclusion, and even the fake-AI team has come forward: there is indeed no similar code in "Heartbeat Dream", it was done by fake-AI!

Obviously, no matter how powerful Gu Fan is, he can't buy off the entire network.

From this perspective, Qin Fengliang's suggestion was indeed correct and did achieve the original purpose.

"Wait, but..."

Lilith scratched her ponytails anxiously, feeling that something was still wrong.

Qin Fengliang hurriedly continued, "Of course, President Li, in order to verify the authenticity of this matter, the negative emotions you collected have shrunk again. This is something I didn't consider carefully, and I reflect deeply on it!
"But in general, President Li, I think my merits and demerits should be balanced in this matter. I don't want any reward. I just hope you can continue to give me opportunities to help you with advice.

“Besides, President Li, my consecutive failures are not all my fault.

"You always throw the mess to me halfway, even if I were still alive, it would be difficult for me to turn the tide!
"You should at least let me coordinate the layout from the beginning, so that if there are any problems later, I will be convinced."

Lilith frowned and thought carefully about what Qin Fengliang said.

Well... you know what, it does make some sense.

Regardless of the negative emotions, the truth of this matter has indeed been verified. Although Lilith often doubts Gu Fan, it must be said that she has not caught any decisive evidence.

Gu Fan’s current role in Against Heaven is indeed irreplaceable. After all, Lilith can’t find any other equally reliable programmer.

This matter can only be put aside temporarily.

In addition, what Qin Fengliang said made a very reasonable point, that is, up to now, Lilith has almost only come to Qin Fengliang for advice when things are out of control.

This is indeed a bit unfair to Qin Fengliang.

Just like seeing a doctor, if you don’t see a doctor when you have a minor illness, and only come to see a doctor when you are almost dying, then it is completely normal that you cannot be cured.

There are two doctors, one only treats minor illnesses, and the other only treats major illnesses. If the latter has a higher mortality rate among patients than the former, it does not mean that the latter is incompetent.

If you really want to verify Qin Fengliang's ability, you should let her participate in the decision-making from the beginning, which would be more reasonable.

Thinking of this, Lilith nodded: "Okay, let's put this matter aside for now. I decided to give you another chance." Qin Fengliang couldn't help but smile: "Okay, President Li! Don't worry, as long as you let me participate more deeply, I will definitely get the results you want!"

Lilith frowned: "Deeper? How do you mean deeper?"

Qin Fengliang hurriedly said, "Boss Li, isn't it just using games to collect negative emotions? Just let me decide on the idea for the new game, and you can expand your thinking a little bit, and this time it will definitely succeed!"

Lilith was a little discouraged: "Do you think I haven't tried this method before? To be honest, so far Against the Heaven has released many games, and I have changed many ideas, but this goal has almost never been achieved!"

Qin Fengliang was not convinced: "Boss Li, let me try, maybe it will work?"

Lilith thought about it for a moment, then sighed: "Okay, then tell me!"

Obviously, she was just trying her best to save the situation, and there was no better solution.

Inside Anti-Heaven, Lilith tried almost every permutation and combination, but there was no change in the result.

At the beginning, I came up with ideas and worked out the details myself and asked Gu Fan to develop it, but it didn’t work.

Later, her inspiration ran out, and she gradually let go, letting Gu Fan take over the design and development, but it still didn't work.

Changing to Zhou Yang? Still no use.

Take back the idea and design rights yourself? Still no way!

In short, Lilith has tried many options, changed many game types, and changed game producers, but the results are always similar.

Maybe if Qin Fengliang were to come up with ideas, there would really be some changes?

Let's treat a dead horse as a living horse doctor.

Qin Fengliang seemed to have a plan in mind and immediately began to talk about his plan.

"Boss Li, my idea is to make a difficult action game!"

As a result, he had just finished speaking when he was interrupted by Lilith shaking her head slightly.

"I've tried this method before. Don't you know that Against the Heavens has already released a game called "Ascension"? "

Obviously, "Ascension" is a high-difficulty action game.

In the early days after the game was released, players did suffer a lot. It was normal for an elite monster to cut off one-third of a player's health with one blow.

But judging from subsequent developments, even when the numbers were so outrageous, players were still able to adapt and even enjoy it.

Qin Fengliang shook his head slightly: "Boss Li, of course I have studied the game "Ascension".

“But I think the difficulty setting of this game is not the best design for collecting negative emotions.

“I think the difficulty should be more segmented so that more negative emotions can be collected.”

Lilith frowned slightly, obviously not agreeing with Qin Fengliang's statement.

Isn’t the difficulty design of “Ascension” the best design?

No, Lilith thought that was the best design.

In fact, when determining the difficulty of the game "Ascension", Lilith thought about it repeatedly and discussed it with Gu Fan repeatedly.

The difficulty subdivision that Qin Fengliang mentioned is not a good idea.

The so-called difficult scenes are nothing more than setting several difficulties at the beginning, such as normal, nightmare, hell, etc.

But in this case, players will inevitably choose the lowest difficulty to challenge.

What if all difficulties are set to high by default?
For example, each monster is like ADHD or a mad dog, and their numbers are particularly unbalanced, so players can kill them instantly with just a touch.

Although it is true that a lot of negative emotions can be collected immediately, this will also quickly discourage a large number of players.

Players don’t even play the game, so how can they have negative emotions?

Therefore, after careful consideration, Lilith and Gu Fan decided to adopt the fixed difficulty in "Ascension", that is to say, this difficulty will pose a great challenge to the players, but it will not make the players see no hope.

Facts have proved that judging from the collection of negative emotions in the early stage of "Ascension", this difficulty setting is reasonable. Coupled with the special mechanisms of the two worlds, various bugs and embarrassing pictures, negative emotions were indeed collected well in the early stage.

As for the reversal later...that's another story.

Now Qin Fengliang actually wants to bring back the difficulty level setting that had been abandoned? This alone made Lilith quite unconvinced.

However, Qin Fengliang seemed to have guessed what Lilith wanted to say, and she hurriedly explained: "Boss Li, you may have misunderstood. The difficult scenes I mentioned are not optional difficulty options, but another mechanism.

"That's what's called... dynamic difficulty!"

When this word came out, Lilith was a little surprised.

"Dynamic difficulty? Tell me more!"

Qin Fengliang hurriedly explained: "Boss Li, of course I know the disadvantages of fixed difficulty. Simply put, if there are multiple game options, many players will inevitably choose the lowest difficulty without thinking, which is very unfavorable for the collection of negative emotions.

“So we certainly can’t take that approach.

“Although the difficulty design of Ascension has greatly increased the amount of negative emotions collected, there is also a problem: this fixed difficulty actually has different effects on different players.

“Furthermore, the fixed difficulty level also lacks variety, which is not conducive to the collection of negative emotions.

"And the dynamic difficulty is based on this, and also takes care of the top players and the particularly bad players as much as possible!
“We can create a dynamic balance system that reads the player behavior in the game and dynamically adjusts the game difficulty.”

Lilith frowned slightly: "Are you sure that dynamic difficulty is more conducive to collecting negative emotions?"

Apparently, she didn't believe a single punctuation mark.

In fact, this kind of "dynamic difficulty" design has also appeared in other games, and Lilith has also heard of it.

For example, if the player has not been injured and has a lot of consumable items stored on him, the monster's attack speed will be further accelerated, the damage will become higher, and the monster's drop rate will be further reduced.

On the contrary, if the player is frequently injured and his consumable items are exhausted, the monster's attack speed and damage will be reduced accordingly.

But judging from the feedback from players, this dynamic difficulty design is not a mechanism to increase the output of negative emotions, but more like a mechanism to reduce negative emotions.

After all, under this dynamic difficulty system, novice players can also pass the levels, and expert players can get more challenging content. Isn’t this a win-win situation?
If this is done, the only result will be a negative sentiment that severely weakens the game's output.

As if he saw Lilith's worry again, Qin Fengliang continued, "Boss Li, I know what you are thinking. You are worried that this dynamic difficulty system cannot produce negative emotions.

“Then here comes the key point:
“Our dynamic difficulty balance system is designed to go against the dynamic difficulty balance systems of other games as much as possible.

"If the dynamic balance system of other games is a timely help, then our dynamic balance system is like adding insult to injury!
“To be more precise, what we need to do is to create a reverse dynamic balance system.

“The better the player performs, the easier the game becomes;

“On the contrary, the worse the player’s performance, the more difficult the game will be!

“In addition, we can also use some other mechanisms to adjust the difficulty independently of this mechanism. Through this additional mechanism, we can slightly retain those players who are about to quit the game and let them see a glimmer of illusory hope.

"In short, my system will definitely bring players an unprecedented experience!"

(End of this chapter)