....
Well then, goodnight, Terra. Goodnight, universe.
~Kristen Wright
...
After this, the Saintess and the official Oath team worked desperately to repair their reputation.
This included completely cutting ties with Noir, declaring Koi's words to be nothing more than rumors, and ensuring that the Saintess remained by the Savior's side in later scripts.
Then, the official team had Kuro write two more side-story events filled with Saintess fanservice, while also revealing all the upcoming character previews for Version 1.2 and beyond.
The first new character for Version 1.2 was still from the Holy Nation. She was designed as the Saintess's ntor, a limited five-star Support unit with a mature female model.
The second character for the following versions was also from the Holy Nation, this ti an Abnormal role. She was an extrely rare limited five-star female character with a small, childlike model. Her in-ga role was closer to a sub-DPS, applying various debuffs to enemies in order to increase the team's overall damage and so on.
After that ca a rchant from the Free Alliance, a limited five-star Defender.
Finally, the last previewed character was a new main DPS from the Empire.
This lineup of upcoming characters, how should Carl put it?
The upcoming limited five-star characters were basically carrying the Saintess with all their might.
At least for now, players who pulled for the Saintess could enjoy being at the top of the ta for four whole versions, right up until that new Empire main DPS made their debut.
The planners were using this thod to tell the players:
There was absolutely nothing wrong with the Saintess's power level.
At the very least, after pulling her, there would be no shortage of future characters designed to strengthen her.
It was just that the banner schedule forced players to pull for two versions in a row, clearly aiming straight for their wallets.
As for the players who pulled Hasumi at launch?
They were in for a world of pain!
Not only was her power level falling behind, but the characters ant to support her would not even arrive until four versions later.
Even if her supports eventually arrived, the damage output of the new Empire main DPS four versions later would probably blow Hasumi out of the water by ten miles.
There was nothing that could be done about it.
Carl felt... it was not that Hasumi had lost the popularity contest.
Rather, the contest had been rigged from the very beginning for the Saintess to win.
The official Oath team had most likely only finished the Holy Nation map.
In any case, Carl did not believe the official Oath team would waste resources making two massive maps just for players to choose between them.
This also hamred ho the fact that Hasumi had actually been a sacrificial pawn from the start, used to squeeze out a wave of launch hype money before being cast aside.
Regarding map production, the cities of the Holy Nation and the Empire did currently exist within Elysium.
But a map for players to explore and a city where NPCs lived were two completely different concepts.
Carl used the City of Glory in the Holy Nation, which players were about to visit in Version 1.2, as an example.
Before players arrived in this city, the City of Glory would definitely have undergone long-term artistic renovation by the official Oath team, adding a ton of beautiful but physically impossible and completely nonsensical architectural wonders.
They would also have manually placed a huge number of treasure chests, monster distributions, reward chanisms, and so on.
All the elents a ga map should have would need to be added before it could finally be presented to the players.
After all, the original City of Glory could not possibly have a treasure chest every one or two steps, right?
The NPCs living there would have opened them long ago.
In any case, thanks to the official Oath team's lightning-fast apology and upcoming character reveals, combined with Kuro's intervention, the Saintess's reputation was barely salvaged.
anwhile, Carl was currently resting in Mio's worldline and conducting so simple surveys with Mio and other players.
"Why do I feel like Noir will show up in future plots just to disgust us?"
After looking through the various previews and materials released by the official Oath team, Mio made this prophetic conclusion.
"Because... soone in the official Oath team is probably stubborn. They apologize on the surface, but deep down, they actually want to get back at the players."
In a single sentence, Carl exposed the psychological state of "certain people" in the official Oath team.
"If things really go the way you say, Mio, they'll probably write a bunch of plots trying to redeem Noir. They'll keep adding new bits of lore to prove that he's actually a good person, and that you players are the ones in the wrong."
At this point, Carl actually really wanted to give the official Oath team a suggestion.
If they really wanted to redeem Noir, they should simply have him apologize and atone to the descendants of the people he had caused to die, then have him make one final sacrifice against the final boss in so grand finale.
That would be one way to do it.
But the official Oath team was currently more interested in teaching the players how to play the ga, so Noir would probably continue living comfortably for a long ti, purely to prove to the players that they were right.
However, while that was unfortunate for the players, from Carl's perspective as an onlooker, as long as Noir did not die, he would probably find himself suppressing laughter even more often in the future.
"Then it seems I should upgrade my dialogue auto-clicker tool."
Mio now truly felt that Carl was the only reason she continued playing Oath.
"Yeah, but speaking of which... Miss Mio, what are your hands doing?"
Carl noticed that as they chatted, she had started getting handsy with him!
At this mont, Mio was gently kneading Carl's cheeks with both hands, and her stroking movents even showed signs of drifting further down.
"Nothing... I just thought it was really interesting that I can actually touch your cheeks!"
Mio said this, and after pushing her luck, her fingertips brushed Carl's cheeks, then slid straight toward his collarbone, almost as if she were about to unbutton his clothes.
"Oath is a 12 ga. This kind of adult behavior is a bit dangerous."
Carl gently grabbed Mio's wrist, stopping her from feeling any further down.
In any Elysium-type ga, players were forbidden from having overly intimate contact with NPCs.
Holding hands, touching cheeks, or using soone's lap as a pillow were the limits.
Anything beyond that would trigger various system restrictions.
The reason Mio could push her luck like this with Carl was that Elysium had granted Carl a small portion of new permissions.
The most important one was the Extraordinary Power Elysium had bestowed upon Carl.
Paradise Illusion had been upgraded, gaining a "Permanent Illusion" function.
This function allowed Carl, within the limits of what he could endure, to construct multiple Permanent Illusions with computational capabilities.
The greatest use of this ability was.
It allowed Carl to open additional ga servers.
After swallowing about a hundred Sacred Contract Stones, Carl had increased his Data Volu to around 9,700, allowing him to carry player data for roughly ten thousand people.
But fundantally, that was still not enough.
In this situation, Elysium provided Carl with a solution.
He could create a group of Permanent Illusions to serve as the server-side computation for Oath Cards and Monster Battles.
Then, he could feed Sacred Contract Stones to these illusions to increase their carrying capacity.
This thod was very effective.
Carl fed nearly five hundred Sacred Contract Stones to five Permanent Illusions, forcibly raising the server limit until it could accommodate sixty thousand people.
Although compared to the millions of concurrent users in Oath, that still seed like a drop in the ocean.
However, this also gave Carl a way to quickly monetize the Sacred Contract Stones he earned.
He no longer had to work himself to death every day digesting them just to increase his Data Volu.
As for why Elysium did not personally step in to act as the server, Artemis, the agent of Elysium, replied.
"Elysium is not omnipotent. It is more like the administrator of this world, ensuring that it continues running normally. But the erosion of the Calamity Virus has already left it with its hands full. This is already the greatest help it can provide you."
In plain English.
Elysium had done its best.
It had essentially given Carl permission to run his own server, so Carl did not press for more.
"So, Miss Mio, putting aside the various issues with Oath, what kind of experience do you want most from the ga?"
Carl held Mio's disobedient little hand, keeping it on his cheek to stop it from wandering elsewhere, and continued his survey.
"If I had to say, I still want more interaction with banner characters like Hasumi and Irene. After the main story ends, they basically disappear. Even if you go to their fixed spawn points on the map, you can only have basic chats with them," Mio said.
"Even if you put them in your team, all they do is fight monsters. How should I put it? I want more interaction, sothing more everyday. I want more stories to happen with them!"
Mio voiced the inner thoughts of most gacha ga players, and perhaps most gars in general.
They wanted more interaction and more side stories with the characters they had pulled.
But because of the character-selling model of such gas, perhaps only a few designated heroines and especially popular female characters would make frequent appearances in later main plots.
As for characters who were not popular, or whose power levels had been power-crept, they would vanish completely after their specific main story or limited event was over.
In Carl's view, this was not sothing worth criticizing too harshly.
In the past, when Carl played these gas, as long as the current sales-driven plot was well-written, he would also give it a thumbs-up and praise it as divine.
If a certain aspect of a character appealed to him, he would also pull for them aggressively.
Even though Carl did not see it as a major issue, according to his current investigation... most Oath players expressed to him that they wanted more interaction with those banner characters, not just adding them to a team every day to fight monsters before logging off.
Players wanted to be closer to the characters they had pulled.
They wanted them to feel like companions truly adventuring together, or friends sharing joys and sorrows.
Not like coworkers who simply finished daily tasks in a team and then clocked out.
"Your request, I've heard your requests. Don't worry, my next ga will definitely let you play 'happily' with those banner characters!"
Oath certainly would not waste resources adding extra interactive gaplay for already outdated banner characters.
But if Oath could not do it, then Carl would satisfy the players!
(To be continued.)
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)
User Comments
0 comments from readers