The Fourth Calamity: Starting with Dungeon Slimes

Chapter 179 Setting up a reward mechanism

Currently, the players have no other problems, but the only issue lies in the distribution of loot.

In this battle, the players suffered relatively heavy losses, losing a total of eight or nine hundred mechs.

"This wave of losses is quite significant overall. Even the lowest-level mech costs several hundred gold coins to build."

"For most players, this loss is indeed somewhat unbearable, especially for new players, as the loss is too great because most new players spent money to acquire game currency, amounting to several hundred yuan."

"Then I just entered the game and played a battle, and hundreds of dollars were gone just like that. Who could stand that?"

For players, this is a game, but regardless of whether it's a game or not, one issue must be considered: the biggest difference between this game and other games is that all items dropped upon death are lost.

Unlike other games where items remain unaffected after death and resurrection, this kind of loss is unbearable for any player in the long run. And most importantly, if the wreckage could be recycled, the cost of building the next mech could be reduced by at least half.

It's just a matter of adding some accessories. Overall, a mech would cost around 500 gold coins.

However, if the wreckage is recovered, the cost would probably be around 200 to 300, which is the cost of the entire mech and its equipment.

Converted to the current in-game currency exchange rate, it's roughly around 800 or 900 yuan. However, a complete mech costs at least over 1,000 yuan. If the game weren't of high quality and if everyone's expectations weren't so high, it would be impossible for anyone to spend so much money as soon as they enter the camp.

Almost all the players participating in this battle possessed mechs, and these individuals can be considered paying players. There are also several hundred non-paying players who don't yet own mechs. Currently, the paying player ratio is around 60%. This kind of pay-to-win mentality would be terrifying in any game.

Of course, there is a premise here, which is that everyone has just entered the game and is still excited. As time goes by and people gradually grind for materials, the proportion of spending money will decrease.

Considering the influx of new players and the existing trading of in-game currency, Jiang Chen has launched an official trading platform. This platform will collect various taxes and fees, allowing players to gradually convert in-game currency into real money.

Because of this series of actions, Jiang Chen now has a very high amount of real currency in his hands, and he is considering whether to offer some as compensation.

Because there are just too many issues to consider here.

However, there are some things you have to take into account. If you don't take these things into account, then things will get more complicated later on.

Thinking about this, Jiang Chen couldn't help but start making plans.

As things stand, there are still many risks, and we need to think about them carefully.

Especially the distribution of spoils is something that must be considered. If this issue is not thought out clearly, then players will be unwilling to participate in subsequent battles due to the great losses. Compared to the past, this time players need to consider many more things.

The main problem is that there are too many players, so many things can't be done the same way as before. Also, the weapons used in combat have changed a lot compared to before. So if all these factors are taken into account, there are too many things to think about later.

"This can't go on any longer. If it continues, they will suffer heavy losses in every battle, and the gains will be completely disproportionate to the losses. Under such circumstances, it is basically impossible for them to maintain the fight in the long term. At least for now, it is definitely unrealistic."

Compared to others, Jiang Chen was more aware of some of the situations.

After all, he was a veteran gamer before he transmigrated, and most importantly, he had a significant advantage over other gamers: he wasn't playing the game from a game designer's perspective. In fact, many game designers play games themselves, but the reason they end up having such a bad time is mainly because many of them don't understand things.

Because when they play games, they usually do so with a particular kind of arrogance and prejudice.

And this arrogance and prejudice goes without saying; that's the biggest problem.

What is pride and prejudice? In its simplest terms, it's the unconscious tendency to adopt the game designer's perspective when playing games. On the surface, adopting the designer's perspective might seem harmless, but in reality, it's not.

Because he approached the situation from a game designer's perspective, he naturally lacked awareness of certain things. Some things that players might find problematic would seem very problematic to them, but if you were a game designer, it would be completely different. You wouldn't notice any problems at all, and you might even think that this is the most reasonable approach.

And that is precisely the biggest problem, because when you feel there is no problem, you should think about why you think there is no problem.

Why do you think there's no problem, yet so many players are constantly complaining that this is wrong and that is wrong? That's because you've automatically adopted this kind of arrogance and prejudice.

The end result of doing this is self-evident: players will eventually be unable to accept the current situation for various reasons and will choose to quit the game.

When this happens, it is unacceptable for most planners, but the problem is that they have no idea where the problem lies.

And that's the most serious part: you ended up making a mess of things without even knowing it.

However, Jiang Chen's situation is completely different. After all, he is also a player, and he has been playing the game as a legitimate player. Therefore, he is very knowledgeable about the game and the players.

"First and foremost, veteran players need fairness. After such a long period of development, they have their advantages, which is the most crucial point. These advantages cannot be let go, because once veteran players lose these advantages, then they've wasted their time playing."

"From a certain perspective, veteran players are very important to me, but of course, I also have to consider some other factors."

"New players definitely need to benefit as well, otherwise, if the two sides can't achieve a balance, the subsequent problems will be very serious. In fact, for the new players, they are all spending money to support me in this war."

"Even veteran players are pulling out all the stops."

"Therefore, this battle must be compensated accordingly, but too much compensation is definitely not acceptable."

After thinking for a while, Jiang Chen came up with a solution.

We can't let veteran players lose money, nor can we let new players lose too much.

At the same time, it is also necessary to motivate them.

"The score in this battle was 1:4, which means that one player and one mech traded for four opponents."

"As for the mechs, I'll use the lowest standard; the cost of one mech is approximately 600 gold coins."

"Although the amount of gold coins is not much, it is still a considerable expense for new players. In that case, let's compensate them directly with RMB."

After thinking for a while, Jiang Chen came up with this plan. Of course, the compensation method was very simple: 50 real-world currency would be awarded for each enemy killed.

In other words, under such circumstances, the cost of building one mech would be equivalent to killing at least dozens of enemies.

This is also what Jiang Chen wants. First, you need to reach a certain number of kills so that you won't lose out in this battle. In order to reach this standard, you will definitely keep killing enemies, and in that case, the enthusiasm of everyone present will be mobilized.

Besides that, there are even more important things.

That means many skilled players will try to make money this way, buying better mechs to improve their overall combat power. Even those less skilled will team up. To earn more, they might cooperate and split the profits equally.

"Although you won't get much per person by doing this, you can hedge the risk to the maximum extent, because team operations are always much more reliable than individual operations."

"Other game developers are unlikely to detect real-world currency because there's a problem: real-world currency is profitable for game developers, but if I distribute in-game items, those items are just virtual data to them, so they can distribute them freely without much impact."

"And that's the biggest difference between me and other games: I can throw money around in real life."

In reality, official money-giving and in-game money-giving are completely different concepts. How far can this difference go?

To put it bluntly, if the official team gave each player various resources or game currency worth 1000 RMB, it would directly cause the currency price in the entire game to plummet.

Furthermore, for most players, this is merely a nice perk; it doesn't have the same impact as distributing it in real life. In real life, it means the official team is really going all out, and the feeling is different because in real life, no matter how much perk you give out, it won't affect anything; it will only make your life better.

With that in mind, Jiang Chen immediately began to make plans.

"On the surface, this reward mechanism seems like a good deal, because as long as your skills are up to par, you can earn this money. But in reality, most players are just confident that their skills are up to par, when in fact they are far from it. The end result is that they die, but after they die, they won't blame you. They will only think that it was a problem with their skills. It's like saying that the blame will never fall on me, but they will work hard for me for this reason. Moreover, once this is publicized, it will attract more high-quality players, and when the next closed beta update comes, my team will have even more players."

"However, there must be a limit to this, because the total amount of real currency I earned this time was not much. Including the taxes collected before, including the taxes collected by the trading house, and the game currency I also spent, of course, these game currencies were collected through taxes."

"Including the funds I can currently mobilize, this amounts to approximately 30 yuan."

30 may not seem like much, but it is actually a lot, because there were only a few hundred old players before.

That means each person contributed at least one or two thousand yuan to themselves.

Of course, the vast majority of these donations came from wealthy individuals, but it's still quite impressive.

"According to the exact figures, the enemy now numbers a total of 1."

"A normal distribution mechanism definitely won't work, because if we're talking about 1, then I'd need at least 100..."

Ten thousand would be enough, but that's clearly impossible.

With this in mind, Jiang Chen immediately had an idea: First, each player participating in this battle will receive a reward of 100 units.

This reward is, of course, intended to encourage them to participate in this battle.

Furthermore, the money will be directly deposited into their account, and they can apply for withdrawal directly through the official platform. With this in mind, Jiang Chen first issued an announcement.

The announcement, naturally, stated that each person who participated in the battle would be rewarded with 100.

They also released another announcement shortly afterward.

The announcement essentially stated that a new version was being released, and to allow players to better experience the battles and showcase their skills, the official team had set up a prize pool event.

The current prize pool is 20.

You can take away a reward of 50 for each enemy you kill.

These bonuses will continue to be distributed until they are exhausted.

How much you get depends on when you take action and how efficient you are.

And just like that, when he sent out this message, it instantly caused a huge uproar in the entire player group.

First, those who participated in the battle just now all had an extra 100 yuan in their accounts. Although it doesn't seem like much, they tried to withdraw the money and actually succeeded.

It goes without saying how outrageous this is, and the most important thing is that the cash in this game is really sweet. Unlike other games that set thresholds for withdrawal, such as how many GGs you need to see, how many levels you need to reach, or how many items you need to collect before you can withdraw, but in reality, even if you meet the standards, you can only look at the cash and you can't actually withdraw it, this game doesn't have any so-called standards.

You can withdraw directly as long as the withdrawal amount is 200 or more. This is a rule of many trading websites, because they are worried that you will withdraw penny by penny, wasting everyone's time.

When everyone heard that all the players who had participated in the battle had withdrawn their tickets, they were instantly excited, which meant that the official reward of 20 battle tickets was real.

You get a reward of 50 yuan for killing just one enemy. It doesn't seem like much, but it's 50 yuan! Just killing one monster earns you 50 yuan. What does that mean?

That's right. No matter how strong these monsters are, in the eyes of players, they are just ordinary monsters, the most ordinary monsters in the game. Killing such things will earn you money.