The Fourth Calamity: Starting with Dungeon Slimes

Chapter 191 Hidden Activities

Now that the items have been successfully moved, the next step is to address the defense aspects.

He had a well-thought-out plan for this, but there was another matter that needed to be dealt with, and that matter was naturally the players' side.

"The players suffered heavy losses in this battle, and the amount of real-world currency distributed is definitely not enough to make up for their losses. The most crucial thing in this game is to learn how to control losses, because if the losses are too great, they may not be willing to do some of the tasks I issue later, since the income and effort are completely disproportionate. In such a situation, they may tinker around for fun in the early stages, but they will definitely not continue to research later on."

He understood the players' situation very well. Simply put, they were all people who wouldn't get up early for nothing. If there was profit to be made, then everything was fine, but if there was no profit, then all their efforts would be in vain.

Getting players to do things for you is complicated in some ways, but not so complicated in others. The complexity lies in ensuring your own interests without making players feel that the task is too easy to obtain, thus diminishing their enjoyment of the game.

What's not complicated is that as long as the income is proportional to the effort, and as long as they can earn game currency, game items, or other things, they will be happy to complete all kinds of tasks. In short, income is a must, and the return must be greater than the effort.

"Fortunately, I've become quite adept at stockpiling supplies during this period. Not to mention anything else, just in this short time, the amount of various resources I've collected is already a very large number."

"These resources can sustain players in battle for a long time, so it's time to put them to use."

After all, there was a mecha project planned beforehand, and it was considered that players would need to prepare sufficient war reserves after the war started, so as not to be embarrassed if they didn't have anything to offer when the situation arose. Therefore, Jiang Chen had prepared a lot of materials beforehand, and these materials were naturally for making mechas.

Of course, these things you've stockpiled will definitely come in handy at crucial moments. As for how to use them, there's a trick to it. For example, if players have completed this task but suffered heavy losses, with the effort and reward being completely disproportionate, then that's when they'll be able to put these things to use.

At this point, you can set up some special reward mechanisms to get the job done.

With that in mind, he quickly came up with an idea.

"This is essentially a special event, except that it wasn't announced beforehand that it was an event. Giving out rewards under these circumstances has an advantage: in other words, when I post tasks in the future, people won't know whether they are part of an event or just a regular task."

"There's another advantage to doing this: they'll definitely take the tasks they set seriously. Because any game that's related to an event means the rewards will be very generous. But if they treat it like a regular task and don't give it their all, and then find out it's an event and other players get huge rewards while they don't, then that's a different story."

Thinking about this, Jiang Chen couldn't help but nod in satisfaction. He was quite satisfied with his actions.

"That's right, that's a perfectly viable approach. Don't tell the players beforehand that this is a major game event. Tell them about the event and the high rewards before they even know it. Then, they'll definitely be more motivated when doing tasks in the future, because they don't know if there will be a similar event next time. If there is, it would be a huge loss if they just slack off and don't get all the rewards."

"This way, we can ensure that they will be very serious every time they complete a task, and they will do their best to complete the tasks I assign them."

"So the next step is to give them a reward that will satisfy them. Of course, I can't give them real money because I don't have much left. But I can give them something to encourage them to spend real money and add to my real money reserves. And the reward must be something that they will feel is very good."

In short, since it's an event, there should be rewards worthy of the name "event." He quickly came up with an idea, and soon the relevant announcement was released.

The gist of the announcement is that everyone participated very actively in the recent event, and special contribution awards were given to players who made different contributions. It also announced the successful conclusion of the special events, with the next opening date to be determined. It was emphasized that special events only become available under certain preconditions.

Jiang Chen even gave a specific example regarding this prerequisite. The example, of course, was the task he assigned, which was intended to make them more willing to follow instructions and complete the task.

When these players saw the announcement, almost all of them were dumbfounded. They originally thought it was a task, but who would have thought it could be so outrageous.

At first, they didn't think too much about it, because they treated this task as just another ordinary task.

This game has tons of all sorts of random and nonsensical tasks.

There are just some tasks with generous rewards and some with smaller rewards, that's all.

The rewards for this mission have a Schrödinger-like feel to them. Why do I say that? On the one hand, the rewards are indeed very generous, since they are real-world currency; but on the other hand, they are not generous either—because when the losses in the game are converted into real-world currency, their losses seem to be much greater than what they have gained.

So this is a very awkward problem. What can you do when you encounter this kind of situation?

I can only blame myself for not performing as well as I had imagined in this mission.

If they could earn more, then they wouldn't need to worry about these problems at all; at least that's what they thought at first.

But who could have imagined that the authorities would give them such a huge surprise, it seems they were wrong.

This is a special event.

Unlike ordinary games, this event didn't give any hints, and all players got involved without even realizing it. That's roughly the situation.

They also felt this was a bit outrageous, after all, who could have imagined that the game's activities would be like this?

So when they learned that this was actually an event, everyone present was incredibly surprised. But after the surprise came excitement, and they immediately started checking the rewards for the event.

However, they were quite surprised when they saw the rewards, as the game's rewards seemed to be much more generous than they had imagined. Firstly, the game divided rewards into combat rewards and contribution rewards. The contribution rewards were mainly given to the players responsible for moving the magic circles, while other players, who also helped these players during the battle, providing cover for them, all contributed something, so they could also receive some contribution rewards, in addition to the combat rewards.

If you add the two rewards together, most players have clearly made a huge profit from this event. Of course, it's not accurate to say they made a lot, because when calculating how much they've earned, they definitely have to factor in their losses as well.

If losses were taken into account, the income would naturally not be so high.

However, they were still very satisfied with this.

"Based on the current settlement mechanism, I've roughly calculated that my reward is a low-level mech without any parts, and 50 gold coins."

"Wouldn't this be considered a mid-to-high-level reward?"

Upon hearing what this player said, the player next to him couldn't help but shake his head.

"Your reward is relatively low. I guess you were slacking off quite a bit while playing, otherwise the reward wouldn't be so small."

Upon hearing what this player said, the player who had spoken earlier immediately became displeased.

"I don't think I was slacking off; I was playing really hard."

"Come on, the rewards don't lie. You really think the rewards in this game are just a joke? Let me tell you this, and you'll probably understand: the reward mechanism in this game is different from other games."

"Your effort and reward are proportional. It's not that you can get the same reward as others if you slack off. If you put in 10 points of effort, you will get the corresponding reward in this game."

"I thought that like other games, once you enter the event interface, everyone gets the same rewards, so you can leave it running without any problems. Sorry, this game is really bad."

Upon hearing what this player said, the previous player was speechless.

"Do games even have this kind of setting? It's a bit outrageous."

"Otherwise, do you think it's like other games where everyone gets the same rewards? Have you ever thought that this kind of game is unfair to us hardworking players? Because we might be the only ones putting in the effort in the whole team, while your main task is just to coast along and collect rewards. In the end, you get the same amount of rewards as us. What does all our effort count for then?"

Upon hearing what this player said, another player quickly came up and echoed his sentiment.

"That's absolutely right. Indeed, we work so hard, and what do we get in return? Is that fair? Many games tolerate this kind of thing in the name of balance, but in my eyes, that's the biggest injustice."

"Taking this mission as an example, I received a total of 100 gold coins and a mech as a reward, which is equivalent to the money I would spend on mech parts. If I buy the cheaper parts, I will basically have everything I need. If I want to buy better parts, I only need to add a little more myself."

"The biggest difference between games and other games is whether you put in the effort; the results don't lie."

Seeing this player's reward, the player who had spoken earlier silently chose to shut up. He seriously suspected that the reason he was able to get this reward was largely due to the game mechanics, which meant that no matter how bad things were, you would still get a reward. It was under these circumstances that he was able to get these rewards.

So he inquired about the others and found that the highest reward was three mechs.

Obviously, this reward makes many people envious, because you definitely can't use that many mechs by yourself, so you can sell the remaining ones. This game is not as disgusting as other games, where many rewards are bound and cannot be traded, but in this game you can trade freely.

In other words, you are completely free to use the rewards you receive from the task to exchange for more benefits.

This is the essential difference between this game and other games. The official team will not deliberately suppress players' income, and at least ensure that every player can obtain an income that is satisfactory to them.

This event had a huge impact on players, especially this type of hidden event. No one knew whether a task belonged to an event. In this situation, they realized that they might need to consider more things when going out in the future, such as tasks. They had to complete them properly and not just slack off like before. Otherwise, if they encountered a similar situation, what was supposed to be an event would end up with significantly reduced rewards because of their slacking off.

"But this kind of event is great. It's like the money you withdraw is pure profit. Even if a player puts in a little less effort, they won't actually lose much money, and they can assemble a new mech."

"I have some extra mechs here. Anyone want them? They're a bit cheaper than the market price."

The players' side was incredibly lively for a while.

Jiang Chen was very satisfied with the scene before him; this was exactly the effect he wanted. As if he had thought of something, he immediately opened the game's recharge interface.

Just as he expected, the water level rose significantly in an instant.

He wasn't surprised by this, because when players trade mechs, there's no guarantee that every player will have enough money, and at that time, these mechs are cheaper than the market price. So your choice is actually very simple: spend some real money and then buy the cheap ones.

No matter what, you'll eventually buy this thing.

So if you don't buy it now while it's cheap, are you going to wait until the price goes up before considering buying it?

Jiang Chen was very happy as he watched the ever-increasing recharge data on the in-game purchase interface.