Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 354: President Pei's Process Has Deeper Meaning
He Desheng and the other high-ranked experts at the Dream Fulfillment Ventures began organizing their proposed changes to ioi.
This process was actually quite painful.
These high-ranked players were extremely familiar with Divine Revelation. The game's high difficulty was precisely the key factor that allowed experts like them to distinguish themselves from ordinary players.
Now they were being asked to propose changes to those very difficulty mechanisms. That was essentially asking them to negate their own gaming experience and weaken some of their own advantages—a very tough choice.
But then they thought about it again.
If they didn't propose changes now, President Ma's gaming experience definitely wouldn't improve.
And if that happened, even with the nine-protect-one strategy, President Ma would probably get bored very quickly.
And if President Ma got bored…
Wouldn't that mean everyone's jobs were on the line?
So President Ma had to enjoy himself!
This game revision plan had to be made!
He Desheng played the test version of ioi while racking his brain for ideas on how to change it.
As shareholders of Fingertip Games and the domestic publisher of ioi, getting access to the test version of the game wasn't a problem.
They just didn't play it very often. During nine-protect-one sessions, they mostly played Divine Revelation instead.
The reason was simple: in the eyes of everyone involved—including He Desheng and Ma Yang—the current ioi could only be considered a low-end version of Divine Revelation.
The map size and core game mechanics weren't that different. The main differences lay in graphics and hero skill design.
ioi's only real advantage was that it was an independent game and an online one, making it very convenient to add friends, form parties, and so on.
But since ioi was still in its testing phase, even that sole advantage didn't really exist yet.
In all other aspects—fine details of gameplay, richness of heroes, and so on—ioi was currently being completely crushed by Divine Revelation.
That was normal. After all, Divine Revelation had gone through several years of continuous updates, whereas ioi had only been in development for a short time. These things required repeated polishing over time.
However, for people like He Desheng, this also meant that ioi had more room for reshaping.
As everyone discussed, He Desheng took notes.
"The nine-protect-one approach probably won't work for much longer."
"We need to actively try new challenges—try playing against some unfamiliar players."
"Only then can we keep President Ma feeling fresh about this game."
"But given the current game mechanics… President Ma would probably be treated as a weak link and targeted like crazy. His experience definitely wouldn't be good."
"In that case, we need to consider: when President Ma faces real opponents, how can we use the game mechanics to ensure his gaming experience as much as possible?"
"I think the map is currently too large. When President Ma is in danger, we can't reach him in time. The map should be made smaller so it's easier for us to support him at any moment."
"President Ma's basic last-hitting and deny skills are basically a mess. Considering how busy he is with work, it's not realistic to expect him to practice that. How about we just remove denying altogether? As for last-hitting, even if he misses, we could give some compensation gold."
"To prevent President Ma from getting completely crushed and having a bad experience, should we introduce a bounty system? After dying multiple times, a hero becomes worth less gold; ending a big killing streak gives extra bounty; and if someone falls too far behind in levels, there should be some appropriate catch-up compensation."
"While making sure President Ma can survive and keep up, we also have to ensure that skilled players and novices can still be clearly differentiated. Otherwise, no matter how good we are, we wouldn't be able to carry President Ma to victory, wouldn't that just make us look useless?"
"Right, I agree. For President Ma this game might already be simplified, but for people like us, high-difficulty mechanics must be retained."
"The fixed lane assignments in ioi are actually pretty good and can be kept. Besides that, should we ask for a few mid-lane or jungle heroes with high mechanical difficulty, so it's easier for us to carry?"
"I think we could also enrich the map resources—ideally add several kinds of large jungle monsters that grant team-wide buffs. That way, even if President Ma collapses, as long as we control the map well and secure these big objectives to give the whole team buffs, we can still greatly increase our chances of winning."
"And what about control schemes? Shouldn't we provide some simpler operation modes for mechanically weak players? President Ma still hasn't memorized the hotkeys, most of the time he's still clicking skills with the mouse…"
"And we should also introduce some heroes that can just 'get by' without much skill."
Everyone started brainstorming, and soon suggestion after suggestion was recorded by He Desheng.
At the end of the day, all of these suggestions boiled down to one goal: while ensuring the game still had a clear difficulty curve and allowed skilled players to easily control the pace and even do a one-versus-five, it should also give weaker players as much room to survive as possible.
Poor fundamentals, bad positioning, weak game sense—none of that mattered.
If you couldn't last-hit well, the game mechanics would hand out compensation gold, ensuring your economy wouldn't fall too far behind, so you wouldn't end up forty or fifty minutes into the game with nothing but a pair of boots.
If your positioning was bad, you could pick heroes who could become tanky after some basic farming.
If your game sense was poor, that was fine too, with a smaller map, you could just blindly run to wherever a fight broke out, making it easier to get help from teammates.
In short, for President Ma, if this version were implemented, it would be an absolutely epic buff.
He Desheng summarized everyone's opinions, organized them into a proposal, translated it into English, and sent it to Fingertip Games.
After all, having worked in the investment industry for so long, his English was naturally solid.
Once everything was done, it was about time to get off work.
Considering the time difference across the ocean—and the fact that the next two days were the weekend—the email probably wouldn't get a response until Monday at the earliest.
He Desheng stretched and clocked out right on time.
…
…
Saturday.
Moyu Internet Café, Mingyun Villa branch.
Wearing a baseball cap, Bao Xu sneaked up to the entrance and discreetly checked the situation inside.
Not bad, it wasn't very crowded.
It was 8:30 in the morning. Although the Mingyun Villa area was very popular and attracted lots of college students on weekends, Moyu Internet Café usually wouldn't be packed until one or two in the afternoon.
Coming this early meant there were still plenty of empty seats.
Bao Xu pulled his cap down low and entered the café.
After reaching the gaming area, he quickly spotted Li Yada, who was also wearing a baseball cap.
Even after sitting down, Bao Xu still glanced back, as if worried someone might be following him.
"The GOG test build's been updated, right?" Bao Xu asked quietly.
Li Yada nodded. "Yeah. I already talked to Zhang Yuan. The game's been updated, and now every computer in the café can play it."
"Also, if players play GOG for a certain amount of time and write a 500-word feedback report, they'll get some extra internet time as a reward."
"And you don't need to be this nervous. This place is really far from the company, the chances of running into President Pei or anyone else are pretty low."
Bao Xu nodded. "Yeah, I know. But better safe than sorry. Where's everyone else?"
Li Yada checked the time. "They should be here soon."
Bao Xu asked again, "What about things on the company side?"
Li Yada replied, "For now, Xiao Liu and a few others are covering for us. But… is this really necessary?"
Bao Xu relaxed a little. "Better safe than sorry."
"Alright then. Let's play the game first, and we'll slowly make adjustments afterward. Record all the modification plans, and you can submit them together on Monday."
Li Yada looked a bit embarrassed. "Brother Bao, a large part of these changes are done by you. Doing it this way makes me feel kind of bad… like I'm stealing your credit."
Bao Xu hurriedly waved his hand. "That's exactly what I want!"
"If you really want to thank me, just do one thing: accept all of this calmly, and absolutely don't mention my work in front of anyone else!"
Li Yada couldn't help but sigh with emotion. "Brother Bao is really so modest, you're starting to have more and more of President Pei's style."
Bao Xu shook his head and sighed. "Not at all. How could I possibly compare to President Pei?"
"President Pei is the truly modest one. As for me, I'm just doing this because I don't have a choice…"
The two of them started playing the game.
As they played, Bao Xu muttered softly, "Strange… why does it feel like there are fewer bugs when playing GOG here…"
…
"Achoo!"
In his rented apartment, Pei Qian—who had just woken up—rubbed his nose and muttered, "Weird. Why have I been sneezing more often lately?"
"Is it because winter's coming and the weather's getting colder, or because someone's been talking about me?"
"I keep getting this prickly, dangerous feeling…"
Pei Qian hurriedly picked up his phone and checked the overtime list Tang Yishu had sent him for the day.
"A kind of fierce-looking guy… that should be Xiao Liu."
"Huh? Li Yada didn't come in today?"
"The difference from last week's overtime list is pretty big."
"Did everyone agree to take turns working overtime?"
"That way they can rest properly, and everyone still gets overtime pay."
"Nice. They really know what they're doing."
Pei Qian nodded in satisfaction.
For now, he hadn't noticed any projects showing signs of going out of control.
Originally, the project he was most worried about was ioi, but so much time had passed and he hadn't heard any news like "the ioi test is blowing up."
So, in this settlement cycle, it should probably be… fine?
…
…
Monday, December 13.
The interview venue at the hotel had already been set up.
Wu Bin arrived very early, but he hadn't expected the interviewers to arrive even earlier than he did.
Inside the interview room, several examiners were chatting happily while cramming relevant knowledge at the last minute.
Tengda Group's lead game designer Li Yada; Shangyang Games head Ye Zhizhou; Against the Wind Logistics head Lu Mingliang; Feihuang Studio head Huang Sibo; Moyu Internet Café head Zhang Yuan; Terminal Chinese Web head Ma Yiqun…
Basically, everyone was there.
The interview process went like this:
When a candidate was interviewing for the Tengda Group game department, Li Yada would temporarily leave the room, and the interview would be conducted jointly by people from the other departments.
The questions and standard answers had already been prepared in advance, with one copy for each examiner.
Candidates had a time limit to answer. Once time was up, they had to stop.
After that, all the examiners would score the candidate based on their answers, comparing them against the standard answers in hand.
The highest and lowest scores would be discarded, and the average of the remaining scores would be taken as the interview score.
The interview score would then be added to the written test score, and candidates would be ranked accordingly. Offers would be made in order, based on the number of positions available, and the selected candidates would enter the internship phase.
If, after one month, these interns could pass the Tengda Spirit Compatibility Test, they would be converted into full-time Tengda Group employees.
In theory, interviewing wasn't a particularly complicated task.
It only required setting aside two days a year.
But all of the examiners had arrived more than an hour early.
Because they were nervous!
Although giving random scores probably wouldn't be investigated, many of the department heads had come up through Tengda Group and knew each other well. If they scored carelessly, it would be hard to save face.
If someone didn't take the interview seriously and let a hollow, incompetent candidate slip into a friend's department, wouldn't that be letting down both their friend and President Pei?
A "person in charge," at the end of the day, is someone who takes responsibility.
If you can't shoulder even this much responsibility, then what kind of person in charge are you?
So everyone had already agreed to arrive early and do some last-minute cramming before the interviews.
For example, the questions for the game department were written by Li Yada, so Li Yada would briefly explain the key points of each question and what kind of newcomer he was more inclined to select.
The same applied to the other departments.
The scoring sheets were extremely detailed. They didn't just include solid, concrete criteria—such as how many key knowledge points a candidate answered correctly—but also more abstract aspects, like the candidate's appearance, whether they spoke fluently, and how clearly they expressed themselves.
All of these were quantified with specific scores, making it hard to fill them out carelessly.
As the department heads discussed the questions, they also chatted among themselves.
"Brother Huang, how's the studio doing lately? Is the movie shoot going smoothly?"
"Could you help me get an autograph for my mom? She's a big fan of Zhang Zuting."
"President Lu, thanks again for helping me ship that ROF console through Against the Wind Logistics last time. I'll treat you to a meal sometime."
"Yada, the last collaboration between the website and the game went really well. How about doing it again sometime? I'm already thinking about an event plan."
"Sounds great. Once the new game is out, Terminal Chinese Web could run a writing contest, the theme could be GOG. What do you think?"
"No problem. A writing contest is basically just one sentence to announce."
"By the way, Lin Wan doesn't seem to be here today? She probably contacted you already, right? What kind of solutions did you all provide?"
"That's not urgent. We don't even have an engineering prototype yet. Let's talk after the phone is actually made."
The more they talked, the more animated the atmosphere became.
When they first heard that they had to act as interviewers—and even conduct cross-department interviews—many of them were completely baffled.
Zhang Yuan, for example.
"I'm in charge of internet cafés. You want me to interview candidates applying to Against the Wind Logistics or Terminal Chinese Web? Isn't that ridiculous?"
But now, everyone had figured it out.
They could treat this whole event as an experience-sharing and exchange session among department heads!
Everyone could chat, learn about the recent situation in other departments, jointly score the candidates, and then, after the interviews were over, go out for a meal together and discuss cross-department collaborations.
Wasn't that perfect?
President Pei's recruitment process arrangement… It really did have deeper meaning.
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