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A video?
Late at night in the “Alliance” headquarters office area, inside the director’s studio, a woman with light pink hair turned her head from the computer desk and adjusted her stylish glasses on the bridge of her nose, looking at the message from her assistant on the phone with confusion.
She was currently busy designing the most difficult 29th and 30th floors of the Miasma Contract, working overtime for this, so at such a busy time, her assistant was still watching videos on C-Station?
In response, the assistant on the other end quickly explained, “Director Lena, this video is about the Miasma Contract you designed. It went viral on C-Station half an hour ago. The uploader used a single lineup to clear from floor 18 to 28 in one go.”
“Just that?”
The pink-haired woman sipped her coffee at the desk and shifted the position of her legs, clearly unimpressed.
Clearing ten floors in one go was indeed quite impressive, but it wasn’t something to make such a big fuss about, right? Even sending her a special message about it?
Until the assistant added, “That player perfectly cleared all of them with the highest ‘S+’ rating. I also watched the video, and many of the techniques and ideas felt very novel. I thought they might be helpful for Director Lena’s future level designs, so I’m disturbing you so late.”
All S+?
Hearing this, the pink-haired woman finally showed some interest. Getting to level 28 in one breath was not difficult; she could do it too, but achieving all levels with an ‘S+’ rating was a different story. Even as a designer, she found it challenging. This would require not just characters training and team composition but also skillful handling and various micro-manipulations.
With this curiosity, Lena clicked on the video sent by her assistant and began watching it carefully.
The video wasn’t long, less than 15 minutes, but the pink-haired woman at the desk ended up watching it repeatedly for over an hour before finally stopping.
“…”
Lena was quite grateful to her assistant now for letting her see this video.
Indeed, just as her assistant said, the operations and techniques of the player in the video were truly eye-opening. Some of the ideas even coincided with what she had in mind when designing initially, giving her a sense of being on the same wavelength.
For example, terrain kills that had been ignored by many players before, and special synergies between certain characters.
The player’s control over the timeline and the layout of various fronts on the battlefield were also exquisite. Even as a battle replay, it felt like a cinematic experience to watch.
What made Lena frown a bit now was that the player’s unorthodox playstyle had pioneered a “suicide flow” tactic, something that even Lena as the designer had not thought of.
To put it simply, for example, if a character’s ultimate skill has a 45-second cooldown, but their revival time after death is 37 seconds, then if they re-enter the field after reviving, they only need 5 seconds to unleash their ultimate again. Adding it up, it’s 42 seconds, which is 3 seconds faster than waiting for the normal cooldown.
Don’t underestimate these three seconds. The more challenging the situation, the more critical every second becomes.
Theoretically speaking, this should be a bug, a design oversight on their part. When designing the characters initially, they didn’t consider this point.
After all, normally people would think about how to protect their characters from getting hurt by all means.
The core of the game is about the deep camaraderie between the player, who is the “Contractor”, and the contracted characters under their command, as they struggle to survive in the apocalypse, resist monsters, and seek hope to save the world.
But now there’s this suicide flow…
What the hell is this?
If it becomes popular, it will be a big problem.
Thinking of this, Lena immediately pulled her assistant into a group to discuss a solution. In the end, they decided to have the programmers add a point to make a temporary bug-fixing hot patch, adjusting the skill cooldown to prevent players from doing this at the source.
However, although Lena, as the director, had the power to make this decision independently for such a big matter, it was best to ask her boss, Miyuki, who was also the original founder of “Alliance”.
“Director Lena, this isn’t very good, is it?” The assistant in the discussion group looked at the clock, which was almost 2 AM, and wanted to stop her.
“What’s wrong with it? Are we the only ones allowed to work overtime, and the boss can’t stay up late?” It was clear that Director Lena had a strong personality and didn’t care about any unspoken workplace rules.
“But, but Director Lena, President Yuki hasn’t come to the company these past few days. I heard she had some family matters. I think we should forget it.” The assistant still tried hard to dissuade her.
This time it had some effect.
Huh?
Miyuki hasn’t been to the company recently?
Lena had been busy designing game levels and really hadn’t noticed this. Now that the assistant mentioned it, she realized there was such a thing.
However, the pink-haired woman only hesitated slightly before leaving the discussion group and decisively dialing Miyuki’s number.
Reporting the sudden situation to Miyuki as her boss was one aspect.
On the other hand…
Lena wasn’t sure, but it was like she had a kind of intuition in her heart, telling her that she had to make this call tonight. And in many cases, Lena really trusted her intuition.
Beep…
Beep beep…
Beep beep beep…
The phone rang for about ten seconds, but there was still no answer.
Just as Lena was about to give up and hang up, the call was answered.
“Hello?”
Miyuki’s voice coming from the phone sounded very soft and sticky. It was the first time Lena had heard her like this.
However, Lena didn’t pay much attention to it, thinking that she had just been woken up and was still groggy. She quickly explained with some apology:
“President, it’s Lena. I’m sorry to disturb you so late. There’s an urgent matter I wanted to report to you. Are you available now?”
“Go on, it’s okay~ ? ”
Lena: “…”
?
“President?”
Lena obviously didn’t quite understand what her President meant by “Go on, it’s okay~ ? ”
But soon, Miyuki on the other end of the line also gave an explanation.
“No, it’s nothing. I was just talking to the repairman fixing the, the pipes next to me… Lena, you go ahead and say what you need to. I, I’m listening.”
Fixing pipes?
The pink-haired woman glanced at the electronic clock on the office desk, which showed 2:30 AM.
However, when Lena listened carefully to the background noise on Miyuki’s end, she could indeed hear some clamoring.
Could the reason she took time off be that her house was being renovated?
Lena didn’t think too much about it and got back to the main topic. Since her boss said it was convenient, she went on to talk about the popular video on C-Station and their subsequent decision to use a hot patch to fix it.
Miyuki on the other end of the line mostly responded with “Mm~” and “Mm-hmm~” most of the time, only offering some minor suggestions at the end that weren’t very important. Overall, she very much affirmed Lena’s decision-making.
Being affirmed and trusted by her superior like this, Lena felt she should be happy about it, in principle.
But for some reason…
After talking on the phone with Miyuki, Lena instead became more and more restless and had a very irritated feeling.
Lena herself didn’t know where the source of this feeling came from.
If she had to say…
“President, is the signal on your end not good? I keep feeling like your speech is intermittent,” Lena couldn’t help but ask.
“Ah! Yes, sorry, it might be that when fixing the pipes, they bumped, hit the network cable…”
Hit the network cable?
If they hit the network cable, shouldn’t it directly disconnect, what does that have to do with poor signal?
Lena felt that something was off and began to ask with some concern in her voice, “President, is the renovation going smoothly on your end? Do you need me to come over and help?”
“Th-thank you Lena, it’s late at night now, don’t come over. The pipe repairman’s skill is, um~… very good, very good~. We’re almost… done~!”
“While I’m away these days, hng~…I will leave the company and game matters to hya~… to you Lena… Well then, I, I’ll hang up first. Thanks fohaaa~… for working hard~ ?!”
Beep…
Beep beep beep…
freew(e)bnovel.