Chapter 249: Humbly Listening to Qiao Liang's Opinions
Pei Qian quietly arrived on the second floor of the Moyu Internet Café, wanting to check on how Qiao Liang was doing.
After all, watching Qiao Liang suffer had already become one of the few amusements in Pei Qian's otherwise dull life—it was also his main motivation to keep enduring pain himself in Turn Back Before It's Too Late.
However, Pei Qian was disappointed.
Qiao Liang wasn't sitting there staring blankly at the screen like last time. Instead, he was leisurely sipping a cocktail, leaning comfortably back in his chair, looking utterly relaxed.
On the computer screen was a hazy yellow mist, tinged with a faint bluish fog. Pei Qian immediately recognized the scene—this was the end of the Yellow Springs Road, right before reaching the Forgetting River and the Bridge of Helplessness.
"What the hell…?"
"His progress is only slightly behind mine?"
"No— wait— he's even ahead of me!"
Pei Qian was stunned.
At the moment, Pei Qian himself had already reached the entrance of the Six Paths of Reincarnation. Judging by the game's layout, after the Forgetting River and the Bridge of Helplessness came the Viewing Terrace and the Stone of Three Lifetimes. Only after passing those would one reach the Yanluo's Main Hall or the Six Paths.
But after Pei Qian had obtained the Pudu (Salvation), he'd taken a shortcut—jumping directly from the end of the Yellow Springs Road straight past the Bridge of Helplessness and the Stone of Three Lifetimes, arriving at the Six Paths.
From that perspective, Qiao Liang had actually played through more of the game's content than Pei Qian himself.
"This… this doesn't make sense…"
Pei Qian's head spun. Only now did he realize he had completely underestimated both Qiao Liang's endurance and his gaming intellect!
As a game content creator, Qiao Liang's skill level wasn't top-tier, and his past videos were mainly commentary and overviews—so Pei Qian had naturally assumed Qiao Liang would suffer horribly in Turn Back Before It's Too Late.
But now, he realized… he might have seriously underestimated the man.
Come to think of it, for someone who could endure an eight-hour drive for a video, no matter how miserable Turn Back Before It's Too Late got, it was still more interesting than sitting in traffic, right?
And judging from Qiao Liang's expression, he had already learned to find joy in suffering—he even seemed to enjoy it now…
Pei Qian began to panic.
If Qiao Liang wasn't suffering anymore, then his own daily source of happiness was gone!
How was he supposed to keep going now?
Of course, that wasn't even the main problem.
The real issue was this—if Qiao Liang could reach such progress through sheer persistence and effort, didn't that mean the game's difficulty wasn't high enough?
If the game wasn't hard enough to drive players away, it wouldn't flop. And if it didn't flop…
That meant it might actually make money!
Now that would be a disaster!
Seeing the relaxed, content expression on Qiao Liang's face, Pei Qian instantly imagined all the terrible consequences that could follow.
No, he couldn't just sit back and let this happen!
Pei Qian prided himself on being a man who always patched the fence after the sheep had escaped—since he'd spotted the crisis early, how could he possibly just wait for doom?
After a brief moment of thought, he came up with a plan.
Meanwhile, Qiao Liang—still sipping his cocktail while planning out his next moves—suddenly noticed Pei Qian's arrival.
"President Pei!"
Qiao Liang's face lit up with a wide, friendly grin.
Ever since the "misunderstanding" between them had been cleared up, seeing President Pei felt to him like seeing a dear relative.
Pei Qian smiled back and pulled up a chair beside him. Though he didn't feel even remotely friendly toward Qiao Liang in his heart, he still did his best to maintain a pleasant expression.
After all, he still needed to squeeze more residual value out of this man.
It had been about a week since Qiao Liang had arrived in Jingzhou. Excluding the weekend, he had now accumulated roughly forty hours of gameplay.
Turn Back Before It's Too Late didn't have as much content as the Souls series. According to initial estimates, a skilled player could finish the main story in around thirty hours.
For completionists who wanted to see every detail or unlock every achievement, it might take fifty to sixty hours.
As for less skilled players… that time could easily approach infinity.
Since Qiao Liang had a hard time getting used to the game at first—dying repeatedly, getting lost, and on top of that being a perfectionist—it had taken him forty hours just to reach his current progress, about sixty percent of the full game.
Still, by this point, his understanding of the game should already be quite solid.
"So, how does it feel?" Pei Qian asked with a friendly smile.
Qiao Liang perked up.
Hmm? President Pei was asking the exact same question as last time!
He remembered very clearly—when President Pei had come to the café to see him before, he had asked this same thing. Back then, his impression was that the game's difficulty was completely messed up.
But now he understood: there was nothing wrong with the difficulty at all. President Pei had deliberately made the game this hard!
During this time, Qiao Liang had gradually come to appreciate the unique appeal of high-difficulty games. Naturally, his answer would be very different this time.
"It feels great! It's been a long time since I've felt this level of challenge while playing a game." Qiao Liang's eyes shone with energy.
As expected… not good at all.
Pei Qian's worries were confirmed. He tried to keep his face calm and asked, "And what about the difficulty curve? If you had to rate the difficulty of each stage, what would you give them? Also, how would you rate the enemies and the weapons?"
Qiao Liang brightened up even more—it looked like President Pei really valued his opinion! He was asking in such detail!
The moment the topic turned to the game, Qiao Liang immediately came alive and started talking enthusiastically.
"In terms of difficulty, I think the small villages and towns are the hardest. After that, it actually feels a bit easier. Of course, that might just be because once I left the town area, I'd already gotten used to how the game works, so it feels easier."
"As for weapons, the machete is the best early on—it's flexible, has great attack speed, and hits surprisingly hard. You can basically use it from the start to the midgame. The guandao is great too; its vertical slash is amazing—just spamming that move can take out ninety percent of the enemies—"
Completely unsuspecting, Qiao Liang shared all his insights from the past few days of playing.
Pei Qian quietly took mental notes.
In truth, he didn't fully understand all the weapons himself—but if Qiao Liang thought they were good, then they must be good.
Qiao Liang wasn't exactly a mechanical-skill-type player. His endurance surpassed 99% of players, his game sense was better than about 70%, and his execution skill was probably just above average.
In other words, whatever worked for Qiao Liang would also work for the average player.
Qiao Liang continued speaking freely, feeling like a general commanding troops, and it was exhilarating.
After all, in the past, he could only complain on forums or chat about ideas in his fan group—game developers never listened to him.
But now, a real developer was sitting right in front of him, seriously listening to his feedback! Of course he had to make the most of it.
"Hmm… I think that's about it. In short, the game's tough, but if you make good use of those powerful weapons, everything's manageable!"
Qiao Liang finished speaking with a hint of satisfaction.
Pei Qian nodded. "Yes, those are all great suggestions. I'll make sure they're implemented properly when I get back."
Seeing the serious look on President Pei's face, Qiao Liang actually felt a little flattered.
Of course, he couldn't tell whether President Pei was just being polite. After all, whenever players reported problems to customer service, the standard line was always: 'Thank you for your feedback! We'll forward it to the design team!' But who knew whether the designers ever actually changed anything?
So Qiao Liang didn't take it too seriously—he just felt touched by President Pei's attitude.
After all, a successful developer who still humbly listened to a player's opinions—that was admirable indeed.
As expected, President Pei's success was no accident!
…
…
Back at the office, Pei Qian sat down at his computer, typing rapidly as he jotted down all of Qiao Liang's earlier comments.
According to Qiao Liang, the small villages and towns were the hardest parts of the game.
In theory, the later stages were supposed to get progressively more difficult—but Lu Mingliang and his team had overlooked one critical issue: a player's tolerance for suffering also rises as they keep playing.
The monsters in the villages and towns were all "first encounters," so they were naturally tough at first—but once players got used to the game's rhythm, the difficulty curve wasn't keeping up anymore.
If that's the case, then the later stages clearly need to be made harder!
And as for the weapons—didn't Qiao Liang say he liked the machete best? Nerf it!
Didn't he say the guandao's vertical slash was especially effective? Nerf that too!
In short, whatever Qiao Liang found "really easy to use" must be something new players could exploit to skip challenges—so all of those needed to be hit with the nerf hammer.
And not just a light tweak either—Pei Qian wanted to cut them down brutally, to the point of sheer sadism.
It didn't matter to him anyway—he used a special developer-only weapon.
After jotting down a quick list, he handed it straight to Li Yada.
"Adjust the balance according to this," Pei Qian said casually.
Li Yada took the sheet and glanced over it. The changes were surprisingly detailed.
For instance, under the guandao, the notes specified to only weaken its vertical slash attack—extremely targeted.
"Got it, President Pei. I'll handle it right away!"
Li Yada couldn't help feeling a bit impressed.
President Pei was really a perfectionist when it came to game design.
Recently, whenever she'd gone to report to him, he had always been playing with Pudu. She had no idea when he'd found time to test all the other weapons as well.
Truly, it was because of the silent effort he put in behind the scenes that President Pei had achieved such success.
Taking the sheet, Li Yada went off to carefully interpret and implement President Pei's "design intentions."
Meanwhile, Pei Qian leaned back in his chair, suddenly struck by a pang of conscience.
Sure, he was doing this to raise the game's difficulty—but still, wasn't it a little harsh to cripple every weapon Qiao Liang liked?
In that case, maybe he should make it up to him somehow.
After all, Qiao Liang had made great contributions to Turn Back Before It's Too Late by inspiring these "balance adjustments."
As a gesture of appreciation, inviting him to a nice dinner at Mingyun Private Kitchen didn't seem too much, right?
With that thought, Pei Qian pulled out his phone and called Lin Canrong.
"Help me reserve a dinner for tomorrow night."
On the other end, Lin Canrong hesitated. "Uh… President Pei, someone's already booked."
"Hm?" Pei Qian was a little surprised.
Was it that same returning customer from last time?
"In that case, skip the biggest private room. Just give me a smaller one."
Lin coughed lightly. "President Pei… all the seats are booked."
"???"
Pei Qian's head went blank. A bad feeling crept up his spine. "What about the day after tomorrow, then?"
Lin answered truthfully, "President Pei, it's not just the day after tomorrow—it's fully booked until the week after next…"
Pei Qian froze in disbelief.
What the hell???
He'd only been gone for a week! What on earth had happened to Mingyun Private Kitchen?!
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