Chapter 251: Fixed the Bug Where The Guandao's Vertical Slash Was Too Fast
To make the TPDb rating system work properly, they first needed a website.
Luckily, there was still space on the upper floor. Pei Qian decided to recruit another team to run the website, setting up their office right next to Terminal Chinese Web.
The TPDb website would list all of Tengda's projects—every game they had developed, every short video produced by Feihuang Studio, every branch of Moyu Internet Café, as well as Terminal Chinese Web, the Against the Wind Logistics Station, and more.
The site would feature simple categories—such as Games, Film & TV, Lifestyle, and Physical Businesses—to make browsing and searching easier.
If Tengda ever entered a new industry, the site's categories would be updated accordingly.
There wouldn't be too much detailed introduction for each project—just a simple page with some basic information.
The main focus would be on ratings and detailed reviews.
Reviews would be divided into four major categories: Internal Reviews, Media Reviews, Consumer Reviews, and Netizen Reviews.
The final score would be calculated based on these four categories, each weighted differently.
The site would allow open registration, but Tengda employees' accounts would have special permissions: they could click on the "Internal Reviews" tab to access the intranet, where they could see high-level ratings and staff feedback.
Ordinary users, however, would only be able to view the numerical internal rating—not the actual internal content.
The "Media Reviews" tab would aggregate evaluations from major authoritative outlets and reprint some review articles.
The Consumer Review and Netizen Review sections would display their respective average scores. Only verified customers who had made a purchase could leave a consumer review, while anyone could leave a netizen review without restriction.
As for the scoring mechanism, TPDb would use a relatively complex system—each account would have a different weighting, and only high-level staff with the proper clearance could view those weightings.
Certain inappropriate behaviors could negatively affect an account's rating weight.
For example, if a big influencer accepted a bribe and maliciously gave a 1-star rating to a project that averaged over 4 stars, or a perfect 5-star rating to one that averaged only 2 stars, their future ratings would be weighted less heavily.
Of course, this wasn't meant to suppress personal opinions—after all, what's considered "good" or "bad" is subjective. Some people genuinely dislike so-called "masterpieces" that everyone else praises and truly feel a 1-star rating is deserved.
However, those who deliberately rate out of spite are violating the principle of fairness and objectivity—so their influence would be reduced accordingly.
Additionally, anyone who frequently used multiple accounts under the same IP address would see all their accounts' weights reduced.
In short, the goal was to filter out as many biased ratings as possible, ensuring that every project's score accurately reflected what it deserved.
Pei Qian temporarily handed over the website's early development work to Ma Yiqun, since Terminal Chinese Web was already running smoothly and Ma Yiqun wasn't as busy as before.
Once TPDb's groundwork was done, Pei would select the right people to manage it permanently.
. . .
September 1st.
Moyu Internet Café.
Qiao Liang took a sip of the coffee the waiter had brought over from the counter. The leisurely, comfortable atmosphere made him feel utterly relaxed.
His fan group was still buzzing nonstop—messages flooding in so quickly that the chat now showed "99+ unread." There was no way to keep up.
Recently, Qiao Liang hadn't been very active in his fan group at all. He'd been grinding hard on Turn Back Before It's Too Late, putting in at least eight hours a day—the pressure was intense.
And since Turn Back Before It's Too Late was still under NDA, he wasn't allowed to reveal any gameplay details to the public.
Fortunately, he had finally started to figure out some tricks. His progress in the game was speeding up, and he didn't feel nearly as much pressure as before.
After scrolling through some of the group's random chatter to take a break, Qiao Liang opened Turn Back Before It's Too Late once more, ready to finally defeat the Meng Po boss that had stalled him for days.
After launching the game, an update notification immediately popped up.
"Oh, another update."
Qiao Liang was already used to this by now. Since he was playing the developer version of Turn Back Before It's Too Late, the project team had been making constant adjustments, pushing out new patches almost every day.
Some of these updates were tiny—just a few hundred kilobytes, maybe a configuration tweak—while others were massive, hundreds of megabytes, often adding new environmental resources.
This time, the patch wasn't that big, and with the café's fast internet, it was done downloading in just a few minutes.
"I wonder how many of the things I mentioned to President Pei got changed this time."
Qiao Liang actually felt a flicker of anticipation.
A week ago, President Pei had come to ask him for feedback on the game, and he had given President Pei a detailed list of suggestions:
The starting village and early towns were way too difficult. Since players were still new and not yet familiar with the mechanics, the early frustration drove many away. The later stages were actually easier in comparison.
In other words, he hoped they'd lower the difficulty of the first two areas a bit, while leaving the rest as-is.
As for weapons, he felt the machete was great in the early and midgame—flexible, fast, and strong—and that the guandao's vertical slash was especially effective.
Which implicitly meant: other, less popular weapons felt clunky to use and needed their handling improved.
Over several updates, he had been waiting for the design team to balance these things. But each time, his hopes were dashed.
Maybe the balance changes were too extensive and couldn't be implemented quickly.
But this time—finally—it looked like the wait was over.
After updating, Qiao Liang glanced at the patch notes. Sure enough, there were many balance-related changes listed!
"President Pei really is a designer who listens to player feedback!" Qiao thought with heartfelt admiration.
He eagerly opened the detailed balance list, wanting to see which underused weapon had been buffed—maybe it'd help him finally defeat the Meng Po boss.
"Increased the attack power of monsters in the Forgetting River and Stone of Three Lifetimes areas, adding new enemy types and attack patterns;"
"Reduced the overly high damage of the machete at low upgrade levels; as compensation, slightly increased its charged attack damage;"
"Fixed a bug where the guandao's vertical slash animation played too quickly;"
There were plenty of other balance tweaks—but almost all of them were nerfs!
Every weapon Qiao Liang had found effective had been hit.
The machete's early-game base damage was cut down, so beginner players could no longer mindlessly hack their way from start to midgame.
Sure, it was still usable—the charged attack was stronger now—but charging took time and added more startup delay, which completely killed the weapon's agility. Using it well would now require actual skill.
Same with the guandao. After "fixing" the vertical slash speed bug, players couldn't just spam vertical slashes to steamroll enemies anymore. Using it efficiently would now demand precise timing and technique.
Of course, whether that speed issue was really a bug… only Pei Qian himself knew.
Qiao Liang stared blankly at the screen, unable to believe what he was seeing.
"All the weapons I liked… got nerfed???"
"How am I supposed to beat Meng Po now? I might not even get past the mobs before her!"
He looked down at his heavily upgraded machete and guandao, slumping back in his chair.
It felt like he'd been thrown back to square one overnight.
The coffee that had tasted so good a moment ago suddenly lost all its flavor.
Who was he? Where was he? What was he even doing anymore?
A deep, existential confusion washed over Qiao Liang…
<+>
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