God-Tier Enhancement: My Upgrades Never Fail-Chapter 271: Episode _Legend of the Demon World (4)

5.

Every game values balance.

That’s because games are played by Users. Users are the core; without them, a game dies. It is, unfortunately, a product of the capitalist age.

Even without such lofty reasoning, the fact remains that balancing is the single most important issue a developer must address. This is true even for single-player games, even for something as simple as Minesweeper.

The game has to be clearable.

And you have to design it so that no single class is blatantly overpowered.

It’s unavoidable.

Balance determines a game’s polish and allows Users to have more fun.

Of course, it isn’t easy.

From the dawn of the PC online era, balance has always been the most hotly debated topic, and many games have died because of it.

That’s just how it is.

Each class has different traits, people’s tastes differ, and every trend favors a different style. No matter how perfectly you tune it, some classes will inevitably seem better than others.

And often, the classes that seem better really do have superior aspects that draw attention.

When that happens, the dev team has to make a choice.

Will they raise the overall standard, or will they nerf the problematic class?

Most chose the latter.

From the MOBAs that defined an era to the latest RPGs, developers preferred to nerf the one character everyone was talking about rather than buffing all the others.

In practice, while Users would grumble, "Why not just buff the other characters instead of nerfing this one?" they usually stopped complaining once the change was implemented.

It’s the classic "grass is always greener" problem.

They don’t want to give up the character they’ve poured their affection into, yet they can’t stand seeing someone else be stronger. For people like that, their own character will always seem lacking, no matter how much you buff everyone else.

One way or another, it is impossible for every character in a game to be perfectly equal.

These customs and traditions didn’t change with the advent of virtual reality.

BetaGo might be a little different.

Or not.

BetaGo was a super-AI, after all. When it built Fantastic World, it must have used the trends of the PC online market as reference data to determine consumer tastes and its own operating style.

He had already experienced plenty of that.

It emphasized realism, yet it wouldn’t allow him to use the Enhancement ability—a power he possessed in reality. One could argue that BetaGo had done its best to accommodate his ability in a world not designed for such a superpower, but Simin had no interest in such trivial, behind-the-scenes details.

What mattered was that BetaGo was unlikely to be favorably disposed toward him.

It was a supercomputer, an AI without emotions. It wasn’t going to grant favors to some and punish others out of personal dislike.

So, while he cursed BetaGo out all the time, he still did whatever he wanted. He ignored the risk of tangling the main questline or plunging the continent into darkness, moving purely to secure his own profit.

That, more than anything, was the realism Fantastic World pursued.

A game where Users act freely, and every single one of their actions determines the fate of the continent.

In fact, BetaGo had never imposed any sanctions on Simin, the continent’s resident troublemaker. Once he realized that, he found himself cursing the AI less and less.

However, what he was about to attempt was a different matter; it was extremely dangerous.

No matter how hands-off BetaGo was, it might decide to patch this.

Not a normal patch, not some one-sided notice about shutting down the server to target a single User and fix an issue. It would be more like what happened when he first used his Enhancement ability: BetaGo would slip a noose around his neck in the form of the Legendary-grade Enhancer class, using it to restrict his power.

It didn’t take a genius to predict that.

That was how badly this would shatter the game’s balance.

That was why he hadn’t done it. Why would he do something that might block his own path forward? He was already plenty strong.

But now the time had come.

His stats had plateaued for over a year, a stagnation that coincided with the difficulty of the story he’d been progressing through during that same period.

It was time to break through.

Phew.

He was in the Demon World, the Land of Enhancement, where nearly any spot was a lucky spot. In his subspace, he had a mountain of junk items he’d prepared long ago, believing they would one day be useful.

It was more than enough.

Han Simin gripped his hammer again. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

*

There is a saying in this world.

Honey is sweetest when enjoyed alone, but when the jar is nearly empty, it tastes best when savored in front of everyone.

There’s a lot packed into that.

By revealing the last dregs, you’re not just bragging about how much you’ve secretly enjoyed, but also indulging in the envious stares of others. And then comes the inevitable patch, implemented after everyone rushes in to get a taste of that last bit of honey.

It’s a way of preemptively blocking any new honey from appearing, even when the old jar is empty.

That was why Simin turned his Enhancement notifications back on for the first time in a long while.

In the early days, after making a few +15s, he turned off notifications, not wanting other Users to know about his broken ability.

Strictly speaking, there was no need to keep it off anymore.

Over the past year, his class and accomplishments had become widely known through his streams and the testimony of countless Users. People argued back and forth about whether he had psychic powers or something else, but in the end, BetaGo had never imposed any sanctions.

’That bastard makes +15s like it’s nothing.’

Anyone in the know already knew.

So he didn’t hesitate.

If he was going to do it, he might as well show the whole world. He would show off and elevate the prestige of Enhancement—and his own standing along with it.

Han Simin pulled a junk item out of subspace and focused his mind.

He fell silent.

No, there wasn’t even any need to focus.

He’d taken out a piece of level 60 armor, just a bit higher than his own level. The lucky spot was so vast he could barely feel its edges. The Demon World itself was one giant lucky spot where any Enhancement was guaranteed to succeed.

This was especially true since, only a few hours earlier, he had poured every ounce of his concentration into getting Epia’s twin swords to +14.

Swinging his hammer now, it didn’t feel like a 100% chance of success—it felt more like 150,000%.

’Let’s give it a try.’

This was a privilege reserved for the Legendary Legend Enhancer—and among them, something only Han Simin could do.

The +15 item factory roared to life.

6.

Users normally didn’t turn off the server announcement hologram option.

They had no reason to. In fact, many players, not just new ones, didn’t even know the option existed.

It was understandable. You almost never saw them.

Unless it was newsworthy of being broadcast to every User on the continent, the holograms simply didn’t appear. Typical examples included successful Enhancements of +12 or higher, the creation of Legendary-grade items, or class advancements to the 7th Circle or equivalent tiers.

Only near-impossible achievements were announced for all to see.

In a game that had been open for barely a year, such achievements weren’t exactly common. Thanks to Simin, people had briefly learned of the system’s existence early on, but it had quickly faded from memory, and things had been quiet for a long time.

Of course, it wasn’t that nothing ever popped up.

In a game with tens of millions of players, a few were bound to create +12 or higher items, whether through luck or sheer investment. Either way, Users enjoyed marveling at these holograms; they were never annoying enough to warrant turning the system off.

And today, a disaster struck those Users.

[User ‘Simin’ has successfully Enhanced ‘+12 Steel Plate Armor’!]

[User ‘Simin’ has successfully Enhanced ‘+13 Steel Plate Armor’!]

[User ‘Simin’ has successfully Enhanced ‘+14 Steel Plate Armor’!]

[User ‘Simin’ has successfully Enhanced ‘+15 Steel Plate Armor’!]

Perhaps ’disaster’ was too strong a word.

All that was happening was that, while they were out hunting, a string of holograms—the likes of which they’d never seen before—began to fill their vision.

“What the hell?”

“What is this?”

“Whoa. Damn. +15?”

“Is it that guy?”

“Wait, did it always show up as a hologram like this?”

But Fantastic World was a world where even trivial issues could become hot topics. There was a world of difference between vaguely knowing ’there’s a guy like that out there’ and seeing objective proof with your own eyes, broadcast by the system itself.

[User ‘Simin’ has successfully Enhanced ‘+12 Old Tree Staff’!]

[User ‘Simin’ has successfully Enhanced ‘+13 Old Tree Staff’!]

[User ‘Simin’ has successfully Enhanced ‘+14 Old Tree Staff’!]

[User ‘Simin’ has successfully Enhanced ‘+15 Old Tree Staff’!]

Especially since it didn’t happen just once, but twice, three times, four times.

Faced with this absurd situation, people checked the Enhancement rates again.

And they were stunned.

“Is that even possible?”

“Whoa. If you’re a Legendary-grade Enhancer, can you really do that?”

“No way.”

“That guy has dominated every piece of content since the game launched. He’s connected to the Emperor, and now they say he’s in the Demon World doing a story quest. Maybe that’s why?”

“Even so, do you know the success rate for +12, let alone +15? How is this even happening?”

“You never know. Look at the item names—they’re all between level 50 and 70. Maybe there’s a condition where the success rate is higher for lower-level items.”

“Wow. Wouldn’t that be totally busted?”

“Seriously. I’m so jealous. How much do you think those would sell for?”

“If a bunch of them flood the market, the price will drop, right?”

“I wish.”

They were shocked, but no one was screaming that it was a scam, a bug, or an error. A few did, but those who had adapted to Fantastic World started from the assumption that it was impossible.

Because for BetaGo, errors simply didn’t exist.

And hadn’t Goggles said it himself? If there was an exploit that took advantage of a bug outside BetaGo’s purview, then by all means, use it.

If this were a bug, he could have just hidden the holograms and exploited it in secret, as he had until now. There was no reason to suddenly announce to the whole world that he was abusing a bug.

Of course, people were curious.

Why was he doing this? What had gotten into him?

Out of curiosity, more and more people searched for Han Simin’s channel. And his stream just happened to be live!

Naturally, the viewer count climbed.

That was exactly what Simin had aimed for.

’Enjoy the honey before it gets patched, rake in the viewers, and if it doesn’t get patched, all the better.’

’Once you commit, you have to see it through. This was the trump card I’ve been hiding ever since I became an Enhancer. I might as well milk it for all it’s worth.’

[Legendary Achievement! You have gained Stat Points (32).]

Compared to the time it would normally take to level up, the speed at which his spare Stat Points piled up was incomparably faster.

*