Chapter 347: Chapter 221: The Nether Dragon Venerable Who Incurred Everyone’s Wrath

In "Ancestor Tree," the number of levels will automatically increase, which almost triggered the players’ sensitive and fragile nerves, worried that the size of the game files would also increase accordingly.

You can’t blame them for overthinking, mainly because there’s a precedent with "Global Evolution"!

Of course!

As it turns out, this was a false alarm. "Ancestor Tree" is not "Global Evolution." The increase in the number of levels does not lead to a significant change in the size of the game client file.

"Why is that?"

Lu seemed unable to understand why there is such a big difference in nature between the two games?

In "Global Evolution," when NPCs evolved by just one stage, the game files expanded rapidly, uncontrollably.

But in "Ancestor Tree," with thousands of new levels, the game files hardly change. Are the thousands of new levels fake?

"They’re not fake..."

Chen Ba explained, "The subsequent level growth in ’Ancestor Tree,’ while nominally new levels, does not actually introduce anything new."

This is the fundamental reason!

The few thousand extra levels sound intimidating, but the monsters are still those monsters, the traps are those traps, and the map elements remain the same.

Without the creation of new content, it’s all old stuff, so how could the game client files change?

To help Lu understand easily, Chen Ba gave an obvious example.

Minesweeper!

Every time you open Minesweeper, isn’t the scenario different? At first glance, isn’t each opening a new level?

But in reality, this is backed by a generation algorithm, with just those few grid squares, numbers, and mines. So it changes endlessly, but it doesn’t exceed the original game framework.

Never mind a few thousand levels.

With the framework of "Ancestor Tree," even if it one day claims to have a billion levels, the game client size would remain the same, perhaps just a bit more user data stored.

"Then what about Global Evolution..."

"I told you, the client bloating problem in ’Global Evolution’ is due to the creation of new game content during NPC evolution."

Chen Ba rolled his eyes and said, "These are not the same nature, do you understand?"

The level changes in "Ancestor Tree" are like the changes among Arabic numerals 0-9, where the game itself includes all numbers from 0-9, so whether it’s 999 or 888, it’s all included.

"Global Evolution" inherently was like this too; the evolution of NPCs from stages 1-9 is included, no matter how they evolve, it wouldn’t skyrocket beyond control.

But starting from the 10th stage, the nature changed, learning from Apple’s use of X instead of the number 10.

X is not part of the original game framework, so it spurred new game content and game files, causing client expansion.

"Alright, I don’t understand this stuff,"

Lu sighed and said, "But Ba, it seems like our game has encountered another new problem."

"What problem?"

"A player who evolved beyond stage 20 shared their experience progressing from stage 19 to 20, hoping to cultivate new strong players for the player community."

Lu explained, "But according to the feedback from other players, they found that the evolution experience this player needed from stage 19 to 20 doesn’t match with other players’ experiences."

"What... does that mean?"

Chen Ba was confused, what does it mean that the required evolution experience doesn’t match? Did they cheat?

"It’s not cheating, the situation is like this..."

In the game "Global Evolution," there’s no traditional experience point and level system; instead, it uses an evolution system.

By killing same-stage Fierce Beasts, spirit monsters, and Sea Beasts, and consuming their blood and flesh essence, you can gain a certain amount of [Evolution Level].

Once the [Evolution Level] reaches 100%, you can initiate an evolution ritual to progress to the next stage and gain greater power.

The problem lies within the [Evolution Level].

Assuming the player who posted in the community shared their experience and insights, they needed 100 points of evolution experience to progress from stage 19 to 20.

However, after verification by other players, they found they needed 110 points... 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

There’s a 10% difference!

10% is quite substantial; players always have a more challenging time evolving compared to NPCs, and the higher the stage, the harder it is to obtain and accumulate evolution levels.

So why is it that for the same evolution, one requires 100 points of experience, while another requires 110 points? Is Ba deliberately causing trouble?

"It’s none of my business!"

Chen Ba scolded unhappily, "I’ve been busy with the new game mechanics of ’Ancestor Tree’ these days, where would I find the time to secretly mess with things?"

"Besides, if I were to cause trouble, I’d do it openly, not by secretly altering values in such small ways."

"So what do you think about this situation..."

"Don’t worry, let me investigate!"

Chen Ba didn’t rush to conclusion, but first checked the original post in the Tianba Community, then contacted the player who posted it, asking if they had used Photoshop on the images.

After a technical inspection and the player’s testimony, the images were fine; it was the original picture.

Then, Chen Ba logged into the game, used the GM tool to create a stage 19 evolution account, and tried to break through to stage 20.

The required experience had indeed increased!

Furthermore, the increase was from 10% to 20%! He tested it several times, confirming that the increase was consistently 20%, not 10%!

How did it change again?

Suspecting that something significant happened in the game during this time, Chen Ba checked the game backend logs for details.

Soon he found the answer!

It turns out that from the first stage 20 player posting, other players’ feedback about the experience point discrepancy, to Chen Ba’s verification, a new stage 20 evolution player was born in the game.