Battle Damage Outfits and Paper Dolls

"Boss!" Xu Fang exclaimed, "Think thrice before you act!" "What's wrong?" Xu Meng didn't expect such a big reaction from him. "Some of our characters already have very little clothing, if we add battle damage, they'll be naked!" Xu Fang thought the boss had been too busy lately and hadn't remembered all the characters' new designs. But he was wrong. Xu Meng had personally reviewed and remembered the appearance of every character. "Don't worry, I know. It's not a big deal," Xu Meng reassured him before sending him to gather the others. The ones who should really be wailing weren't the artists, but the animators and modelers who would come after them. The complexity of their work far exceeded that of the artists. Of course, the artists' focus was on inspiration and creation. One was about burning the midnight oil, the other about losing hair, so they couldn't be compared in the same way. In less than five minutes, the artists had crowded into the office. Some stood, some sat, all watching Xu Meng, waiting for him to speak. Xu Meng didn't rush to assign tasks. Instead, he first fully affirmed everyone's work over the past half-month and promised generous bonuses before starting to talk about the new tasks— "Two new tasks." "First, I plan to add a Battle Damage Clothing System to the Frost Snow Project." "But our Frost Snow Project is a serious game, so we definitely can't have characters strip naked upon defeat like those eroge games." "Also, many characters only have one or two pieces of clothing. Some can have a piece of clothing torn, but many can't." "So, I need everyone to use their creativity." "For example, you can tear off a sleeve, remove stockings, take off shoes, or have clothes tear, skirts shorten, or hair become disheveled, or show traces of sweat." "Don't let your minds be restricted, fully unleash your imagination. I completely trust your abilities!" After all, he wasn't a professional artist and could only provide an idea. But with this idea, it was already enough for the artists present. As soon as he finished speaking, many people lowered their heads and began sketching drafts in their notebooks, hurriedly recording the inspiration that immediately flooded their minds. Seeing this scene, Xu Meng didn't rush to talk about the second task, but stood in place and waited quietly for a few minutes. When most people had stopped writing, he spoke again: "Next is the second task." "I need you to cooperate with the level design team to design a new map. It doesn't need to be too big, but it needs to have obvious ocean elements, and design some octopus tentacle-style monsters and traps." "The spatial structure and competitive balance of this map will be handled by the level design team. You will mainly assist them in the map's visual design." "That sounds a bit vague..." "Okay, let me be more precise—Dragon Palace." "Use this word as the theme for the map design." As soon as he finished speaking, the sound of sketching became even more intense! But Xu Meng didn't wait any longer, leaving behind a "Keep up the good work, everyone," and left the office. The subsequent personnel grouping and task assignment could be left to Ding Nian and Xu Fang. He made another trip to the level design team and assigned tasks on the spot. The level design team used to be highly valued, but since Xu Meng came and issued that announcement, they had been neglected. The whole company was busy with this major transformation, but they were the only ones who hadn't received any important tasks. —It wasn't that they had no tasks at all. They were still doing their previous work, but the new tasks only required them to adjust the difficulty of the previous levels. Xu Meng wanted to reduce the players' development cycle and no longer restrict player resources. This way, players could have enough energy to develop more characters, and even weaker characters could have a chance to appear. —In the end, it was to make it easier for players to develop relationships with more characters. But in this way, the level difficulty, drops, and character development curves all needed to be adjusted. The level design and numerical planning teams had received these tasks. And then they were left to their own devices.

This change from core to periphery undoubtedly created a huge psychological gap for them.

But now, after Xu Meng described his requirements, all the employees in the level design department—

Were fired up!

They were far more sensitive than the artists in the art department. As soon as they heard Xu Meng's description, they knew what he wanted to do—

[Dragon Palace] is a PVP battle map!

This was the [Multiplayer Online Mode] that players had complained about for a long time, but was abandoned by the previous decision-making team in meetings! They didn't understand why the boss suddenly decided to do this, and they were also clear that with Zhu Meng's technical accumulation, it would likely be very difficult to create this kind of multiplayer online confrontation gameplay.

But they didn't care, they only felt excited!

This was an opportunity to return to the center stage of Zhu Meng, and once successful, it would be a significant addition to their resumes.

This was far more valuable than the "levels" in a gacha game that went straight to the end with at most one or two side paths!

For a level designer, this was simply an irresistible temptation.

One by one, they patted their chests to express their determination and began brainstorming with fiery enthusiasm.

Xu Meng listened for a while and then silently left.

This PVP map was a gameplay supplement he came up with after thinking.

Because he always believed that the foundation of a game was its gameplay.

Without gameplay support, relying solely on pandering to otaku and sex appeal, it would be difficult for the game to last long—it might see a surge in revenue for a month or two, but then quickly decline and never recover.

He asked the artists to draw in their own style as much as possible, the animation and modeling teams to work hard on character precision, the planners to constantly reduce the difficulty of development, and the operations team to listen carefully to player feedback, all in order to make the long suit of "Frost Snow Project" even longer.

—Ideally, long enough for players to ignore the short suit, thereby extending the game's life cycle as much as possible.

The new gameplay also served this goal.

Moreover, players had always thought that after the remake of "Frost Snow Project", only sex appeal remained as a selling point, and they no longer had any expectations for multiplayer online gameplay.

If they suddenly released the PVP gameplay at this time, it would definitely give players a surprise! However, creating this secret weapon was not easy.

Without sufficient technical accumulation, it was simply unrealistic for Zhu Meng's makeshift level design team to design a mature PVP map in one go.

But Xu Meng was willing to give them a chance.

He knew that no one was good at everything from the start, and no development team was top-notch from the beginning, but as long as there was an opportunity to hone their skills, they could always reach an excellent level.

As for how to get players to accept this PVP map, which aimed for 80 points and had a baseline of 70 points, and even enjoy playing it, that was the task of him, the boss of Zhu Meng and the chief designer of "Frost Snow Project".

The good news was that he had a solution in mind from the start.

That was [Creativity].

In the gaming industry, creativity is always the most valuable thing.

As long as players can experience fresh and interesting creativity, they will have enough tolerance for flaws, giving you room for improvement and progress.

As for what this creativity is...

Since it's a two-dimensional beautiful girl, then having a two-dimensional form and being able to turn into a piece of paper is also a very reasonable thing, right?