Chapter 526: It's Fine, Players Will Understand After Dying Enough
Soon, the Pangu System's permissions were opened to Chen Mo.
This time, the combat system was naturally personally overseen by Chen Mo. As for the other parts of the game, everyone was now experienced enough that they weren't too complicated to handle.
While using the Pangu System, Chen Mo also discovered something even more terrifying.
The Pangu System was an artificial intelligence with a level of intelligence similar to Origin. Basically, anything Origin could do, Pangu could also do.
One of those capabilities was playing games...
Applied to the game, this meant improving monster AI...
After using this system, specific monsters could be made exceptionally intelligent, even capable of perfectly utilizing any combat skill supported by the system, and would even analyze the optimal solutions for combat tactics on their own.
"If this system were actually applied to the monsters in *Dark Souls*, there'd be no need for players to Link the Fire anymore..."
Chen Mo was just messing around out of curiosity; he didn't actually use it to create monster AI.
Obviously, if this were really used to make monster AI, just imagining having to face so many artificial intelligences at once was way too intense. Most Lords of Cinder would say, "This fire can't be linked, whoever wants it can have it! Go link some water instead!"
Of course, the monster AI could be restricted in various ways, such as lowering the AI's operation and reaction speed, separating aggro between different monsters, and so on. But even so, it would still be far too difficult for players.
Even with the previous stupidly dumb AI, ordinary players were already getting tortured to death, let alone an enhanced AI.
Imagine facing a monster holding a shield. You confidently step forward, using a longsword weapon art to break its guard, only for the monster to elegantly forward-roll out of the way, dodge your weapon art, and then backstab you...
Can't link it! This fire can't be linked!
However, this system could have other uses.
After the prototype of the entire combat system was made, Chen Mo could use the Pangu System's AI to control two knights in combat, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of various weapons, shields, and armors.
When a certain weapon, shield, or playstyle was found to be particularly overpowered, it could be specifically nerfed to keep most playstyles and weapons at a relatively balanced level.
Moreover, using the Pangu System for monster AI was currently too extravagant, because the system still relied on the computing power of the main supercomputer, making it not very convenient to use.
Chen Mo considered using it as a special trial mode, offering challenges for players who had already cleared multiple New Game Plus cycles and found no more fun in fighting NPCs in the game.
That way, there wouldn't be situations like, "As everyone knows, the Lord of Cinder can't do a five-hit combo..."
But that was a matter for later.
...
The development progress of *Dark Souls* was going smoothly. After Chen Mo personally oversaw the combat system, the difficulty of the other parts wasn't too high.
In terms of environments, the entire *Dark Souls* could almost be seen as one large seamless map (except for a few areas requiring teleportation). With Chen Mo providing detailed level layouts and plans, although there was a lot of content, it didn't stall the development progress.
For art and music, with the experience accumulated from *Diablo*, it was also progressing relatively smoothly.
*Dark Souls* also had the advantage of having little story and a small amount of text, making it easy to produce multi-language versions, and the story writing would be quick.
By now, Chen Mo's own art team had grown to 39 people. However, a large amount of work still needed to be outsourced.
This art team didn't handle all art-related tasks entirely in-house. They mainly focused on concept design and prototype creation, while the rough work was handed over to outsourcing teams.
In other words, Chen Mo's art team followed an elite route. Among them, six major art experts could each stand on their own and take charge.
If anyone was the most overwhelmed by the entire project, it was probably Qian Kun.
Qian Kun was responsible for overseeing the game's numerical values and level design, but the level design plan Chen Mo gave him left him completely baffled.
It was clearly a huge seamless map, yet the player's gameplay was forcibly fragmented into many scattered small pieces. Even for the same location, players would have to explore different routes multiple times.
Take the Cleansing Chapel scene, for example. Players would always feel like, "Hey, I'm back again!" while fighting through one path, and then, "Hey, I'm back again!" while taking another route.
By using elements like unlocked ladders, mechanical elevators, one-way doors, locked doors, and so on, a single scene was successfully made more complex, forcing players to repeatedly explore to fully collect all the map's elements.
It was basically bullying the Undead for only being able to push doors open but not pull them...
However, this kind of design was very popular. Players wouldn't curse; instead, they would think the level design was amazing!
In fact, in the earliest days, part of the reason for this level design was that Hidetaka Miyazaki's development budget wasn't very generous, so he had to adopt this more resource-efficient production method...
This ironically made *Dark Souls*' level design an industry benchmark.
This kind of level design was a pain for Qian Kun, because Chen Mo's detailed level design drafts couldn't be written that clearly. The same scene was densely covered with various marks and route instructions, giving Qian Kun a headache.
On top of that, adding monster placements, Qian Kun imagined the players' experience and felt a chill run down his spine.
And even more insane was that Chen Mo repeatedly hinted for Qian Kun to increase the monster attributes.
"This knight monster, raise its strength and stamina a bit more, and increase its attack aggression. Oh, and adjust its health too, add another third. As for its intelligence, it should be just right now, no need to adjust further," Chen Mo said.
Qian Kun was dumbfounded: "Boss, this knight's attributes are already higher than the player's. This is just a normal mob..."
Chen Mo said matter-of-factly: "Of course I know it's a normal mob. Hey, I just added a bit of health. The player just needs to land one more backstab, and it's done. It's not hard at all, right?"
Qian Kun: "..."
Chen Mo continued: "It's fine, you see. Based on this knight's stupidity, it will definitely do two slashing attacks right away. The player can just raise a small shield, block the first, parry the second, and then immediately riposte. Or the player can circle around with their shield, roll to its back for a backstab. Repeat this three times, and the mob is basically done. Whether its attributes are high or not doesn't really matter."
Qian Kun scratched his head: "Then, boss, what if the player doesn't know how to do the riposte and backstab you mentioned?"
Chen Mo thought for a moment: "It's fine. They'll understand after dying enough."
Qian Kun: "..."