Chapter 960: Big Data Balancing
In the office area.
Qian Kun and several other numerical designers were monitoring the battles in *Jianghu*.
At that moment, over a hundred battles were happening simultaneously, and the number was continuously increasing. Qian Kun could select any one of them, and a large map would appear on the screen, displaying the details of that particular match.
On the large map, righteous faction players were represented by green dots, evil faction players by red dots, and NPCs were shown in blue and orange, respectively. It was clear to see that the players were scattered across various areas of the map, each searching for their own lucky encounters.
Battles frequently broke out on the map, especially at the borders between the righteous and evil factions. Evil faction players were constantly scheming to cause trouble and kill people. The earlier invasion of the Emei Sect was a faction war, but the evil faction wasn’t fully prepared, so they were repelled.
Judging by the current situation, it was still too early to predict the final outcome, but the open and covert struggles among players were becoming more and more frequent.
Qian Kun zoomed in to carefully observe a major battle taking place near Wudang Mountain in one of the matches.
In this match, an hour and twenty minutes had already passed, and it had entered the late game. The Wudang Sect Leader’s healing herbs had been stolen by two evil faction players, leaving the Wudang Sect Leader essentially incapacitated. Several evil faction players then sneaked into Wudang Mountain, taking advantage of the Wudang disciples’ absence to massacre the entire sect.
Although there were still some NPCs with decent combat power on Wudang Mountain, the game was already in the late stages, and the evil faction players’ strength had long surpassed these NPCs. The Wudang disciples rushed back as soon as they learned of the attack, but it was too late. By the time they returned, all that remained were corpses scattered across the ground. All resources had been swept clean, and even the Wudang Sect Leader’s signature treasure, the Pure Yang Sword, had been stolen.
This battle directly crippled the righteous faction. To make matters worse, several traitors within the righteous faction were busy fighting among themselves. Before the Martial Arts Conference could even be convened, the righteous faction was essentially doomed…
In another match, the evil faction players were unfamiliar with the game’s mechanics, giving the righteous faction plenty of time to develop. After completing all the tasks for the three major sects, the righteous faction convened the Martial Arts Conference much earlier than usual. While the evil faction players were still completely bewildered, the righteous faction’s allied forces had already marched to their sect’s doorstep in full force…
In yet another match, the evil faction was on the verge of collapse. But in a crucial battle, a righteous faction player who had been quietly developing suddenly turned traitor. He tossed over a dozen Thunder Fire Bombs into the crowd, instantly killing the Martial Arts Alliance Leader and severely wounding the leaders of the three major sects.
This turncoat player immediately joined the evil faction. Having silently developed, he had already obtained the ultimate gear combination: the *Yijin Jing*, the *Dugu Nine Swords*, and the *Arrogant Divine Sword*. He went on a rampage through the crowd, slaughtering players from both the righteous and evil factions, and happily became the Martial World Overlord.
…
Across these hundreds of matches, the players’ progress was completely different. Since both player and NPC choices were not fixed, each script’s progression faced countless different possibilities. Sometimes, even the slightest difference could trigger a chain reaction, causing the game’s outcome to develop in entirely different directions.
“How’s it going? Is the game process normal?” Chen Mo came up behind Qian Kun and asked.
Qian Kun nodded. “Completely normal. The Eye of God is monitoring all matches. There are no abnormal data reports so far, and the big data from these matches is being collected.”
Chen Mo said, “Mm, this is still a test version. The subsequent data balancing work is up to you.”
Qian Kun smiled. “Don’t worry, boss. It’s all under control!”
In *Jianghu*, Chen Mo had also implemented the same Eye of God system as in *PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds*, using artificial intelligence to monitor all events occurring within the game.
The original intent of the Eye of God system was to prevent cheating players and the emergence of hacks. However, *Jianghu*’s combat system was different from *PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds*. The probability of hacks appearing was relatively low, and both monitoring and banning were comparatively easier. So, for *Jianghu*, the Eye of God’s anti-cheat system was just an extra feature, a bonus.
The Eye of God’s more important role was to collect all kinds of big data from *Jianghu*, generate data analysis reports for the numerical designers to analyze, and adjust certain in-game settings.
Although the entire map was filled with various different lucky encounters, and the encounters were highly randomized, there was still a risk of homogenization when players made their choices. If players discovered that a certain location frequently spawned high-value lucky encounters, their starting choices might become homogenized.
While this homogenization wasn’t fatal, it would ultimately negatively impact the players’ gaming experience. By using the big data collected by the Eye of God, it was possible to dynamically balance those encounter quests whose value was far below their original design level, allowing players to have more fun and achieve better balance in the game.
If this work were left to humans, even the most basic balancing would drive them crazy. But with the introduction of artificial intelligence, the work of balancing related values became very easy.
…
An hour and a half later.
Zou Zhuo and Old Qin were already very well-equipped.
While searching in the northwestern part of the map, they stumbled upon the former Wudang outcast Zhuo Feifan. This guy was looting corpses with his Tianlong Sect teammate, clearly having just finished a fight.
Zou Zhuo and Old Qin decisively struck, barely managing to kill these two. They were almost counter-killed.
Fortunately, they had plenty of supplies, and Old Qin suddenly channeled his inner Dark Souls player, pulling off insane maneuvers to kill the opposing Tianlong Sect disciple. Otherwise, it was hard to say who would have been eating whom.
The resources they gained this time were even greater. Besides a lot of weapons, pills, and martial arts manuals, they also obtained several very important items.
The *Yijin Jing* internal skill from the Shaolin Sutra Library, and the Seven-Colored Flower needed to heal the Wudang Sect Leader’s injuries.
Zou Zhuo was initially puzzled. Since this guy had already turned traitor and joined the Tianlong Sect, why didn’t he just destroy these two items? Wouldn’t that mean the Wudang and Shaolin sect quests could never be completed?
Then he looked at the descriptions of these two items and understood.
The *Yijin Jing* was the top-tier internal skill in the game, so learning it was very slow. If he destroyed it, it meant he couldn’t learn this martial art himself. That would be a huge loss.
The same logic applied to the Seven-Colored Flower. It wasn’t just a quest item; it could also be eaten directly as a herb. Its effect was to fully restore health and stamina, remove all negative status effects, and temporarily boost internal skill attributes by 20%.
Who would be willing to destroy such a good thing…
Like other pills, the Seven-Colored Flower had a usage cast time. It couldn’t be consumed instantly and was very easy to interrupt. Otherwise, Zou Zhuo and Old Qin would probably have been counter-killed by this Wudang traitor named Zhuo Feifan…