Chapter 15 The Dog Who Bites the Hook

Pei Qian really wanted to change heroes, but it was already locked in, and the game was about to start.

There was nothing he could do but make do.

Even before entering the game, Pei Qian had already noticed a rather ominous sign.

Everyone had very tacitly chosen their roles!

Next to each person's avatar was a label, and the other three quickly adjusted their labels to show: Mid Lane, Roaming, and Bottom Lane.

Ma Yang also changed his label to "Commander" with great seriousness.

Pei Qian clicked on the label and found that only the last label was left: "Top Lane."

Pei Qian couldn't help but be shocked. Wasn't this the classic lane assignment he remembered?

Something wasn't right.

Pei Qian suddenly had a feeling of traveling through time and space.

The names of the top, middle, and bottom lanes hadn't changed, but the terms "Jungler" and "Support" had been changed to "Roaming" and "Commander."

In Pei Qian's memory, the lane assignments in *League of Legends* had actually appeared as early as Season 1.

Although the game wasn't fully formed in Season 1, and the lane assignments were still in a chaotic state, the top European teams had already figured out this lane assignment during the Season 1 World Championship, ensuring the maximum utilization of team resources.

Afterward, this lane assignment was called the "EU Meta," constantly promoted, and later officially designated by Riot Games as the standard lane assignment for the game.

Facts had proven that the benefits of this lane assignment far outweighed the drawbacks.

The biggest advantage was that it greatly reduced the difficulty for new players to get started.

Each lane had clear standards, with suitable heroes and playstyles. Even if new players didn't quite understand the game, as long as they faithfully fulfilled their duties according to the lane assignment, five random players could still achieve good teamwork.

This prevented internal squabbles over resources, which would lead to infighting even before the battle began.

In any case, this meta should have appeared at least a year later.

How did it appear so early in *GOG*?

Although the specific names were slightly different, the actual effect achieved was the same.

Moreover, he didn't know who was so cunning as to call the support "Commander" instead of "Support."

No wonder Ma Yang, who liked to steal the limelight so much, was willing to play this role…

Pei Qian felt a hint of unease, but after thinking about it, he still felt that he shouldn't panic or rush to conclusions.

This was only the beginning of the game. Only after fully experiencing the game could he come to a conclusion.

Pei Qian first looked at the skills of this "Spendthrift Hedgehog."

The passive skill was spending money.

The Q skill was scattering money after being backstabbed.

The W skill was driving away employees who wanted to work overtime.

The E skill was sending employees out for travel.

The R skill was constantly backstabbing himself…

Pei Qian's face turned green.

Who was this designer? There was a big problem!

Allusion, absolute allusion!

If this were placed in the evil old society, a literary inquisition would have to be arranged!

However, Pei Qian thought again. Now was the bright new society, and bosses had to be more magnanimous.

Forget it, let bygones be bygones. At that time, he would just send them on a paid trip to the East African Great Rift Valley or a surprise haunted house package.

As the game progressed, Pei Qian discovered more problems.

Compared to *Shen Qi*, the difficulty of this game had been greatly reduced!

Getting gold even with terrible last-hitting, not losing money upon death, extra bounty for ending kill streaks, and a comprehensively reduced map size allowing for faster teammate support…

Pei Qian felt a little uneasy.

The difficulty of getting started had been reduced a lot!

However, as he played, Pei Qian also discovered some more optimistic factors.

First of all, the game balance was completely broken.

Pei Qian found that this Modest was really too strong!

Not only was he very tanky, but his base damage was also very considerable under normal development.

During team fights, as long as he used his ultimate and chose a suitable time to enter, he could wreak havoc in the team fight, use his W skill to block the enemy's retreat, and then rush into the crowd and scatter money like crazy.

Even when running away, he could deal damage to enemies while running.

He could even use the E skill to throw Old Ma into the crowd, which was very fun.

Of course, Old Ma quickly used Devour to swallow Pei Qian's hero in one gulp and spit him into the enemy's pile as revenge.

However, the results of the two were vastly different.

Pei Qian, as a very tanky top laner, could still output damage while being beaten up. Old Ma spitting him in was equivalent to a perfect initiation.

However, Old Ma's Devour was just a relatively tanky support, and he was quickly focused and beaten up after being thrown in by Pei Qian.

Of course, the other side didn't dare to really go all out and only symbolically hit him a few times before letting Old Ma escape.

After all, they didn't want to lose their jobs.

After experiencing it a little, Pei Qian discovered that *GOG* didn't seem to have considered the issue of balance at all?

Or perhaps they had considered it, but not enough.

The gap between the strong heroes and the weak heroes was too large, to the point that the weak heroes were completely unplayable.

Secondly, although this game was playable, there were still some small bugs from time to time. Although they didn't affect the normal operation of the game, they were always annoying.

Moreover, some details were not done so perfectly.

For example, the modeling, actions, and art style of the heroes, as well as some specific mechanisms within the game, still had a lot of room for improvement.

In short, this game was still only a semi-finished product, and it was still a long way from being finished.

…

After a game ended, Pei Qian gave a comprehensive evaluation of the current version of *GOG*.

In fact, if there were any advantages to this game at present, it was nothing more than the fixed lane assignments and the changes to the in-game gold acquisition mechanism.

As for the most important aspects of a MOBA game, including game balance, art quality, and character IP, *GOG* didn't do a very good job.

What's more, even in terms of "lowering the game's barrier to entry," *GOG* hadn't yet achieved the ultimate.

Objectively speaking, the current *GOG* was still far from being satisfactory.

Pei Qian was slightly relieved. In the short term, this game shouldn't be able to make any waves.

As for the issue of the hero Modest maliciously alluding to Boss Pei…

Pei Qian decided not to pursue it anymore. After all, this hero was so strong and so easy to use, which meant that the designer still had a conscience.

However, the hero could be let go, but not the game.

Because the game still had hidden dangers.

Looking at the semi-finished *GOG*, Pei Qian fell into deep thought.

The most urgent task was to figure out where these changes originated from…

He Desheng came over. "Boss Pei, what do you think of our suggestions? Not bad, right?"

Pei Qian: "?"

He was momentarily at a loss.

"Your suggestions? What suggestions?"

He Desheng was stunned for a moment. "The game modification suggestions! Increasing the gold from minions, shrinking the map, fixing the lane assignments… these are all the modification suggestions we made!"

"Although the original intention was to allow President Ma to have a better gaming experience, from the results, it was quite successful!"

He Desheng's face was full of eagerness for credit.

After all, Dream Chasing Ventures had been idle ever since they invested in Finger Company last time.

Although He Desheng's direct superior was Ma Yang, everyone knew that Boss Pei was the ultimate boss.

What was the point of serving President Ma well if Boss Pei wanted to lay off employees?

Therefore, He Desheng wanted to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show off in front of Boss Pei.

He had to let Boss Pei know that although Dream Chasing Ventures hadn't had any work recently, everyone was still working hard to serve Tengda Group!

Moreover, this wasn't exactly taking credit, since these things were indeed the result of everyone's collective efforts, and they had indeed received very good results.

The Ma Yang special edition of *GOG* was more popular than the regular version in the Internet cafes. This was clearly reflected in the data.

He Desheng figured that even if Boss Pei didn't immediately raise everyone's salary, he would have to silently remember the contributions of his brothers in his heart, right?

Sure enough, the corners of Boss Pei's mouth curved slightly, revealing a meaningful smile.

"Yes, your suggestions are very good and helpful!"

He Desheng was a little embarrassed. "Boss Pei, you're too kind. This is all we should do!"

Pei Qian was smiling on the surface, but laughing inwardly.

He caught the dog!

Moreover, this time, it took the bait on its own!

Pei Qian hadn't even considered this aspect at all. He originally thought that the game changes to *GOG* must have been the good work of Li Yada's design team. What could it have to do with Dream Chasing Ventures?

As a result, this He Desheng confessed on his own initiative!

Good you, He Desheng! He shouldn't have kept him when he saw his name in the first place! (贺得胜 - The *de* in the name can be a homophone for *get* in Chinese.)

Pei Qian continued to smile. "How did you think of submitting modification suggestions to *GOG*?"

He Desheng smiled and explained, "Actually, our original intention was just to ensure that the game mechanics no longer limited President Ma's excellent gaming talent."

"Moreover, we not only provided modification suggestions to *GOG*, but we also sent the same suggestions to Finger Company."

"Boss Pei, you don't have to care too much. We just contributed a little bit of our meager strength in the areas where we could!"

He Desheng looked humble.

Pei Qian couldn't help but be stunned, and his thinking changed.

What he cared about wasn't He Desheng's platitudes, but the sentence in the middle.

Sent to Finger Company too?

Wouldn't that mean that *IOI* and *GOG* were back on the same starting line?

No, *IOI* was definitely more ahead than *GOG*. After all, Finger Company had more investment, longer development time, and more manpower.

Hmm… false alarm.

Since *IOI* was currently still far ahead of *GOG*, then there was no need to worry too much.

In any case, there could only be one winner in the end.

Even if *GOG* could earn some money in the short term, as long as he bought copyrights diligently, he could completely spend all the money and not cause any problems…

Thinking of this, Pei Qian breathed a slight sigh of relief.

Luckily, luckily, this He Desheng wasn't deserving of death.

Pei Qian almost arranged for him to travel to the East African Great Rift Valley.

Since that was the case… the death penalty could be waived, but the living penalty was unavoidable.

He absolutely couldn't let them play games anymore!

Pei Qian looked at Ma Yang and then at the gold-level escorts beside him.

Thinking carefully, where did all this mess originate?

*GOG* was changed to be more friendly to novices because He Desheng and the others were giving suggestions.

They made suggestions to take care of President Ma's gaming experience.

And President Ma played games every day because…

He had nothing to do.

Why did Ma Yang have nothing to do? Because after he spent the twenty million, Pei Qian hadn't given him any more money, and Dream Chasing Ventures had completely stopped operating.

Pei Qian thought to himself, no matter how he looked at it, was he the culprit?