Chapter 74-3: Flaws in the Soul Growth System (3) |
After explaining his combat logic, Steel Arm shifted the topic.
“But just having Shatter Blade, Force Savage Axe, and Bonefire creates a serious weakness: very poor sustain. My mental power gets drained in under five minutes, and I enter a dizzy, weakened state.”
“Since we don’t mainly train caster-type Souls, but still rely on melee Souls, our mental power pool is quite small. Unlike those players who primarily use Owl-Headed Fiend and can cast Inkflame much longer, our sustain is really weak.”
“That’s why I added Qi Eater as my fourth soul… I need to emphasize here that Qi Eater isn’t just for caster players…”
At this point, Qi Sheng already fully understood the combat style of this Star Vein build.
The left hand’s Shatter Blade breaks defenses and applies the Shatter effect, while the right hand’s Force Savage Axe delivers heavy strikes. With Bonefire enchanting both weapons, dual-wielded strikes are imbued with swirling Inkflame elemental damage. The Qi Eater Soul serves to restore vitality and mental power, maintaining the Inkflame buff.
After explaining the logic behind the Star Vein build, Steel Arm summoned the test panel and spawned monsters for the demonstration.
He weaved skillfully through monster groups while dual-wielding, constantly opening his mouth to inhale streams of white air that spiraled into a vortex.
This post received a flood of likes, and the comment section was buzzing.
Protagonist of Destiny: Thanks, big bro, for the guide. I absolutely love magic-melee hybrid builds.
No P2W, Only Life P2W: So grateful. I was just struggling with this issue. Pure melee has no answer for Shadow Leech type monsters. Logged onto the forum and found your guide right away. I’m definitely following your build, though I don’t like dual-wielding, fused spirit weapons suit me better. (Tip: 1 Sacrificial Power)
Endless Night: Clever idea, but this build has a serious problem. After the body tempering level reaches the attribute inheritance phase, the Force Savage Axe and Shatter Blade primarily boost physical aptitude, while Qi Eater and Bonefire mainly boost mental power. There’s a conflict between the two types of Souls. In theory, players using four melee Souls will have much higher physical aptitude than you. Your build may look flashy, but it’s really just adding an elemental enchantment, not as strong as a pure four-melee-soul setup. I find it impractical.
Steel Arm (OP) replying to Endless Night: Whoa, it’s Endless Night himself. You’re right, that issue does exist. But to handle special monsters, some sacrifice is necessary. This build definitely has weaker physical stats compared to a full melee build. Any suggestions, Endless Night?
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Reading through the replies, Qi Sheng noticed a system design flaw he hadn’t considered before.
In the post, the theorycrafter player Endless Night pointed out a problem in the Star Vein combination, which made Qi Sheng think of a core flaw in the current system.
Currently, when players hunt Evil Entities or monsters, the evolution points earned are shared equally across all embedded Souls.
For example, if a player has three Souls embedded and kills a monster that gives 120 evolution points, those points are evenly split, and all three Souls grow at the same pace.
This creates a problem where players can’t focus on developing specific Souls.
Steel Arm’s Star Vein build clearly suffered from this. The Bonefire and Qi Eater Souls only needed enough levels to maintain mental power regeneration, but further evolution points beyond that became wasteful. Those extra points would be better spent entirely on Shatter Blade and Force Savage Axe.
As more Star Vein builds emerged in the future, this problem would only worsen.
Even distribution was turning into a liability.
Realizing the issue, Qi Sheng immediately considered modifying the system.
As he kept scrolling through the comments, he found his answer.
He decided to add a ‘distribution function’ to evolution point allocation, giving players full control over where their evolution points go.
Without hesitation, Qi Sheng immediately began testing the new feature.
He summoned the Challenger System, and countless lines of data appeared, revolving around him.
With just a thought, Guide beside him cooperated in simulating the new evolution point distribution system.
Ten minutes later, a brand new panel appeared before Qi Sheng, with bold characters: Evolution Point Distribution.
At the center was the Soul embedment display, listing five embedded Souls, each with an adjustable percentage slider for allocation.
The maximum setting could go up to 100%, and the minimum could go as low as 0%. A ‘Balance All’ button sat at the bottom.
Selecting ‘Balance All’ would automatically set each Soul to 20%, evenly splitting earned evolution points.
After testing the panel’s functionality and its integration with the Challenger System, Qi Sheng nodded with satisfaction.
The new feature would completely solve the problem of not being able to focus Soul development. Players could now freely customize their growth path. Once a specific Soul reached the desired level, its allocation could be reduced to 0%, preventing further evolution points from being wasted.
This completely addressed the problem mentioned in the post about overbalanced growth weakening overall power.
With testing complete, Qi Sheng decided to immediately launch a new update and make the feature available to players.
And this was precisely why he constantly collected player feedback, every update was aimed at improving the players’ experience, making functions more convenient, and ultimately generating even greater sacrificial power.
To build the true body of the Emperor’s Sign, it all started with caring for the players.