Chapter 148-4: Reshaping Order, Taunt Tactics (4) |
Two days later.
While switching and applying various unit combinations, the Earthmind Evil Spirit decided to try a new tactic he had never used before.
This new tactic arose from his constant clashes with the player race.
He called it the Psychological Interference Tactic, applicable to unit combinations of any system.
He had recorded many lines while observing players. Although he did not understand what these lines were meant to convey, the key point was that they seemed to work wonders on players.
Very soon, the Earthmind Evil Spirit launched the first round of testing of his new tactic on a squad of players.
—
In the southeast of the Evil Moon domain, a 42-player squad was locked in fierce battle with Evil Entities.
Fighting as they retreated, the players wanted to break out of the encirclement, head outside the domain to recover, and then resume fighting the Black Tide Evil Entities.
A natural-catastrophe series unit in front suddenly opened its mouth.
“Do you even know how to play? You’re quitting already? You’re utter trash in combat. Don’t make me look down on you, okay?”
Hearing the sudden speech from the natural-catastrophe unit, the retreating players were stunned.
“Holy crap, this… this Evil Entity is taunting us?”
“Good grief, getting taunted by an Evil Entity. That’s a first.”
“Unacceptable. Kill the taunting Evil Entity. This is outrageous. We players are the dads here.”
Facing the taunts, the retreating players decisively struck back, with all kinds of skills raining down on the mouthy natural-catastrophe unit.
At this moment, seeing this scene from behind the curtain, the Earthmind Evil Spirit beamed with delight.
Facts proved that the recorded lines he had observed were indeed effective.
When the player squad killed the natural-catastrophe unit and prepared to continue retreating, the Evil Entities ahead spoke up one after another.
“Forget it. If you can’t fight, then don’t. I wasn’t counting on you anyway.”
“How about this: I’ll stand still and let you hit me. I won’t even move. If you still can’t kill me, you might as well stop playing.”
“You look just like those NPCs in games who can never level up, can’t kill mobs, and only loaf around in the starter village, the most useless kind. Absolute trash.”
“You’re really so bad. My grandma plays better than you. Look at that movement. Are you still using the arrow keys on the keyboard? Left a tap, right d tap, wobbling more than a drunk. If you can’t do it, don’t come out and embarrass yourselves.”
Under the Black Tide Evil Entities’ taunts, the squad instantly saw red.
On team voice chat, players immediately said that at worst they would die once and that they should kill every Black Tide Evil Entity that opened its mouth to taunt.
The original retreat plan turned into an aggressive charge tactic.
Watching from behind the scenes, the Earthmind Evil Spirit could not help but laugh out loud.
Actual combat had already proven that the information he had collected was indeed useful.
In the Emperor’s Mound Mountain Range area, when fighting players, he had discovered that players would occasionally suddenly taunt, after which the taunted player would enter an emotional state.
At the time, he had wondered whether he could record these lines that made players emotional and try using them in battle.
After countless combat records, he had finally collected enough lines, and it was time to use them in actual combat.
This initial attempt produced outstanding results.
This meant he could use the Psychological Interference Tactic to carry out a de facto manipulation of the player group.
The test results greatly satisfied the Earthmind Evil Spirit.
What the Earthmind Evil Spirit did not know was that his actions had already sparked heated discussion on the forum.
[Insane. The Black Tide Evil Entities can actually taunt players now. Completely off the charts.]
Poster: Abstract Materialization
Content:
You might not believe this, but the Evil Entities behind the Colorful Mist Coast have evolved. They can actually spout human speech and taunt now.
Video as proof (video attachment).
Comments:
Danqing: You must have run into mutated Evil Entities. The video is too addictive. The taunting is maxed out. The monsters’ intelligence has evolved again. This really messes with your mentality.
Hu Three Blades: The video looks so weird, especially that line my grandma plays better than you. Where would a Black Tide Evil Entity get a grandma? They must have learned the taunt lines from us players. Everyone, when you flame teammates, remember to do it in voice chat. Do not flame directly. I am afraid the Black Tide will learn it and use it on me.
Rainy Season: Absurd, utterly absurd. Did you notice the expressions on that natural-catastrophe unit in the video when it was cursing? I can say with one hundred percent certainty it learned from us players. It can learn even that?
End Scattered End Fallen: I was cracking up in my little dark room of self-isolation. When a doomsday series unit killed a player and said ‘Nice feeding technique.’ it face-taunted and popped an ultimate. Who could tolerate that? The Black Tide Evil Entities have started turning the tables, huh, and actually dare to taunt us players.
Invincible Tyrannosaurus War God: It is practically a compilation of classic lines. I now strongly suspect it is the Earthmind bully smurfing again. Only he would have collected so many taunt lines. Is this kid evolving every day? New tactics keep popping up. I protest. I demand the officials nerf the Earthmind bully’s strength. If they let him keep growing like this, who knows what even nastier tactic he will develop.
—
Regarding the Black Tide Evil Entities opening their mouths to taunt, forum players were laughing like crazy and also blew up with anger.
It had always been players bullying others. For Black Tide Evil Entities to dare reverse-taunt was truly outrageous.
The forum immediately organized manpower to give the Black Tide at the Colorful Mist Coast node a harsh lesson.
Although this battle would surely be lost, the Black Tide still had to pay a price.
Once players organized and pushed into the Evil Moon domain, the combat intensity spiked severalfold at once.
The one in charge of battle command was still God King.
Under his command, the players began applying a new tactic.
This was also basic content that every commander had to master.
Every time a new Inherited soul appears, new Star Vein combination builds emerge, especially when a relatively powerful Inherited soul is contained, which attracts a large number of players to switch.
For example, the newly contained Spell Tower Inherited soul gave birth to the tower defense build as a caster school with it as the core.
As a battlefield commander, if you do not even understand the Inherited soul’s trait effects and the combination builds, you simply cannot freely command players.
Understanding is the first step, followed by application.
So when new Inherited souls appear, battlefield commanders need to grind forum guides at high frequency, keep up in real time with the new Inherited soul’s effects and how to use its combination builds, then update tactics according to battlefield changes.
This time God King developed a new tactic and applied it in the confrontation with the Black Tide.
In the fierce fighting, those taunt lines that gave players headaches appeared again.
“Are we playing the same game? Who taught you to throw Inkflame Fireball like that? If you cannot play, go practice in the test tower and come back. If that still does not work, equip a homing Inherited soul.”
“Yo, you sure are amazing. That hit on my head probably popped out a number 1. So strong.”
“With reaction speed like that, you must still be asleep. Even if given a chance, you are useless.”
—
The Evil Entities in the scene were like they had equipped a taunt Inherited soul, with mental damage cranked to the max.
Many players felt nothing watching forum videos, even thinking they were pretty funny. Only when they truly ran into it did they realize how torturous it was.
Sometimes when you whiff a skill, the nearby Evil Entities face-taunt at full intensity.
In the process it became apparent that the precision of the Evil Entities’ taunts was steadily improving.
At first there were mistargeted taunts, with some taunt lines not matching the players’ actions. When the Earthmind Evil Spirit found players were not reacting, he recorded this information and transmitted it to his own Evil Eye, recorded and corrected the scenarios of mistargeted taunts, and the precision of subsequent taunts gradually approached perfection.
They could deliver precise taunts based on players’ actions.
This enraged players, and some could not help cursing back.
Thus there appeared the comedic scene of players and Evil Entities flaming each other.
The Earthmind Evil Spirit also regarded this as an important moment for collecting material, recorded and archived the back-and-forth, and the contents of the taunt database increased accordingly.
When the great battle ended and all players were killed, the Earthmind Evil Spirit’s projection on the tower platform looked at the blue-skinned Evil Eye.
“Evil Eye, the player race’s next offensive should arrive before long. I have a proposal.”
“Please speak.” the blue-skinned Evil Eye nodded.
“I wish to request my auxiliary Evil Eye to serve as my battle commander. This can enhance my control over the Black Tide and reduce energy loss.”
Hearing this, the blue-skinned Evil Eye fell silent briefly, then nodded.
“Your auxiliary Evil Eye is a descendant of the Thirteenth God Eye and indeed possesses more permissions and greater ability than I do. I agree to your request.”
The Earthmind Evil Spirit then interfaced with the Evil Eye of the Abyss of Heaven node.
“Come.”
Once the mental link was established, the Evil Eye’s projection descended.
At this moment the blue-skinned Evil Eye opened the connection to the Evil Eye Tower and voluntarily yielded control permissions.
The Evil Eye did not hesitate, extending tendrils to interface with the tower.
At once, all permissions in the scene were controlled by the Earthmind Evil Spirit and the Evil Eye.
At this stage, they could already transfer resources to the Abyss of Heaven Territory Node without a sound.
But to lull the blue-skinned Evil Eye, they did not do so directly.
Instead, they planned to gradually nibble away the resources of this domain field under cover of battle when the player race arrived.
After all, the blue-skinned Evil Eye had only lost control, but its perception ability remained. It simply could not interface with the tower to expand its sensing range. If too much Black Tide energy was transported at once, it would be easy to notice something amiss.
Unless… they found a chance to kill the blue-skinned Evil Eye.
But doing so carried certain risks, so the plan of gradually taking resources was more reliable.
While they waited, the player race members arrived as scheduled.
The Earthmind Evil Spirit controlled the Black Tide to launch a dual tactic of taunting plus resource theft.
With the Evil Eye that followed him controlling the whole field, he did not have to worry that the process of petty theft would be discovered. The energy consumed could be entirely chalked up to the player race.
After all, the player race happens to have the mysterious trait of making killed enemies non recyclable. This information had long been recorded and shared in the information database.
To speed up devouring, the Earthmind Evil Spirit decided to change the unit structure.
He had all the natural-catastrophe units in the scene recycled and replaced them with the stronger damage output death-catastrophe and frenzy tide series units.
In name, it was efficient quick kills, but in reality it was to borrow the players’ hands to speed up the theft.
The change in Black Tide strength in the scene was quickly noticed by the incoming players.
They found that the structure of Black Tide Evil Entity units had suddenly changed, generating only units that were easy to kill, which made the players who had entered the domain to hunt shout with delight.
They suddenly felt that the Evil Spirit warrior in control here, the intelligent AI, was nothing much.
They had thought it could keep improving and growing, but this was it?
Compared to the Earthmind bully, it was clearly far inferior.
During this period, the Earthmind Evil Spirit also began to think about a new tactic.
He called this tactic: Infiltration Tactic.
[T/N: Earthmind is quickly becoming my fav character, that flaming tactic and those insults had me bursting out in laughter xD]
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