Chapter 154
Patch.
From the smallest changes, like fixing in-game bugs or tweaking minor balance numbers, to the largest, like massive updates—every action that modifies software falls under this term.
And patch notes go up at 6 a.m. on the very day the patch is applied.
Simply put, think of them as a guide explaining what’s changed.
Usually, unless a new game mode comes out or a massive event happens, these patch notes drift by like water under a bridge, largely ignored.
The people who check them and keep a close watch each time are few.
The coaches of the teams who respond sensitively to game changes.
And the creators who post that information, that type.
But in this patch, one more faction joined the fray.
It started with a post that went up the night before, after the official account’s broadcast ended.
[So what are they gonna do about Kael?]
==
No matter how you look at it, knowing the next pattern is just cheating, isn’t it?
Think about it. Time needed to stack up 3 weak points? 2 seconds.
He’s got an invincibility move that’s basically just 2 seconds lolololololololol
==
Kael’s skill was fundamentally designed to focus on the time it takes to land a hit on a weak point, so that the higher your skill, the higher the performance you could pull out.
To restate the standard:
Around 20 seconds is ‘decent’ skill. They say decent, but in truth, among those with at least some proficiency, that’s rock bottom.
Meaning, by the overall user base’s standard it’s decent, but among Kael users who’ve built up a certain level of proficiency, it’s the bottom of the barrel.
The average time is 15-20 seconds.
10-15 seconds is the performance peak you can pull out with Kael.
At least, against opponents of equal skill, that is.
The absolute peak is 8 seconds, but that’s a time you’d only see if a Challenger gets really lucky or they’re up against a Bronze.
-Ah right. That existed.
- Kael talk came up sometimes, but is it really going to apply to the patch?
- But 10 seconds is already more than enough to go nuts with Kael, but 2 seconds? That’s crossed a line lololololol
- Instantly 5 times faster!
- No, so how the hell did he do it? lololol
Surprisingly, the people who started chatting about this topic with interest weren’t the Kael addicts.
The Kael addicts, on the contrary.
[Please let there be no Kael in the patch]
==
Please please please please
==
Were busy praying.
The reason is simple. If the patch contains content about Kael, and if there’s a change to the pattern—
- Then let’s learn it too and suck up some of that nectar!
- Don’t patch Kael, don’t touch him, just let it pass!
- Devs, only Seojun gets to suck the nectar, so just leave it alone
└If only one guy gets the nectar anyway, shouldn’t you be touching it?
└I don’t know about that, but I want to be able to swing the Judgment Sword crazy fast too someday
└Abandon your vain hopes, Kael addict
Either way, they won’t even get the chance to suck up that nectar.
Of course, the overall public opinion leaned towards ‘touch it,’ but various opinions came up.
[Hey, guys. Think about it. Is that 2 seconds gonna keep being 2 seconds?]
==
When you look at the opponents that streamer had while playing Kael, they were Bronze, Unranked.
That’s why he pulled off that overpowered performance.
Against an opponent of similar skill, even if you know the next weak point’s location, you can’t exploit it easily. Sure, he’d still be fucking strong. But is it really nerf-level?
==
-lol well first of all, there’s no one of the same skill as Seojun?
└The Demon Cult says this? Are you guys picking up your streamer’s personality?
└I’ll apologize on their behalf. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
- Has a point
└But still, isn’t knowing the pattern a problem?
└It does seem to break the balance of fairness
[Talking about fairness—that’s a skill too.]
==
Nerfing a hero just to snipe one person for being outstandingly skilled, well.
A game company’s got pride, you know.
==
A debate flared up over whether that statement was actually correct, too.
And in these fights, other precedents need to be brought up...
[Hasn’t there ever been a case like this? A history of a nerf specifically targeting one person for being too good?]
The thing is, there was no precedent.
More precisely, there could have been.
But at least as far as their memories went, there had never been an instance of a game company nerfing a hero character because of just one single person.
- Who knows if they will or won’t this time either, stop jumping ahead of yourselves
- There have been cases where a hero used by a minority was nerfed for being too insane. But never a nerf because of ‘just one person’. I wonder what’ll happen this time.
- What about that Wind Sword who supposedly got taught?
└Regressed like hell lolololol Said he wanted to get tutoring again. Oh right. They’re on the same team now?
└lololololol He’ll definitely ask Seojun during the tournament. Since he’s a true Kael addict!
[Then what about Eric? He seems totally busted too]
- Don’t touch Eric... If Eric gets nerfed I’m quitting the game for real (1,000 Eric games verification photo)
└Oh, sheesh. Master rank? lololololol
└Effectively in the upper tiers, this guy’s probably the only one who stacked up Eric stat data lolololol since almost no one plays him
And so throughout the night, the league’s community boiled endlessly with this topic and stories related to Rios.
The next morning at 6 a.m.,
the hour when only the real, truest of true remain.
Posts started popping up again, thick and fast.
[Kael’s in the patch lolololol So he got nerfed after all. Other users probably won’t care though.]
[No mention of pattern formula stuff. Just a skill cooldown added. Radiant Blessing cooldown: 7 seconds.]
[What’s the game company thinking?]
[As long as Eric survived, that’s all that matters ㅠㅠ]
[The pattern might’ve been changed secretly.]
[But man, it’s really sparking controversy on so many fronts lololololololololololololololololol From a spectator’s standpoint, it’s fucking hilarious]
- He’s truly peerless, for real
- Simply the GOAT!
- Hurry up and apologize, those fans of his lolololol
└I’m sorry for causing another fight. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.
* * *
[Senior]
[Senior]
[Did you see this? (link)]
[Seems like people are pretty negative?]
[You really didn’t change the pattern, right?]
6 a.m., the point where dawn ends and morning arrives.
Unless you’re unusually diligent, it’s the hour when most office workers who commute at the normal 9 a.m. are asleep.
And at that sleeping hour, with messages ringing in, the head of The League’s balance team rose from his slumber.
Balance patches are typically conducted by the headquarters using tournaments as a standard. However, Korea’s solo queue also serves as a benchmark, and more importantly, since the team heads of each branch hold meetings every time, the distinction had effectively become meaningless.
Thus, the fact that the Korean team head was deeply involved in this Kael balance patch was self-evident.
[Senior, people are asking what’s up with this ambiguous 7 seconds?]
[They’re asking if the game company has sunk to this level?]
[And people are also curious about what happened with the pattern! Shouldn’t we have to say something?]
The alarm kept ringing.
After spitting out curses as he woke, the team head waited for his eyes to focus, then read the messages.
“Ah, this son of a...”
It was a close junior from another department.
[You got a death wish?]
[I’m sorry! Then have a nice day today!]
In truth, because the junior was diligent, he had been asked to read the previous day’s reactions and let him know if things looked bad. He just hadn’t told him to make such a fuss.
“Hmm.”
He slowly checked the community reactions.
For people working on patches, the most important thing was always data.
Second was public opinion.
Ultimately, public opinion was also just data from collective play experience. Though it rarely was the right answer, so its priority dropped, that was all.
“Just as I thought. This much is fine.”
The atmosphere was one where everyone acknowledged the necessity of the nerf itself.
He hadn’t touched other people’s performance either.
However, there were two points of contention that remained unresolved.
What meaning did the 7 seconds hold?
And had the pattern been changed? If not, why not?
“7 seconds, well.”
It was a suitable number that came out at the end of the meeting. Up to 8 seconds, they judged that other users could still approach it, so it was a check mechanism to prevent the user who figured out the pattern from possessing an excessively overpowered advantage.
With 7 seconds, the performance peak would be higher than Kael’s original design, but they judged that was acceptable.
“And as for the pattern...”
In truth, on the day Seojun first played Kael, at the emergency meeting he called, the talk had actually started with fixing the pattern.
The idea was to change the existing generation formula just enough so that current users wouldn’t lose their feel for it.
Many team heads had agreed that it was the best method to minimize damage to existing users while also preventing that unknown user from having an overpowered advantage.
It was certainly rational and perfectly feasible.
Changing the formula a bit might be a headache, but it wasn’t something they couldn’t do.
Most of all, there was precedent for making changes.
The problem was.
‘The issue is what happened with that precedent.’
Seven years ago.
When one Kael user’s data seemed strange, the team head at the time had him check it.
Back then, Kael had weak point patterns, bonus damage, and additional effects, but attacking weak points quickly wasn’t his main thing.
[Kael’s a sustained damage dealer, so why is this guy’s burst damage so high!]
[I’ll look into it!]
Still, exploiting weak points quickly could pull out sufficiently high performance, so it stood out.
[Crazy... Is he reading the pattern?]
[It has to be a leak!]
[Is that really what it is?]
[Once we find out who the external leaker is, they won’t get off easy!]
They immediately touched the formula.
But it was no use.
[He’s reading it again! Again!]
[Damn it. Then Assistant Manager Kim is excluded from the next correction work.]
They began the task of excluding team members one by one to find the leaker.
[He started reading it again!]
[At this point, couldn’t he be a bug user?]
[No. We absolutely have to find that leaker.]
They made fine adjustments too.
[After slashing the enemy a few times at the start of the game, he smirked and started predicting the pattern again! That’s clearly him laughing at us!]
[Is it really a bug?]
They even changed it on a massive scale.
[This time he started predicting only after one match had passed! Hit rate: 100 percent!]
[You enjoying yourself?]
[No, but is it even possible to make predictions just by knowing this formula in the first place?]
[I don’t know either.]
[Team Head?]
[Still, there’s got to be something! I’ll settle this with that bastard.]
Like that, after changing it a few more times.
[Damn it, who is it!]
[You handled it alone this time, Team Head.]
[Is it me?]
In the end, the team head of the time freaked out and rolled back to the initial values.
Thankfully, since it didn’t create a monstrous overpowered state, it was fine.
Anyway, only that one user noticed the changes, so they proceeded with it as a stealth patch.
Except, the team head wrote a statement of apology, and that user disappeared.
And so that user’s existence was forgotten, and Kael was reworked.
‘But, that person came back?’
He couldn’t view users’ personal information, but he was certain.
Damn it.
Anyway, the reason he didn’t touch the pattern was one thing.
‘Because changing it would be useless.’
He desperately prayed that no more heroes would pop up needing strange fixes like this again.
* * *
“Hyung, are you okay?”
Lee Dongsu, having finished his morning workout and come down from the ring, stripped off his gloves and sat next to Seojun.
“About what?”
“You know, Kael. If they went and changed, like, the pattern formula with a stealth patch or something, isn’t that just totally unfair? It’s basically no different from the company flat-out targeting you, hyung! I mean, why are you so calm?!”
“Am I? Eh, whatever.”
“Huh? No, I mean, the skill cooldown, sure, that’s possible on a balance level, but if they touched that pattern, just sue them already, come on. In the first place, his identity is that a skilled person can do it faster. But messing with it because someone is too good? That’s not right!”
Seojun was about to wave off Lee Dongsu, who was getting angry on his behalf, when a thought suddenly occurred to him and he asked.
“Hmm. Does that company have a high turnover rate?”
“Shouldn’t be? It’s basically a subsidiary where Surface is the largest shareholder, plus the benefits are good and the pay, so... Wait, what’s with the turnover rate?”
“Then they wouldn’t have touched it.”
After meeting the Wind Sword, Seojun had been sure.
There was definitely someone left who knew him.
He’d only ever quietly played games, so even if they knew, it was nothing much, but he did have an odd experience with the developers once.
The nerf itself was justified.
He hadn’t failed to foresee it, so he understood.
More than anything, what could they accomplish by changing the pattern?
‘Old times, every time I entered a game, the pattern would change, and it was fun putting the puzzle together.’
He hoped the great developer who’d even offered up that minigame hadn’t left the company.
“No, aren’t you even wronged?! This was a guaranteed way to delete one of their ban cards!”
“I’m not wronged. Anyway, what’ve you been doing lately?”
When Seojun changed the subject, Lee Dongsu’s face lit up.
“Oh? Heh heh heh. You’re finally asking that, huh?”
What’s with this guy?
Seojun stared at Lee Dongsu like he was looking at a weirdo.
“So you really do need my help, right? Thanks to you, hyung, my grades have gotten super good lately, so if I wanted free time, I could get it. Yes indeed. I’ll specially coach you. I, Lee Dongsu of Freefall! The kind of relationship we hav—”
“No, it’s not that. I asked because you’ve looked really idle lately.”
“......”
“Two days ago you even boasted about completing a 40,000-piece puzzle. I was wondering when the hell you even practice, that’s all.”
“......”