At this point, Yu Fei had no more design documents and could only share his thoughts as they came to him.

“Additionally, we’ll have two control systems: a standard combo mode and a simplified combo mode.”

“The standard mode will be like common fighting games, where you need to input half-circles or quarter-circles to release corresponding skills, such as ↓↙←↙↓↘→+A type of operations.”

“The simplified combo mode will allow players to execute corresponding combos even when mindlessly pressing the A and B buttons.”

“Considering that fighting games have many moves—possibly more than twenty or nearly thirty skills including light and heavy punches—it’s unrealistic to assign hotkeys for all these skills.”

“The traditional combo input method can indeed distinguish these actions, but it’s relatively difficult to perform, and new players can’t execute them.”

“So, we’ll design a combo system for players, with Slow Horse AI Laboratory’s AI program calculating in real-time to select better attack methods for players during continuous attacks. For example, when it’s appropriate to execute a combo, even if the player is just foolishly pressing A and B buttons, the system will automatically perform the combo, and super special moves will be fixed to a basic key position, so they can be executed with a single press.”

“This way, even players who have never played fighting games before can enjoy the pleasure of smooth combos.”

Hearing this, Pei Qian slightly frowned: “Uh… wait a minute.”

Something seemed off.

Wasn’t this essentially the same as the magic sword in “Eternal Damnation”?

Hardcore players would diligently execute combos, while novice players could randomly press buttons and still perform flashy moves, enjoying the visual feast that only top players should be able to execute.

If the animations were made more stylish and the special effects more gorgeous, for ordinary players, this could completely serve as a hack-and-slash game for progressing through the story. Wouldn’t this greatly lower the entry barrier?

If the difficulty wasn’t high enough, how would it discourage some players with poor reflexes?

With this in mind, Pei Qian said: “I think this might not be appropriate.”

“In my view, a simplified combo mode can exist, but it should only simplify to a limited extent. For example, simplifying the original ↓↘→↓↘→+A to ↓↘→+A, and simplifying the original ↓↘→+A to ↘+A.”

“Moreover, moves executed using the simplified combo mode should deal less damage.”

The simplified mode definitely couldn’t be too simple—the magic sword in “Eternal Damnation” was a lesson.

If possible, Pei Qian would choose to eliminate the simplified mode entirely, leaving only the standard mode.

Let those players unfamiliar with fighting games buy it and still not be able to defeat bosses, requiring ten days to half a month just to practice combos!

But the problem was, since this game was a relatively high-difficulty game with a story mode, Pei Qian himself would also need to complete it…

If there were only the standard mode, Pei Qian himself might struggle to complete the storyline.

So, a slight compromise was necessary.

The simplified mode couldn’t be too simple; otherwise, Pei Qian would clear the game too easily, and ordinary players would also enjoy it too much, which would inevitably lead to high sales. The simplified mode needed a certain level of difficulty, requiring dedicated training for some time to master, still discouraging players who disliked fighting games, while ensuring Pei Qian himself could complete the game.

Pei Qian had played some fighting games when he was younger. Although he wasn’t very skilled, he should still be able to execute combos like ↓↘→+A.

Additionally, with the simplified mode dealing less damage, this was somewhat annoying for ordinary players, constantly reminding them that super special moves executed using the simplified mode dealt less damage, making them feel uncomfortable.

Yu Fei nodded: “Uh… alright, Mr. Pei, we’ll make those changes.”

Clearly, he had no thoughts of his own. If Mr. Pei said to make changes, then that’s how it would be changed—after all, he didn’t understand much about it anyway.

“Furthermore, I plan to create a very complete storyline for ‘Ghost General 2’!”

“This storyline is derived from the background stories of the generals in ‘Ghost General,’ while incorporating some historical stories from the Three Kingdoms period, with fantasy modifications.”

“Moreover, these stories can be integrated with the generals’ skills.”

“‘Ghost General’ was just a card game, so the original skills were quite simple, with each general having only one distinctive skill. But for a fighting game, there would be at least a dozen skills, possibly more than twenty, all of which need to be redesigned.”

“Take Zhuge Liang for example. According to the character description in ‘Ghost General,’ he was a great inventor, physicist, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer whose research covered multiple cutting-edge fields including weather weapons, aircraft, autonomous vehicles, and robots.”

“After some research, I realized this perfectly corresponds to his inventions like borrowing the east wind, Kongming lanterns, wooden ox and flowing horses, and the Zhuge repeating crossbow, right?”

“So, I want to incorporate all these skills into Zhuge Liang’s moves. For instance, his ‘Borrowing the East Wind’ skill could summon numerous missiles to bombard an area, creating intense shock waves that sweep through the surrounding area like a gale.”

“The Kongming lantern would be a small aircraft that could lift him to a certain height, allowing him to both avoid enemy attacks and emit a dazzling light that temporarily blinds enemies.”

“Also, since he has autonomous vehicles, he definitely wouldn’t walk onto the battlefield but would sit in his ‘plain carriage,’ which is similar to a wheelchair. In the game, this could be packaged as a high-tech hovering vehicle, so whether retreating or jumping, Zhuge Liang wouldn’t need to act personally, which would better fit his character.”

“Of course, Zhuge Liang certainly wouldn’t engage in hand-to-hand combat. His normal attacks should be executed through giant mechanical arms floating in front of him.”

“The wooden ox and flowing horses could be a summoning of mechanical armies, while the Zhuge repeating crossbow could be a summoning of heavy machine guns to sweep the area.”

“To help players better accept these skills, I’m considering unlocking them gradually through levels.”

“For example, in the Battle of Red Cliffs level, players would control Zhuge Liang to use the ‘Borrowing the East Wind’ skill. Players would need to stand on the Seven Star Platform, which is the missile launch base, and input combos according to prompts. Only after successfully executing the combo could they release the skill to clear the area and complete the level.”

“Before this, players wouldn’t be able to use this skill and would only have access to fire attacks, which are simple skills similar to incendiary bombs. Progressing through levels this way would guide players to become familiar with the heroes’ main skills.”

“At the same time, the storyline could be integrated into the levels, making the entire game’s story richer.”

Yu Fei became increasingly excited as he spoke, clearly enjoying the process of organizing the “Ghost General” storyline over the past few days.

The more he organized it, the more he was amazed by Mr. Ma, who had originally written the “Ghost General” storyline.

How had he come up with all of this? It was so brilliant!

If one were to look at the original requirements document now, they might think it was poorly written, without reference images, merely consisting of a few casual descriptions written quite carelessly, seeming unreliable.

Yet such a requirements document not only perfectly matched the style of “Ghost General,” making it stand out among the flood of Three Kingdoms-themed card games at the time, but it was still proving useful three years later!

Now that Yu Fei was developing “Ghost General 2,” he inevitably needed to design many skills for these generals. This should have been an extremely labor-intensive and brain-draining task, but now he just needed to follow the hero backgrounds, combine them with materials from Three Kingdoms history and novels, and immediately he could come up with many fitting and interesting storylines!

Could it be that Mr. Ma had already anticipated this day for “Ghost General” when writing the original requirements document?

Yet at that time, Tenda was still a small company without much money, and their previous game was “Lonely Desert Highway.” Who could have imagined that years later, “Ghost General” would be transformed into such a complex game?

If Mr. Ma had already anticipated this, it would only indicate his strong confidence in Mr. Pei, in Tenda, and in himself.

If Mr. Ma hadn’t anticipated this, that would be even more terrifying, suggesting that Mr. Ma had just casually designed everything and naturally thought through all these elements.

In short, it was simply amazing!

And what level was Mr. Pei on, having arranged for Mr. Ma to write the “Ghost General” requirements document and then deciding years later to transform “Ghost General” into a fighting game?

Hmm… better not think too much about it.

The more he thought about it, the more unfathomable Mr. Pei seemed.

After listening to Yu Fei’s lengthy discourse, Pei Qian fell silent.

Judging from Yu Fei’s animated state, he had clearly become excited about the storyline and was completely letting his imagination run wild.

This was normal, as Yu Fei was a web novelist, so his interest in storytelling was quite natural.

But the key issue was… why did Yu Fei’s ideas sound increasingly feasible?

Just Zhuge Liang’s skills alone sounded quite compelling…

Pei Qian originally wanted to dissuade Yu Fei, but upon reflection, his idea seemed flawless.

What reason could Pei Qian use to make Yu Fei abandon this concept?

After all, it was Pei Qian who had decided to make “Ghost General 2,” and Yu Fei was using existing settings from “Ghost General,” so there shouldn’t be any problems, right?

Moreover, Pei Qian had told Yu Fei to focus his main energy on storytelling and level design, precisely to divert his attention and make him think less about the game’s combat system.

If Pei Qian now told Yu Fei not to make the storyline so complex, setting aside the issue of changing orders, the key concern was that Yu Fei might then redirect all his energy to the combat system, which would be even more dangerous, wouldn’t it?

After much consideration, Pei Qian felt he had to choose the lesser of two evils. To ensure the combat aspects were slightly inferior, he had to allow Yu Fei to focus more on the storyline.

Besides, the storyline was originally written by Old Ma, and it was quite fragmented back then. “Ghost General” succeeded mainly because of Ruan Guangjian’s art style.

Now that Yu Fei was obsessing over the storyline, it probably wouldn’t yield too significant results. At least, it shouldn’t be enough to make a niche fighting game that required combo inputs become wildly popular and highly profitable.

Creating such a complex storyline meant developing some real-time cutscenes, character interactions, voice acting, etc., all of which were labor-intensive.

This meant spending more money while making it harder for the game to be profitable.

If they just routinely made a conventional fighting game, the investment wouldn’t be large, and relying on die-hard fighting game fans and loyal old players of “Ghost General,” they might recover costs and even make a small profit.

But what if they created a massive storyline and levels for the fighting game? The investment would soar dramatically, but the number of die-hard fighting game fans and loyal “Ghost General” players remained limited.

With costs increasing but sales not growing significantly, it would likely result in a loss.

After a moment’s consideration, Pei Qian said: “Alright, there are no major issues overall. Let’s proceed with this plan for now.”

“If you encounter any problems, feel free to come to me at any time.”