Chapter 1216: Dark Forest Rock Climbing
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
This Sacred Fire sealed all of Dark Forest's skills, while simultaneously gluing the mouths of Pan Lin and Li Yibo shut.
Just a second ago, they had been wantonly praising Li Hua's brilliant play, and now the two suddenly stopped talking.
If the two failed to realize Happy's tactical arrangements by now, the two weren't qualified to be professionals. Their awareness towards the situation was more sensitive than the vast majority of people, but they got it wrong and were now in a difficult position.
The two looked at each other in the eye, too embarrassed to say anything.
Li Hua might have been the key to victory, but… he was the key to Happy's victory, not Misty Rain's. He had fallen into Happy's trap.
The effects of this trap quickly emerged.
Tang Rou's Soft Mist entered the fray and charged towards Team Misty Rain. Wei Chen's Windward Formation didn't flee either, attacking from the sides. Su Mucheng's Dancing Rain bombarded them as well. These two were both using Screen Cannon tactics, coordinating with both sides, attacking here while also helping Ye Xiu over there.
Without Li Hua, the rest of Team Misty Rain was thrown into disorder. Although the three long-ranged classes had fierce offensive prowess, facing Soft Mist's unwavering push, their formation was forced to scatter. Their teamwork was having trouble flowing.
"The weaknesses in Misty Rain's tactics have been exposed…" Li Yibo began commentating. He directly jumped to the current situation as if his previous mistake in praising Li Hua weren't his words.
"Yeah…" Pan Lin followed along with Li Yibo's pace.
"Li Hua needs to hurry and get back to the others," Li Yibo said.
"But he's being pressed hard by Ye Xiu," Pan Lin said.
"Yes, he just lost to Ye Xiu in the individual competition. He doesn't have the mental advantage in a 1v1. What's more, Ye Xiu is also receiving assistance from Su Mucheng and Wei Chen," Li Yibo said.
"However, Ninjas have the advantage, if they're only looking to escape," Pan Lin said.
"That's true. However, since Happy had this planned out beforehand, then they should have countermeasures prepared. I think Ye Xiu is quite confident that he can force Li Hua to stay here," Li Yibo gradually started waving his banner towards Happy, stealthily reconstructing his image of having acute foresight.
As the two spoke, the Sacred Fire on Dark Forest wore off, but it hadn't been very long since he escaped from Death's Door. The Assassin skill, Shining Cut, could be used again, but his other escape skills such as Substitution Technique and Shadow Clone Technique were still on cooldown, and Li Hua didn't know whether he had the time to wait for them to refresh.
Lord Grim's offensive was ferocious. Su Mucheng and Wei Chen would also help from time to time. In fact, most of their attention was focused on this side. They were only coordinating with Tang Rou to help harass and restrain the other side.
I can't wait!
Li Hua quickly came to a conclusion.
Underground Tunneling Technique!
Li Hua used this skill regardless of the timing. In response, Lord Grim jumped away and blasted the ground.
Dark Forest tunneled to below Half Moon Rock. He had used this skill as an underground movement technique. Although the distance he moved wasn't far, it was enough for him to reach Half Moon Rock.
Li Hua leaped up and stabbed his ninjato into the rock. Dark Forest began quickly scaling Half Moon rock.
Bang bang bang! Boom boom boom!
The gunfire behind him echoed. Lord Grim chased after him with long-ranged attacks, and Dancing Rain had shifted her attention over too.
Li Hua could not just simply move upwards. His movements would be too predictable. As a result, Dark Forest leapt left and right on Half Moon Rock, adding in many irregular horizontal movements as he climbed to make it harder for the enemy side to catch him.
Li Hua prayed that he played well. At this moment, Lord Grim dashed to below Half Moon Rock and jumped up.
"Wah…"
"Ooh.."
"Woah…"
The crowd made all sorts of astonished noises.
Lord Grim leaped up and took out a knife… the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella also had a ninjato form. Their skilled climbing made the crowd curious: Li Hua or Ye Xiu, who was faster?
In this situation, Ye Xiu was obviously faster because he had no obstructions. He could simply move upwards in a straight line. On the other hand, Li Hua needed to dodge attacks and add in horizontal movements. And because Dancing Rain's attacks were AoE, his horizontal movements had to be fairly large, further increasing the amount of distance Dark Forest needed to move.
In practically the blink of an eye, Ye Xiu's Lord Grim reached Dark Forest's height.
Li Hua's heart froze. Today, his heart kept freezing. His heart was going to be frozen stiff at this rate.
He could only clench his teeth and persevere through. He started moving horizontally even more, but because he had to dodge Lord Grim, his movements were much easier to predict for Su Mucheng. As a result, Li Hua had no choice but to start making circular movements. He clearly wanted to get over Half Moon Rock as fast as possible, but in order to do so, he needed to climb downwards from time to time.
Li Hua wanted to cry, but a short moment later, he suddenly realized that at this rate, he could just circle over the Half Moon Rock from the side...
Being forced to do this was quite tragic, but it was a feasible solution!
Li Hua continued to work hard at it. Suddenly, he heard a motor sound from behind him. He turned around to look and saw Lord Grim flying over with Rotor Wings.
"Fuck!"
The usually gentle and quiet Li Hua cursed loudly. He was truly under a lot of pressure.
Lord Grim flew in front of him and stabbed a ninjato into the Half Moon Rock.
Attack him!!!
A loud voice called out to him in his heart. It wanted him to attack this nearby, irksome presence, but his reason stopped him.
Go reunite with your teammates, an even stronger voice called out to him.
It was like there was a devil and an angel in his mind scuffling**! But the winner was quickly decided.
Dark Forest climbed up, but Lord Grim also leapt up, directly towards Dark Forest.
Dark Forest spun around his ninjato, dodging Lord Grim. He stepped on his ninjato and was just about to jump up, when Lord Grim's umbrella turned into a spear. Lord Grim dropped down as his evil spear stabbed upwards...
In the end, Dark Forest was unable to escape from the spear. All sorts of applause, laughs, and butt related words poured out from the crowd.
Circle Swing!
Lord Grim threw Dark Forest in a circle, smashing him into Half Moon Rock. Then, because of his position, Lord Grim stepped on Dark Forest, forcing him down as he moved up.
"Does that do damage?" The crowd was curious to why Lord Grim stepped on him.
"He's still attacking!" Someone discovered that as Lord Grim stepped on Dark Forest, he was also jabbing jabbing jabbing with his spear. His target was, of course, Dark Forest's head.
Dark Forest dropped to the ground with a face covered in blood.
Beaten up… Dark Forest failed to make it over the wall and was now being beat up violently. However, this tussle helped win him some time. Li Hua was now confident that he could wait for his escape skills to come off cooldown.
The east side darkens, the west side brightens, close a door, another door opens, Li Hua heard comforting thoughts from his heart.
Rock climbing really is a good way to stay alive! Li Hua thought to himself. He even wanted to climb some more, but Ye Xiu wasn't going to give him the same opportunity twice. This time, he attacked even tighter.
Li Hua kept trying. Chu Yunxiu and the others obviously weren't going to wait for Li Hua and do nothing. They were also trying to rush over, but Soft Mist was standing in their way. It really was difficult for these long-ranged classes to break through. After several unsuccessful attempts, Chu Yunxiu decided to have everyone split up and take a roundabout route.
The four from Misty Rain started spreading out and circled around Soft Mist. Tang Rou could only bite onto one person.
However, Tang Rou didn't target anyone. Her Soft Mist suddenly retreated.
"Not good…" Chu Yunxiu suddenly had a realization - she had made a mistake. By circling around, if they went too far away and Happy couldn't chase them, then...
Too late. Soft Mist's retreat was a signal. When Misty Rain shrunk back, Happy didn't pressure them. They also withdrew and then focused their efforts onto Dark Forest.
With Soft Mist returning, waving a spear in her hands, and Dancing Rain and Windward Formation pulling back to behind the Half Moon Rock, Li Hua's heart wasn't merely frozen. It was dead.
So those were the enemy's original intentions… I was too naive!
After wearing him down, they suddenly focused their attention onto him.
Ninjas weren't high-health high-defense classes to begin with. Once Dark Forest was caught up in their wave of attacks, he was quickly washed away. Chu Yunxiu and the others were hurrying over, and at this moment, they had just gotten past the Half Moon Rock.
Everything had been calculated perfectly.
Lord Grim and Soft Mist, the two melee characters, cut straight into Misty Rain's ranks and picked off their healer.
No matter how fierce the three ranged characters attacked, they had no way of forcing the two melee enemies apart. This was their weakness. Compared to melee classes, they lacked knockback and knockdown type skills.
Ye Xiu and Tang Rou ignored the attacks from the three ranged characters.
This… they're planning on trading!
Those with the knowledge could see it.
Happy had the numbers advantage, so they planned on sacrificing one of their characters for Misty Rain's healer. When one side had the numbers advantage, it was difficult for the other side to do anything about this type of trade.
Misty Rain was helpless...
By the time their sixth player arrived, this trade had already been completed. Lord Grim and Misty Rain's healer died.
Why Lord Grim?
If a trade was being forced to happen, then Misty Rain would obviously choose to trade for the bigger threat. In the entire Alliance, all nineteen teams would most likely choose Lord Grim in this situation.
But Happy's determination could be seen from this. If they were even willing to trade their strongest player, then they must be extremely confident towards what followed next.
In the end, Team Happy won the team competition.
10-0. Another 10-0. This was Happy's fourth 10-0 this season.
This was an achievement for a top powerhouse. However, top powerhouses being 10-0ed by other teams was very illogical.
Happy…
Chapter 1217: Voice Chat Rules
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
10 to 0, this result silenced all those who were hoping to see Happy capsize. Ruan Cheng of Esports Time had come to watch this match in person, but upon seeing this result, he skipped the post-match press conference entirely.
Happy's performance this match was indisputable. Their strategy in the team competition had been tailored to fight Misty Rain, and they were able to build their strategy around the unique features of the map in a beautiful manner. No matter how aggressive a reporter was, they couldn't find anything to criticize Happy with in this match. In the end, reporters had to follow logic. As of now, no one hated Happy enough to attack them out of nowhere.
The press conference ended with a host of congratulations. With these ten points, Happy rose two places on the leaderboard. After twelve rounds, they were now in ninth place, only one step away from the playoff zone, and it was a step that couldn't be smaller, only one point.
Happy was closing in on the eighth place Void, who currently had 71 points. In the eleventh round, they had used their home advantage to defeat Tiny Herb 8 to 2, but in this round's away game they lost to Wind Howl 1 to 9..
A number of people were already looking forward to next round's match.
Round 13, Happy would play their away game against Conquering Clouds, which wasn't any unbeatable team. And Void, meanwhile, would be playing their home game against the team which Happy had just swept, Misty Rain.
If Void wanted to maintain their lead over Happy in the rankings, they needed to have a showing just as strong as Happy's was this round. And the just-finished Happy versus Misty Rain match had been a clear tactical guide in fighting Misty Rain. BOX-1, trapping Li Hua outside of Misty Rain's tactical maneuvers would cripple the team. But strategy was something that everyone knew. The important part was execution. Comparing Happy and Void's next respective opponents on paper, most people anticipated that Happy would surpass Void next round.
But Misty Rain wasn't the only team that Happy had managed to surpass.
After twelve rounds, the seventh place team was the team that had previously been swept by Happy, Hundred Blossoms. They now led Happy by only 3 points. If these two teams had the same points score, Happy would rank above them by virtue of their prior victory. In round 13, Hundred Blossoms would be facing a strong team too, Wind Howl. If they didn't make good use of their home field advantage, it was likely that Happy would surpass both them and Wind Howl. Right now, Happy was accumulating points in a frightening manner.
In round 12, Samsara defeated Radiant 10 to 0, preventing Happy from having the honor of being the only team to have four 10-0 wins. Samsara's performance was as strong as ever.
In addition, Tiny Herb, Tyranny, and Wind Howl all earned high-point victories. But Blue Rain, who had played their home game against Thunderclap this round, had earned a powerful 5 points in the individual competition and group arena, only to lose the team competition. In the battle between two Master Tacticians, this time Xiao Shiqin took the lead.
In the post-match press conference, Blue Rain's Yu Wenzhou took responsibility, but the reporters didn't give him too much blame. Because Yu Wenzhou hadn't made any mistake, he… it was only because his hand speed wasn't enough, he couldn't issue directions and battle at the same time. After all, against a team with a Master Tactician like Xiao Shiqin, the battle strategies were constantly evolving in complex ways. It wasn't enough to solely rely on team cohesiveness and strategic habits. There needed to be someone directing the team members so that they knew the tactical intentions. Yu Wenzhou's hand speed in the pro circle was indeed subpar, and in this match that required a high hand speed to give directions, he was truly powerless.
And in the post-match press conference, Yu Wenzhou could only helplessly offer these words: "The opponent was very smart, accurately pinpointing my weakness."
Typically, for the post-match press conference, the losing team would go first, followed by the winning team. But in this round, both teams tied with 5 points, so the away team went first, then the home team.
When Yu Wenzhou made this statement, Thunderclap was already preparing to leave, but later there was still a reporter who managed to chase down Thunderclap's Captain Xiao Shiqin. Xiao Shiqin personally confirmed that in this round, Thunderclap's strategy was to increase the variability of their fighting, with the intent of forcing Blue Rain into making adjustments. Thunderclap would attack the flaws that appeared when Blue Rain couldn't adjust fast enough, or the flaws revealed by individual people…
Use complex and variable tactics and put greater pressure on Yu Wenzhou's slow hand speed.
Xiao Shiqin's targeted strategy sparked some controversy. Some people felt that this was just another way of attacking the opponent's weaknesses, and there was nothing wrong with that. But others felt that using tactics to create this effect was low-level and uninteresting. Strategy should display intellect and cleverness, and this sort of method changed that.
Thus, this reignited the calls to allow voice chat in matches. But as soon as those arguments surfaced, there were quickly others who said that if that happened, then trash talk would be spewed nonstop…
Immediately, everyone's first thought was of a certain other person on Team Blue Rain. His trash talk wasn't especially hurtful, but unrestricted voice chat would be ideal for him.
Once this person was mentioned, this person who had forced the Alliance to specially modify the rules of battle, those calls to open voice chat were weakened. But quickly, other people proposed, what if voice chat was opened just for members of the same team?
A team voice chat could only be used to give directions. There would be no way to launch trash talk attacks.
But there was no way to present this kind of voice chat in a broadcast. The sound of each team chat couldn't be simultaneously broadcast, and cutting back and forth between the two would be unpleasant to listen to. The Alliance had always used text chat up until now so that they could show the teams' communications to the audience, and this was also a reason why they never used voice chat in competition.
However, typing instead of focusing solely on putting in combat inputs weakened the intensity of the competition.
At this point, these arguments started surfacing as well. After all, the debate over voice chat had been ongoing for a very long time now. This Blue Rain versus Thunderclap match just showed another problem caused by the lack of voice chat.
Yu Wenzhou was able to survive in the Glory Alliance through his unique methods. The Alliance, for its part, hoped to see competitors of all types. But now, the existence of players like Yu Wenzhou was being strangled.
With Thunderclap's battle results, did that mean that in the future, all teams would use these complex, changing battle strategies to face Blue Rain? After all, this wasn't something that only a Master Tactician could do. Even tactical duels were becoming competitions of hand speed. Was there any intelligence in pro matches anymore?
There were more and more angles of questioning, and the issue rose from just Yu Wenzhou to extend to all of the various teams' shot callers. Without voice chat, they were forced to input extra keyboard controls. This wasn't like trash talking, where if you didn't want to say anything you could just not say anything. Issuing orders was a matter of victory or defeat, something that absolutely had to be done. Because of the rule preventing voice chat, they bore a greater burden upon their hands. It was unfair to these players.
The players that directed strategies needed intelligence. But because of the competition rules, hand speed became a factor, even though it shouldn't have anything to do with tactics. It was completely unreasonable!
The voices of doubt became stronger and stronger, and so the Alliance finally made an official response, saying that they would begin discussion and investigation into the issue of voice chat.
Hearing the Alliance's solemn recognition, many people calmed down. With the calm, the sounds of complaints and mockery quickly came as well. It wasn't long before many people pointed out that, if the Alliance changed the rules again because of this, then Blue Rain would have two people who forced the Alliance to change the rules. Blue Rain didn't acknowledge this interesting fact, but regarding the opening of strategic voice chat, Team Blue Rain was in clear support.
The Alliance needed to do research, so there was no way for a result to appear in a short period of time.
Soon, it was November 29th, Round 13.
Happy played their away game at Conquering Clouds, and didn't disappoint their supporters.
9 to 1, Happy won, Ye Xiu's individual win streak was now up to 12. The 1 point they lost this round was from Su Mucheng's mistake in the individual competition.
And after this round, Happy finally stepped into the playoff zone. Void, who had previously been one place above them, had also done quite well this round, defeating Misty Rain in their home game 8 to 2. It was clear that they had learned from Happy's strategy against Misty Rain in the team competition, causing Misty Rain to eat a big loss in their two consecutive away games.
Happy earned 9 points, Void earned 8, so the one point difference between the two teams was erased. As it happened, both Happy (Xingxin) and Void (Xukong) started with the letter X in their pinyin names, so the next step was to compare order of appearance in the dictionary, in which Happy took the lead.
But at this point people had already realized, in the upcoming Round 14, Happy and Void would be directly facing off against each other.
Hundred Blossoms, who were within range of catching up to Happy, had also done fairly well this round, winning 7 to 3 in their home game against Wind Howl. For now, they still led Happy by one point. And Wind Howl continued their path of ups and downs, some people even summarizing their performance as "home game dragons, away game bears."
But for now, this conclusion was a bit reckless. People mostly paid attention to Wind Howl's away game loss to 301, but 301 wasn't any weak team, and it shouldn't be shocking that they could win their own home game. Right now, 301 was in tenth place with 76 points, only 3 points behind Happy and Void. Next round was Happy and Void's battle, so it was very possible that it would be 301 who would surpass them both and make it to the playoff zone.
Wind Howl wasn't so terrible, but their current slippage was undeniable truth. They had now fallen to sixth place, surpassed by Tyranny.
Tyranny, Samsara, and Happy were the three teams that had won 9 to 1 this round. Blue Rain and Tiny Herb had lost their away games 4 to 6.
Blue Rain had lost to Royal Style, and their loss in the team competition once again caused people to pay attention to the issue of voice chat. This battle, Royal Style had definitely learned from Thunderclap and used lively and variable strategies. But over the course of the battle, Blue Rain's loss this time wasn't because of Yu Wenzhou's hand speed. Blue Rain's players didn't need their captain's reminders to respond every time they encountered the slightest change. Master Tacticians were known as such because even if they followed the same general rules for strategies, their tactics would be more complete and effective.
Blue Rain lost to Royal Style, but Tiny Herb lost to Thunderclap.
After losing many points in the individual battles, Thunderclap once again made a comeback in the team competition. Their record in the team battles was as tyrannical as Ye Xiu's in the individual battles. Right now, they had 12 wins and 1 loss; the only difference from Ye Xiu was that their wins weren't consecutive.
Chapter 1218: All-Star Voting
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
Thunderclap's strength in the team competition guaranteed their strong showing on the rankings. Right now, they were tied with Blue Rain with 90 points. Because the two had tied in their match against each other, their ranking was determined by alphabet, with Blue Rain (Lanyu) in second place and Thunderclap (Leiting) in third.
Samsara led the pack with 113 points, a score so high that people had already lost the desire to try and catch up.
After 13 rounds of competition, they entered the month of December. The yearly voting for All-Stars began with the new season and ended in December.
The earliest votes cast were based on the players' performances last season; the strong players in last season's playoffs would gain favor. Then, after entering the rhythm of the new season, one or two stunning plays could invite a lot of votes. Tang Rou was a perfect example of this.
A rookie who had just entered the Alliance, after an exciting 1v2 in the second round, was swiftly pushed into the ranks of the All-Stars. Of course, her beautiful appearance contributed to this as well.
However, after the 1v3 incident and her clear revocation of her word, Tang Rou's popularity instantly died down. Even many of the team's fans couldn't look at her anymore, how much support would she have left from everyone else? Instantly, Tang Rou's name went from daily rising in the All-Star voting to complete erasure.
And right now, the highest-ranked player was still Zhou Zekai. Last season, the team had won in the playoffs, this season they maintained a powerful lead, and Zhou Zekai's performance was indispensable. He led the rankings with no competition.
And compared to last year, the biggest change on the leaderboard was the return of a few names, the most significant of which were the ones who had gone to Excellent Era last season. These three all had their dedicated fans and were immediately pushed onto the leaderboard. Aside from the unwavering support of their loyal fans, there was the effect of their performances this season.
Xiao Shiqin was the most eye-catching of these three. Everyone knew Xiao Shiqin's major contributions to Thunderclap's shocking accomplishments this season. Although Xiao Shiqin wasn't like Zhou Zekai or Sun Xiang, who were core players based on their technical skill, Thunderclap's outstanding performance allowed Xiao Shiqin's tactical skill to shine and draw attention, attracting scores of fans. Right now, on the All-Star voting leaderboard, Xiao Shiqin was in third place, much better than his rankings in previous seasons.
Su Mucheng and Sun Xiang were both ranked around tenth. With their fanbase support and their performance, they hadn't seen any big ups or downs.
But if you wanted to name someone who was only rising more and more rapidly, you'd have to say another returning name - no, strictly speaking, the name wasn't returning. What was returning was the person.
Ye Xiu. Never mind his accumulated popularity from previous years, just looking at his ongoing twelve consecutive individual win record, this kind of player would gain enough attention to be pushed onto the rankings. As he achieved wins round after round, the ballots cast for Ye Xiu only increased. Happy's recent strong performance gave him a boost as well. Right now, Ye Xiu was at number 6 and was still in the process of beautifully rushing upward.
One could see how influential he was just from the recent in-game interest in unspecialized. It got to the point where the Glory developers added a strong reminder in-game, notifying the players who didn't choose a class at level 20 just how difficult their existence thereafter would be. Without naming names, they reminded everyone not to try and imitate a certain person because this certain person was an exceptional player with exceptional talent and an exceptional self-made weapon.
Despite this, the enthusiasm of the players couldn't be stopped. Quite a few players started playing with the equipment editor to try and make a Myriad Manifestations Umbrella, which suddenly caused the prices of level 5 equipment materials to rise.
With some people returning to the leaderboard, others would of course be pushed down.
There was one such person in Happy. Fang Rui changed classes, which his former Thief supporters couldn't accept. The players of his new class, Qi Master, even though they saw that Fang Rui held the All-Star Qi Master Boundless Sea, his Qi Master performance… to be honest, up through now there was still nothing very convincing about it. As for his recent crawling and rolling Qi Master style, a number of Qi Master players felt that it was disgusting, and it didn't inspire any imitations.
Also kicked off the leaderboard was Hundred Blossoms' Zou Yuan. He had been pushed onto the All-Star leaderboard through nostalgia for two years in a row. But now that he was finally gradually bringing out a new character, he was shoved downward by the fierceness of the competition. Unfortunately, he was helpless about this.
Another player squeezed off the rankings was Royal Style's Tian Sen.
Peaceful Hermit, this former pinnacle God-level character. Ever since the All-Stars began, this character had made it to the leaderboard no matter the controller. But finally, because of the team's slipping performance through the years, he vanished for the first time from the top 20.
Regarding this, Peaceful Hermit's current user Tian Sen was extremely helpless. Year after year of hard work, but the team still saw no improvement and hovered at the middle. Now that there were more and more challengers, they were finally kicked off the altar.
Tian Sen and Peaceful Hermit's fall conjured many sighs.
There was another old general pushed off the leaderboard, Tyranny's Lin Jingyan. This old, long-time All-Star finally had his position stolen away.
Tyranny's near-miss of the championship last season had originally garnered much sympathy, and at the start of this season, the ballots for Tyranny's players surged upward. But, after that wave passed, their performance in this new season was factored in. Tyranny was rotating their roster for these matches, and the old veterans, no longer having regular appearances, began to slow in the rankings. The position of Tyranny's Captain Han Wenqing was still relatively stable, while Lin Jingyan had dropped off the rankings. There was Zhang Jiale too, currently at a precarious 23rd place, at high risk of being replaced over the course of December. Just off of the votes, the rankings for many players were very close. A single explosive performance could bring enough ballots to surpass him.
But overall, the changes to the rankings couldn't be called large.
Xiao Shiqin, Su Mucheng, Sun Xiang, and Ye Xiu's returns weren't any surprise. Compared to last year's Lu Hanwen and Gao Yingjie entering the rankings as rookies, this season, there was no such entirely new blood breaking into the rankings. Tang Rou originally had this potential with her explosive performance in the second round and her steadiness thereafter. She was a very strong rookie. But unfortunately, after that 1v3 incident destroyed her reputation, she naturally didn't have much chance in this kind of popolarity voting.
Right now, the one who was in more of a dilemma was the Alliance. The All-Star voting was just for excitement; a good performance onstage could increase votes, but in the end, that wasn't the only determining factor. However, the Alliance's yearly awards were entirely based on the players' real performance onstage, based on numbers and statistics.
And from the statistics, among this season's rookies, Tang Rou faced no competition. But when they thought about giving the "Best Newcomer" award to this player with a ruined reputation, the Alliance felt the pressure would be extremely large. Right now, there was still over half a season to go before these awards were given, but there were already people worrying about this issue, which was a sign of just how outstanding Tang Rou was right now among the rookies.
December was the last month for voting the All-Stars, and looking at the current ballot counts, no final judgment could be made based off the rankings as they entered December. Because more and more players would save all of their tickets until December, waiting until the voting was just about to close so that they could see the entirety of the players' performances before casting their votes.
Would December see any player powerfully slaughtering their way onto the leaderboard? This was something to watch when the league reached December. Before, there was also something else to watch in December, the winter transfer window. At that time, the Alliance didn't have as many teams, so when they began in September, the season would be halfway over the time it was December. That was the original reason for why they set the winter transfers in December. But now, the season often wasn't even half over by January. After discussing this for several seasons, in Season 10, the Alliance finally decided to move the winter transfer window to January.
In comparison, the Glory new server opening now had almost no effect on the pro teams. The only ones who were busy were the guild workers of the various large clubs, who before December would have to prepare their strength to enter the new server to compete for resources and advertise for the club.
Happy now already had its own official guild department. After half a year of development, the personnel organization was already finalized. And to a new guild like Happy, the opening of this new server was beyond important. In the old servers or in the Heavenly Domain, Happy was constantly playing catch-up, but in a new server, everyone was starting at zero, so they had a greater chance at achieving an advantage.
After Wu Chen organized the work for the new server, he solemnly gave Chen Guo the list of people who would be expanding in the new server. Boss Chen was generous, knowing how crucial the work in the new server was, gave the new server employees additional bonuses with a flourish of her pen.
As of now, the guild department was relatively well-developed, and Happy's R&D department had expanded slightly. Finding technical researchers was difficult, but didn't all of the big teams have to deal with this? The R&D would sometimes experience changes of personnel, and sometimes people would leave their jobs.
When Chen Guo failed to find enough suitable R&D candidates, she started paying particularly close attention to this area, and her efforts weren't wasted. In November, there was a small adjustment at Thunderclap, and an R&D researcher left his job for personal reasons. Chen Guo instantly pounced on him, but this person's personal reason was that he wanted to return to his home city to work, and his home city unfortunately was not City H. Chen Guo had no way of satisfying that requirement, and so she could only watch with her eyes wide open as this rather skilled R&D researcher returned to his home City K and entered Hundred Blossoms.
The second time, it was Royal Style whose personnel was changing, with two R&D researchers leaving one after the other. Chen Guo made some inquiries, and after confirming that it wasn't for a reason like "returning home" that they had no way of satisfying, she approached them in-person in City B.
This time, Chen Guo's actions were truly swift and fierce. Heavenly Swords was in the same city as Royal Style, but by the time they began to approach them, one of them had already reached an agreement and signed with Chen Guo. With one of them already taken, Lou Guanning of course couldn't try and pull some evil trickery, but the remaining one didn't want to live modestly with Happy and cleanly slammed down a checkbook. After Chen Guo knew, she didn't have any words. Being able to get one researcher was good enough, and she could only hope that the person they got wouldn't have any regrets after learning that he'd missed the opportunity to enjoy the riches of Heavenly Swords.
Although from the looks of it, this new R&D researcher who had now been at Happy for ten days, Wang Sen, seemed quite at ease.
Chapter end
Report
|
Donate
Oh o, this user has not set a donation button.
|