138: Section 138

“You should know about the recent hero regional rankings update in Honor of Kings, right?”

The person in charge nodded.

“I know.”

“This system in Honor of Kings is very popular recently.”

“Then can you replicate a system like that and launch it for me in a short amount of time?”

Listening to Ma, the person in charge shook his head directly.

“That’s very difficult.”

“Why?” Ma was a little surprised.

In his opinion, this hero regional ranking system should be very simple, with no complex designs.

The head of the technical department continued to speak.

“The hero regional ranking launched by Honor of Kings is essentially a judgment of hero combat power.”

“Honor of Kings had long secretly integrated a combat power evaluation system for different players using different heroes. When a player uses a certain hero, this system will record data and assign a combat power number to that player’s hero, which will then increase or decrease based on different matches.”

“This update, in fact, determines the players’ hero regional rankings by ranking this combat power.”

“But.”

The person in charge paused.

“Our Dota Mobile does not have such a system internally. If we develop it from scratch now, it will take a considerable amount of time. And even if the system is launched, we will still need to collect player data for a period of time before we can implement hero regional rankings.”

Listening to the person in charge’s words, Ma’s expression also became unpleasant.

He hadn’t expected this system to be not as simple as it looked.

“If this system is to be fully launched, how long will it take at least?”

“We don’t need Honor of Kings’ precise rankings; a rough ranking will suffice for now.”

The person in charge was silent for a moment.

“One month.”

“Still one month.”

“And if we are to develop this hero regional ranking system, then we must stop strengthening the AI. We don’t have enough manpower right now; it’s impossible to do both simultaneously.”

“If we proceed with both at the same time, the completion time for both projects will be delayed significantly.”

“Mr. Ma, you make the decision.”

Listening to the person in charge’s words, Ma was silent for a moment.

The situation before him now was:

Should he increase the retention of new players, or increase the stickiness of existing players?

After a moment of thought and weighing the pros and cons.

Ma finally spoke slowly.

“Continue to adjust the AI difficulty.”

“Alright.”

After nodding, the person in charge turned and returned to the project hall. .....

Ma, meanwhile, slowly let out a long sigh where he stood.

His conversation with the person in charge had been overheard by everyone else behind him.

At this moment, everyone’s faces looked somewhat unpleasant.

“Our offensive against Honor of Kings was easily neutralized by them.”

“Neither Combat Night nor the previous nationwide promotion of Dota Mobile had any impact on Honor of Kings.”

“But.”

“Honor of Kings’ casual moves have already left us unable to parry.”

“Now, even though we know the hero regional ranking system is crucial, we have no choice but to exclude it in a pick-one-of-two situation.”

Li Wenqiu’s voice rang out behind Ma.

Actually.

A few days ago.

When he logged into Honor of Kings and discovered the fun of the hero regional rankings.

He already understood in his heart.

This time, Penguin Group might truly suffer a setback in its core domain.

However, besides Li Wenqiu.

Everyone else present still felt that Dota Mobile still had a fighting chance.

Ma Liuyun spoke.

“Let’s wait another ten days. Once the AI difficulty is increased, we’ll promote it nationwide again.”

“This time, due to the improvement of the novice environment, the retention of new players will definitely be very high.”

“By then.”

“Our user base will definitely be able to catch up to Honor of Kings.”

“We still have a chance!”

Listening to Ma Liuyun’s voice behind him.

Ma also slowly took a deep breath.

“In ten days, I will give you another budget.”

“Whether we win or lose, it all comes down to this last gamble.”

.

The next day.

Dota Mobile pushed an update for new maps and new modes.

Although this update attracted many players.

However, at this time, most Dota Mobile players did not need new maps or new modes, but rather hero regional rankings similar to the competitor.

So, even though Dota Mobile pushed this update.

Players still had a lot of dissatisfaction.

“You can’t even copy properly. These new maps and new modes are from ages ago. Can you first get me the hero rankings?”

“Exactly. When I tell my friends I’m 5000 MMR on the ladder, they don’t know what I mean. Instead, they ask me if I have any national standard heroes. Even people who never play games know about Honor of Kings’ hero rankings, but you’re still wasting time here.”

“With my top ten ladder skills, even if I went to Honor of Kings, I could probably get a few national standard heroes.”

“Forget it, I’ll just go to Honor of Kings. Why does your Dota Mobile have to copy everything from them?”

For a time.

Many players complained about this update to Dota Mobile.

At the same time.

Because Penguin Group temporarily suspended the promotion of Dota Mobile, no new players entered it, and these new modes and maps seemed to become mere decorations.

On the other side, Honor of Kings.

Was constantly attracting more users.

Just the day after Dota Mobile’s new maps and new modes went live.

Another related video for Honor of Kings made it onto the weibo hot search.

Perhaps luck was on Honor of Kings’ side.

So even if Honor of Kings did nothing, a funny video could suddenly emerge and successfully go viral.

This hot search was a video that quickly became popular on Douyin and Weibo.

The video content was very simple.

It showed a few elementary school students discussing Honor of Kings with their school bags on outside the school gate.

However, their discussion was quite amusing.

“Han Xin with red and blue buffs in the early game, getting a double kill is no problem.”

The elementary student in the blue shirt was imparting his experience to his classmate in front of him.

“If your Han Xin has blue and red buffs in the early game and can’t get kills.”

“You’re not developing well.”

And at this moment.