God's Imitator-Chapter 303: The Role of Rules
Qian Li was somewhat annoyed, "There's a problem with this game's design!
"Does it mean that two players from different rooms must separately test against conscience and not against conscience on question 4, then share information after coming out to confirm?
"This condition is too harsh! Gao Jialiang and I can't communicate. How can I confirm whether he'll test against conscience or not against conscience?
"No, wait, it seems that's not it either.
"Actually, you can also confirm through the total rewards of question 4, but I overlooked this point..."
Actually, even if a player chose the against conscience option on question 4, they could still realize that 'not-against-conscience options have no reward'.
Qian Li suddenly thought that the total earnings of the 5 players in the room during question 4 were actually much lower than expected.
At the time, she hadn't paid particular attention.
Because after the first three questions, quite a few players had already realized that 'minority options have extra rewards', so even though the options for the fourth question were very clear, some players would deliberately choose the minority option.
And when players with this idea collided on the same option, it might cause it to become the majority option, resulting in extra losses.
Even if the total earnings were negative, it was hard to determine specifically whether it was because too many players triggered the against conscience penalty, or because players choosing the majority option caused collisions.
Qian Li's calculation ability was limited, and she had no way to guess other players' options, so she didn't think more deeply about it.
But thinking back now, she suddenly realized that 'question 4's total earnings being lower than expected' itself was already reminding players that 'not being against conscience has no extra reward'.
It was just that because there were too many interfering factors, ordinary players might not necessarily realize it.
This was the gap between Qian Li and players like Cai Zhiyuan and Wang Weidong.
One small oversight could form a fatal information gap, causing players' judgments of the game to be completely different.
At this point, Qian Li finally understood why Community 15 and Community 17 had both so readily agreed not to compete for room ownership of the '4-person room'.
They certainly weren't cooperating with Community 1.
In fact, both Cai Zhiyuan and Wang Weidong had seen that there was a problem with the '4-person room'. They couldn't run a scam shop at all.
Just throwing in any free person would ensure the free person could obtain sufficient earnings.
So they couldn't wait for Community 1 to become the room owner of the '4-person room' and actively fall into this trap, and then they could strike later.
Community 15's side had also originally planned to insert a 'Free Person' at the end, but Community 17 had beaten them to it.
After there was already one free person, entering another free person was meaningless because they would automatically lose their free person status, so Community 15 naturally gave up.
...
A new question had already appeared on the large screen.
Because Zheng Jie hadn't 'continued his turn', this question was asked by another female player from Community 1.
[What is the surname of player number 1 from Community 1?]
[A. Liu]
[B. Zhang]
[C. Li]
Obviously, this female player had also realized the seriousness of the problem, so she asked a question that only Community 1 players would know the correct answer to as an attempt.
But Qian Li knew very clearly that such a question was also meaningless.
She could only submit her answer as late as possible to consume more time.
[The correct answer to this question is: 'B. Zhang'.]
[The net earnings of the three players in this room are: 26000 minutes of visa time.]
[The question setter will pay out 26000 minutes of visa time.]
[Answering players are voting on whether to change the question setter.]
[The question setter will be changed.]
Obviously, although only the two Community 1 answerers could answer this question correctly, Zheng Jie absolutely didn't lose either.
This meant he would automatically become the 'minority answer' and could also obtain extra earnings.
For this question he gained 6000 minutes of visa time. Not much, but still positive earnings.
...
It was Qian Li's turn to set a question.
[What are your physical characteristics?]
[A. I am very handsome]
[B. I have long hair]
[C. I am not very handsome]
This question didn't violate rules, because it just needed to satisfy having one unique correct answer for each player. This type of question had already appeared in the first phase.
So this kind of matched-position question targeting three players individually, although it essentially forced the three people to choose different options, didn't violate rules.
The other two players were also obviously deliberately delaying. After another five minutes of answering time, the correct answer was announced.
[The correct answer to this question is: Choose the corresponding option according to your own physical characteristics.]
[The net earnings of the three players in this room are: 12000 minutes of visa time.]
[The question setter will pay out 12000 minutes of visa time.]
[Answering players are voting on whether to change the question setter.]
[The question setter will be changed.]
For Qian Li, this was already a pretty good result.
The '4-person room' had this special situation. When all three players chose different options, the three options were 1:1:1. In this case, neither the minority reward nor the majority penalty would be triggered.
So the three players each only had 4000 in earnings.
Although Qian Li as room owner lost quite a bit of visa time, 8000 of it was transferred internally within her side. Only 4000 was actually taken away. This already counted as cutting losses.
Moreover, Zheng Jie really couldn't choose other options. That would trigger the against conscience penalty, causing extra losses.
But that was all.
Because questions that had been used couldn't be reused and must have essential differences, so this kind of question about finding differences in physical characteristics could only be asked once.
Moreover, Zheng Jie was the 3rd to enter the room. Qian Li and the other female player had no impression of him, and Gao Jialiang also didn't know Zheng Jie's details and information.
In this situation, if the question setter couldn't accurately distinguish the three answerers in a 1:1:1 manner, it might cause the question to violate rules.
For example, if Zheng Jie simultaneously fit the description of two options, or didn't fit any of the three option descriptions, then the question would violate rules.
The question setter would immediately have visa time deducted and distributed equally among answerers. That would instead cause even greater losses.
So without being able to continue asking 'matched-position questions', they could only ask 'information gap questions' or other questions, forced to endure somewhat more losses.
And when answering this type of question, Zheng Jie could choose freely. Whether becoming the minority or just triggering the 'full unanimity' reward, he could obtain excess earnings.
...
After one round of answering, all players in the room began to realize that the '4-person room' had fallen into a deadlock.
During rounds when Zheng Jie wasn't setting questions, relying on his 'Free Person' identity he could answer questions however he wanted. No matter how he answered, it was positive earnings.
The difference was just more or less.
As long as he himself wasn't stupid enough to deliberately choose an against conscience option.
And when Zheng Jie himself served as question setter, as long as he combined characteristics of Community 1 players and asked a question where 'achieving full unanimity must have one person trigger against conscience', he could lose a bit of visa time and avoid continuing his turn.
Occasional failures were fine. Under the current rules, Zheng Jie's margin for error was high enough.
At game's end, Zheng Jie would definitely have positive earnings and at least meet the minimum earnings requirement for free persons.
And this visa time would all be deducted from the three Community 1 players.
...
Qian Li was very anxious. She knew that at this moment, perhaps only she could break this situation.
Because she was the room owner of this room.
If she could set a rule to restrict Zheng Jie as much as possible, perhaps there would still be a possibility to cut losses or even turn the tables.
But the problem was, she couldn't think at all of what specific rule to set that could restrict him.
On the room owner's operable screen, there was a corresponding rule explanation.
[The room owner can set a rule forcing answering players in the room to continuously send a specific type of suggestion. However, this rule must be approved by half the players in the room to take effect.]
Qian Li roughly thought of several different types of rules.
The first type: Force sending a specific option, for example, only able to send option A or B or C.
The second type: Force sending the first received suggestion, or the last received suggestion.
The third type: Force sending the most received suggestion, or the least received suggestion.
The fourth type: Force sending not-against-conscience suggestions, or various other miscellaneous suggestions.
But the problem was, no matter which filtering method, they were completely meaningless for the current situation in the '4-person room'.
Because this rule was mainly for 'restraining enemy players from other communities who aren't free persons within the room'.
.
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Chapter 303: The Role of Rules
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