Chapter 192: Knights of the Round Table's Random Walk Treasure Hunting Strategy
In Cheng Tian's view, what was hidden in the previous ordinary temporary cutting technique was the description: 'will cause the treasure to undergo a qualitative change.'
In the game, in addition to being normally cut to increase or decrease in value, treasure chests can also directly undergo a qualitative change into special treasures. The 'Red Shock Orb' that Cheng Tian cut out, which can perform a full-clear instant kill and group Midas Touch, is one such treasure.
Besides that, there are also Green Shock, Green Staff, Knight Statues, and so on.
Before he came into contact with the Knights of the Round Table's treasure hunting community, Cheng Tian once thought that items like the Red Shock Orb were randomly obtained. After all, back then, no matter how many times he played, he would only get things like the Red Shock Orb when cutting different treasures at different stages of the process.
But after coming into contact, he quickly understood that this so-called random drop was actually a typical pseudo-random.
When Knights of the Round Table runs normally, the underlying code continuously changes. This change range is from 00 to FF, a total of 256 combinations of 16-bit hexadecimal code. Within the community, it's called the 'random walk value.'
And when players perform certain special actions, and when enemies' actions change, this random walk value will continuously change.
In a normal game process, if a player doesn't cheat, he cannot see this random walk value at all. However, the AI action logic of enemy units is actually a type of pseudo-random number, so experienced players can indirectly judge the current random walk value through the enemies' actions.
Take the most common and lowest-level soldier of the Evil Roman Empire, the red-robed servant holding a short sword, as an example.
When the red-robed servant performs a front roll, the units digit of the random walk value at that moment is 0. If he then performs a forward dash, the tens digit at the moment of starting the dash will become D, which is 13 in decimal. This dashing action will cause the units digit to become B, and simultaneously the tens digit will increase by 2, meaning 0D becomes 2B.
All enemy soldiers are like this. When they perform certain fixed actions, they correspond to a fixed random walk value. Subsequently, their actions will also continuously affect the change in the value. Under normal circumstances, players usually need to leave only one minion on the field, killing all others, to better observe the minion's actions.
At this time, some of the player's actions will also cause changes in the random walk value.
For example, if the current random walk value has been determined to be D0 through the red-robed servant, then if the player breaks a wooden barrel, the random walk value will increase by 1, making it change from D0 to D1. If at this point a 400-point silver coin chest is opened casually, the random walk value will increase by 3, becoming D4.
If the random walk value required for a treasure drop is D7, then only 1 more chest or 3 more wooden barrels are needed to bring the current random walk value to D7. If a valuable item that theoretically can drop a special treasure is then cut, it will definitely drop the item.
Other operations that can change the random walk value include breaking fences, hitting torches, jumping while riding a mount, opening treasure chests, opening fruit platters, killing enemies, and so on.
However, for many players, the problem here is that these elements in the scene may not be enough to allow the player to change the random walk value to the desired value. The scene progresses in a side-scrolling manner, and once a village is passed, there's no going back. Moreover, once enemy soldiers are encountered again, the random walk value will be directly re-scrambled, making all previous operations useless.
And at this point, it was the turn of the axe-wielding man Percival, who was very unpopular with players back then, to make his appearance.
Cheng Tian was no exception; he, like everyone else, initially focused on the handsome, golden-haired Lancelot, who resembled a prince. He would only choose the steady, bearded Arthur if he had no other choice. As for Percival, the only one who could run in the game, he was hardly ever chosen from beginning to end.
The main reason was that he disliked his short attack range, often failing to hit enemies while always being hit himself.
However, in the treasure hunting community, the axe-wielding man Percival was the undisputed No.1!
Because he was the only one among the three protagonists who could artificially interfere with the random walk value changes solely through his jumping actions, without any external help!
It's unknown whether it was an accidental easter egg left on Percival by Capcom back then, or if it was because Percival was the Holy Grail Knight who truly held the Holy Grail in the legends, and thus was deliberately given special attention. In any case, Percival gained the ability to adjust the random walk value, which Arthur and Lancelot could not possess.
And the 'Holy Grail Knight' template that Cheng Tian loaded just happened to echo Percival's role as the 'Holy Grail Knight' who truly touched the Holy Grail in legends. Therefore, through template synchronization, he gained the exact same random walk adjustment ability.
Similarly, if Galahad or Bors appeared here, they would most likely also gain the same ability.
Cheng Tian had already personally tested it: each time he jumped in place, the current random walk value would increase by 1D, which translates to +29 in decimal. Large changes relied on jumping in place, while small changes were achieved by riding the bewildered primordial wyvern and controlling it to perform small hops. Each time the primordial wyvern jumped with Cheng Tian, the random walk value would increase by 1.
Finally, when the random walk value was adjusted to hexadecimal 50, or decimal 80, the condition for silver coin treasure chests to definitely drop a Red Shock Orb was met.
Cheng Tian let out a long breath and placed the crystal-clear red treasure into his inventory. His eyes were already gleaming like a hungry wolf—
He wanted to try an extreme treasure hunting run in the current dungeon!
A 'treasure hunting run' refers to a play-through where, during the normal progression, players exert every possible effort to obtain special treasures, ensuring as many treasures as possible while also completing the run, which then leads to the final settlement.
In a normal playthrough, if a player can achieve a total of 120+ treasures without cheating, he is already considered a top-tier expert... but there are always some abnormal players in the community.
If Cheng Tian remembered correctly, the current highest treasure hunting record seemed to have been updated to 148.
Cheng Tian was someone with a wide range of interests, not specializing intensely in a single game; he could only look up to such abnormal players.
But now he could see the random walk value and adjust it; he was openly 'cheating.' If he didn't attempt a real extreme treasure hunting run, wouldn't he be wasting his Holy Grail Knight template!?
The current scene did not have the 'original flavor' modifier, which meant that the wooden barrels, fences, and other items in the game that could directly drop valuables and consumables would not be randomly placed on the road. Instead, however, as long as an enemy player was defeated, a composite attribute Bloody Treasure Chest would definitely drop!
Moreover... Cheng Tian's gaze turned towards the direction of Silver Fortress, shrouded by the night.
He remembered very clearly that when the process entered the third act, players would see Silver Prince Allan surrounded by a large number of treasures in the Silver Hall of the fortress. But at the same time, players would also watch Allan burn most of the treasure chests directly in front of them.
It highlighted his determination: 'These are my treasures, I'll burn them before I give them to you!'
'...Those are my treasure chests!'
Cheng Tian clenched his hand fiercely, producing a series of bone-cracking sounds.
Meanwhile, Silver Prince, who was dozing on his throne, suddenly woke up as if from a nightmare, and, as expected, began to implicate his unfortunate servants.