Chapter 601: A Discussion About Poaching

Yao Yuan looked around at everyone and added, "Since we have newer members in the community, let me reiterate the conclusion we reached during the First Stage."Filtering players by profession is not reliable. The gap between two players in the same profession can be wider than the gap between a person and a dog.

"So what we're proposing is only a general direction, and in the end it still comes down to luck. But all the same, a lower probability is far better than a probability of zero."

Lu Bingjun nodded, "Yes, Yao Yuan makes a good point.

"In fact, since entering the Second Stage and expanding the community, the new players who've joined us have happened to represent some fairly rare professions.

"A lawyer, a mechanical engineer, a doctor.

"That has been a significant advantage for our community.

"If we didn't already have Dr. Qin, our choices right now would essentially be made for us, and recruiting another doctor would be the only real option.

"Having this many possibilities to weigh is, in its own way, a rather fortunate problem to have.

"Does anyone else have other thoughts?"

The room fell quiet as everyone considered.

Ye Lin spoke up carefully, "My thought is to recruit a second doctor.

"I should make clear, this doesn't mean I have any reservations about Dr. Qin. In fact, Dr. Qin has done an excellent job, beyond reproach.

"If we were still in the First Stage, I would never suggest this.

"But as we've all seen, the Second Stage is something very particular, and it revolves around 'pain' and 'medications.'

"Under the theme of this stage, the doctor profession has become something of a favourite of the current meta, receiving what amounts to an epic-level enhancement.

"A dual-doctor structure would come with quite a few additional advantages.

"Two doctors can discuss professional matters and catch each other's blind spots.

"If we face a game that requires the full community to participate but splits players into separate groups, two doctors can each lead their respective group, dividing their expertise where needed.

"In an extreme scenario, if Dr. Qin is ever in danger, or has his movements restricted, a second doctor could step in immediately to prevent things from falling apart.

"For other professions, the required specialisation may not be so high that another player couldn't do some emergency learning and fill the gap.

"But medicine is different. The level of expertise required is too high for any other player to substitute."

He Qinyun also nodded in agreement, "Yes, I think Ye Lin makes a lot of sense.

"It's precisely because Dr. Qin has performed so well and shown us how essential a doctor is that having a second one becomes all the more important as a backup.

"The community rules have never said a single profession can only have one representative."

Lu Bingjun considered for a moment, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

He looked at Lin Sizhi and Shen Bowen, "What are your thoughts? Experience from other communities might serve as a useful reference."

Lin Sizhi's tone was even, though it was clear he was not particularly in favour, "That argument is a bit of a stretch."

Shen Bowen thought it through carefully and gave a slight shake of her head, "I agree with part of what Ye Lin said, but I arrive at a completely opposite conclusion.

"It's true that the Second Stage's games revolve around 'pain' and 'medications,' and a reliable doctor can have an enormous positive impact, just as Dr. Qin and that other doctor from Community C did in the Pain Game.

"But precisely because doctors are so important, the same profession can also cause enormous harm.

"Just like the doctors in Community C who were actively selling Class 0 and Class F medications for personal profit during the Pain Game.

"It comes down entirely to the individual doctor's moral character.

"What if we accidentally recruit a doctor with poor ethics? Based on what we saw in the Pain Game, that kind of doctor seems to be the norm in the Gallery, while the ones who actually uphold their professional ethics are in the minority.

"Bringing someone like that in would be no different from inviting a wolf through the door.

"Dr. Qin has already proven his reliability and his ability to keep these medications under control. But if another doctor joins, and a player with ulterior motives in the community manages to coordinate with them to get around Dr. Qin's oversight, causing the medications to spread, what then?

"We've already discussed the fact that the quantity of medications available for restocking is likely to keep increasing, and that full control is probably not achievable. We can only rely on everyone's individual discipline.

"If the doctor is unreliable, that makes an already slim hope of control completely impossible.

"Once a new doctor joins the community, we would inevitably have to grant them corresponding authority. If we don't, they won't stay, and they'll eventually move to another community.

"Based on the current situation, the doctor profession will almost certainly remain extremely scarce and indispensable throughout the entire Second Stage.

"If we do grant that authority, we take on the risk I just described.

"As for Ye Lin's point about what happens if a game requires full community participation and we don't have enough doctors to go around, or if Dr. Qin encounters some kind of incident, I think these are low-probability edge cases that don't necessarily need to factor into our decision-making. If they come up, we deal with them as they happen."

Ye Lin was quiet for a moment, then nodded, "That's a fair point, looking at it that way.

"But if we're ruling out recruiting a doctor, then it seems like there's also no real reason to recruit any other specific profession either.

"We'd be better off going into a game and poaching someone directly.

"Leaving a vacancy in the community has an additional benefit: if the community is at full capacity, poaching someone from a game means displacing an existing member, whereas if there's an open slot, we can poach freely.

"In many community-based games, poaching is itself a valid strategy, and often an extremely powerful one.

"A single key player switching sides can even determine the outcome of a game."

Yao Yuan hesitated for a moment and asked cautiously, "Is that really necessary?

"Community recruitment also has a time limit. Each time we recruit, the subsequent cooldown gets longer.

"Since we entered the Second Stage, our numbers were automatically filled, which means the recruitment function has completed its cooldown and is ready to use.

"Using it now and letting it enter cooldown sooner is the most efficient approach.

"Most communities in the First Stage operated this way too: use the recruitment function as soon as it's available, and only consider poaching from a game when recruitment is on cooldown.

"After all, poaching has a genuinely low success rate. You have to consider whether the game's mechanics allow it, whether the other player is willing, and whether someone recruited that way might later betray the community.

"Whereas direct recruitment through the community function is uncertain in its own way, but at least guarantees the new player is starting fresh, with a broadly reliable degree of loyalty to the community."