Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-172.250.84.222-20160307011139/@comment-26249703-20160521095139

RomGuyony wrote: Vermaden wrote: RomGuyony wrote: I got a reply this morning after opening a ticket, and received the same response as plenty of others: claiming it was my fault for messing with the date/time settings of my device. I'm not going to bother pursuing it any further... This is their standart response for everyone. Reply that it is not your fault and that You havent messed with time. You should get a compensation for this lack of 100 gold. I sent this:

"Dear Anuj,

I understand this is your standard copy & paste response for this problem, but I would love to have some clarification. On the website I frequent, there were numerous reports of missing rewards for that week only. Around 100 comments of the kind, regardless of the rewards promised (ranging from Group B to D). There were reports in the first couple of weeks the new increased rewards were introduced, but I put it down to your "Game Team" not getting their act together on time and it was eventually sorted. There have been no reported problems since that week.

Do you honestly thing it's a massive coincidence and that everyone used a "game exploit" during that one week, but not the weeks before or after? Even then, each week consists of 4 Time Trials, with one of them being rotated out and another coming in every week. By that logic, if some sort of exploit was used on even a single of those 4 Time Trials, then it should be expected that either during 3 weeks before or after the week in question (or any combination of the two adding up to three weeks around it), rewards would have been withheld, as they were that week. Yet, that wasn't the case.

Even then and what I really cannot get my head around, is what kind of exploit could be used regarding Date/Time settings? I'm baffled by that and would love for you to share your "theory". This issue occurred on the morning of Monday the 11th of April (UK). The few people that claimed to have received their rewards, that week, were people that had collected them shortly after the tournament ended, around 01:00 to 03:00 UTC in the night of Sunday to Monday, or people that waited until Monday evening onwards, without entering Weekly Time Trial Tournament due to the reports, for the Results pop-up to appear (which didn't appear on Monday for me and others).

Since you say the issue comes with messing with device Date and/or Time settings and it occurred around the time most countries were switching from Standard Time to Summer Time (clocks going forward), I'm half-inclined to think you misread that situation as the players trying some exploit, but it wouldn't explain why a minority of regular users were not affected by it. My actual theory comes from the fact that there was a minor patch downloaded that morning, which I believe was done to crudely "fix" the issues in Stage 06 Goal 01, where people managed to perform two donuts and come in first place, but still failed. I know it wasn't changed because it was too hard, as the main point of these fixed goals when the user's PR is below the "recommended" PR is to force people to spend Gold. There must have been some issue with the patch introduction and how the results are stored/transmitted, which fixed itself over time (or your Game Team fixed, who knows), but it was definitely broken for a while on that Monday and a lot of people paid the price for it, ultimately being given the blame for it. I'm not sure if you realise how insulting that feels. Since the patch was sent out to everyone, even users (such as myself) that had already completed Generations, not only was the Special Event not made easier for me, but I lost out on 100 Gold.

When something negative occurs to your consumer base and neither party knows what the issue is (or maybe you do and are not willing to share that information), you really should consider siding with the users. After all, "the consumer is always right" and in this case, the consumer is definitely right, while being pinned the blame in a very nonchalant and passive-aggressive manner. I really hope that if you cannot or are not willing to put this right, you at least give a more thorough explanation on your sloppy theory/explanation.

Kind Regards, Romain."

I tried to be as polite and understanding as possible, but it annoys me just having to try and reason with them, so unless the follow-up is somewhat positive, I think I'll just leave it at that. Cheers, still, for the advice. It's been over two weeks since their reply, so I decided to remind them the ticket was still open, while adding a couple of issues that have arisen recently:

"It has now been over a month since I opened a ticket and 16 days since your last reply. I realise you must be flooded with complaints and tickets after the Venom Update, but that comes with the territory, I suppose.

However, I would still like an explanation and if possible, a fair resolution.

I could go on criticising the employed business model, as well as the recent content's cost versus Gold-earning possibilities, stopping the user's progress, especially new users' progress in Career (some have reportedly been stuck in Pro/Expert since Christmas due to the barrage of Special Events/Gauntlet/Limited Time Series and their associated cost), but that's a story for another day.

Further, I have two issues I would like discussed. I would open another ticket, as they are unrelated to the initial problem, but maybe I might get a response sooner this way:

1. I play RR3 on a Samsung Galaxy Note 4. I'd upgraded from a Sony Xperia S, back in Janurary 2015 and was amazed at the improvement in graphics. As of the latest update, my device has now been set to what I can only expect is "low" graphics, versus "medium" or "high" before (I don't believe it was "extra high", that may be reserved for the very newest and highest-end devices). These changes include: lower environment detail, lower vehicle detail (both in body detail and paint which is now dull/bland rather than shiny and variable with the light) and most importantly, the loss of working mirrors. This means the Note 4 (other people with Note 4s on the forum have reported the same problem) uses the same graphics level as a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 tablet with a resolution of 600 x 1024 pixels and 1GB of RAM. As a reminder, the Note 4 has a resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels and 3GB of RAM. Moreover, friends' devices which are much less powerful still have access to the higher graphics settings (for example a Tesco Hudl 1 with a res of 1440 x 900 pixels and 1 GB of RAM). I thought it might come down to operating system (OS), as the upgrade from Lollipop to Marshmallow was late for Note 4s in the UK, but it was released last night and still no change. Why is it that older, weaker devices than mine are able to run higher graphics settings? Do you have list of devices which are grouped to different graphics settings? If so, would it be possible to reorganise them in a way that's truer to their specs, or perhaps allow the user to choose which settings they want? Working mirrors are a big part of the experience (I race almost exclusively from the cockpit) and their disappearance is a big loss to me.

2. In the Venom Update (v4.2)(but probably at least since the Hypercars Update - v4.0), FM claims that adverts availability has been increased. Whereas it was difficult to pick out a base amount of ads (Free Gold ads in the top right) during 2015 and before, as similar users in terms of location, device and OS had different amount of ads per day, it can now be seen that users are either limited to 5 or 20 ads per day. There's a lot of evidence pointing towards In-App Purchases (IAPs) being the deciding factor in which group the user will lie. I made a purchase in July of 2014 and have not had more than 5 ads per day on my account for a long time. However, users that have never spent a cent on the game report they get 20 a day. That's a difference of 600 to 615 Gold over the course of a month. This evidence is backed up by users that were attracted by the discount on the 1,019 Gold pack over Xmas, who saw their ads fall from 20 to 5/day straight after their purchase. Now, I can understand that if someone has made a purchase before, they may be more likely to make another, but do you think it's fair to put the squeeze on them in such a manner? Even making the most expensive purchase in the store (in regards to Gold), which is £80, would mean a loss of 15 Gold/day thereafter. Within just over two months (68 days), their purchase has effectively been nullified. £80 is twice the cost of a PC game: for that price, one would expect to be able to complete their game, not be hindered in their goal.

As always, I hope to hear from you soon.

Kind Regards,

Romain."