Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-31526827-20190824003721

There are two issues that plague RR3; It's economy and cheaters.

By cheaters I'm specifically talking about people who hack the game in some fashion so that they can obtain funds and/or unlock FU cars and events/tracks. Exploiters are seperate.

The economy. I'll keep this short and sweet. Everything costs way too much and the rewards for doing things are too small. And by too small I mean that what you earn for doing work isn't rewarded by enough to sustain you in furthering yourself in the game. This becomes an issue as you advance from initial R$ cars into the "good" ones. Once you hit the spot wher you are going for GC only cars and/or any new car (as they are now all GC only cars), that's when this broken economy kicks in. It costs too much to play - or - you can't earn enough to play *(except for extreme farming and ad viewing regimines which, despite what it sounds like in the echo chamber of a wiki or sub, is NOT what 99% of the players do).

Why doesn't FM eliminate cheating? It's unfair to say that FM could easily eliminate all cheating. It's fair to say that they could make a bigger dent than they have. I can identify several methods that can prevent any kind of a) stat or b) funds manipulation. I know they are talented enough guys and/or can hire speciaists to solve those obvious problems. But, they don't. Why? The most obvious reason is becuase all Apps need downloads in order to stay visible and popular on an app store. When something is not being download it doesn't get noticed. Also, in order to have a large pool of TC, WTTT and OMP players we need... lots of players! What kinds of players, ANY kind of player! Even cheats are welcome. Cheaters play all those events. EVEN thought they could just hack for more than the rewars, they enjoy winning. So, they play to have fun (kinda envious, when I think about, they get to do what I set out to do but can't afford to). I am NOT saying that FM welcome and enjoys cheaters. I am saying that a degree of cheating is tolerated because monthly player count is ultra important. If they used their magic wand and elminated all GC hacking tomorrow, I could safely say that 50% of everyone this wiki and maybe 75% of all players would go away in a month.

And, frankly, it's the above (incredibly long, run on) paragraph above that makes a broken economy confusing, illogical and even more greedy sounding. GC is imaginary money so it's not like they are reaching into their pocket to give more away (conversely, make things cheaper). Here is what I don't understand about their aggressive price increases and lack of rewards:

If you make it too expensive to buy something someone really wants, they'll either steal it or not use it at all. If it's esay to steal with virtually no penalty if you are caught, many many many people will just steal it.

Currently, everything in RR is too expensive, the cost to purchase GC is too expensive, but there are plenty of people who really want to play the game. And, also, currently in the RR world, it's easy to steal GC with almost no risk. Put those two together and that's why cheating is rampant.

Given all that - it's mind blowingly dumb to make the game more and more expensive (or keep it expensive). Raising prices will NOT generate more revenue. Those that'll pay will still hit their limit of how much they are willing to pay and then quit. Raising prices just means they'll quit sooner. People who grind, will just farm and grind harder/longer (and they aren't part of FM's formula or concern anyway). Lastly, people who cheat will never be affected by price, low or high. They didn't care when the EVO came out, they got it FU and VIP'd on the day it was available. They didn't care about the price of the Clubsport, they had it FU and VIP'd on the day it cmae out. Cheaters didn't even need to sweat the LTS, they just got it.

The only people hurt by increased prices and/or lower ROI are legit players. The ones who are actually paying for the game and keeping it alive. It's their small but large number of IAP purchases is literally all that keeps EA from shutting RR3 down. And this is what makes the economy and the direction it's going STUPID. Yes, illogical, punative and STUPID.

I would pray that FM could see this and change course but I feel like it's too late. Some might point to the most recent new ES that pay better. Yet, even at their high (comparatively) reward level, those levels are still pitifully low! When the reward for running 54 races is still lower than a single L2 upgrade, what's the point? You had to spend 1000s and race hundreds of laps to get the car FU in the first place, and your reward is to race hundreds more laps to earn back, what 1-2%?

This game isn't playable by normal players, really. It's play for a short time, make a purchase or two ($20 or so) and then bail. The ONLY reason the game lives today (believe me, ONLY reason) is because of the vast number of brand new players who don't know what they are getting into -- and the cheaters. Yup, we need the cheaters numbers of downloads just to keep the game alive. Crazy isn't it?

How to fix: Bite the bullet. Since changing the cost of existing things would be a massive job the solution is to make changes going forward. New cars should cost less and rewards must go up, dramatically.

Otherwise, get used to hackers and cheaters, they are keeping the game alive, far more than any complaints or suggestions we make here and more than any game changer could do (no offense).

I'd love to see this game live on and improve and for me to keep playing. But the only two ways I see it are: they fix the economy or I borrow my buddies android and... you'll see me in the 100% FU and VIP club suddenly. 