Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-38264419-20190122174617/@comment-28169398-20190130163009

It should be pretty obvious that FM bears a large amount of responsibility. It is after all their game, the economy they created, the bad QC that they did or did not do as the case may be, the rushed, bug ridden updates, the reticence to closing exploits so as not to incur the players ire. They made a lot of decisions to hit targets in the short term without regard to the long term implications they would have on the game. And all that has contributed to the disfunctions in the game we have today.

But we do as well. It is disingenuous for us to sit around and complain about expense and inflation when we have all engaged in activities that drive that expense and inflation.

As for the past, I am standing up and raising my hand and saying, yes, in my opinion, what I did was cheating, as it contributed to the inflation associated with the game through the use of the game in an unintended manner. I adopted Sirebel's justifications of the difference between exploits and out and out cheats through alteration of stats or code, but I wasn't thinking about the big picture of how that blew up the economics of the game and how it has led to what we see today. I didn't use any of the gold collect cheats, or the Le Mans Endurance cheat, but I freely and openly used the fame "cheats" to keep up and I advised others to do the same under the guise of strategic game play and with the "righteous" justification that it was a part of the game; there is a reason my favorite car is the AUDI R18 E-TRON QUATTRO (2015) with over 850 races.

As for the multiple collect on WTTT rewards, it wasn't until the last month or two of the old system that I ever had the top car in all 4 stages of WTTT in order to qualify for C or better. And unlike what Johnny is trying to characterize, having the top car in each of the 4 stages was what was necessary to be C or better in WTTT under the old system. Run into one tier with the second tier car and you were guaranteed to be collecting R$ rewards for 4 weeks.

Today, with more information, I see the use of those exploits, which are simply an extension of using the game as provided, but in unintended, or even unexpected, way as cheating. And it isn't just cheating in the sense of cheating FM, because FM has shown that they will make the necessary adjustments not to go under, the House always does, and I don't blame them for that (if they didn't they would lose their jobs), but because it has made the game unaffordable and monotonous for most.

And yes, last year I asked ME7 about getting and testing perpetual endurances, partly because I was operating under the framework of how do we keep the arms race going and keep up with FM without thinking of the ramifications, and partly because I was trying to show how players could play the game for free with their only contribution to revenue coming from ads. I will go one step further and I will say I was one of the biggest proponents here of Strategic Game play and what I thought at the time was the honest way of keeping above water without making real money purchases. If you read the text of my message to ME7 you will see I wasn't asking for me, I was asking to provide the recommendation for others to run the team competitions. I have only ever had a team of 1 ([CSQD] if you want to look it up), but if you look at the team threads from last year I would, on occasion, post recommendations on the best strategic races to use.

I was also under the false impression that Ad revenues were the main contributor to FM's revenue stream. That was a very mistaken impression. IAPs provide orders of magnitude more revenues to FM than ads.

What I lost sight of is that there are no winners in arms races. There is only more proliferation and more sacrifices to justify the expenses necessary to maintain progress. And other than giving up the game, there is no way to win the Arms Race against FM because we have absolutely no power against them other than to 1) force them into bad short term decisions, as was the case with the 1-star ratings when they tried to fix the unintended long term consequences of high fame races, 2) quit or 3)force them into the smoke and mirrors of giving us 80-100 gold per LTS only to build that into add it into the cost of upgrades. Some will do the math, but most will trick themselves into thinking things are good.

The other problem with this arms race is that it is us against every other player, against FM. So even if we recognize the inherent problem with the use of exploits to the detriment of our enjoyment of the game, other players are going to keep exploiting them, which means, if we try to do the right thing we will fall behind, which will cost us excessive amounts of money that others aren't paying. Here is where we need FM to step in and do the right thing by making mature business decisions to reign in costs and close inflationary exploits, because as difficult as it is to keep up with and fight FM, it is impossible to contend with other players who have no qualms about using exploits to their own end. This is where we can step up and support and pressure FM into closing inflationary exploits so that the economy becomes fairer for everyone. Is the answer RR4 or a new Currency Type that can make costs more reasonable for new players without providing for older players with hordes of currency from the days of open and rampant exploits? Time will tell.

So, I am sorry for my part in contributing to the cheating that has caused the game to become what it is today and for being a proponent of it and providing justifications of it. Will that mean I won't run 10-lap Le Mans for first race of the day with the fame agent? No. I am still a strategic thinker and hate wasting opportunities, however I probably will not run it more than that. Will I run Perpetual Endurances again? Likely not. The one run on Saturday was a test to see, 1) if I could do it, 2) how easy it was to do it, 3) what kind of payout does it generate. Yes. Really easy. Boat loads. What I will not do when I run the ten-lapper is delude myself anymore into thinking that I am playing the game as intended and that it doesn't make me a part of the problem that cheats all of us out of a better experience. I'll try to keep that behavior to an absolute bear minimum and will try to keep up with C or B performances in WTTT, and if I can't keep up, then I have to reassess what I am doing with my time.