Jack
I've been snowed under behind the scenes for a couple of days and didn't get a chance to update this thread until now. I'd like to start by rephrasing what I said in another thread, which I had meant to put here as well:
We may adjust the new placements like healing if it seems right, but we always prefer to start conservatively then crank it up if people find it useful. As some have highlighted it has to be balanced within the game economy overall. The worst way to do that would be starting with a massively overpowered placement, which
Parts ads were - let's face it,
nobody was bothering to develop the HQ. It completely removed that aspect of gameplay. This is also why it's a bad comparison for the value of any subsequent placements, unless we just want ads to replace gameplay everywhere they are implemented?
One reason we moved some of the ads to reward cash is precisely because it is useful for building the HQ up. We expected some teething pains for anyone who was completely dependent on ads for the functioning of their team, but is that really what we want? Hopefully we can all agree that it is detrimental to gameplay to have such overpowered ad placements.
In addition to these objective factors, there are even greater subjective reasons for these changes. There is clearly far too much expectation of entitlement to ads, and some people actually feel
owed a debt of them, arriving at the forum or support like a debt collector demanding their ads, sometimes very rudely. Some have even attempted to blackmail us in to giving them free stuff, e.g. "I'll make my rating 5-stars if you give me my free parts, until then it's 1-star". Far from encouraging us to increase the number of ads available to these users, it convinced us that we had set the wrong expectations and it was time for change.
Even the replies here reassure us that we need to adjust ad placements to reflect what they really are - opportunities from advertisers. Before an advert can be shown to anyone, there has to be an ad network with an advertiser that wants to show that particular user an advert. Again, that has nothing to do with us, but the various ad platforms and the advertisers purchasing ads from them and who they are targeting.
Once the dust settles on the changes, in the long run I am confident that it will improve gameplay.
Antony
The issue is still at large though that the add function fails to work. It’s not that it’s not giving a consistent amount. The function freezes up and does not work unless you kill the app.
We've been working to figure out where and why this might happen. I'm pleased to say we've identified several issues that have been addressed for the next release. It will be packaged with the next update which should be available within a week.
Boris
I wish we had time to prepare for this rather than it being thrown at us out of the blue, I didn't have any time to upgrade manufacturing so my car is really struggling
I can only apologise if it caused you and others as much inconvenience as it sounds like it has. Ultimately, there is no easy way to make a change to something like this, and for many users the situation was far worse before than it is now. The famous phrase "you can't please everyone all of the time" springs to mind. Though I realise that is not a satifactory explanation, it's probably the closest thing to the reality. We couldn't really avoid not keeping everyone happy whichever way we approached it. The course we've taken now will work out for the best in the long run and keep as many people happy as possible, once it has settled in.
Thanks for the reply. I get the change in direction and while it might be inconvenient that’s your choice to make. But if the features you do provide are bugged I feel I should let you know so they can be fixed.
Personally I would prefer less rewards but a way to build up a little more tokens than the 2-3 we can get per race.
Maybe a single free giveaway a day of 1-2 tokens or tokens for milestones (like attending a race not just being in it) or exact time you level up a driver training. That way it’s only by actively playing not out of just logging on.
This would allow slightly faster building of parts particularly as it’s only 2 days.
Biggest slog and disadvantage is the time to build. As so many are 5 days tokens are what need to be used to accelerate at a reasonable pace. Unfortunately they are not cheap to buy.
Personally buying stuff for a game should roughly reflect what a game is worth if it was sold.
Just my thoughts constructively.
CEO & CTO
