Full details of the "bug" in this post!
http://forum.supercell.net/signature...ic367705_6.gif
MAJOR UPDATE: ACCORDING TO THIS POST (CLICK), THE EXACT SAME IS HAPPENING IN HAYDAY AND BOOM BEACH.....
Before reading the rest of my post, you should know that the title of this thread is very misleading. As I hope you'll understand from my post, there is no question about this issue at all, there shouldn't be any questionmark. It's also not just restricted to builders. Explained below is a massive "bug" that affects every person playing this game, including you.
Before reading the rest of my post, you should know that the title of this thread is very misleading. As I hope you'll understand from my post, there is no question about this issue at all, there shouldn't be any questionmark. It's also not just restricted to builders. Explained below is a massive "bug" that affects every person playing this game, including you.
This thread is about a "bug" in the game which causes the time to be inflated (details below). The "bug" affects everyone playing this game, and is easily tested and proven. Sadly many people don't realize it until they're made aware and don't realize that they're being duped. If you, while reading this, are in that group... well, keep on reading :p
This "bug" has been documented since at least November 2012, and has most likely been around since the beginning of CoC. See the bottom of this post for links to earlier threads.
The concepts affected by this time inflation are:
- Builders constructing or improving a building
- Laboratory upgrades
- Resources being generated (mines, pumps, drills)
- Troops and spells being created
- Clan castle request timer
- Hero sleep timer
Not affected:
- Shield time
- Push notifications
The time added (or 'lag' from now on) isn't smoothly spread over the duration of the upgrade; rather it's added in increments of a few seconds upon performing certain actions.
Testing consistently points to between 5 and 5 1/2 seconds added per increment.
The known causes all converge to the loading of one's village:
- Opening up and reloading the game (includes after "Are you there?" message)
- Viewing replays
- Returning from any visited village, which includes:
--- Playing or just viewing a single player mission
--- Attacking or just viewing through revenge
--- Attacking or just viewing through matchmaking (note: you only return to your own village once regardless of how many bases you view at a time in matchmaking. You don't get multi-penalized as far as I know)
--- Viewing other players' bases (top players, clanmates, people in general, revenge preparation, etc, etc)
- Finally, according to Supercell's own support team, your base is also affected when it is loaded (for attack or viewing) by other people than yourself. This means that your times will also get inflated, even when you don't even spend a second online yourself. Every time a player gets the option to attack you (whether they take it or not) and every time someone decides to (for whatever reason) just check out your awesome base, time gets added to all the things affected.
Oh, and you thought the scam couldn't get worse than this? Well, it sure can.
If you spend gems on boosting your barracks, spell factory, or mines/pumps/drills, the lag gets 'boosted' as a side-effect too. So you're just imposing a bigger lag on yourself. Thanks Supercell, just what we were looking for, paying for more lag! Lol...
So now you are probably thinking something along the lines of "well, if this has been known for over a year, why is it still here?"
There have been various people in this community who noticed it early on, and have worked hard to raise awareness and offer solutions.
Throughout the threads, many solutions have been offered. Just a few examples include:
- Fixing the bug outright (obviously preferred and required)
- Effective compensation by subtracting 5 seconds for all affected issues per village load
- Compensation in the form of reduced base building times (e.g. 4d 22h instead of the listed 5d, so that with the lag accounted for it is roughly the 5d that is to be expected)
- Other forms of compensation, such as an increase in gems, so that those can be spent on instant-finishing the lagged portion of things.
- And even more... these were just off the top of my head
So, with all this knowledge and wealth of ideas and solutions,
what does Supercell do?
Steve (Supercell) has stated repeatedly that there are no plans to fix this bug.
I'll have to ask you the following: please look again at the affected concepts mentioned at the top of this post. Do you see a trend? I do. These are all functions that can be sped up and/or instantly completed with
gems.
Effectively, the only true resource in CoC is time. You get everything directly proportionate to the amount of time you spend in the game, be it waiting for upgrades or be it farming for walls/heroes, etc. Supercell's business concept is genius in its core: all they really sell, is time. Everything that can be gemmed, ultimately comes down to buying time.
Many people have strict daily patterns: the same work times every weekday, therefore the same bedtime, etc. It is not right that after starting an update at for example 11pm, two weeks later it'll be done at 2am. This puts people with a 3-way dilemma:
- Will I stay up? Obviously not reasonable for many people. Not to mention that it'll only be even later next time...
- Will I leave my resources filled up overnight and the builder idle for many hours? Well, preferably not...
- Or do I just gem the 2 hours that are left?
This is how people are being duped. They are
forced into choosing between unwanted (and unnecessary) situations, and gemming. Thus, it is highly unethical to refuse to fix a "bug" that directly affects the product you sell. Even more so, when
the vast majority of customers is unaware. And especially, potentially, if it's done intentionally.
Whether it was implemented intentionally or not, that's something only Supercell will ever know. However, it can be truthfully be stated by now that leaving it for what it is, thereby prolonging the duping of customers, is done intentionally. If Supercell truly valued the playing experience and corporate ethics above money, this would have been fixed (or at least announced and compensated) the very first update after becoming known to them. Supercell did not do so.
In my book, the continued ignoring and downplaying of this "bug" is nothing more than the continuation of what has become, or perhaps always has been, a scam.
Some references to other threads on this issue (Supercell's rug):
http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...ta-update-info
http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...mer-difference
http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...training-delay
http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...INFLATED-proof (49 pages)
http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...g-timer-glitch
http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...u-call-it-POLL
http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...9-Did-you-know
Edit;
It seems that there is some confusion about why this "bug" is commonly called a scam. The reason I call this "bug" a scam is because of following:
-
Fact: this "bug" causes all times displayed in the game (with exception of shields) to be a misrepresentation of reality.
-
Fact: it's been present in the game for over a year, at the very least since November 2012, possibly/likely longer.
-
Fact: it's been repeatedly presented to Supercell and explained in full detail, including how this "bug" is incentive to a habit of gemming that would otherwise not be present.
-
Fact: Supercell has dismissed the "bug" with no reasonable prospect of it being fixed in the near future, thereby retaining its effect of additional gemming.
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Fact: Supercell has made no effort whatsoever to make this issue and its effects known to the general public and playerbase. Every attempt to do so has been player-initiated. A case could even be made for the opposite, i.e. that they're attempting to hide and cover it, but that topic is not for this message.
There are many definitions of "scam", the most commonly found ones being a "fraudulent scheme" and a "confidence trick". It's pretty clear that given the set of facts above, this "bug" and how it's being handled easily fit the definition for both:
Supercell gains trust by stating specific times for the affected issues, and by being a large, reputable developer their is initially no reason to question the times stated. As we all know, reality proves that the stated times are incorrect. Effectively, Supercell violates the trust players have in the stated times. Players are unaware of this, unless they manage to find it out themselves or from others, as Supercell does not inform them of this violation of trust. The vast majority of players either doesn't take notice, or ignores it, blame themselves making mistakes, etc. This leads to people gemming bits and pieces to keep upgrades on schedule, especially when the schedule is tight because of repetitive patterns such as work and sleep. Supercell accepts the gems and provides no prospect of change in the situation of the "bug", which still goes unnoticed by many.
Given how this is completely based on facts alone and perfectly fits the common definitions of a scam, I feel completely justified in stating it as a fact itself. If you are able to substantiate your believe that this "bug" is not a scam, please do so, and I will of course happily stop using the word if your reasoning makes more sense than mine.
(Feel free to copy and use this image by nathannathan1232 - thanks!) 