Loss of Interceptors

General cdub · Apr 29th 2020, 4:42pm

Greetings Game Moderators,

In game 3,125,191 a 100 Player World Map, I had 20 Level 4 Interceptors split into three air squadrons, (41^st with 6, 66^th with 7 & 67^th with 7). I had them patrolling over my air space against Saskatchewan’s patrolling pattern of two squadrons consisting of 1 Level 3 Interceptor at 20% Health and 4 Level 3 Interceptors and 2 Level 4 Tactical Bombers at 65% health. My three Squadrons were at 94% Health. When his 14^thTactical Bomber Wing completed its patrol, I lost all of my Interceptors. All three were destroyed in an instant. His 14^th Tactical Bomber Wing did not lose anything including health and strength.

2:14 am The 41st Fighter Squadron (South Africa) lost: 6 Interceptor
2:14 am The 66th Fighter Squadron (South Africa) lost: 7 Interceptor
2:14 am The 67th Fighter Squadron (South Africa) lost: 7 Interceptor

It should be known that I had better health and almost 5 times the strength combined. Even separately, any of those three squadrons had almost double the strength. I also checked his kills from those two air squadrons and it did not show any more kills than they had from before. In other words, it was like my Interceptors had just vanished into the mysterious COW Triangle with the only record being that of what was published in the World Herald. Figuring this was some sort of a bug, I sent in a report. Here is the response I received from tsigmon73, a Senior Moderator for Call of War.

“Hello General cdub,

Thank you for your message. This is a known issue and we are already working on fixing it. Unfortunately I won’t be able to inform you personally when it will be fixed but you can be sure that we are trying to resolve this as fast as possible. Please excuse the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

Should you have any other issues please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

Senior Moderator Call of War | Game Operator”

Bytro Labs GmbH
Zirkusweg 2
20359 Hamburg
Germany
bytro.com

Amtsgericht Hamburg, HRB 118884
USt. ID.: DE263701383
Geschäftsführer: Tobias Kringe, Christopher Lörken

That is it? Hmmm, let me paraphrase it for you in my own words.

{Hello General cdub,

Yes, we are aware of this issue and it is a known bug. While you should not have lost all of your interceptors and most likely destroyed his air units with ease, you are just tough out of luck! While we are working on it, I can’t tell you when this bug will be fixed and if you don’t like it, too bad. Find a way to work around it in your current game.

If you have any other issues, please don’t hesitate to contact us, (not that it will do any good as you can see with my response).

Kind regards,
COW Senior Moderator

PS: If this had happened to one of us moderators or players in our own alliance within a game, we would have found a way to fix it or compensate the player.}

I share that above statement with humorous sarcasm but in the end, his response while kind and respectful is still unacceptable by any standard.

I am requesting someone with a bit more concern for us players to address this issue.
With all due respect,

General cdub

VorlonFCW · Apr 29th 2020, 5:27pm

This bug is under investigation, and we believe it has been resolved.

Please note that posting of private communication from staff members in public is a violation not only of the forum rules but of EU privacy regulations as well.

While I do understand your position, there is no need to insult my staff in public. This is the standard response, particularly when we have dozens or hundreds of reports on an issue that is still under investigation.

General cdub · Apr 29th 2020, 5:46pm

Hello Vorlon,

Please accept my apology for not only unknowingly breaking the rules but your interpretation of insulting one of you staff members. In no way was I meaning to insult him, only to share my interpretation of his response to me.

As far as the rules in regards to private communications from staff members, can you please expand on this. I would like to know what you mean specifically on EU privacy regulations. If you could also share with me the thread explaining the forum rules that specifically state that a message that was sent to me not only in the game messaging center but also to my own personal email address.

As far as my in game issue, you state that it is under investigation and in the same sentence sir, you state it has been resolved. My first question is which is it? Secondly, how is it resolved on my end? I am still missing my 20 Interceptors.

Please understand that I mean no disrespect to you or anyone else on your staff. I am sure you know that I have been playing the game for a very long time and have never experienced this nor have I seen or heard of something like this. I would like to believe that if you or any of your staff were in my position, not associated, working for or volunteering for COW, you would feel the same way I do.

Thank you for your time and consideration to my problem.

General cdub

VorlonFCW · Apr 29th 2020, 6:49pm

Certainly General cdub,

Privacy law is rather long and boring, the basics are that sharing something written by someone else requires that person's permission. It is written in the game rules as such:

Dr. Leipreachán wrote:

Privacy:

Publishing private correspondence between members of Call of War support teams and users is strictly forbidden! This also applies for private communication between users. If you want to make a private message accessible to the public, the consent of both participants is required.

forum.callofwar.com/index.php?thread/8855-map-in-game-rules/

Please edit your post above and remove the name of the staff member, particularly where you changed the message and forged the staff signature.

As for the bug, we believe that the bug has been resolved in that such an out of proportion battle will not occur again. The investigation is still ongoing as to the extent of the issue and observation for any further occurrences today and beyond.

At the present time there are no plans to discard gameplay and revert the servers to a prior point, nor to give replacement units based on any claims of a lopsided battle. There is no method of quantifying any disproportionate battles as in fact every single airplane patrol tick over the course of 5 days may have experienced this issue. Simply put we do not have the manpower to investigate every claim, verify such claims, and provide units to thousands of affected players. When creating your account you agreed to the terms of service which state:

https://www.callofwar.com/index.php?id=274 wrote:

2.3 The game will be constantly enhanced, updated and modified in order to provide its Participants with an optimal gaming experience. Therefore, the Participant will only be granted the right to participate in the then current version of the game.

As this loss of planes was a part of the "current version" of the game during that time it is not possible to offer you specifically or any participant who asks an altered outcome based on the expectations of the game during a previous version. While this version did cause some unexpected combat results this does not obligate us to change these combat results to meet your expectations.

Remember that all combat does include the random number generator so that unexpected results are in fact a designed element of the game, and the very reason that it is popular. While this random element was exaggerated in your case due to this bug, it is not completely unprecedented in terms of game mechanics.

Ryan04px2025 · Apr 29th 2020, 11:44pm

Well one thing I am amused is that they can warn easily and can take out a 410 word explanation just as easily!!!

PANZEEER · Apr 30th 2020, 3:19am

VorlonFCW wrote:

As this loss of planes was a part of the "current version" of the game during that time it is not possible to offer you specifically or any participant who asks an altered outcome based on the expectations of the game during a previous version. While this version did cause some unexpected combat results this does not obligate us to change these combat results to meet your expectations.

Remember that all combat does include the random number generator so that unexpected results are in fact a designed element of the game, and the very reason that it is popular. While this random element was exaggerated in your case due to this bug, it is not completely unprecedented in terms of game mechanics.

What I understand from this is: "While you were playing well, and you were clearly outsmarting your opponent, you had tough luck and one of our bugs affected you, but as your loss can be taken on many ways, we will stick to the easier way to us."

Please tell me I'm wrong

General cdub · Apr 30th 2020, 3:19am

Greetings once again Vorlon,

I appreciate your reply to my questions. While I do not want to argue semantics as I do have much respect for you but also know that you do hold the final authority as Judge, Jury and Executioner, I would like to just expand on a couple of things.

From my understanding of EU Regulations, they refer to laws in Europe that companies like Bytro protect the privacy of users and employees. That is a requirement that the company must obey and has nothing to do with a user such as myself. I have not hacked into your company in order to gain any personal data on anyone. Not that any of that matters as I hardly think anyone is going to prosecute me from posting a message that was sent to my personal email. I would also add that the email I received did not contain any personal data to your employee or volunteer. As a matter of fact, his user ID is public record by not only his own postings, but those of your own employees as well.

As far as the forum rules, you posted one part of the privacy rules. You left out the explanation part though and that is where I believe I was mistaken in whether or not I had broken any rules by my misinterpretation. It states...

3. Privacy

a) Publishing private correspondence between members of CallofWar’ teams and users is strictly forbidden! This also applies for private communication between users. If you want to make a private message accessible to the public, the consent of both participants is required.

b) It generally pertains to respect the privacy of the CallofWar users and basically to not disclose any personal information (address, phone number, email address, RL name ...) of others without their consent.

As per the explanation in (b), I have not released any personal information. RL Name refers to Real Life Name. I have not released any personal information including RL name. Furthermore, nowhere in his message to me says that this is a private message. As I have share map with other players, they know of the situation as well. I would also like to add that I could understand the reasoning in (a) if this message was sent to me in the COW Message Center only. However, once I received it in my personal email, it is my belief under EU Regulations as well as COW Rules it is no longer private. I could be wrong, but hey, as I said, let’s not argue over semantics. We will just go with what you said. I would suggest though that you might reword the rules so that people like myself do not have the misinterpretation as I did.

As far as forging someone’s name, that is a pretty strong accusation. I just typed in a user name but gave full disclosure that it was my own paraphrasing so in no way was I forging or changing his original email as that was also posted.

Lastly, I would just like to say that I may not agree with your final decision as I do know of players in a certain alliance that is run by a top COW employee and those players have received compensation for issues such as this. With that being said, I will just have to live with it.

On another note.....

I understand the “X” Factor but I hardly think that this had anything to do with it. Fortunately for me, I was smart enough not to have my Tac Bombers attached to my Interceptors so I at least had them and my opponent lost what little air he had against my AA.

It is a shame that the responses I have gotten are what they are. I have never really had any problems with the game that were serious enough for me to post in the forums as any that I have had were taken care of to my satisfaction.

Per your request, I have edited my original post by removing his “User Name”.

As I have said in the past and I deeply mean this with complete sincerity, I mean no disrespect to you or any of your staff. I appreciate the time and effort that everyone does to give us an enjoyable game.

General cdub

PANZEEER · Apr 30th 2020, 5:09am

This guy almost made me cry

even with this bug and the no-appeasement policy, he's still loyal to the game and always answering polite. BRAVO

General cdub · Apr 30th 2020, 11:47pm

Ok, this is ridiculous. It has happened again. I just lost another 20 Level 5 Interceptors to only 5 Level 4 Tactical Bombers!

12:35 am The 30th Fighter Squadron (South Africa) lost: 6 Interceptor
12:35 am The 49th Fighter Squadron (South Africa) lost: 7 Interceptor
12:35 am The 53rd Fighter Squadron (South Africa) lost: 7 Interceptor

My Three squadrons had a total Health of 98% and 197 in Strength. His 5 Tactical Bombers were at a combined 90% Health and had a total 35.3 Strength.

You stated this bug was fixed and it is not. Please do not even attempt to tell me this is part of the X Factor as nobody in their right mind will believe that. His Tacs did not take any damage what so ever and I lose all 20 Fighters.

General cdub

Jacques Thomas · Apr 30th 2020, 11:57pm

I dunno, what is SBDE hit for a 20 stack?

General cdub · May 1st 2020, 12:20am

Greetings Jacques,

This had nothing to do with SBDE. I think you are reading a bit too much into that. Besides, my air was split into three squadrons. Thank you for your inquiry though.

General cdub

PANZEEER · May 1st 2020, 1:57am

Maaaan, my life on the forum depends right now on the admin's response. If he tries to turn the fault to you again, I will just leave the forum and give it a break until the admin is changed hahaha

General cdub · May 1st 2020, 2:11am

Yeppers Panzeeer,

As it stands right now at least in this map, Interceptors are worthless and the only protection I have against Tac Bombers is AA.

Teburu · May 1st 2020, 2:48am

aircombat in general seems pretty broken rn? i’d stay away from airunits in general until they’re sure it’s fixed
and he clearly stated that „the investigation is still ongoing“

General cdub · May 1st 2020, 3:27am

Well Greetings once again Teburu,

I am not sure what you are reading sir, but as it states from Vorlon, "As for the bug, we believe that the bug has been resolved in that such an out of proportion battle will not occur again." With that being said, I am not sure what you are referring to as it being "clearly stated". Such an out of proportion result should not occur which I also questioned once again. While they are still monitoring the situation, it was supposed to be to make sure it is not off balance but it should not be so lopsided as it was.

VorlonFCW wrote:

As for the bug, we believe that the bug has been resolved in that such an out of proportion battle will not occur again. The investigation is still ongoing as to the extent of the issue and observation for any further occurrences today and beyond.

I am not sure what you are attempting to achieve by stating that other than to say it was my fault this time for not understanding that this could happen again. I am posting it here to let them know it is still happening for their investigation.

Teburu wrote:

aircombat in general seems pretty broken rn? i’d stay away from airunits in general until they’re sure it’s fixed
and he clearly stated that „the investigation is still ongoing“

Thanks for your input sir,

General cdub

VorlonFCW · May 1st 2020, 12:24pm

Teburu wrote:

aircombat in general seems pretty broken rn? i’d stay away from airunits in general until they’re sure it’s fixed
and he clearly stated that „the investigation is still ongoing“

short version: air combat should be more predictable now. If you see evidence that it is still wildly unpredictable today, please tell us.

PANZEEER · May 1st 2020, 12:49pm

Still no appeasement policy?

please tell us how did he lose 20 interceptors against 5 bombers? If that happens to me, I would just rage-quit the game hahaha interceptors are expensive and take long time to build them, and if interceptors are not going to work against bomber, please take them off the game, because 20 interceptors are far more expensive than 5 bombers!

VorlonFCW · May 1st 2020, 1:13pm

I cannot take the time to reconstruct every single battle that has occurred in the past week and manually calculate what might have been a possible result simple because each and every combat calculation includes a random factor as well as multiple other factors. You can put army A against army B ten times in a row and each and every battle progression will be different. There are also elements of battle that may not be observed where the enemy may have had additional air forces join the battle. For me to pick all of that data out of the log, crunch the numbers with a spreadsheet and say “ok you lost twice as many planes as you might have otherwise” Is simply not practical or possible.

History will not be altered in this or any of the other thousands of claimed lopsided battles in the one week period because unpredictable battle results are an inherent part of the game. The very foundation of the combat is the random number generator which both frustrates and delights players depending on who it favors. While you may feel that your results were unexpected with this version of the game the same results were possible for each and every single player.

I realize each one of you believes your case is unique and worth a whole day of my time. However there are thousands of people with a similar demand and I am not able to devote thousands of days to this issue.

PANZEEER · May 1st 2020, 4:00pm

VorlonFCW wrote:

Teburu wrote:

aircombat in general seems pretty broken rn? i’d stay away from airunits in general until they’re sure it’s fixed
and he clearly stated that „the investigation is still ongoing“

short version: air combat should be more predictable now. If you see evidence that it is still wildly unpredictable today, please tell us.

So this actually means: "well yes it's more predictable but actually not. If you lose the battle clearly having the upperhand, it's an X factor! not a bug! and we won't give you anything back for it, because checking your complain IS NOT MY JOB, nor making this game more realistic."

lol, how did you reach your spot with that attitude? This bug has happened twice to this guy, one time you recognized it and the second one you just say it's tough luck. Won't you take the time to check what this good, loyal and polite player is complaing about? Even if you have your hands tied, there are better manners to response at a complain.

Restrisiko · May 1st 2020, 6:35pm

There's also the option not only the enemy bombers, but also other enemy stacks with interceptors were operating precisely overlapping one another ..

.. this mostly cannot be recognized by selecting the planes in the air, but possibly can be found out by draw a circle whith holding right mouse at the possible take-off airfields ..

.. however, in this case I also believe that it's a bug that has not yet been completely eliminated.

PANZEEER wrote:

...Please tell me I'm wrong

Ok, no problem:
"You are wrong"

......................................................................In war, at any time even the impossible can be possible

Loss of Interceptors

Loss of Interceptors

Dr. Leipreachán wrote:

https://www.callofwar.com/index.php?id=274 wrote:

VorlonFCW wrote:

VorlonFCW wrote:

Teburu wrote:

Teburu wrote:

VorlonFCW wrote:

Teburu wrote:

PANZEEER wrote:

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