On the 14th February 2019, the so-called “Fast Lane Update” of Asphalt 8 arrived on iOS and Android platforms. The community had been excited for this update but unfortunately, it rapidly became apparent that not all was as it seemed, and that in fact the update was a complete disaster, the worst update that we’ve ever had. It's certainly not the best Valentine gift that we can get, and we're really disappointed. Therefore, we urge Gameloft to fix these things:

Firstly, Gameloft has made Mastery races unrepeatable, which means that once the race has been completed it cannot be redone. Worse still, the credit payout of the actual race itself has been dramatically reduced. This makes it impossible to farm credits. To add insult to injury, cars like the McLaren MP4-31 (which had 725 tokens in its mastery) have had their rewards reduced to just 100 tokens. All Double Credits, Extra Tanks, free Class Upgrades and Champion Kit Boxes have been removed, and unfair rewards have taken their place. However, on a positive note, the amount of licences per mastery has been increased, which is a thing that should remain. To fix this issue in its entirety, Gameloft should re-allow the repetition of races, return the credit payouts to normal, revert the credit part of the challenge rewards to normal and alter this new system to incorporate Double Credits. All D class vehicles should have one free D class upgrade, one Champion kit box, one Double Credits, 30 licenses and 100 tokens in their mastery. All C class vehicles should have one free C class upgrade, one Champion kit box, one Double credits, 40 licences and 150 tokens in their mastery. All B class vehicles should have one free B class upgrade, one Champion kit box, one Double Credits, 60 licenses and 200 tokens in their mastery. All A class vehicles should have one free A class upgrade, two Champion kit boxes, one Double Credits, 80 licences and 300 tokens in their mastery. Finally, all S class vehicles should have two free S class upgrades, two champion kit boxes, two Double credits, 100 licences and 500 tokens in their mastery. The community feels that this would be a fairer way to balance masteries.

Secondly, Gameloft has increased the number of Pro Kit cards and credits required for a vehicle dramatically. Since the 2018 Spring Update (and even years before that, but only in extreme occasions) obscene amounts of engine cards have been required to upgrade new vehicles, and now this bad attitude has been transferred to every type of card. Worse still, the problem has been transferred to older vehicles, and it has been getting worse and worse with each new car. For example, the BMW i8 Coupe requires 72 i3 engines (a brand new engine that nobody has and that will not drop in any boxes outside of the R&D, requiring you to spend stupendous amounts of tokens to buy boxes to get these engines, made worse by the fact that the car should use Hybrid engines),164 Class B Parts, 120 Early and Initial Tech Cards and 52 Mid-Tech cards. Compared to the BMW M2 Special Edition (pre-update), which requires only 8 i6 engines (an engine people do actually have and is the correct one for the car), 60 Class B Parts, 48 Early and Initial Techs and 20 Mid Tech cards, and considering the fact that the i8 does not beat the M2 Special Edition convincingly, the i8 is proven to be hopelessly expensive. Also, the new Zeus Twelve Sigma requires 96 legendary electric engines (which again, not many people have many of and again, is the wrong engine for the car) along with other obscene amounts of cards, and it cannot even beat the Apollo Intensa Emozione, a car with much fairer requirements. To fix this issue in its entirety, all cars should have their engine requirements reverted to what they were before this update. In addition, the new cars should have upgrade requirements that reflect what they would have been like before this update. This means that the i8 Coupe should only require 8 i3 engines, the F60 America should require 20 V12 engines and the Zeus Twelve Sigma should require 20 legendary electric engines. Finally, the upgrade
requirements for older, more obsolete cars should be reduced even further to reflect this.

Thirdly, multiplayer matchmaking should stay the same as it was before the update. To add to this, the rank changing of the 53 cars that had their ranks changed is completely and totally unacceptable. Each one of these cars was bought (or won) with the knowledge they would perform  in a certain way. To change this now is totally unfair to the players who spent real money trying to win cars such as the Audi R8 e-tron Special Edition and Mercedes-Benz SLK 55 AMG Special Edition, expecting them to be powerful. To fix this issue, all cars should have their ranks and upgrade rank percentages reverted to how they were before this update. This includes new cars (the ones released in this update) and all subsequent cars. Also, the TVR Sagaris Special Edition in particular should be restored to its previous performance.

Our fourth issue is the fact that Heat Cups and Apex Wednesday Cups have been removed and replaced with worse alternatives. More importantly, vital cups such as the Assembly Cups and the Apex Wednesday Upgrade Cup have been removed, even before this update. To make matters worse, over 70 cars require blueprints and yet the blueprints for most good vehicles have been removed from circulation, which means that they cannot be found in boxes or Exclusive Deals, and occasionally some will appear in horrible token-only deals or in a Festival. To rectify this issue, Heat cups, Apex Wednesday Cups (including Upgrade Cups) should be re-introduced. A new cup called the “Apex Wednesday Blueprint Cup” should be introduced to help players get blueprints. Assembly Cups should be brought back on a daily basis. All Blueprints and all Pro Kit Cards should be in general circulation at all times (including Pro Tech cards, V12 MPI and i3 engines) and Exclusive Deals should include 10 offers (5 of them credit offers) to help players.

More issues that we have is that Research and Development Events are being made much harder, especially with the fact that newer events are not offering free upgrades. This is made worse by the fact that more and more cars are requiring token-only upgrades, an idea that the community has rejected so many times but like a zombie keeps on coming back. The sudden spike in R&D difficulty has made it virtually impossible to win cars such as the Lamborghini Centenario, TVR Sagaris Special Edition and BMW i8 Coupe, and none of these cars are even “kings”. Also, more and more cars, including the three that were just mentioned, are requiring
token-only upgrades, an idea that we reject for all cars. Finally, Championships more and more are being seemingly sidelined for Research and Development events, despite the fact that Championships are more popular and easier. To rectify this issue, Research and Development events should be made easier so that players can actually win these cars, 4 free upgrades should be given in every Research and Development event, token-only upgrades should be removed from ALL cars and
should never return and at least 2 championships should be held every update.

Another issue is that lots of special events haven't been revived, such as GT by Citroen, McLaren MP4-25, McLaren M14A. These cars' events first debuted many years ago. Along with the discontinuation of Assembly Cups and the fact that the drop rate of the blueprints of these cars is 0%, getting them is now really really difficult, if not impossible. Gameloft should also revive Centanrio's R&D, Sagaris SE's R&D, i8's R&D with an easier difficulty level.

One of my friends have a proposal: Instead of destroying the Audi R8 e-tron Special Edition’s usefulness, the community thinks that the best way to counter it is the introduction of two new Special Editions: one that is faster in terms of raw speed, but has worse acceleration, handling and nitro efficiency and a second one which is slower in raw speed but has better acceleration, handling and nitro efficiency.

To conclude, Gameloft, please listen to players and the community. The fans like us are heartbroken to see our favourite game be ruined like this. This update has made me and lots of players averse to the game. We have spoken and supported this campaign and are hoping for the best. We must urge you to make these changes for good of all us, before the entire Asphalt franchise dies. Will you do this to Asphalt 9 when Asphalt 10 is released, Gameloft?

Unity is a weapon, we together can make this game great again!