Clash Royale from Clash of Clans makers

Games
141

The changes Supercell did over the last few months somehow really killed my motivation for playing it. There was a sequence of three totally disastrous balance updates in a row, with justifications that were just obviously fabricated after the changes had been made for some other reason. Why do months of work to upgrade a card to usable level, when it’ll be just nerfed into oblivion at Rumham’s whim? Then there was the ludicrous trophy inflation from the ladder changes, which basically invalidated all previous accomplishments and also made it pointless to play ladder before the last week of a season.

So I did what any sane person would do: started another account. This time going for a level 1-only account, which basically means never upgrading any cards at all (I mean, you have to upgrade the knight to level to in the tutorial, and could theoretically afford a few common upgrades or one rare upgrade before ending up on level 2). In practice this means playing as many base level legendaries as possible, and filling the remaining slots with base level epics.

The ladder changes actually make a f2p level 1 account a lot less painful to play. The trophy road will be constantly feeding you new cards so there’s no need to wait to progress. Most importantly at 1900 trophies you get a guaranteed legendary, and if that legendary is good, it’ll give a very nice additional boost. Previously you’d be waiting for months for the first legendary due to how crippled level 1 accounts are: e.g. no challenges and just one quest slot.

Now, getting to 1900 shouldn’t take a ton of time (I was at 2200 after one evening’s play) thanks to the constant feed of new cards. So if you get a bad legendary from the 1900 reward, just abandon the account and start a new one. I got the Bandit, which I suspect is one of the better options for the first legendary in this challenge. You really want something that can do both defense and deal tower damage, and the Bandit is great at both. On the other end of the spectrum, something like the Ice Wizard would be total garbage, since it’s purely a support unit, and your other units aren’t really worth supporting.

I’m now at 3199 trophies with that account, which should be high enough that legendaries start appearing in the shop. So it should be pretty smooth sailing to get a couple of more legendaries, and hopefully those would be enough to get to 4k and start unlocking the season rewards.

Current deck is:

Bandit/9
Witch/6
Poison/6
Dark Prince/6
Skeleton Horde/6
Barbarian Barrell/6
Baby Dragon/6
Hunter/6

The average opponent at this point has level 9 towers and around level 8 cards, which basically means their towers have double the HP and damage output, and their units have 20% more HP and damage output. So it requires pretty careful play, every single mistake will cause the loss of a tower. But at least for now I’m enjoying this more than playing with the main account.

142

Up to 4600 with the level 1 account. (Current highest ranked level 1 player is at 5010, so not too far off). Rocking:

Mega Knight
Inferno Dragon
Ice Wizard
Bandit
Log
Princess
Witch
Skeleton Army

My plan to get Legendaries from the shop didn’t work out. Turns out the tooltips are a filthy lie, and they are gated on player level in addition to trophies.

The RNG hasn’t been very friendly with legendaries (half I’ve received from chests have been duplicates, which are useless for me). And to add insult to the injury, they removed the legendary chest at 4525 with a fixed Fisherman. Which is just a total garbage unit; the first legendary I got that that wasn’t worth replacing an Epic with. What I really want is an Ewiz (to replace the Iwiz) or a Sparky or Lumberjack (to replace the Witch),

143

It’s amazing that you got that high with a lvl 1 deck. I can’t break into champion with my nearly all lvl 13 deck.

144

Got the Ewiz to replace the Iwiz last season, and additionally switched to using the Fisherman instead of the Witch. That got me to 4927 trophies, which was good enough for 160th place on the all-time level 1 leaderboard on RoyaleAPI:

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That was the only real goal I’ve had, so the experiment might have run its course.

One interesting thing I found is that while I mostly took the Fisherman for defense against Hog / Ram Rider, it turned out to be surprisingly useful on the offense too. One reason is that it turns out to function as similar kind of punishment card as the Bandit, where playing it on the bridge requires immediate reactions rather than only once it reaches the tower. And the other is the sleazy trick where the opponent manages to get your attack that had just reached the tower to lock onto the units, and you play the Fisherman to harpoon the opponent away and let the attacking units lock onto the tower.

It’s such a cool high-skill card since positioning and timing are everything. A bit like Magic Archer back when it was good.

145

I wish I could de level and join you.

146

is anybody here still playing this?

I’ve been at it for I guess 4 and a half years since it debuted in the US… I might play it another 20 years if I live that long, it’s like picking my nose at this point.

The new River Race is horrible (imo), but I will apparently never tire of the 2x Elixir Draft Battle etc.

147

Yes. If you need a clan look for Black Company

148

I’d been slowly drifting away from the game for a year, and have probably only played a single digit number of matches in the last six months. I don’t think the game got dramatically worse (though Clan Wars 2 was a real stinker of an update), it’s that while working from home, it dropped out from being a daily routine.

This is a game that 's really hard to pick up again after that happens. Odds are that when firing up the game for a quick match, you won’t get to play but have to wait for a slow update to happen. So I’ll go and do something else, and the update will be cancelled rather than happen in the background.

In the unlikely case that I’ve got a fully upgraded installation of the game, the trophy decay means that I’m under-leveled by 2000 trophies and playing a maxed out deck against level 9 newbies. These are totally pointless and demotivating games for both me and the opponent, and I’d need to grind 50 of those games to get to a level where the gameplay is actually interesting. I’d be fine with 5 games like that to get inserted at roughly the right level, but not 50.

Have there been any interesting updates this year?

149

I don’t think this announcement from Supercell about trying to flog the Clash brand harder deserves its own thread:

Looks like a single player puzzle game, a turn based (simultaneous action) Clash Royale, and a Diablo-style ARPG. All with the ultra-compelling Clash of Clans / Clash Royale characters (hahahaha).

150

Too bad they’re not being more inventive with their settings.

That puzzle game looks a bit like Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, though, so I admit to being intrigued. (Until I remember it’ll be free-to-play, I guess…)

Historically, Supercell has a really solid development process. I don’t always love their games, but they usually have some deep basic appeal.

151

lol, no

they look terrible

maybe the Diablo-esque version will be okay

152

They just released an update a couple of days ago that adds a whole new category of rewards called Magic Items. These are basically ways to upgrade your cards more quickly. I.e. instead of getting 40 Archers you will draw 40 common wild cards, which can be turned into any common. This is obviously most useful for Epic and Legendary cards. (In fact I have max stacks of every common and rare card.)

There are more rare, err – hard to get – Magic Books which will give you ALL the cards you need to upgrade to the next level. So if you have 2 of 20 legendary Ice Wizards, and you get a Legendary Magic Book, you can turn it into 18 Ice Wizard cards to get the cold fella up to level 13.

I think Clan Wars 2 is awful. I have two accounts in the same clan and I used to skip wars in one or both accounts and it didn’t penalize the clan in any way, but now if I don’t play 8 battles a day (4 in each account) it hurts the clan and they get butthurt about it. (Since I’m the clan leader :-O).

I am going to horde my common and rare magic items so when they release new cards I can upgrade them right away.

I don’t think there have been any changes that effect the main gameplay (i.e. ladder) in a long time. They keep making it more complicated in terms of activities and stuff and if you leave for awhile and come back it’s going to be offputting at first. I played their shooter game for awhile when it was new, then left; now if I open it back up I’m like what the actual **** is all this stuff – purple coins and stars and weird events and so on. It’s overwhelming to take in all at once.

EDIT: besides the time commitment, the real problem with Clan Wars 2 is that they pit you against the same opponents four times for 1 week events, and you finish in the same place every single time. Even when we are winning four weeks in a row (as we are this month) it completely lacks drama and thus motivation to play. March has been for us like Alabama football playing The Citadel four weeks in a row…

153

The Clan War 2 matchmaking it terrible - both at the clan and individual level.

At the clan level it leads to what you describe. They don’t seem to take into account active members or members’ trophy levels. So a clan with 30 members with most below 5k trophies gets matched up with a 50 member clan with everyone over 5k trophies.

Individually, on my second account I am level 12 and using a bunch of level 11 cards in war. I usually get matched up with level 13s with full level 13 cards and hundreds more trophies. While it is satisfying to win in those situations, the odds are definitely against you and it is very frustrating.

154

I had some coherent ideas about how to better match clans but they have faded into a general sense of ennui. It had something to do with multiplying members’ scores vs. how active they were in wars etc. I remember thinking some clans would game it by having everybody sit out a war if it meant for the next month they’d get super easy opponents. But still.

I don’t really notice the level of the players I’m up against; both my accounts of Lev 13 King Towers now; but I object to the fact that you get fewer war points if you win with a lower level deck. That is some pay to win bulls**t if I ever saw it. You should, if anything, get MORE points for winning with the lower level deck.

The only good thing I can say is that along with Clan Wars 2 they have taken many steps to greatly accelerate my ability to upgrade cards – more gold, more cards in the weird events etc. The themed events are my favorite way to play for the most part. I mean some of them are dumb as hell, like the April Fool’s Totally Normal Battle we just had, though I got a lot of laughs when I was up against some poor bloke who didn’t realize what was going on. (We all had to go through that at least once so it seemed fair to laugh).

155

I’ve forgotten some of the nuances of the original Clan Wars but what I remember is that you only got one attack (very rarely you’d get an extra attack if you had an odd number of players), and because of that taking your battle felt like a big deal, and clan members would join as observers and root for you, and you felt the pressure to win for the team, and it created a kind of bonding in the clan. With 4 attacks per day, nobody’s gonna watch all that. If I go 4-0 I will post it in chat so I get a pat on the back but other than that, they took the air out of the ball, so to speak.

156

I got a “Book of Books” today. Used it on a level 12 Legendary for which I had 0/20 cards on the way to 13… boom, 20 Legendary cards, upgraded for 100k. (It’s the level 5 Pass reward this month… let’s see if it’s there every month.)

157

I did the same. Pretty pretty nice.

158

As much as I bitch about the mistakes @ClashRoyale has made over the years I’ve played it every day since launch. And today I maxed my final legendary. All toons at all rarity maxed at 13. :)

Book of books for the win!

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159

Congrats, clanmate!

My cheap-ass, F2P account will likely get to where you’re at in another 5 years or so! I’m right behind you!

160

Hmmm
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/17/clash-royale-video-games-addiction-matt-bai/