1-gem barracks boost should be permanent

I am relatively new to this game. Looked for a discussion of this topic but did not find one.

We recently enjoyed 45-minute barracks boosts for 1 gem. I suggest that both players and SuperCell would benefit by making that permanent.

Players would benefit because for a very small price, they could intensely play the game for a few hours. That works better than hopping in every hour and then waiting. During the period of the 1-gem boosts, I racked up 527 successful attacks. That did not cost SuperCell anything except for some minuscule marginal cost for processing and bandwidth. It cost my opponents a lot of gold, elixir and dark elixir, but they have gotten a lot of it back in some ugly revenge attacks. I lost 51 trophies in a single revenge attack. Did not even know that was possible.

I also had a blast. I planned things carefully and upgraded a lot of key elements. And that is the key. For the first time, I actually spent real money on the game. Over $50 US to be honest. Why? Because I could finish and upgrade and start another very quickly since my troops refreshed so fast.

So SuperCell has money from me because of the 1-gem boost that it never would have seen otherwise. Now that the price has increased 20-fold, I am not spending any money at all. No reason to with the time it will take to amass the gold and elixir for the next upgrade.

The game is essentially in balance. The time it takes to upgrade bears a relationship to the time it takes to collect the resources for the next upgrade. The 1-gem boost sped up the collection process and left me with piles of gold and elixir that I did not want to lose to raids. That encouraged me to get gems to finish the upgrades and start new ones. It put the game out of balance, but I could correct it with gems.

And here is the best part for SuperCell. The 1-gem cost is negligible, but it still requires gems. You cannot get enough gems from clearing trees and rocks to keep up raids. So if you want the boost, you have to buy gems. And once you buy gems, the temptation to use them to finish an upgrade becomes irresistible. So I use the left over gems to finish an upgrade and before you know it, I am out again, so I have to buy a few more gems. But then I have leftovers to finish the next upgrade, and I run out again.

Overall, I think that making the 1-gem boost permanent would be huge for the game and something beyond huge for SuperCell. If I will spend money on gems with the 1-gem boost, then so will countless other people. I don't spend money on games like this.

So, SuperCell, look at your numbers. Did revenues go up or down with the 1-gem boost? Up I bet. And it would be sustainable. Your base would love it and pour more money into the game.

It also would not negatively affect the balance of the game. We already raid. More raids is just more of the same. More playing, more time, more money.

I also had a blast

You make a nice case and your essay is nice.

However, considering that people have been just fine with the cost of boosting Barracks for around 1½ year, and the fact that they actually made it cheaper post-boost, speaks for itself. The 1 gem boost was a holiday special in celebration of X-mas, sort of a "gift" from SC to the players, if you look at it that way. With that in mind, isn't it kind of crazy to ask them to make that permanent? They probably would have done that on their own accord, if they judged it would be profitable.

Don't get me wrong, this would benefit me too of course, but I think it would be a kind of crazy change from SCs point of view. I myself used up a nice pile of gems during the holidays too so nothing wrong with hoping that this change will actually happen, but I don't think it's likely since they already significantly buffed the Rax boost value. People have been spending lots of money on this game since it was released, I don't see why people would not do it now that the Rax boost value is higher than before, albeit not as cheap (obviously) as during the holiday boost.

Also, with the talk about upgrade costs relating to upgrade times, what TH level are you?

I totally agree.I had a lovely time.

I think a 5 or 10 gem boost would be fair enough for everyone. That way the 1 gem boost could still be used as a holiday special. I've put in about $120 just because of the holiday boosting. They would continue to make money off of me if it was cheaper than 20 gems.

well, 1 gem boost is an overkill,

honestly i wouldn't want it (boosted my barracks maybe like 5 times). Imagine having the 1 gem boost for 45 minutes(before they changed)., it would drive you nuts. All you do all day would be coc! (really :p) there is more to life other than coc, though coc is fun and nice to play(been playing close to 1.5 yrs now)

I appreciate the responses. Sounds like I am not the only one who increased spending because of the barracks boost. I guess I hoped that SuperCell might just look at it and ask whether the time to make troops and the cost to speed it up makes sense for them.

Part of this is donations. When people donate troops, they are donating time. I think that is an essential part of the game. If troops were instant, then they would just be donating elixir and who cares about that if you can raid all the time. So I think that it needs to take time to make troops and there needs to be a cost to speed it up.

I just think that as long as that cost forces people to buy gems, it does not matter how much it is, and the lower the better for SuperCell because the lower the cost, the more raids we do, and the more raids we do, the more we will spend to finish upgrades so we can do the next one that we can afford.

I guess there also is a danger of making the game too fast. If you could "finish the game" in a week, then people might stop playing. But they would pay a lot of money for the privilege.

The SuperCell people are very canny. All I hoped to do is to get this idea to them and see what, if anything, they did. I have tried to think it through, but they have a lot more data, and they seem to want to be good shepherds of the game. Nice to see a good company behind a great game.

I also spent money during the 1 gem boost it is too cheap to be sustainable but at 20 gems i don't even consider it so supercell should look into where a nice break even point is for them. But obviously when they have specials that's what makes it worthwhile.

i bought gems for the first time ever do to the cheap boosting and had some of the most fun playing the game i ever had!

I doubt they would keep the price at 1 gem, that's definitely for a "gift" for the holiday. However the normal price for all boosting is far far FAR too high in my opinion, and is a complete rip off for what you get, and they will not get my money that way at least.

If they dropped the prices for boosting by a 4x factor (say 5 gems for Barracks) I would consider it to be worth the cost and would likely buy more gems. The game is far more enjoyable when you can train powerful armies without waiting an hour or more, or farming armies nearly as fast as you use them. I have plenty of other games to play if SC does not want me to buy gems and stay in CoC for hours.

It would also alleviate some of my dislike and loss of interest in the game caused by the loot changes. It would make it more enjoyable and less of a grind to save up for the most expensive TH9/10 upgrades, or at least make it easier to farm more than you lose between logins to get there slower. I got the 6,000,000 elixir for Lvl6 Giants over Christmas while I had the week off of work, using the boosts to just Barcher over and over until I got it. Knowing that it will take 4x the time in the future for a similar upgrade (without spending more than I feel is worth it) is a miserable thought that takes a lot of the joy out of the game.