Current Destructive influence of Clan Wars and Suggestions

First, I'd like to share my current clan situation which should illustrate the problems introduced by clan wars.

I'm Co-Leader of a clan called DeathB4Dishonor. We have 42 members currently, 30 of which I like, maybe 20 or so I'm pretty attached to, and a couple not currently in the clan that I wish didn't leave. Up until yesterday, I didn't even know we had a problem. We have been a fantastic clan for several months, with very active, respectful and helpful members. Our leader is a strong leader, smart, and is balanced when making clan decisions. The co-leaders have been pretty good too, we all sacrifice to help the clan, in wars, in troop requests/donations, etc. Troublemakers and disrespectful people get booted, people who want to learn and contribute stay. Seems like a recipe for a great clan, but with us falling apart, it appears it wasn't.

We’ve had members hitting way above their ability in wars for far too long. Members who try to find that right moment to be selfish and throw everything they’ve got for additional loot and that one star. These are good members, but we don’t have any way other than booting to force the issue, and then they are gone. They have become friends, which in itself causes problems. You can boot, but then that adds a lot of stress afterward, you lose a good active clan member and people who like them are now bothered. You can leave them in the clan, but then everyone else is stressed out because of the war situation these behaviors cause. We also have members giving low level troops in clan wars against direction from the leaders, and in most cases we have no idea who did it. We can boot all those troops now (thanks), but its still incredibly frustrating because you have to get all those people to discard them. If they don’t in time, they are stuck with crappy troops that hurt all of us.

We lost several good members to infighting from not warring enough. We lost a co leader yesterday because he was tired of the stupid war decisions by certain members that never get better, and those of us who tolerate it because they are some of the few decent members available to us in the game (with so many other clans recruiting too).

Trying to be understanding of players poor in game decisions has proved impossible. With no recourse to improve our war experience we are left with some very tough decisions that will either impact our current member list or our future member recruiting.

Our choices:

1. Stop warring as often and kill our future recruiting efforts.
   
   This is definitely an option, but doing so will hurt our ability to grow as a clan. It'll be a lot less stressful though, and more fun when we do war, but we'll likely lose several remaining members and most recruited members will leave when they find out.
2. Boot members who consistently make poor decisions involving who they attack and how they attack in wars, and do not listen to help or are unable to execute that help.
   
   This one has become necessary to continue warring twice a week as we are. We are looking at shrinking our clan in a new clan to a very low number, and very slowly trying to recruit. Since there really is no way for us to identify good members from bad members up front, we have to get to know them and see them play and that takes time. Many members bring in friends or family. Often the decision to boot has consequences of losing several members at once, not just one.

These are very tough decisions, decisions that I don't believe a player of clash should have to make. We shouldn't have to decide between fun and competitive. We shouldn't have to choose between Winning and Friends. We also shouldn't have to deal with clan hoppers who only want to war, when war is over they leave, and when they are here they don't contribute, they snipe town halls of high levels, and they are rewarded for that if we win.

Solutions:

1. Provide us with activity information on our members, so we can more quickly identify people who are just there for wars and not interested in building up their knowledge of the game and their ability to play it.
2. Allow leaders to choose who is war eligible, who is not, and how many members war (multiple of 5). Trophies, Town Hall levels and anything of the sort do not tell the whole story about a player and cannot be used to determine eligibility or rank. These things should 100% be a manual process determined by the leaders. Provide a default ranking to those who don't care, but give us the ability to give people a war rank based on who has earned it, and war participation to those who deserve it.
3. Allow people to go "Away from game" when they are going to be away for a while. This would eliminate them from war rankings until they return. This would reduce clan member number jumping a lot from booting inactives that are good members, or good members leaving to help the clan and returning.
4. Make people wait a week before being eligible for war when they join a new clan. This would encourage people to stay in a clan and get better and follow rules to stay. It also would discourage clan hopping to participate in wars and then doing things that hurt the clan in those wars. This also would discourage regular clan hopping, which is another serious recruiting issue.

The clan wars have introduced new problems into chemistry, cohesion, and the entire feel of our clan. We have no way to fix these issues without your help. Many of these have been suggested here before, but they haven’t accompanied a use case as I’ve provided here. Please do something to give us more control over clan membership and war participation. If we fail a second time, I suspect many of us will quit and move on.

Thanks,

Santrega

Last morning as Co-Leader of DeathB4Dishonor

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Originally Posted by Santrega

These are very tough decisions, decisions that I don't believe a player of clash should have to make. We shouldn't have to decide between fun and competitive.
I disagree. You are the only ones who should decide if your clan is fun or competitive. SC should not artificially boost the strength of one clan because they don't want to make the hard decisions to make them competitive with a clan that is willing to actually work towards their goal. If you are committed to mediocrity be happy with winning some and loosing some. If you are committed to winning take action towards that goal.

The clan wars have introduced new problems into chemistry, cohesion, and the entire feel of our clan. We have no way to fix these issues without your help.
Sure you do. You detailed them all already. What you have is a clan identity problem. Half of the people in your clan want it to be a different clan.

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First off, thank you for taking the time to actually create a post instead of a single sentence complaint. It is appreciated that you actually care enough to provide examples and detail your suggestions.

Second, this is about the 100,000 thread on this topic. Please use the search function in the future or just scroll down. I guarantee you will find another identical (but much shorter and less thought through) thread that you could contribute to rather than starting us all over again. I guarantee all of these details have been discussed from both sides ad nauseum.

I am one of the voices against the concept of the "opt-out button", and may be the most outspoken about it. Should be easy to find my more detailed posts on the topic so I won't regurgitate them here. I added my opinion to your core problem to your quote above in italics. Again, my dissenting opinion. You will find plenty of support both philosophical and functionally here. In short I dislike it philosophically because it trivializes the meaning of the word "clan" (after all it is a clan war, not a select-few skirmish). I also believe that it causes a balancing issue that most posters don't even consider. There are counters to it but the only one that holds any weight is, "People can already get around it by dropping and rejoining. It is just difficult and time consuming." Making it easier will just make the balancing problem worse, not better because more clans will exploit it . . . because it is easier.

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Originally Posted by iceageg

First off, thank you for taking the time to actually create a post instead of a single sentence complaint. It is appreciated that you actually care enough to provide examples and detail your suggestions.

Second, this is about the 100,000 thread on this topic. Please use the search function in the future or just scroll down. I guarantee you will find another identical (but much shorter and less thought through) thread that you could contribute to rather than starting us all over again. I guarantee all of these details have been discussed from both sides ad nauseum.

I am one of the voices against the concept of the "opt-out button", and may be the most outspoken about it. Should be easy to find my more detailed posts on the topic so I won't regurgitate them here. I added my opinion to your core problem to your quote above in italics. Again, my dissenting opinion. You will find plenty of support both philosophical and functionally here. In short I dislike it philosophically because it trivializes the meaning of the word "clan" (after all it is a clan war, not a select-few skirmish). I also believe that it causes a balancing issue that most posters don't even consider. There are counters to it but the only one that holds any weight is, "People can already get around it by dropping and rejoining. It is just difficult and time consuming." Making it easier will just make the balancing problem worse, not better because more clans will exploit it . . . because it is easier.

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I know there were other threads that suggested this, as I stated such in my OP. However, honestly, I don't believe anyone has posted actual instances where clan wars have harmed their clan. Clan wars have literally torn apart my clan. Those who want to war more left, those who want to war less left, those who want to get loot at all costs are disliked by those who want to win for the clan.

I believe the benefit of this thread is that it collects all of the things that has harmed my clan together with potential solutions to the problem (whether or not you agree with them).

I concede the fact that many of you might be happy with your situation. Obviously, since we are ending our current clan and starting new, we are making a difficult choice. But having fun in a game shouldn't be this stressful, we shouldn't have to worry about 5 new members and whether or not they'll actually do what they are supposed to do in the war. It should be us making the decisions, as you said, not supercell. We should be able to keep people we like rather than have to part ways, because that's our only choice.

I'm not asking people to rehash arguments, if you have alternative solutions, please feel free to suggest. I disagree that a game should force a player to choose between friend and skill, or fun and competitive. I should be able to do both, but we can't part time do one, and we can't not war.


Also, regarding the balance issues. I disagree because its always a match between two set numbers. It's not poorly balanced if my top 20 face your top 20. The reason you are arguing against it is because your top 30 may be better than my top 30, but your top 20 might not be better than my top 20, and you'd like to still come out on top if we both have 30.

This really doesn't seem like a logical thought. If you are better with 30, go with 30, if you are better with 20, go with 20. Every clan would make the choice and balance it themselves accordingly.

I didn't know this was going to be such a long read when I started, but by the time I realized, I was already "pot committed" and had to finish reading lol.

I can see where you are coming from. My clan doesn't experience the issues your does, but that's mainly because it was started with a group of real life friends, then slowly added mature, reliable, active members. Those members invited their friends with similar values. Everyone is respectful, and likes to war.

You're asking for a lot. I'll try to comment below in red about each of your asks.

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Originally Posted by Santrega

Solutions:

1. Provide us with activity information on our members, so we can more quickly identify people who are just there for wars and not interested in building up their knowledge of the game and their ability to play it. First off, you can monitor how much they donate while not in war. View their stats such as gold grab to see how actively/efficiently they farm. You can judge this by looking at their bases too, to ensure they are not super premies and that their walls are at a respectable level.
2. Allow leaders to choose who is war eligible, who is not, and how many members war (multiple of 5). Trophies, Town Hall levels and anything of the sort do not tell the whole story about a player and cannot be used to determine eligibility or rank. These things should 100% be a manual process determined by the leaders. Provide a default ranking to those who don't care, but give us the ability to give people a war rank based on who has earned it, and war participation to those who deserve. This has been suggested many time, and it often boils down to the fact that this would ruin the fun of clan wars if you could choose who does or doesn't go to war. Workarounds for this are to have certain members drop their trophies, or to leave the clan just before war search, then add them back once the search has begun.
3. Allow people to go "Away from game" when they are going to be away for a while. This would eliminate them from war rankings until they return. This would reduce clan member number jumping a lot from booting inactives that are good members, or good members leaving to help the clan and returning. Again, the same workaround exists; kick (or let them leave) and reinvite as necessary.
4. Make people wait a week before being eligible for war when they join a new clan. This would encourage people to stay in a clan and get better and follow rules to stay. It also would discourage clan hopping to participate in wars and then doing things that hurt the clan in those wars. This also would discourage regular clan hopping, which is another serious recruiting issue. A week is too long. 3 wars could have started and ended in that amount of time and for people who love to war, that's an eternity. Yes, it sucks that you have to take a risk on new players joining your clan when it comes to war, but there's really not much else you can do except judge that player by their visible stats, the design of their base, and the levels and composition of the troops they build to see how they raid normally. Educate them before war begins on the core war rules (no donating ♥♥♥♥ troops, no TH sniping, etc.) and hope they comply.

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My clan usually participates in 30 vs. 30 or 35 vs. 35, so it's a bit easier to manage compared to a full 50 vs. 50 war. We have tried big wars before, and due to similar issues you've faced, we dropped 10+ dead weight players to be left with our "survival of the fittest" clan members we have today. We definitely value quality over quantity.

All I can suggest is that your leaders take the time and effort to truly educate all members, both about rules and strategies, maybe base design and attack tips would help too. If you have a close knit clan, good things will start to happen. Squash any drama quickly because it can poison a clan. Good luck.

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Originally Posted by hawdog

I didn't know this was going to be such a long read when I started, but by the time I realized, I was already "pot committed" and had to finish reading lol.

I can see where you are coming from. My clan doesn't experience the issues your does, but that's mainly because it was started with a group of real life friends, then slowly added mature, reliable, active members. Those members invited their friends with similar values. Everyone is respectful, and likes to war.

You're asking for a lot. I'll try to comment below in red about each of your asks.



My clan usually participates in 30 vs. 30 or 35 vs. 35, so it's a bit easier to manage compared to a full 50 vs. 50 war. We have tried big wars before, and due to similar issues you've faced, we dropped 10+ dead weight players to be left with our "survival of the fittest" clan members we have today. We definitely value quality over quantity.

All I can suggest is that your leaders take the time and effort to truly educate all members, both about rules and strategies, maybe base design and attack tips would help too. If you have a close knit clan, good things will start to happen. Squash any drama quickly because it can poison a clan. Good luck.

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Why suggest workarounds which create the same balance issues you guys don't like? It wouldn't ruin clan wars and the fun in clan wars, it would ruin a players ability to be a crappy member of a clan war and benefit from that. Members should have to do the same work everyone else in the clan does to get better and improve, but, we also should be able to give them the time necessary to do that without using workarounds you suggest that aren't better in any way.

I agree with items 1-3. Right now the only thing one can do if he/she cannot participate in a war is to leave the clan then join back. Come on SuperCell, please add individual option to opt-out of the war. On item 4 though, I think 1 week is too long. I have friends that join our clan just for war.

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Originally Posted by Smec

I agree with items 1-3. Right now the only thing one can do if he/she cannot participate in a war is to leave the clan then join back. Come on SuperCell, please add individual option to opt-out of the war. On item 4 though, I think 1 week is too long. I have friends that join our clan just for war.

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I think this is definitely a legitimate concern. However, if supercell gives people the ability to opt out and choose who wars, will they have any reason to leave? You could war more often with those who want to do it all the time, and those who don't can opt out. No reason to join a new clan for war in that situation.

The reason I think a week is important, is because its long enough to make people think twice about leaving, clan hopping, or joining a clan they have no intention of staying in just to war.

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Originally Posted by Santrega

I don't believe anyone has posted actual instances where clan wars have harmed their clan. It has, many times. Just have to dig a little harder because most people don't put the effort into their posts that you do.

we shouldn't have to worry about 5 new members and whether or not they'll actually do what they are supposed to do in the war. Yes you should. If they don't want to follow the clan rules they should be booted, regardless of what they are. War participation, mandatory donations, no swearing . . . follow the clan format or find a different clan. SC should not have to program donation filters, swearing filters, participation filters or anything else to enforce clan rules that should be enforced by the leadership.

I should be able to do both, but we can't part time do one, and we can't not war. Sure you can. You just have players that are unwilling to budge one way or the other. You can EASILY war one week and not the next. You just have to find players that are happy with that. Then you will loose players who want one or the other. You will never make all of any group of people happy and no button will ever fix that.

It's not poorly balanced if my top 20 face your top 20. Your top 20 would be matched up against their bottom 20, all of which are being fed maxed out DE troops and such to ensure their bottom 20 walk all over you.

This really doesn't seem like a logical thought. If you are better with 30, go with 30, if you are better with 20, go with 20. Every clan would make the choice and balance it themselves accordingly. Again, clans dedicated to winning will send in their WEAKEST 20 or 30 to face you with troops far more powerful than they can create themselves. Of course this is currently already possible but minimized by the fact that it is very time consuming and difficult coordinate the drop and rejoin that many players at a time. Making it quick and easy guarantees misuse.

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All of this ignores the term "Clan War". I realize this is a game so I am back to more an opinion/philosophy because it is only as attached to reality as we make it but . . . Clan . . . War. Implying the entire clan, and you don't have a choice. If you are being attacked in a war you can either curl up and die, or fight back. You don't get to tell the attacking army, "TIME OUT!!! You don't get to touch me because I don't want to be involved in this." All you can do is decide to take it lying down or fight back. You can refuse to fight and still get killed and potentially punished for desertion. But you are in the war. In this case, the war the rest of your clan is in. If they change the system they really should change what it is called too.

TLDR

But I got the gist of it. Clans are a delicate system. We've had 1 mass exodus once, we lost about 15 people. Good people too. They all left and joined a new clan, or made their own, I don't remember. It was so long ago. But most in that group had mass exodus'ed into our clan too. Eventually a lot of them came back!

Since Clan War, we had purposely dwindled our numbers as we cleaned house to those that were active in war. We don't war often, but when we do, we want max participation. We've recently received several amazing people into our clan who joined through a mass exodus from their previous clan.

Mass Exoduses happens. It's hard to prevent and sometimes even the best clan will fall victim to it.

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Originally Posted by AxionXD

TLDR

But I got the gist of it. Clans are a delicate system. We've had 1 mass exodus once, we lost about 15 people. Good people too. They all left and joined a new clan, or made their own, I don't remember. It was so long ago. But most in that group had mass exodus'ed into our clan too. Eventually a lot of them came back!

Since Clan War, we had purposely dwindled our numbers as we cleaned house to those that were active in war. We don't war often, but when we do, we want max participation. We've recently received several amazing people into our clan who joined through a mass exodus from their previous clan.

Mass Exoduses happens. It's hard to prevent and sometimes even the best clan will fall victim to it.

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Exactly. It is usually disappointing but it is part of social interaction on any level. Trying to prevent friends/acquaintances from leaving your life/clan/whatever is as unhealthy as trying to force people into it. If the mix isn't good let it change or it will stay bad and get worse.

I can relate to this because when clan wars first came out it tore apart the clan that i was part of. We had booted so many members that we were down to 30 or so members. But then we bounced back and the clan is now growing well and filling up with good members. Ill just explain what my clan did that fixed the problems.
First off, the clan needs strong leadership in not just the leader but also the co-leaders. I don't know if this is an issue in your clan but Co's and leaders decisions need to be carried out. If either of them (although it usually goes through the leader) state a rule, anyone that breaks that rule will have to be kicked. Another thing is that your clan needs to instigate a rule about who you are allowed to attack.
Ill start off by explaining the clan war attacking rules. If anyone attacks an outside town hall in a clan war and then don't make any effort or not their full effort to get that 2nd or 3rd star, they get kicked. Also if someone attacks with a weak army and does not aim to get a two star (Like if they attack with all archers and barbs or something like that) they will be kicked. It may hurt to kick them but it is better in the long run. You do not want a clan full of people that don't push their maximum potential in a clan war, that will not help your clan in any sort of way. The second part of this rule is that you attack close to your recommended. The first attack that you do should be within 2 bases of your recommended. So if your recommended is #18, you can attack #20-#16 (including those base numbers). Now sometimes there are exceptions where you are not able to attack bases within that given area so then that person should ask a co-leader about their attack. The person should find a number of a base that he thinks he could get at least 2 stars on and then the co-leader assess the person's army and makes a decision based on his experience if the player could indeed get 2 stars. (This is why you need good co-leaders).
Kicking players that break these rules is hard to do but it is necessary. If you kick someone for breaking the rules then others will see that you carry out punishments and will be more inclined to follow rules.
Your clan may drop a bit in members for awhile but you should constantly be recruiting. Odds are that more of the players that you recruit will follow the rules than break them and be kicked.

Thats my advice, it worked for my clan but every clan is different. If you were to use this i hope that it will benefit your clan as it worked for mine.

Tilly

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Originally Posted by Tilly18

I can relate to this because when clan wars first came out it tore apart the clan that i was part of. We had booted so many members that we were down to 30 or so members. But then we bounced back and the clan is now growing well and filling up with good members. Ill just explain what my clan did that fixed the problems.
First off, the clan needs strong leadership in not just the leader but also the co-leaders. I don't know if this is an issue in your clan but Co's and leaders decisions need to be carried out. If either of them (although it usually goes through the leader) state a rule, anyone that breaks that rule will have to be kicked. Another thing is that your clan needs to instigate a rule about who you are allowed to attack.
Ill start off by explaining the clan war attacking rules. If anyone attacks an outside town hall in a clan war and then don't make any effort or not their full effort to get that 2nd or 3rd star, they get kicked. Also if someone attacks with a weak army and does not aim to get a two star (Like if they attack with all archers and barbs or something like that) they will be kicked. It may hurt to kick them but it is better in the long run. You do not want a clan full of people that don't push their maximum potential in a clan war, that will not help your clan in any sort of way. The second part of this rule is that you attack close to your recommended. The first attack that you do should be within 2 bases of your recommended. So if your recommended is #18, you can attack #20-#16 (including those base numbers). Now sometimes there are exceptions where you are not able to attack bases within that given area so then that person should ask a co-leader about their attack. The person should find a number of a base that he thinks he could get at least 2 stars on and then the co-leader assess the person's army and makes a decision based on his experience if the player could indeed get 2 stars. (This is why you need good co-leaders).
Kicking players that break these rules is hard to do but it is necessary. If you kick someone for breaking the rules then others will see that you carry out punishments and will be more inclined to follow rules.
Your clan may drop a bit in members for awhile but you should constantly be recruiting. Odds are that more of the players that you recruit will follow the rules than break them and be kicked.

Thats my advice, it worked for my clan but every clan is different. If you were to use this i hope that it will benefit your clan as it worked for mine.

Tilly

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I agree with everything you guys are saying about how to create a better clan. We have already created a new clan and intend to do this very thing. We have no choice but to be way harsher than I believe is necessary, which is boot people early and give them very little chance to improve.

I still believe that this shouldn't be treated like survival of the fittests. This isn't natural selection here guys, its a game, we should be able to build relationships with people and welcome them into the clan without it tearing us apart.

However, since this is not possible as is, we will use a slow growth, get to know everyone method and quickly boot people who simply don't follow the rules the first time. The only way to make this work is to always be ruthless at first, then build relationships after.

With that said, all of my suggestions stand as a way I believe will improve clan relationships and improve clan experiences. If SC wants everyone to be hard-nosed boot all new players and never let new players in kind of clans, then that's what they'll get. If they want people to have good experiences on the game and a chance to learn, they need to let us keep them but eliminate them from hurting us in wars.

Those are the two options, allow us to eliminate players so we can get to know them, or we wont bother with anyone who might be a problem.

Plain and Simple.

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Originally Posted by iceageg

All of this ignores the term "Clan War". I realize this is a game so I am back to more an opinion/philosophy because it is only as attached to reality as we make it but . . . Clan . . . War. Implying the entire clan, and you don't have a choice. If you are being attacked in a war you can either curl up and die, or fight back. You don't get to tell the attacking army, "TIME OUT!!! You don't get to touch me because I don't want to be involved in this." All you can do is decide to take it lying down or fight back. You can refuse to fight and still get killed and potentially punished for desertion. But you are in the war. In this case, the war the rest of your clan is in. If they change the system they really should change what it is called too.

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With all due respect, this is the weakest of you arguments.

You are getting bogged down in semantics and your point seems VERY contrived.

No offense intended ... just my opinion.

While I agree that an opt/out/white list option would benefit the game I think it is also important to say that many of your arguments can be mitigated with management decisions.

I run a clan that is 95% farmers. We have decided to ONLY war once a week and it has been stressed to all members that this requires complete participation and that members must build their strongest armies and spells... we are talking about 2 attacks a week here - anyone can afford that.

Communication will always be key with clan management. Ruling out new comers that have different objectives early saves everyone grief. Most War hoppers see our once a week policy and just leave (the problem solves itself).

I think it is also important to grow a clan by Experience level... meaning at some point early in a clans development you start setting an experience level minimum. You can still develop the talents of the players at the low end but you are usually assured of at least a basic level of skill.

I also suggest clans are strict on not allowing friends and family IF they do not meet the rules/requirements of the clan... It may sound harsh to some, but being successful means focusing on the welfare of the clan as a whole and not pandering to the interests of any individual.

Allowing the linking of feeder/sister clans (as has been suggested many times) would also allow Clan Groups so that clans could have multiple clans each with their own gaming focus with a single management team.

just my $.02

This problem can be solved without a war-active toggle.

A bunch of these problems would be solved by only awarding war loot when you get 3 stars on an attack. Why reward a bad performance?

--Ferrocy

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Originally Posted by Ferrocy

This problem can be solved without a war-active toggle.

A bunch of these problems would be solved by only awarding war loot when you get 3 stars on an attack. Why reward a bad performance?

--Ferrocy

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Although an interesting idea... I think that is a completely different topic and comes with a whole bunch of problems (that I wont even begin to address) of its own.

Better clan management and communication creates no new problems that I can think of.

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Originally Posted by Santrega

I know there were other threads that suggested this, as I stated such in my OP. However, honestly, I don't believe anyone has posted actual instances where clan wars have harmed their clan. Clan wars have literally torn apart my clan. Those who want to war more left, those who want to war less left, those who want to get loot at all costs are disliked by those who want to win for the clan.

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I have posted on another thread how clan wars "tore apart" my clan. I have been a very loud voice in favor SC creating an "opt-out" option for individual players, though I no longer feel nearly as strongly about it. Many members of tight-knit clan wanted to go to war one right after the other, as farming had become a boring and tedious routine for experienced players. On the other hand, newer members (and some older members) had a difficult time keeping up with constant war (funding top tier armies, getting in two attacks in a timely manner, scouting opponents, participating in chats about strategy, etc.).

Our solution was to create a second clan for our dedicated farmers, those on vacation or in need of a break, and/or new players to the game that need experience before taking on the pressure of earning us stars in war. This bothered me a great deal at first, as our 45-50 person group was a lot of fun, and it was annoying to be divided. It has been many weeks since we split (months?), and both clans have added/subtracted members. We have had members come and go between the two clans, but not very often (most are either totally into nonstop war, or they aren't). I'm no longer so sure I would like to have all of these members (old and new) join our war group, which is now tighter than ever. When we are in a close war, everyone is totally absorbed by the action, and it's all we're talking about and focusing on. What would it be like to have 20 spectators along for the ride? I'm afraid it might ruin the experience a little.

In the end, I see both sides of the argument, and don't really care which way SC goes with their decision. If you divide your clan, or seek one that really does what you want (war, farming, pushing, etc.), you might not care about this so much anymore.

@JohnnyBGood

Interesting to hear how you solved it.

Unfortunately I really like the group I play with and could not bear to split them up - particularly without the sister/feeder clan linking changes mentioned in my previous post.

Fortunately with most of my members being farmers it was not too painful and we only lost a few members.

Our farmers actually really look forward to waring once on the weekend and participation is great.

I thought I'd respond to some of the points made recently. I agree that many of these suggested fixes can be simulated by workaround techniques. I am now employing some of them in our new clan and I'll explain later of what I'm doing currently to combat the challenges presented by wars.

A lot of you are making the point that because a work around exists, there is no need to add the features that would make the management of the different clan elements easier. I claim this is flawed logic and terrible game design thinking. I am an application developer and I view any feature which provides a user of my applications an easier way to do something I expect them to do as a requirement, not optional. Here is an example of why this argument is flawed. Imagine if the raid timer was not in the game. You could very easily use a stopwatch or app to keep track of how long your attack is taking, does that negate the need for the functionality to be implemented in game? I don't think it does, nor should it. If I gave you an application for inputting values and converting those to different units of measurement, but I left out a unit that fits with the purpose of the app, they could do the conversion themselves, should I just not add it?

Again I agree with those saying if we just fundamentally change how we run our clan and fundamentally change the entire dynamic, culture, and attitude, we could avoid all this. I also agree if we just use the work around all will be good again. My only disagreement is that a requirement, or something that improves user experience, should not be eliminated because a method of manually doing that function exists.

We created a new clan and here are the methods we now use to mitigate some of these issues and work around to deal with war activity.

1. We still do 2 wars per week as previous clan did.
2. If you can't make a war, tell a leader and leave until after scheduled war begins.
3. If you miss war attacks, you're booted.
4. We have implemented a minimum Lvl requirement that has grown as we have grown.
5. Family and friends are allowed if they are close to requirement, but its known if they don't contribute, they are gone. If you don't like it, you're gone too.
6. If you aren't listening to war advice, you are gone.
7. If you aren't being an active member, donater, you're gone.

Its definitely helping, but I'd rather be less ruthless. However, until something is done in game to address; ruthless I'll be.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Santrega

A lot of you are making the point that because a work around exists, there is no need to add the features that would make the management of the different clan elements easier. I claim this is flawed logic and terrible game design thinking. I am an application developer and I view any feature which provides a user of my applications an easier way to do something I expect them to do as a requirement, not optional. Here is an example of why this argument is flawed. Imagine if the raid timer was not in the game. You could very easily use a stopwatch or app to keep track of how long your attack is taking, does that negate the need for the functionality to be implemented in game? I don't think it does, nor should it. If I gave you an application for inputting values and converting those to different units of measurement, but I left out a unit that fits with the purpose of the app, they could do the conversion themselves, should I just not add it?

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This paragraph is frankly more than a little arrogant and offensive. Many people on this board are software developers and this alone does not give you an exclusive perch to talk down to people. The logic is only flawed if you presume that the solutions you present are truly needed and wanted by everyone. I will presume that your absurd analogy was intentional to bolster your point.


What I think you may miss is that every solution presented often increases game play complexity and/or will require additional UI presence, and or is open to abuse. One must be very careful choosing changes made and VERY often workarounds are perfectly valid long term solutions - even if you dont like hearing it.

It seems almost everyone has a solution to minimize hopping - and while I dont enjoy them any more than anyone else - I at least realize its not going to stop no matter what you do. Just get over it.

What I said was intended to show some level of expertise in application development, not to say I know better. The things I mention clearly suggest the way I go about my business as an application developer. I'm sorry that you feel my mentioning of my profession is arrogant or offensive. One of the things taught to professionals involved with communication is to back up your points with what gives you the the expertise to present an opinion on a topic. I've been an application developer for 5 years, and I think that gives me expertise to present an opinion on development requirements and coding challenges. I'm not presenting my opinion as better than yours because of that experience.

My analogies are perfectly valid. There is a request for a timer in war live watching, we could easily use a stopwatch instead as a work around. Secondly, new development adds to code complexity, not game play complexity.

Some changes could provide more gameplay complexity, but you've failed to explain or give details on how these would be any more complex than the workarounds that achieve exactly the same result in a more convoluted way.

Also, let me add that a workaround is intended as a temporary solution, not a game feature.

Well clearly, you are quite entrenched in your belief and allowing you to type your thoughts is much more damaging than any counter point I could make.

Please continue. :)

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Originally Posted by toggle57

Well clearly, you are quite entrenched in your belief and allowing you to type your thoughts is much more damaging than any counter point I could make.

Please continue. :)

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http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workaround

Some supporting evidence that workarounds aren't meant to be used in place of real solutions. I'm still waiting for you to back up your opinion with reasoning or examples that don't involve more of your opinion.

I personally think this should be solved by the clan. In my clan if you attack someone you can't get 2 stars on. You get booted. It would be good for the game but I think you also need to take action.

I hope everything goes well in your clan and make sure no ones abusing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Santrega

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workaround

Some supporting evidence that workarounds aren't meant to be used in place of real solutions. I'm still waiting for you to back up your opinion with reasoning or examples that don't involve more of your opinion.

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Frankly Ive lost interest in continuing with you... but before I go... I thought it was facinating that you quoted that wikapedia article and used it to support your point.

You are obviously blasting right past the words "typically" and "frequently" in that text and passing it off as some absolute proof of your point.

Enough junior... you have the arrogance of the young and your credentials dont impress me... I have 25 years in the IT industry and I have hired and fired your ilk many times.