CrossPosted From the subreddit since I figured it would reach more eyes over here.
Many of the people here are already aware of this on some level. This post is mainly me venting my frustrations as opposed to anything else, so sorry if Im preaching to the choir.
But anyway, as many people are aware, a very large number of people quit this game and never return soon after reaching TH9. This is, obviously because of the hero grind. But its not just because the hero grind is so daunting, and takes so long to complete. In terms of the amount of time and resources the hero grind takes beyond TH9, its mostly fine as is, seeing as its supposed to be end game content. The problem however, is how it interacts with the clan war game mechanic.
Clan Wars are for the majority of clashers, the most fun aspect of the game, and one of the main driving factors behind leveling up your base, especially since trophy pushing doesn't really matter that much outside of bragging rights and a one-time reward. The thing that keeps people playing this game for a long period of time, more often than not is clan wars.
However, upon reaching TH9, players realize a problem, upon reaching TH9, they all do some research, watch some youtube guides, browse the subreddit and the forums, and reach an unfortunate truth. In order to use nearly any competitive war strategy, you need to upgrade your heroes. But If you upgrade your heroes, you cannot participate in war. This is, as many people realize, a contradiction.
This leaves people with more or less 3 options:
1-Stay out of wars for the majority of the time, joining in occasionally when you're between upgrades. This is fine if you're in a casual clan with friends, but if youre planning on joining a more serious clan, forget about it.
2- Use strategies that dont require high level heroes such as lavaloon, or use inferior versions of popular strategies that dont involve killsquads or queen walks. This works for some people, but the result for many others is that they burn out on only being able to use an extremely limited subset of strategies, and end up quitting the game.
3- Gem your heroes so that they're always up when you need to participate in war. This is an option that a large number of people end up being forced to take, since they want to be able to progress towards unlocking high tier strategies, but they also want to participate in wars, and realistically, this is the only way to achieve that.
The solution to this contradiction is obvious, give heroes the same treatment for war attacks that they have for war defenses. Allow them to participate in war attacks while being upgraded. It would not be unreasonable for them to be able to do so. However, it is fairly obvious that due to the existance of option 3 above, it is directly against the interests of supercell to add this feature, since if they allow heroes to participate in wars while upgrading, then they lose this source of revenue.
However, I would like to make an appeal to supercell, to tell them that this business practice is hurting them in the long run. By keeping this contradiction in gameplay mechanics in the game, they are making one of the most fun portions of the entire game, clan wars, frustrating and unfun to participate in past TH9, which is the majority of the time spent playing the game for veteran players. By keeping it they are driving more and more people away from their game, all in the name of keeping a single source of revenue for whales/dolphins to drop cash on. However, relying on whales is not a good way to keep a game going forever, as without a population of non-whales to play the game, there will be no whales in the first place.
Additionally, with the addition of more and more bundles and deals that the average player is willing to spend cash on, supercell is less and less reliant on whales in the first place to make money. So why not make the game less frustrating to play so that more people will stick around to continue to enjoy and support the game?
If you have any thoughts, criticisms or anything to add, feel free to reply and let me know, this has been something bugging me for quite some time.
Tldr; heroes need to be able to attack in wars while upgrading, supercell wont add it because gemming heroes makes a ton of money and its slowly driving people away and killing their game.
In case it wasn't clear... /signed
