Hello everyone. This is my base. I'd like to think that it is a pretty accurate representation of an average player who belongs in the Gold II league. My walls are coming along nicely, and my cannons and towers are level 6-7, with level 3-4 mortars and 2-3 wizards. Nothing amazing, nothing too crappy, just right for where I should be. My archers are level 4, and I am very happy about just unlocking minions.
This is an example of what I get attacked with. Why yes, that is a level 3 Pekka, thank you for noticing. And yes, he did spend ridiculous amounts of resources to walk away with almost diddly squat from my base. All in all, he's one of the stupid ones, he'll probably just go off and buy a bunch of gems to recoup his losses, and wave his level 3 Pekka at some other unassuming player, the real problem here is his less ♥♥♥♥♥♥ed cousins. Yes, those ♥♥♥♥♥♥s that sit in leagues completely inappropriate to their tech level, I'm talking about the farmers.
Farmers are a cowardly and worthless bunch who have decided that life is too tough for them at a league appropriate to their tech level, and instead have opted to drop a lot of trophies so they can abuse the poorly thought out trophy and shield system. Their routine consists of cherry picking opponents far weaker than them, and taking whatever resources they have. They are then protected from retaliation both by their insanely high level defenses, but also by the act of putting their town hall out in the open so they lose an insignificant amount of resources and gain a free shield, blocking those that might be an actual threat of getting into their resource storages. This is a problem in all leagues, but especially at around the 1250 range, where players are desperate to get the gem awarding achievement, and are usually out looking to snipe town halls so they can get their achievement gems to put towards another builder.
As someone who has competitive experience in FPS and RTS games, I have to almost say it's embarrassing at times to be a participant in this game because of how widespread and accepted this act has become. While it's understandable that this is a freemium game and money has to be made somewhere, it's just ridiculous to make that money by basically having bullies run around shaking down kids for their lunch money because they feel it's a better alternative to playing and progressing through the game legitimately.
While I don't intend this post to be a name&shame, here are some examples of people who are a part of the problem, rather than the solution:
More examples really shouldn't be necessary to prove the trend here. Now, I'm not just going to rant and run, so let's add a little bit of constructiveness to this post. Here are some things that I think can be done to remedy the situation a lot.
1. Town Halls are supposed to be targets of opportunity.
It says so right there in the description for it. Go ahead, click the info on your town hall, I'll wait. Right, now, here's the problem: the value of the shield given by the town hall's demise is far more than the loss of about 8 trophies and 1000 gold and elixir. Essentially, that town hall being destroyed is worth about 50 gems for a 12 hour shield. So, what do we do? Simple - in any RTS game if your town hall falls, you're in some real deep doo doo. Because Clash of Clans matches don't exactly have real time economy, so to speak, the loss of a town hall should, in turn, make all other structures frail and weak, greatly increasing the chance that you get to their resources, and 100%ing them.
2. No risk? No reward.
Although a penalty was imposed for players who have town hall level 9, the penalty is pretty small, and TH9 does not represent the actual potential power of a town. The actual power of a town on defense is the sum of it's structures (including walls). This means it's completely possible thanks to the magic of gems to have a TH9 with level 1 cannons. Therefore, calculating potential strength by town hall is incorrect.
On attack:
Power level should be a mathematical equation based on the levels, amounts, and types of troops dropped, including consumables such as spells, and heroes.
On defense:
Power level should be a mathematical equation based on the levels of the defense, taking into account levels of things like walls, traps present on the board, and DEFINITELY taking into account what's sitting in the clan hall (more on that later).
If the power balance equation sweepingly favors one side (and it often can, as there is a certain point where success for one side becomes mathematically impossible), then penalties on how many resources you can take should be handed out. So if Farmy McLameFace comes along with his horde of level 6 archers and dragons with rage spells
3. This is a game about risk and reward. There needs to be no situations where there is no risk. And no situations where there is no reward.
This is a big one that affects all players in the game. There are simply too many towns that either have no resources to take, or are completely out of our league and can't be pushed at all. Meanwhile we spend thousands and thousands of gold, and far too much time, looking for a matchup that doesn't completely stink. In many cases we have to settle for just breaking even on the cost of troops. The league bonus per match is sort of starting on the right track, but as it is, what you gain for winning doesn't even come close to the cost of gold required to search for an appropriate opponent. Some kind of resource pooling should go on where a reserve on each town is kept for enemy raid purposes, which cannot be touched by the player for the purposes of building or training armies, so that they remain a viable target for raids, and don't get a "pauper's shield". This pool should fill first, or at least tax from the income from successful raids.
4. Having a Clan shouldn't be required.
Currently, the way Clans work it is pretty much required that you be in one to be competitively viable. I would like to see unclanned players receive some sort of recompense ability. I think that unclanned players should always be able to see what is in an enemy's clan hall, so that they can offset the surprise (which is often ridiculous, when your level 3 archers and barbs are met by some twink's level 3 donated dragon) as a tradeoff for their inability to counter with their own donated troops.
5. Paying to progress shouldn't be required.
This is probably the most important and resonating idea that needs to be observed in the development of Clash of Clans. If players feel like they're stuck, in this case, unable to gain the resources for necessary unit and structure upgrades due to predation by far more powerful players, they will leave. And they'll take their potential sales with them.
Well, that's that. Don't bother trying to flame me, I still got 6 hours left on my shield. In the meantime, maybe if I can arrange my decorations in such a manner as to say "please, pass me by" the farmers will actually allow me to get to 2.25 million elixir for my next archer upgrade without tossing a dozen dragons on me like they've been doing.
