Trophy League, Matchmaking, Farming

Hi guys,

I started thinking about a (maybe crazy) idea regarding trophy points, matchmaking and farming. I don't know if my idea is feasible and beneficial to the game, so I'd like to have some controversial discussion here.

The main idea is to change the trophy system and matchmaking system (which currently are somehow linked together). I am thinking about detaching trophies from matchmaking. Irrespective of the trophy points, I think that there should be a different method to evaluate a player's strength, based on amount and level of defense buildings, walls, spell levels, and troop levels that each player has. That would result in a defense strength and an attack strength which all players will have. In my opinion it would give a more accurate value of a player's defense and attack strength than trophy count.

Matchmaking could be based on these two values: attack strength vs. defense strength. In consequence, trophy gains/losses don't need to vary so much as they do currently. Why not giving one trophy point for each star of destruction for the attacker?
(I would guess that shields probably became less important since matchmaking would pair two players that are similar in attack strength vs. defense strength, so less fear that stronger players would roll over weaker players' villages, and moreover the max. trophy loss wouldn't hurt top players as much as it hurts now, but okay that's just a side note and speculative.)

Okay, what about farming then? Farmers will probably have a harder time "harvesting" the resources they need to upgrade their stuff when players will be matched on more or less equal terms. Well, I'm not a big fan of stealing candy from a child, so tough it out guys.

What about top players, who can practically not farm currently for this would cause a major problem: trophy drop or high risk of trophy loss, both of which will result in losing their leaderboard position. So top players, I would assume, are bound to gem every new upgrade unless they are willing to drop trophies and to lose their leaderboard position (it's like being trapped: pay or lose position).
Another problem exists for premature bases where frustrated players either quit or spend a lot of dollars to upgrade their premature base in order to be able to enjoy playing again. This would be solved by the new matchmaking system because now those premature bases would still get matched with equal players.

I think that all players should be able to farm, but also to participate in the leaderboard competition.
This being said, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea if you could choose, prior to attacking players, whether your next raid is a "Trophy League Active" attack or just a simple farming attack without trophy consequences on either side.

Alright, that's it so far. I would appreciate a nice controversial discussion about these ideas and any related ideas from you guys.P
lease guys, do me one favor and don't post arguments like "Supercell will never do it because they will lose money with this." It's really nice that so many people here care about Supercell's pockets, but we are actually not even in a position to evaluate financial effects of changes inside the game, so let's not start a financial discussion but a technical/gameplay discussion.

(And I may apologize herewith if these ideas are old, and the credit, if any, goes to those who maybe talked about that in the past. You are not forgotten!)

Thanks everyone for your participation :D

Good idea. I certainly feel that the current matchmaking system is flawed as it is purely based on trophy levels. Indeed many lower levelled people are complaining about getting wrecked by much stronger opponents with godly troops. (I admit I was one of them)

COC is a strategy game, hence it won't make much sense if a TH 9 could easily wreck much weaker bases just because he is on a lower trophy level. There would be no more skill involved. Hence your idea is good as it brings every one to the same level, making them really think when raiding instead of mindlessly spamming high tiered troops on a much weaker base.

Another reason for this situation, in my opinion, would be the fictional existence of trophies. Well lets face it, other than the top 3 clans in the entire world, no one really has any incentive to rise up. The league bonuses are measly, and opponents become much tougher. I would really want to see competitions for all leagues levels so that there is really a point in the game (I believe this is suggested numerous times but I wonder if Supercell even sees them)

Anyway I feel that your idea is great and could eliminate the farmers and make COC a strategy game once more. It would be quite a challenge for COC programmers though.

Take a look at my thread on the modification of the TH's resource capacity to avoid its abuse. http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...-more-resource Thanks.

Sorry, bad ideas. You admit that your system would greatly reduce loot for farmers but just say "tough it out guys"?!?! That's a great way to ensure that they all quit. No offense, but you don't show an understanding of their situation. As the game is now, there is no way for high level players to consistently profit off of each other, which is the whole reason farming exists. Weaker players are already protected by the loot bonuses/penalties, so farmers can't really steal too much off of players 2+ TH levels below them. What many lower levels don't realize is that, quite frankly, the high levels need the loot more. At low levels upgrades are cheap and its difficult to prevent your storages from overflowing if you play a lot. At higher (TH) levels, upgrades are far more expensive, yet loot amounts go down. That's why farming exists and is necessary as things stand now.

Your idea for matchmaking in general is also a bad idea. There is no real way to measure base/offensive strength. Levels are skewed due to donations, achievements, etc. and even if it were accurate (that is, based only on upgrades),,the system would,still be terrible. Why? Because it would disincentivize upgrading your base. For many players the goal is to top the leaderboards and it is no secret that the lower levels have no trouble at all attacking each other. Why would you want level 10 and 20 players passing Jorge Yao? Trophy based matchmaking provides resistance. You want to move up, you face tougher and tougher,opponents. That's the way it should be.

I've had similar ideas float through my head in the past. I think an algorithm to determine "relative strength" is a good idea, though I would not use it for matchmaking attacks. I would, however, use it for matchmaking clan vs clan feuds. I agree with Zach that using an entirely different matchmaking methodology would disrupt existing gameplay and could have unintended consequences that could lead to many leaving the game.

However, I do like this as an idea.

SC develops some algorithm where relative troop strength, defenses, walls, etc are coalesced into a "rating". Then that rating is summed for the clan, and clan vs clan feuding uses that instead of trophies for matchmaking.

The biggest problem with clan vs clan is that using trophies for it won't result in fair matchups because of all the farmers who are 200-2000 cups lower than they could be if they wanted to. A mid-mature TH8 like myself would have a much higher "rating" for matchmaking than my 1300 cups would indicate.

I don't dislike the idea, but I wouldn't use it as you've suggested.

Hi Zach,
Comments appreciated. Let me try to defend my ideas.

You point out three major problems with the ideas (I hope that I got that right):

1. Farming will not provide enough loot
2. Village upgrades become less important
3. Low level bases might pass high level players on leaderboard

As for problem 1.: I personally farm in higher trophy level against pretty tough bases and can make it. But that does not mean that there couldn't be, in general, a balancing for loot percentage. E.g. instead of current loot percentage available to players, the loot percentage can increase somewhat so that looting one storage building would already provide a, let's say, decent amount of loot. That is tweaking the system's balance in the same way as Supercell did with loot penalties etc. I don't see a problem here.

As for problem 2.: Humans enjoy developing and creating things. And frankly speaking, a lot of my friends stopped playing the game as those upgrades appear to be unachievable without spending a lot of time and/or money. That's duly related to the current flaws of the loot system and matchmaking system. But don't get me wrong, I don't want to make the game so easy that everybody can have those things. Of course a reasonable amount of work should be put into it, and the more you will enjoy your achievements. But the frustration should be eliminated. It is a game after all, right?

As for problem 3.: Again, I don't see the problem. Based on your attack/defense strength players would be "categorized" into the different leagues which already exist on trophy count (but they should be based on attack/defense strength). It's like in boxing: you have light weight boxers, heavy weight boxers and what not. So a TH7 players cannot pass Jorge Yao because he fights in a different league. This ridiculous global leaderboard should be taken out. It compares apples with oranges.

Somewhere you mention the level of a player. That confused me, because I never talked about the player level which you correctly mentioned is skewed by donations etc. This player level is very useless and should be taken out of the game (it would be fully obsolete anyway with the suggested changes).

I hope I could somehow contribute to take your concerns away. What do you think?

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Originally Posted by Aelmhult

Hi Zach,
Comments appreciated. Let me try to defend my ideas.

You point out three major problems with the ideas (I hope that I got that right):

1. Farming will not provide enough loot
2. Village upgrades become less important
3. Low level bases might pass high level players on leaderboard

As for problem 1.: I personally farm in higher trophy level against pretty tough bases and can make it. But that does not mean that there couldn't be, in general, a balancing for loot percentage. E.g. instead of current loot percentage available to players, the loot percentage can increase somewhat so that looting one storage building would already provide a, let's say, decent amount of loot. That is tweaking the system's balance in the same way as Supercell did with loot penalties etc. I don't see a problem here.

As for problem 2.: Humans enjoy developing and creating things. And frankly speaking, a lot of my friends stopped playing the game as those upgrades appear to be unachievable without spending a lot of time and/or money. That's duly related to the current flaws of the loot system and matchmaking system. But don't get me wrong, I don't want to make the game so easy that everybody can have those things. Of course a reasonable amount of work should be put into it, and the more you will enjoy your achievements. But the frustration should be eliminated. It is a game after all, right?

As for problem 3.: Again, I don't see the problem. Based on your attack/defense strength players would be "categorized" into the different leagues which already exist on trophy count (but they should be based on attack/defense strength). It's like in boxing: you have light weight boxers, heavy weight boxers and what not. So a TH7 players cannot pass Jorge Yao because he fights in a different league. This ridiculous global leaderboard should be taken out. It compares apples with oranges.

Somewhere you mention the level of a player. That confused me, because I never talked about the player level which you correctly mentioned is skewed by donations etc. This player level is very useless and should be taken out of the game (it would be fully obsolete anyway with the suggested changes).

I hope I could somehow contribute to take your concerns away. What do you think?

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Your solution to problem 3 is mostly acceptable. Although I wouldn't like to see that happen, that could work. One thing that would need to be added is a trophy reset whenever you move up, which I wouldn't really be a fan of. Problem 2 and 3 were really one issue, so that takes care of that too. Again, I think that would be a bad way to go, but it wouldn't be game breaking. Still, I highly doubt that SC would ever do this.

Problem 1 still stands. I was never saying thar high level bases can't be farmed, just that good high level bases can't. As base designing has become more standardized, there are many bases that for all intents and purposes are unfarmable (see Hannibal in Bonbee is a Cat or TNT in TheOnlyAndOne for examples).

I brought up levels because I envisioned your new ranking system as being shown that way. If levels were based on the attacking/defending strength of the player, it would be more "accurate". That was my name for your method of ranking.

Basically, the grand plan behind your idea is to create hard lines between players at different stages of the game. No jumping above your weight class and no falling beneath it. You want to force players to face the same types/level of bases attack after attack, day after day. Monotony. Quite frankly, it's hard think of many things that would make me want to quit more.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MoriartyLives

I agree with Zach that using an entirely different matchmaking methodology would disrupt existing gameplay and could have unintended consequences that could lead to many leaving the game.

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Of course it will disrupt existing gameplay. That's intended :D Is it necessary? No. Would it be funner? Hopefully. Would it add to the fairness of competition? Probably (so I hope at least, otherwise I would have posted the ideas).

Will players leave the game? Almost all my friends who started the game together with me have quit. How much better/worse can it get compared to the amount of players leaving/starting/resuming the game as it currently sits? I don't know.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zachUVA

Monotony. Quite frankly, it's hard think of many things that would make me want to quit more.

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Well, it would be a lie to say that the daily farming grind is not monotonous already. And ask Jorge Yao about monotony. And how much fun is it to wreck low lvl bases over and over and over and over again and again. Yeah, very sportsmanlike and, most of all, so versatile and exciting. Come on, really?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aelmhult

Well, it would be a lie to say that the daily farming grind is not monotonous already. And ask Jorge Yao about monotony. And how much fun is it to wreck low lvl bases over and over and over and over again and again. Yeah, very sportsmanlike and, most of all, so versatile and exciting. Come on, really?

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Nah, I mix up my farming from time to time. I move my range and face different strength bases. I'll farm collecters/premies/TH8s for the big loots but then sometimes I do want to go up against tough TH9s (I'm heading up in trophies right now actually). I guess that could still be classified as monotonous, but much less so than the system you describe in which I could only do the latter.

Oh, I absolutely agree about Jorge Yao and the other top players. What's so monotonous about that though? They use the same armies to fight the same bases all the time. Your idea imposes that system on the rest of us.

Well, "my system" does not impose that actually. The opposite is the case. You would be able to farm for loot without trophy consequences, and you can choose to attack for trophies. When you say that you sometimes go up in trophies, it's unfortunately meaningless because sooner or later you would drop trophies again to be able to farm again. In essence, the current system keeps you imprisoned in a monotonous never ending farming cycle (never ending because of updates) which you can only escape by maxing your base quickly before the next update (which is extremely hard without spending money), maybe applying well discussed loopholes, and seriously going for the leaderboards. And once you are up there, you are trapped. Next update, you have to gem the upgrades or you have to drop trophies to go back into the glorious farming cycle and you disappear from the leaderboards. "My system" would allow you to keep farming at all times without trophy consequences, so you could run for leaderboards within your league (which would give players some recognition and fame which many players crave) and still farm.

At the same time, I'm trying to bring equally strong players together to compete. This is a competitive game by its nature. But the discrepancy between the strength of players is in my eyes not very sportsmanlike. We all can agree or disagree on that. Some players enjoy beating the ♥♥♥♥ out of the weaker players. That's a moral question. Some players may be okay with that, others not. Whatever the majority wants. I am not okay with that, and that's why I wrote those ideas. I think that more players would be happy and less frustrated if the matches became more fair. And I personally have no problem to farm against bases that are equally strong like my troops and spells.

You said that there are unfarmable bases. That's really good for those players. Why not? Everyone can press next. But I doubt that there is a single base out there that is not farmable with the right troops/spells. Question is only if you will break even respectively make a profit. Again, as I mentioned, that's part of tweaking the balance between attack strength and defense strength and of course the loot percentage. I'm very certain that you can almost always reach at least one storage to loot. If not, it simply means that the defense strength of this village is significantly higher than your attack strength, and in "my system" this village would most likely not have showed up on your screen for a potential attack in the first place (probably because it would be out of your league).