I've seen a few posts around the forums complaining about the lack of variation in the game, the lack of new material, the lack of new updates (or the fact that they come every few months now), etc. I won't say I have the perfect solution to this, but a few ideas I think could make things more interesting. Now, I realize this has likely already been said in one way or another, but hey, this is my thread.
First, add more regular events. Not necessarily on a set schedule (ie, new event every third week), but a more random scale -- say, one every every 1-3 weeks. And, what's more, rotate the events.
Some event ideas (old and new)
- One gem boosts
- Reduced troop training times (as they've done for barbs, drags, and wizards before, just 1-2 troops at a time)
- Troop strength boosts (ie, barbarian rage week, barbarians have +20% speed/attack/health for the week). This should be restricted to archers, barbs, goblins, giants, wizards, minions, hogs, and valks, no upper tier troops).
- Builder boost (builders are 10%-20% more effective for the week, ie they work faster. Could cost a certain number of gems, could be free, not sure on that).
- Weather changes -- why just winter and summer? Why not add spring events, bring a rainstorm on occasion, have trees leaves turn color in the fall, turn mushrooms to flowers in the spring. There could even be things like a 1-2 day heat spell where workers are 10% slower, could be a slight annoyance but it's interesting.
Next, bring in smaller, more regular updates. If there's a lot of talk on social networks or the forums about an idea people want to see, that SC can work out won't cost them anything significant, go for it. Try it out, see if it works, see how people respond. People like making the game more interesting, and adding new things does that.
Some ideas to debate about -- these are just kinda general, suggestions much appreciated.
- A new regular/dark troop. Hounds came out not too long ago, so maybe wait a bit on dark troops, but something else in the regular barracks, to make for more varied army compositions. Not an upper tier troop like hounds, but something smaller and more versatile. A slinger, maybe, longer range? Not sure.
- Dark elixir orbs -- Small orbs that come up like a mushroom or tree does, but when removed (for the price of maybe 10,000 gold) give you 100-200 dark elixir. Make them come up on the same rotation as plants, more often than gem boxes, but make them kinda small. Maybe make it so that there's a cap of 10 for a single base, but make it so you can destroy them on enemy players bases and steal the DE inside? That could be a lot of fun, and would further encourage people to get back on regularly.
- the pause button- I've seen this around a few times, but but giving players the ability to pause a boost on either their heroes or barracks would be excellent, as many people can't be on for the full two hours but would love to be able to get full use out of their boost. Would probably encourage more people to boost, ie more money for SC.
Bigger upgrade ideas -- the ones to come out every few months, would take far more development.
- Clan base -- make some sort of clan base that all members can contribute resources to, that has some sort of benefit for members. Maybe a clan research lab of sorts -- improvements to builders tools, making them a few percent more efficient. Maybe a few percent reduction in building costs, few percent increase in collector/mine production. These upgrades should be expensive, though -- start at maybe 2-5 mil for the 2% bonuses (per upgrade, not an overall for everything), and go up to like 50 mil total for a 10-15% bonus. Heroes could also be involved here, you could have upgrades that give a bonus to your heroes. 250,000 DE and your clan can research something giving your heroes a 5% health/attack boost. 1 mil for a 10% boost, and 2.5 mil for a 20% boost.
A similar idea in terms of the clan base upgrades would be to allow for people to send in their builders to work on other project that would benefit the clan. In Boom Beach you can build statues that give base bonuses -- why not let clans do the same? Maybe to build a statue giving a 10% health bonus to troops you need 2.5 mil elixir and 100k DE, then clan members have to send in builders to get a total of 400 hours of build time completed -- either one guy sends one builder and it takes 16 days, or you get in 20 builders total and it's done in less than a day. Statues could give bonuses to troop health/attacks, defense building damage/health, overall building health, gem box appearance rates (similar to the power-stone drop rate in boom beach), etc. Lots of options here, these updates could keep rolling for a few years.
Increasing the strength of bases/defenses here could counter the benefits offered by bonuses to troops, or by the strength of new troops (if introduced).
The clan base idea would need to be massively expanded upon, and prices would need to be straightened out, but I think that could keep a lot of people interested for quite a long time, could be a lot of fun and give them material for a half a dozen larger updates or more.
Looking forward to hearing some responses, what do you guys think of these ideas?
