bringing a partial perma/max lineup to war (kids dont try this at home)

[OnyxDS]

SC could throw a big old monkey wrench in the extreme engineering philosophy by simply refusing clans that are far out of the typical progression & lineup from getting a match with any clan that's relatively typical. Can't find an opponent similar to your clan? Sorry, no match.

If they wanted to keep warring, they'd be forced to go with a more typical lineup.

Which was pretty much my suggestion in Part 5 of my epic, although I expressed it at match level. If SC was more willing to just reject dodgy matches, and keep a clan searching up to the point of eventually saying no match found, it would improve things. And when no match is found they could link to some suggestions on what is a typical clan lineup that would match. In this way a clan with a mass of defenceless could be left searching for hours until either they match another clan full of defenceless, or the computer says no.

[Tomville]

We don't know exactly where the perfect balance point is when you're in the process of upgrading your TH level, but my simple, seat of the pants guideline is that if you have just enough offense to 3 star your defense equivalent, you're probably balanced. This would actually suggest that a maxed TH9 is not balanced & that maxed TH10 is not very well balanced...

It would be nice if the dev team would make an unequivocal statement that their vision for the game is to encourage people to maintain some semblance of balance & to present clans with a lineup that is all balanced bases with fair matchups. My personal opinion is that the only way to do that is to refuse to give matches to clans running too many lopsided bases, unless a similar clan actually happens to be searching at the same time.

That's interesting, but I see a potential problem in tying typical results at a th level to balance, thinking back on the analysis bilius did of 3 star rates in CWL... if the status quo just is that 3 star rates of same th level on same th level attacks by decent to very good attackers are whatever exact lowish figure, then it's never time to drop your infernos. (Same thing in reverse at low th levels where 3 star is the norm for most adequate players). So I don't think we should base the idea of being balanced on having enough offence to 3 star your defence equivalent (or at least not on that at any current balance/tweak level of troop and defence stats). I think the way to go is to pegging it to fairly even progression of ones own war troop upgrading and key defence dropping in parallel. It's something that in broad principle should remain valid irrespective of any future buff/nerf to whatever.

[ryryshouse]

Pay attention & you'll notice that I said I don't pretend to know what SC considers "balanced", but find it more productive to look at what types of bases are typical. TH10s with 40/40 heroes aren't typical. TH9s with 30/30 heroes aren't typical. I'm going by the same list of players that Onyx referred to, who are probably more inclined to grind heroes that the average player, yet still had very few max hero accounts. Look at accounts you see in the wild & maxed accounts are very rare.

From a business standpoint, perma-maxers aren't good for revenue, so I wouldn't hold my breath for a return to MM as it worked before March 2016.

Max townhall play (11) should be balanced or the game is broken. If you can't figure out why ;not sure what to tell you. Supercell agrees by evidence of witch and miner nerfs.

I think you can extend this to lower ths, th8 and 9 are balanced if you didn't have cc troops of th11 level.

10 is still probably tilted heavily toward the defense.

[posthoc]

I knew the answer before I asked ... this is why it's so easy to disregard anything you post

Max townhall play (11) should be balanced or the game is broken. If you can't figure out why ;not sure what to tell you. Supercell agrees by evidence of witch and miner nerfs.

I think you can extend this to lower ths, th8 and 9 are balanced if you didn't have cc troops of th11 level.

10 is still probably tilted heavily toward the defense.

You continue to insist that perma-max bases are "balanced" without offering any proof that SuperCell agrees with you, or any real justification. The reason people stay perma-maxed at th9 is not because they believe in "game balance"--it is because for a long time that was the best way to minimize three stars against, and also draw weaker th9 as opponents. Seems like these arguments about game balance started right after the MM was modified and this advantage was lost.

Your logic would suggest that th7 perma-max is also "balanced"--and yet no one chooses this path. And it is precisely because max th7 offers no advantage on defense.

I'd question whether th8 is balanced, either--haven't seen many that wouldn't fall to either gohowi or dragon spam. There simply aren't enough buildings or walls to defend against both attack strategies.

[CasimirEffect]

The reason people stay perma-maxed at th9 is not because they believe in "game balance"--it is because for a long time that was the best way to minimize three stars against, and also draw weaker th9 as opponents.

There are a few other common reasons here:
1. After farming to max, TH9 in particular, the war focused player may not feel like taking the next step: ramping up for the TH10 farm grind, relearning the game (with addition of infernos, much higher dps and significantly reduced margin for error), and/or become a temporary liability to the team.
2. Alternate accounts offer sustained variability in gameplay for those with multiple accounts taking the maxer approach. This also provides greater access to diverse resources for any clan participating in events and in general maxer upgrade path for alt accounts is highly encouraged among the competitive war community.
3. Clan league play incentivizes maxer accounts and it is MUCH easier for the player to earn a spot on a roster as a max account at a specific townhall.

All three reasons provided do not seek an advantage in war. Instead this upgrade (or cease to upgrade) path offer means for players to enjoy the aspects of the game which they find most interesting. Since we can all agree that clan league play offers the fairest match-ups available in game, those seeking this competitive game play environment are in fact searching for the exact opposite of what you are suggesting: meaning they want absolutely no advantages from this upgrade path as it pertains to clan wars.

[OnyxDS]

3. Clan league play incentivizes maxer accounts and it is MUCH easier for the player to earn a spot on a roster as a max account at a specific townhall.

All three reasons provided do not seek an advantage in war. Instead this upgrade (or cease to upgrade) path offer means for players to enjoy the aspects of the game which they find most interesting. Since we can all agree that clan league play offers the fairest match-ups available in game, those seeking this competitive game play environment are in fact searching for the exact opposite of what you are suggesting: meaning they want absolutely no advantages from this upgrade path as it pertains to clan wars.

You could draw almost the opposite conclusion from 3. Assuming you mean things like CWL by "clan league play". In this case they are effectively using a different sort of MM. And under that system max TH9s have an advantage over non-max TH9s. So guess what everyone uses? You can just as much argue clans are taking max TH9s because that's the most advantageous option for them as because they want fairness. The slight difference here is that since every opponent has bought themselves a stack of max TH9s, doing the same only brings you back to parity. Effectively every clan has engineered their line-up to the best possible with the systemic constraints, so there is fairness. How would a clan that decided they wanted to play with their existing TH9 players rather than buy/recruit a load of max TH9s get on? Presumably they'd be beaten up. Which is roughly what happens when a clan does a random spin war with their existing players rather than engineer their accounts to the optimum under the random-spin matching system.

[CasimirEffect]

You could draw almost the opposite conclusion from 3. Assuming you mean things like CWL by "clan league play". In this case they are effectively using a different sort of MM. And under that system max TH9s have an advantage over non-max TH9s. So guess what everyone uses? You can just as much argue clans are taking max TH9s because that's the most advantageous option for them as because they want fairness. The slight difference here is that since every opponent has bought themselves a stack of max TH9s, doing the same only brings you back to parity. Effectively every clan has engineered their line-up to the best possible with the systemic constraints, so there is fairness. How would a clan that decided they wanted to play with their existing TH9 players rather than buy/recruit a load of max TH9s get on? Presumably they'd be beaten up. Which is roughly what happens when a clan does a random spin war with their existing players rather than engineer their accounts to the optimum under the random-spin matching system.

In a vacuum or if lobbying for casual play this argument has merit. However outside of these constraints it doesn't make much sense. Leagues go through great lengths and there is quite a bit of negotiation to ensure that matchups are as evenly matched as possible (including a tiered structure for TH10s). If a clan can't pull together a roster to match with these clans, then that clan will not do well. Its very simple. A clan interested in playing at this level better be comfortable networking and player sharing, which is good for the game and the clans in general. At least the rules of the game are made clear which is a significant improvement to the current in-game system.

The more likely reason that league clans run maxer rosters top to bottom so long as resources are available: Max accounts are the most difficult to clear and therefore it would make sense in competitive play that the two clans are running a roster stacked with the most challenging accounts at each town hall... Have you seen what these clans do to non-max accounts? Not much of a challenge for the competitors is it?

[jobob145]

You could draw almost the opposite conclusion from 3. Assuming you mean things like CWL by "clan league play". In this case they are effectively using a different sort of MM. And under that system max TH9s have an advantage over non-max TH9s. So guess what everyone uses? You can just as much argue clans are taking max TH9s because that's the most advantageous option for them as because they want fairness. The slight difference here is that since every opponent has bought themselves a stack of max TH9s, doing the same only brings you back to parity. Effectively every clan has engineered their line-up to the best possible with the systemic constraints, so there is fairness. How would a clan that decided they wanted to play with their existing TH9 players rather than buy/recruit a load of max TH9s get on? Presumably they'd be beaten up. Which is roughly what happens when a clan does a random spin war with their existing players rather than engineer their accounts to the optimum under the random-spin matching system.

what they do is probably the only way you could ever get 50 different people to agree on what is fair.
clone vs clone
completely identical vs completely identical.

stray off 1 thing... now its 100% opinion.
"i'll trade you 2 AQ level for 1 AT level". "no way dude, that's worth 3 AQ level"

personal bias overwhelms. we all want what we got to be the best for ourselves.

we can probably step back and look at the big picture on some things (like 6 wardens aren't really worth only 2 EA)

but dive deep into the algo and try to determine exact values for everything in the game, and what its worth vs something else?
and get everyone to agree on that.. hah that'll be the day

hence we let sc's system do it for us.

and when some people study / practice / experiment with understanding the system, and others don't (or choose not to, or for whatever reason.. because math really doesn't care about intent or reasons)...
we end up with fun threads like this!

[CasimirEffect]

when some people study / practice / experiment with understanding the system, and others don't (or choose not to, or for whatever reason.. because math really doesn't care about intent or reasons)...
we end up with fun threads like this!

Hopefully all of the banter in threads like this will be quelled by the update in a few weeks.

The issue is quite simple as I have said before: there is no existing structure to define competitive play in game. So naturally the solutions to fix the issues occurring in game which can be tied to clan size restrictions, practically infinite variability, and diverging search pools as a result of increased restrictions to the algorithm and player "experimentation" to gain an edge will be subjective.

Without a template to clump clans into certain groups for clan wars, or a massive influx of returning and new players it is unlikely that any of the issues we are discussing will be resolved by altering existing in-game systems... here, again, math really doesn't care about intent of reason. Well put!

[ryryshouse]

You continue to insist that perma-max bases are "balanced" without offering any proof that SuperCell agrees with you, or any real justification. The reason people stay perma-maxed at th9 is not because they believe in "game balance"--it is because for a long time that was the best way to minimize three stars against, and also draw weaker th9 as opponents. Seems like these arguments about game balance started right after the MM was modified and this advantage was lost.

Your logic would suggest that th7 perma-max is also "balanced"--and yet no one chooses this path. And it is precisely because max th7 offers no advantage on defense.

I'd question whether th8 is balanced, either--haven't seen many that wouldn't fall to either gohowi or dragon spam. There simply aren't enough buildings or walls to defend against both attack strategies.

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