Originally Posted by
iceageg
This is my first post in any of the loot threads. I try to avoid them because they are usually just a bunch of complaining with no information more useful than "loot is bad" or "fix it". However, things have got to the point where I feel I have enough data to contribute. Long post with ideas (some repeated by others) at the bottom.
For reference, I have 3 accounts (on 3 devices). A 90% maxed TH9 except for walls, a maxed TH8 except for walls, and a brand new TH8 recently upgraded from maxed TH7 except for collectors. I have been playing long enough to remember the golden days before the inactive accounts were removed and have been playing actively from TH1-9 at all trophy ranges up to low crystal 1 since the inactive accounts were removed spanning the last few updates. As a result I have about as wide a cross section of data on the subject as anybody can hope to have below masters. Here is what I have found to be fact.
TH1-7 loot is beyond abundant. Progressing through TH1-5 the storages don't hold enough loot and I stop raiding to wait for free builders. TH6-7 the storages hold enough that they usually aren't maxed out but there is easily enough loot to do it if you hang out in gold 3 or below. There are still enough inactive accounts down low that simple barch armies raiding collectors will keep all of your builders working at all times. At TH8 however things change rapidly and nexting becomes a way of life. With the loot penalty the formerly lucrative collector raids simply don't generate enough income to reliably pay for TH8 upgrades and especially not TH9. As a result I changed tactics and army composition so I can broaden my list of potential targets and get into the center where the storages are. That and collector raids are far less frequent as you climb through gold into crystal making them an unstable revenue stream anyway. Now that I have a more capable, more expensive, slower building army to attack a greater number of villages I have a new and far more devastating problem . . . finding somebody worth attacking. As you will quickly see reading through the 600+ pages of this thread sometimes loot is good, usually it is not.
For the last couple of months the ratio I have seen has been right at 1:6 good to bad. That is, one night per week (not always the same one) loot is so good I struggle to get my accounts all into the same range to take advantage of it. My wife gets irritated some times but that is the nature of gaming. For a few hours I can generate enough loot to get a couple of builders going again and maybe kick off another troop upgrade. I end the night pleased with my progress and go about my life. The other 6 days loot is . . . well, its not only bad. It is non-existent. Nexting for prolonged periods of time past bases with less than 100k available. I generally get to try before work, during lunch, after work and once or twice in the evening and find nothing. After multiple days of using overpriced armies to recoup my nexting losses all I have left is enough to fill war castles and participate in the war. The war bonus is better since the last patch but still nets a negative result win or loose. From an economic standpoint you are still better off not to war at all. Problem then is you are stuck playing Clash of Nexts as your only consistent option missing out on the fun of the wars. Those facts in place I am left with a game that in my opinion is only playable about 1 day per week, but I have to play it all the time to figure out when that is. As a working father and husband it is becoming difficult for me to justify wasting free time 6 days out of every 7.
All this has brought me to the conclusion that removing the inactive accounts was to drastic of a change to the virtual economy of the game. SC has the task of making the game painful enough to play that people want to buy gems so they can make money and stay in business, but keeping the game playable for those of us who don't purchase gems. It is the nature of their business model and there is nothing wrong with that. They can't let their virtual economy ruin their actual economy but they need to remember that the health of their virtual economy drives their bottom line, and their virtual economy is unhealthy. At it's core it works like this . . . Bob and Tom are the only two people in a small town. Bob has a gas station and Tom has a grocery store. They both have $10. No matter how much gas or food they buy nobody can ever have more than $20, ever. If Bob does end up with $20 that means Tom is penniless and will not be able to buy anything until Bob needs groceries again. If Tom has car trouble and spends $20 on repairs from outside their town there is now $0 in their economy. They are both dependent on somebody from outside of their town to bring money in like tourists. The only way they can "make" money is to bring it into their town from outside sources.
In CoC land we raid each other instead of purchasing goods/services. If the only loot in the economy is what is being taken back and forth between active players the games economy will run out of money because people spend it on upgrades. SC knows they have to "make" money to drive the economy so they put league bonuses on wins. The problem here is that we spend more on nexting than the league bonuses generate, at least until you get up to masters and the bonus is substantial. For most players nexting produces a negative revenue stream that is mildly offset by league bonuses. War bonuses (while recently boosted) are still below the cost of generating the troops to participate. So most of the time league and war bonuses are actually a partial mitigation for drains on the economy that still result in a net loss. This leaves us with two available effective sources the first of which is collectors.
Collectors are by far the largest source of new resources. Always creating wealth out of virtual nothingness (much easier than a real life economy). The problem with collectors is their progression in the game. At TH7 you have 6 lvl11 collectors good for 18,000/hr. This has proven since the beginning of the game (along with inactive low level players) to drive the economy up to that TH7 mark. However, there is no increase in production again until TH10 when you simply get one additional collector making you capable of 21,000/hr. So as the cost and quantity of buildings to upgrade increases at TH8, TH9 and TH10 the entire economy is still growing at TH7 rates. Using the upgrade cost of archer towers as an example we have the following example:
With TH7 producing 18,000/hr and an upgrade cost of 720,000 to upgrade an archer tower, as we progress we get:
TH8 = 0% production increase, 1111% upgrade cost increase (4,000,000 upgrade per tower and an additional archer tower for another 4,000,000)
TH9 = 0% production increase, 1806% upgrade cost increase over TH7 (4,500,000 upgrade per tower and an additional archer tower for 4,000,000 + 4,500,000)
TH10 = 17% production increase over TH7 (one more lvl11 collector), 7013% upgrade cost increase over TH7(14,000,000 upgrade per tower and an additional archer tower for 8,500,000)
As you can clearly see as the game progresses the volume of resources being introduced into the economy is so staggeringly low that it borders on irrelevant. Where then can the TH9-10 get the loot they need to upgrade since we already established that simply stealing it back and forth from each other doesn't work? They either pay for gems (artificial instant income) or they drop to farm. There are currently NO other options for generating wealth. So lets talk about inactive accounts.
Since it takes 50 hours for collectors to fill we will consider any account that has not been logged into for 2 days inactive. I am pretty sure SC's standard is a bit longer but nobody outside of SC knows for sure. Why does it work to drop and farm then if it is just stealing resources by "picking on the little guys"? A) In part because the loot generated earlier in the game is adequate to support their portion of the economy and B) down in silver and gold is where the inactive accounts "settle" before being deactivated by SC. These accounts are the equivalent of tourist dollars in CoC. They are villages that generate resources (introducing money to the local active economy) but never upgrade anything because it is an inactive account. Regardless of TH disparity it hurts NOBODY to take their loot and drives the games economy, particularly the end game economy. When SC removed a large chunk of the inactive accounts they created a huge economic void that still needs filled and forced TH10 players to farm more active accounts down in silver and gold. Maybe the league bonus in masters will help the situation but I am not convinced it is enough.
So how do we introduce more resources into the economy without cutting into SC's bottom line? SC needs a two pronged approach to both increase the production of loot and more actively monitor and adjust it's availability. Here is how I would do it. First off the blatant need for additional collector generation is absurd. Make the 7th lvl11 mine/drill available at TH9 and add lvl12 collectors to TH10. It would not create an overnight fix but it would catch up and it would be a steady, sustainable influx of available resources that is sorely needed.
The next easy change is to re-introduce some of the inactive accounts back into the economy. This would not need a code push and could be easily manipulated in the future to regulate the economy. For example they could easily increase the number of inactive accounts for 3 days after a patch then throttle it back once the initial spending frenzy has ended. In addition to adding them back I would suggest ignoring their trophy count for match making. This would avoid the sedimentary tendency they now have to cluster in high silver and gold. The inactive bases would be spread out using TH level or the war strength calculator and assigned to leagues based on their progress. For instance inactive TH8 accounts would be searchable from silver 1 to gold 2 depending on their strength. TH9 from gold3 to crystal 2 and TH10 from gold 1 to crystal 1. If the user logs in their trophies are used to assign their gameplay but they would be spread out artificially when they go inactive. This would both discourage dropping trophies to farm and serve as a roadblock for bots. Again, since it is adjustable on SC's server it would require no code push when they wanted to introduce or remove them to adjust the economy. These are the CoC equivalent of the "tourist" dollars that I was talking about earlier that many real economies are solely dependent on.
War loot needs to be adjusted again so that winning is a gain. I don't mind taking a hit when we loose and the loot we get already for losing mitigates that just fine. However, spending 2,000,000 to get 1,000,000 back is not a win. I am OK with the calculation adjusting itself based on the army you are using but a win should both be and feel like a win. LOTS of ways this can be adjusted and this post is already long enough so I won't go into them all.
Last is another very easy change that can be throttled up or down on a whim. Add gold veins/elixir pools or whatever you want to call them that are harvested for resources. They would spawn like trees the same way that tombstones are popping up during the Halloween patch. Again, if the economy is being monitored it they can be presented more or less often easily without a code push.
If anybody took the time to read this entire post, a big thank you to you from me. To SC, after months of struggling to find loot on better than a 1:6 success rate I have decided to drop trophies below bronze and wait there casually with no need for the occasional gem purchase for a couple of months. I am spending far to much time in CoC that can not be described as playing CoC. If something big changes I may bring one of my accounts back up to see if it is fixed but otherwise I will simply be keeping my trophies low and waiting to see if any action is take to fix this. I personally will never purchase enough gems to sustain play in champion league, maybe not in masters either. But I will take my money and time else ware if the game remains unplayable. I enjoy CoC when I can actually play it but that is not what I get to do most of the time anymore. If I am not your target demographic anymore that is fine too. Lots of games to pick from.
Posting Permissions
