*Proof* of why snipers are damaging the economy

[Goobers]

I went 11 defenses and only 1 was a snipe this week and last weekend. Of course i'm in gold 1 offering close to max so nobody is going to snipe me lol.

I actually have been thinking lately that nobody is leaving their town hall outside and nobody is doing any sniping. This trend must be dying a little in the low leagues.

And I bet you understand why you're not seeing many TH snipes.

Gold 1 offers a 14k/14k league bonus. Hmm, seems as though it's not very economical to snipe bases down in Silver and Gold leagues for loot, but for some reason it is attractive to do so in Crystal/Masters/Champs. If only there was some correlation that these forum users could all arrive at which would explain why bases with tons of loot get TH sniped up at Crystal 1 within minutes of coming off their shields, but that same base will sit in Gold 3 for sometimes hours before an actual attack is made on its base, and are rarely TH snipes. I guess I just can't put my finger on it.

[gorzo93]

Because that's sniping etiquette - if I snipe a TH outside, then I don't get revenged becuase we both got what we wanted. If I do more than snipe (including zapping) that's a "real attack" and I could expect a revenge.

So you put your TH out, and got one snipe and one snipe/zap. The zapper could be revenged.

BTW both snipes CREATED loot (from the bonus) since neither cost more than the units spent or the tiny loss on your base. Had anyone taken your loot, that would have had 0 inpact on the loot supply - it just moved from one base to another - less the cost of the army which is lost forever.

Im sure you understand that games like this work on the idea that loot flows from less active to more active players, right?

Would you rather loot 6.5k from the sniper, or 700k from me?

[Goobers]

They didn't hurt the economy at all. The economy is only hurt when people don't take loot from full collectors. In both of those screenshots your collectors still had more room to collect which means loot was not being wasted because it was still being gathered.

I agree that it is wasteful to leave a base with completely full collectors if you have the ability to attack them (some bases have all their collectors behind multiple walls and you may not be able to reach them), but there is no problem leaving the collectors on a base when they still are not full.

And it could be worse, you could have left your town hall in and countless people would have thrown gold away nexting past your base. That would have truly been bad for the economy.

Yes you are partly correct, my dark elixir drills are full at this point. But I'm talking about the fact that snipers would rather snipe an inactive base than attack it. Which means it is hidden from all of us. And when it gets off shield it gets sniped again, unless we are quick enough to find it. There are two economies: the available economy, and the absolute economy. The available economy is what matters. If there is 1000m dark elixir sitting in the absolute economy but not in the available economy it may as well not exist for us. And that is what snipers do; they remove loot from the available economy.

Gorzo, don't even try to have a rational discussion with this guy. You should see some of the ideals he holds regarding how this game was meant to be played in his mind, it's insane. He would be the biggest troll on this forum if it wasn't for the aspect that I'm pretty sure he legitimately believes the things he's saying. Ignore him before he takes you down into his "everyone should progress evenly, and no one should take from anyone" speech.

[victort]

I love snipers.... I sit in c1, and raid and zap, and raid all day... no need to stay online, as I know for 99.9% of the time, I will be sniped by some achievement hunting th7 or th8..... They keep my loot safe from raiders and revengers.


I disagree with the old hurting the economy argument, but wouldn't be against changing the reward system... its the farmers leaving th out that are the cause, so why not penalise them.... If you are attacked, and lose TH only, you should lose 50% extra, on top of anything else lost...

Don't blame the snipers, it's low life cowardly farmers and zappers, with TH out, like me that encourage them.....

[Goobers]

The thing is, snipers have existed since the beginning of the game, and back then there was no damage in the economy.

I'm not saying that snipers don't play a role at all in the rarity of bases with good loot, it's that there aren't the only ones and the main one to blame.

Whatever general facts we have on the current game economy, we're looking at the wrong ones.

Im not saying that they are the main reason why the economy is how it is. I'm just showing that they are making the economy worse. There are of course other reasons for the current situation.

It's not the sniping that is the problem, it's the fact that TH sniping is rewarded just as lucratively as a 3-star attack that's the problem. You fix the issue in the second part of that sentence and it solves the first.

How many times since the beginning of the game has Supercell increased league bonuses? I am still relatively new, started in Jan 2014, and I've already experienced two increases. I'm sure there were plenty more prior to me starting. Every increase further encourages TH snipes over actual raids, and at lower and lower trophy thresholds.

I definitely remember last winter reading tons of threads that used to complain that trophy pushing was so punishable b/c the league bonuses were so dismal, and it caused SC to up them across the board. What they should have done at that point was to decide to reform the league bonus system.

Increase the league bonuses, absolutely, but only allow them to be fully earned by 2-star attacks. Give a bonus to 3-star attacks. Isn't that what SC intended with this game: to encourage resource-efficient farming as well as devastating, base-leveling attacks?

There is absolutely no incentive to level a base in higher leagues anymore. In fact, it hurts your progress b/c it requires that you invest a considerably higher amount of resources (both time and elixir/DE) before you can even attack again. And it rewards just the same as a TH snipe from the game, except for trophies which have essentially no value at this point.

But wait, maybe you're here purely for the sake of disagreeing with the OP's point, and you're gonna now come at me and say that the added trophies from a 3-star justify the cost and therefore makes TH sniping balanced. Alright you fedora-donning atheist internet debater, I'll take your bait. Couldn't you just snipe 2 more bases and receive roughly the same amount of trophies at not only a fraction of the army cost, but faster than the time you'd need to rebuild those troops as well? Because that's exactly what happens. And it takes those bases out of the queue, it makes players who want to attack with heavier armies even less inclined to do so (as bases like Gorzo's and Wintaburr's and Warble's and hell, even MINE just get sniped away when we're holding amounts that should be hit for their worth), thus reinforcing the vicious cycle of TH sniping even more.

Supercell, fix the league bonus system already and stop rewarding these pathetic attacks just as lucratively as actual raids.

[Goobers]

I love snipers.... I sit in c1, and raid and zap, and raid all day... no need to stay online, as I know for 99.9% of the time, I will be sniped by some achievement hunting th7 or th8..... They keep my loot safe from raiders and revengers.


I disagree with the old hurting the economy argument, but wouldn't be against changing the reward system... its the farmers leaving th out that are the cause, so why not penalise them.... If you are attacked, and lose TH only, you should lose 50% extra, on top of anything else lost...

Don't blame the snipers, it's low life cowardly farmers and zappers, with TH out, like me that encourage them.....

At first I thought "yeah, treat the TH like another storage and that will incentivise players to keep their THs protected, thus providing more bases with decent loots to more players and at a fraction of the Nexting times." But I was quickly shown how players would still want to sacrifice 1/5th of their loot rather than risk up to all of it, and really all it's doing is punishing players for keeping their THs outside. The punishment wouldn't be enough to have them bring it inside most of the time either, and would just make TH sniping even more profitable.

You don't need to punish players who keep their THs outside to curb the massive level of TH sniping. Just simply stop rewarding it so lucratively from a resource standpoint. Snipes will still happen for players who want to quickly move up in leagues, but if they want to earn the league bonuses at that league, 2-stars or better. Can you even imagine the amount of resource-flush bases that will be out in the queue when TH snipes are only worth 2% of the league bonus? Suddenly all those elixir-heavy armies you wanted to try are now viable options, as the risk of going 100+ Nexts without finding a base for them is insanely mitigated.

If you want to encourage players to keep their THs protected, provide a defensive league bonus. Positive reinforcement works so much better than negative reinforcement, and it also doesn't upset the majority of the community.

[3thanol]

No problem here, OP puts TH outside then moans that he got sniped and got shielded. doh....

[nas]

This is my defense log almost 2 weeks ago:
Gold storages: full
Gold collectors: almost full
CC: 1.2m/2m gold

Lol whoa he had a full army too.

[Akakios]

Is it damaging the economy? Possibly, but not on a macro-scale. I would say that putting your town hall outside is what the bad economy has forced players to do. They're essentially submitting to the hand they've been dealt. They say 'I can leave my TH outside and likely save these resources', or I can protect my TH as the game intended and be raided about 4 times and lose everything"

What damaged the economy was the deprioritization of inactive bases combined not adding a viable replacement of that loot. Putting your townhall outside is just an attempt to remedy the situation.

[victort]

At first I thought "yeah, treat the TH like another storage and that will incentivise players to keep their THs protected, thus providing more bases with decent loots to more players and at a fraction of the Nexting times." But I was quickly shown how players would still want to sacrifice 1/5th of their loot rather than risk up to all of it, and really all it's doing is punishing players for keeping their THs outside. The punishment wouldn't be enough to have them bring it inside most of the time either, and would just make TH sniping even more profitable.

You don't need to punish players who keep their THs outside to curb the massive level of TH sniping. Just simply stop rewarding it so lucratively from a resource standpoint. Snipes will still happen for players who want to quickly move up in leagues, but if they want to earn the league bonuses at that league, 2-stars or better. Can you even imagine the amount of resource-flush bases that will be out in the queue when TH snipes are only worth 2% of the league bonus? Suddenly all those elixir-heavy armies you wanted to try are now viable options, as the risk of going 100+ Nexts without finding a base for them is insanely mitigated.

If you want to encourage players to keep their THs protected, provide a defensive league bonus. Positive reinforcement works so much better than negative reinforcement, and it also doesn't upset the majority of the community.

The majority don't care though. ... I see no evidence that your side of the argument represents them, plus I still don't think the economy is broken anyway...

I suppose it comes down to who you blame..... If someome puts food out everyday, and then complains abouthe rats infesting his neighbourhood, do you blame the rats, or the person feeding them?


It's the farmers leaving TH out to blame for this issue If it's an issue at all......