Crazy Idea: Spend Trophies For Features

[WarrenJames]

Sorry if this idea is light on ideas, but I just want to test the concept first before investing too much thought into it.

But...

What if some features cost trophies to use? Crazy right?
I mean, to a degree we already do this. Farming bases do it, and many people dump trophies to get to a set level for easier bases and less harassment of higher level bases. Plus there are many arguments as to where is it tactically sound to retreat and save troops than just dump everything and likely lose anyway.

So what if there were some bonuses or features where giving up points in your throphy score gave you some set of features that could only be gotten by giving up... I don't know.. prestige, bragging rights, pride, status? (What are these cups for anyway?! )

I'm kind of at a lose as to think of a well balanced feature that would cost trophies, but the theme of them would be humbling related things like... Idk, something akin to "Please don't attack me" for some kind of shield. Or some kind of 'cheap trick' that boosts defences, or asking for the nefarious goblins for help. Or Give a trophy bonus to a raider, so the raider 'accepts' a handicap (Listed handicap would be obvious during the 30 second scouting), or spend trophies for some kind of loot hiding trick, where loot is buried somewhere in the playing field, (still lootable, but not obvious, and can be missed... bring goblins)...

Stuff like that. Something to liven up the game, and put a use to those trophies that people don't totaly value as high as some other people do. Yes, this could change the amount of trophies circulating in the game, and if features didn't have limits or cooldowns it could kick a hole in the game and cause a massive trophy leak.

But trophies are made all the time, and Supercell can always tweak things to make it generate a bit more at the upper end of things. We know the very lower end, trophies are generated like mad, with defeats giving up 1-3 cups while the winner gets 10 to 15(?) cups?

Anyway, some thoughts on this crazy idea? Tried searching, but like hell I could get past every other reference to "trophies" and "spending" and "features" to find anything else like this talked about before.

[sabriath]

How the current system of trophy integration works, I don't see how this would be a good thing for the game.....it would almost immediately ruin Champion league within a couple months.

Let me explain, when you attack someone and win 10 trophies, you are actually taking THEIR 10 trophies. If everyone in the game were to attack each other in a round-robin fashion, the same 10 trophies would continuously circulate between all the players.....someone would have them, everyone else wouldn't. In order to inflate the trophies in circulation without directly involving themselves, all they did was put a '0' cap on low-level players....since you cannot go negative, when you destroy a low-level player, you gain trophies and he doesn't lose any. This small quirk in the game allowed the inflation rate to go from 3000 to about 4778 (top player) over the span of about 3 years maybe? This allows a huge and reasonable gap between leagues.

Now imagine you provide your suggestion...this is called a "money sink" (or in this case, a trophy sink) in game mechanics. For every trophy that you allow a player to pay, you literally take a trophy out of circulation....gone. Even if it is for cosmetic reasons, it is not sustainable, eventually everyone loses.

This is how it will work....high level players will not use it because they don't want to waste their hard-earned trophies, low level players will not be able to afford it as they are maintaining other important things (like staying within the 1k farming range)....so it will begin with a massive amount of mid-level players who don't care. I suspect the 1500-2200 range will be effected the most, pretty much completely wiping out the entire middle league. Without mid-level players, no one can get up to masters/champion....and hitting a champion (a lucky random draw of the "next" button) will drop them down into a pit they can't climb back out of. One by one, champions will fall down into the masters or even crystal league....a deflation at a rate much higher than you could even imagine. Eventually, if SC does nothing, there will no longer be a champion league, then no master league....no bonus loot at the top ranks at all....which means loot itself will become scarce again (because there are already money sinks in the game for that to make up for the influx from bonus and clan wars).

Economy 101....in a nutshell, it would destroy just about everything.....and all because you wanted to put some money into the ground as a fluff effect. Gold/Elixir already pays for useless stuff (like flags and statues), so there's no reason they wouldn't pay for fluff effect as well....trophies (in my opinion) are off limits for payment sake.

[UndeadZombie]

How the current system of trophy integration works, I don't see how this would be a good thing for the game.....it would almost immediately ruin Champion league within a couple months.

Let me explain, when you attack someone and win 10 trophies, you are actually taking THEIR 10 trophies. If everyone in the game were to attack each other in a round-robin fashion, the same 10 trophies would continuously circulate between all the players.....someone would have them, everyone else wouldn't. In order to inflate the trophies in circulation without directly involving themselves, all they did was put a '0' cap on low-level players....since you cannot go negative, when you destroy a low-level player, you gain trophies and he doesn't lose any. This small quirk in the game allowed the inflation rate to go from 3000 to about 4778 (top player) over the span of about 3 years maybe? This allows a huge and reasonable gap between leagues.

Now imagine you provide your suggestion...this is called a "money sink" (or in this case, a trophy sink) in game mechanics. For every trophy that you allow a player to pay, you literally take a trophy out of circulation....gone. Even if it is for cosmetic reasons, it is not sustainable, eventually everyone loses.

This is how it will work....high level players will not use it because they don't want to waste their hard-earned trophies, low level players will not be able to afford it as they are maintaining other important things (like staying within the 1k farming range)....so it will begin with a massive amount of mid-level players who don't care. I suspect the 1500-2200 range will be effected the most, pretty much completely wiping out the entire middle league. Without mid-level players, no one can get up to masters/champion....and hitting a champion (a lucky random draw of the "next" button) will drop them down into a pit they can't climb back out of. One by one, champions will fall down into the masters or even crystal league....a deflation at a rate much higher than you could even imagine. Eventually, if SC does nothing, there will no longer be a champion league, then no master league....no bonus loot at the top ranks at all....which means loot itself will become scarce again (because there are already money sinks in the game for that to make up for the influx from bonus and clan wars).

Economy 101....in a nutshell, it would destroy just about everything.....and all because you wanted to put some money into the ground as a fluff effect. Gold/Elixir already pays for useless stuff (like flags and statues), so there's no reason they wouldn't pay for fluff effect as well....trophies (in my opinion) are off limits for payment sake.

I didn't read the whole thing (because I'm lazy) but I agree with you!

[WarrenJames]

...
Stuff like that. Something to liven up the game, and put a use to those trophies that people don't totaly value as high as some other people do. Yes, this could change the amount of trophies circulating in the game, and if features didn't have limits or cooldowns it could kick a hole in the game and cause a massive trophy leak.

But trophies are made all the time, and Supercell can always tweak things to make it generate a bit more at the upper end of things. We know the very lower end, trophies are generated like mad, with defeats giving up 1-3 cups while the winner gets 10 to 15(?) cups?
...

sabriath, you are repeating, in detail, what I already more or less knew, and I was half awake when I wrote this too. Nice analysis though, I have to admit that! I had just a general idea of the bad side if managed badly, but the detailed logic of it is interesting. I knew that trophies were finite, and was gradually added into the system as people from lower ranks generated them. With how many people camping at the sub-200 level, I'm surprised trophy counts haven't inflated even fast!

Anyway, Some of the ideas I stated actually keep cups in circulation, like the handicapped raiding idea where the raiding player has a harder time attacking, but can win more cups. And those feature ideas were all off the top of my head too!(aka, don't have to be done that way) Done with the assumption that some cup loss was acceptable. You can easily come up with more ideas that fit that format and cause 0 loss. Supercell can even counter some of the loss by generating cups with just a minor injection of cups between each transfer. But all of this is academic, given no numbers have been established, and no limiting factors have been defined. So the rate of loss or gain can not be guessed, let alone logicaly figured out... yet.

I am just asking for people's feels on the concept, which I am getting , so keep up with the feedback. Just remember this is a brand new idea, (as far as I can tell) and obvious problems should be patched before shooting down the idea as a whole. This is part feasibility study for a new take on things. So stating the problems is part of it, but if there are easy fixes, those should be stated as well.

The theme of this is losing honor and status for a combat edge, which is a common thing in every conflict. Trophies are treated rather cheaply early on, and would be almost wholy ignored if it wasn't for the fact it affected what bases you are matched with. This could bring trophies more to the forefront as they now show more value as a badge of honor and status, where they can be gained or lost at different rates, based on how much a person is willing to sacrifice thier status. It is a tempting factor, should I be 'dishonourable' and gain an edge now or should I 'play fair' and keep my status.

[Drackos]

Have you gone mad!

[sabriath]

The current rate of inflation is extremely small and somewhat controlled (due to the ratio of attacks at subpar levels that gain any resources in order to build the troops necessary...pretty much limited by the pumps). If you add in the ability to buy something with trophies, then you would turn it into a deflationary system.....to fix this, SC would have to find a way to increase the rate at which trophies are put into the game.

The only thing I can think of is give the winning player 1 extra trophy that the losing player doesn't get taken for (so if you raid someone for 10 trophies, they lose only 9). The issue is that when people get wind of this, they will immediately put their base on the outside and start hitting each other like madmen on crack....they would be flooded with trophies into the hundreds of thousands (you hit me, I hit you, 2 trophies are added to the ballgame, since my king didn't take a hit, I can repeat the process indefinitely, every 10 seconds or so that it takes to destroy a townhall).

The other thing would be to give extra trophies to players who win a war....since war is limited to 48 hour periods, there's no way you can bring in trophies any faster. This might work, but that's walking a thin tightrope (if too many people pop trophies in a short period, it might take a long time to recoup the market). A cooldown on these purchases would be feasible, but I now wonder what could possibly be bought with trophies that couldn't be bought with gold or elixir.

[Xitra]

The current rate of inflation is extremely small and somewhat controlled (due to the ratio of attacks at subpar levels that gain any resources in order to build the troops necessary...pretty much limited by the pumps). If you add in the ability to buy something with trophies, then you would turn it into a deflationary system.....to fix this, SC would have to find a way to increase the rate at which trophies are put into the game.

The only thing I can think of is give the winning player 1 extra trophy that the losing player doesn't get taken for (so if you raid someone for 10 trophies, they lose only 9). The issue is that when people get wind of this, they will immediately put their base on the outside and start hitting each other like madmen on crack....they would be flooded with trophies into the hundreds of thousands (you hit me, I hit you, 2 trophies are added to the ballgame, since my king didn't take a hit, I can repeat the process indefinitely, every 10 seconds or so that it takes to destroy a townhall).

The other thing would be to give extra trophies to players who win a war....since war is limited to 48 hour periods, there's no way you can bring in trophies any faster. This might work, but that's walking a thin tightrope (if too many people pop trophies in a short period, it might take a long time to recoup the market). A cooldown on these purchases would be feasible, but I now wonder what could possibly be bought with trophies that couldn't be bought with gold or elixir.

Actually, a simple solution to trophy deflation is to have the "spent" trophies be awarded to the other party. So if someone spends trophies to make an attack more lucrative, for example, the defender would get those trophies. If a defender spends trophies for some sort of defensive perk, the attacker would get the trophies.

Another simple solution is to make these perks available only at high trophy counts, high enough where the number of trophies deleted can't possibly compete with the number of trophies created at low trophies.

[WarrenJames]

Have you gone mad!

Maaaybeee...

Then again, most crazy people don't just openly claim to being crazy.

The current rate of inflation is extremely small and somewhat controlled (due to the ratio of attacks at subpar levels that gain any resources in order to build the troops necessary...pretty much limited by the pumps). If you add in the ability to buy something with trophies, then you would turn it into a deflationary system.....to fix this, SC would have to find a way to increase the rate at which trophies are put into the game.

I don't know if I would say it is extremely small, but yes, it isn't that big. You have to remember you have people camping in the Sub 200s, which generate a lot of cups as they try to stay that low, but that is countered, to a degree, with possible removal of inactive villages.

Unfortunately, I can't see either of us coming up with solid details on how much is generated, besides the obvious fact that there has been slow and steady inflation since the game started.

The only thing I can think of is give the winning player 1 extra trophy that the losing player doesn't get taken for (so if you raid someone for 10 trophies, they lose only 9). The issue is that when people get wind of this, they will immediately put their base on the outside and start hitting each other like madmen on crack....they would be flooded with trophies into the hundreds of thousands (you hit me, I hit you, 2 trophies are added to the ballgame, since my king didn't take a hit, I can repeat the process indefinitely, every 10 seconds or so that it takes to destroy a townhall).

I'm having a hard time seeing that happening. With the selfish nature of players (not saying that is a bad thing), I can't see that much coordination being made between unknown players. You may be right, but I just can't see it with how you put it.

What I can see more of is more Town Hall Sniping, and more raiding of inactive bases for cups. Also unfortunately, (or fortunately?) more raids on low level Town Hall villages with a high trophy count, as Trophies become more of a hot commodity, and become more useful than how you place yourself in the League of choice.

Hmm... this could be bad. Not sure if that would miff people that want that shield from snipes, and could upset people that love those abandoned bases with such wonderful low hanging fruit. I do want to 'solve' the exposed Town Hall 'issue' (not so much an issue as is just a symptom of a worse issue), but not this way, in a negative reinforcement manner. Unless of course there is an offer of features to compensate for the loss of thier beloved exposed Town Hall setup.

Plus, abandoned bases would sink even faster to the sub 200s as people strip it of cups, rather than just loot. There would be less reason to trophy drop to maintain your target range, as spending it for features (regardless of if they stay in the system or disappear) would be a preferred way to get rid of excess cups.

Surprised no one else brought that up yet. Yikes...

The other thing would be to give extra trophies to players who win a war....since war is limited to 48 hour periods, there's no way you can bring in trophies any faster. This might work, but that's walking a thin tightrope (if too many people pop trophies in a short period, it might take a long time to recoup the market). A cooldown on these purchases would be feasible, but I now wonder what could possibly be bought with trophies that couldn't be bought with gold or elixir.

Like I said, these would be themed features that would not be currently available via any other means, requiring the losing of status to use. I did suggest that maybe all the features could keep cups in the system, as it gives extra cups to the other guy for one reason or another, which now that I think about it, that will help a lot in just keeping things simple. If it just gives out more cups in one fashion or another, then you can 'spend them' while the other person claims them.

Anyway, I see some major issues with this idea. One being the possible outrage of farm base users, which may or may not happen (hard to say for sure), but the sudden drop of abandoned bases would be a big issue for people, as some heavily rely on those for income. I'm split on the issue of abandoned bases, like a smoker is about quiting smoking. Personally, I like the easy loot, but gameplay wise, it is a bad liability, as it gives way too much reward for such minimal effort, making the [Next] button more an addictive slot machine than anything else. Plus, abandoned bases do add a significant amount of loot to the game, and sinking quickly down the ranks would cause people to have fits with finding loot, and force Supercell's hand on fixing loot issues again.

The idea may work, but I'm starting to doubt if it is doable in this current game environment... Anyone else have feedback on this?

[useless]

thats to mush crazy then it should be

trophy are just to show ur rank nothing more




edit: yeah i know i know my post is not really useless

[WarrenJames]

thats to mush crazy then it should be

trophy are just to show ur rank nothing more

edit: yeah i know i know my post is not really useless

I know... Heck, they barely do that. Only being important to players when mostly through all the Town Hall levels.

Was thinking of something to shake things up in a good way, but maybe it rocks the boat too much. Anyway, I want a bit more feedback from others before possibly saying this is too crazy to work for this game.