Breakdown of the Dark Elixir Drama (Essay: aka, long read)

[WarrenJames]

Sorry if this is more of a rant than a suggestion or feature idea, but this does touch on a common gameplay issue that I just now realized could be a major problem. Because of this new realization, I'm lacking ideas on how to address it off hand, and current stuff that's out there (that I can remember) would do a poor job of fixing it anyway.

First, the rant (and get this out of my head and onto the table so it can be dissected)
Who's bright idea was it to make such a rare resource for the game? (rhetorical, don't answer that) Out of all the three resources, this one has personally caused me the most rage when stolen. And let's not just sidestep the issue with "Well duh, put your TH outside the walls " and nod to oneself in satisfaction, as if telling a stupid noob how to play. Doesn't always work. Tell that to the countless others that I revenge attacked back, most who already have thier Town Hall exposed. Didn't work well for them when I showed up, now did it? I bet some got double and tripple hit before given a break for the day.

And it isn't just me. Others get bent out of shape when raided of this stuff. I'm glad I started playing CoC when I did. I only got a small taste of the worst of this annoyance while only several weeks into TH7 before we got our own drill, and TH8 got a second. I would hate to be the guy that went through all that rage with DE stealing and zapping up to TH9 or later, and then find out things got easier. They should get a metal for either being stupid, determined, or smart enough to handle that kind of ♥♥♥♥ and keep playing.

Well, things are still a pain in the butt. Not sure about others, but I still find the stuff too rare to use on just troops training. Ironicly, I get stuck into the trap of dumping it into my King, mostly because I want to be rid of the stuff and get it invested into something at least half useful. I do a good enough job Revenge Zapping and raiding to keep and recover what my max level drills make, with a marginal profit at times, and still build up faster than I expect, to a point. That maddening point where just as you get enough to pay for something nice, *BOOM*, you are raided, and knocked down several notches in progress. I feel surprisingly relieved when 90%+ is all spent in one place. Why the hell is that?! That doesn't seem right! Just shows that the stuff helps ruin your fun and I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels this way.

I guess us players are just ungrateful @#$%s (add your own 4 letter word). We not only have loot limiting systems and caps and loot penalties for the attacker that's higher level than us, but also the Dark Elixir Storage is the one and only strongest loot resistant storages in the game! And yet we still @#$%& over how much we lose! ♥♥♥! If I knew beforehand about this, I wouldn't have likely installed CoC. Honestly! I wouldn't have! Been in too many games where I play more and enjoy it less (sounds a lot like how I hear smoking is), and the last thing I usually need is to be addicted to a game I get more enraged over than enjoyment out of. (or maybe the depression is trolling like usual and sapping the fun ) OK, sure, fair point, just quit and walk away, and save myself from the problem. Well, I'm this deep into it, so might as well see it through. Hell, might actually help fix something about it while here in the forum.
/end of Rant.

---

OK, now that junk is out there, than clogged up inside my head... let's see what the issue is...

Granted, with any competitive game, emotions can run high. Especially so when people get too attached to things. I know I had to quit playing Diablo 2 online after a stupid move left me robbed of a my most prized gear, and the most fun, and most life saving, amulet I ever ran into. I was lucky to grab it from a killed boss while in a stage run with a lot of other loot grabby people, while on a high ping rate phone line. A stupid reaction to a player killer had me lose it just as quickly as I got it several months later. I was so ticked off by it, I rebounded back going "♥♥♥ am I doing getting so bent out of shape over a digital item in a game?!" and promptly quit since it was more than the last straw at that point.

So why is this? What is it that sets people off to react to fictional stuff as they would to more real things?

• For one, the time and effort put into it. Even though it is a game, effort does need to be put into it. When hard earned stuff gets taken, that triggers the same feelings one would get over more substantial things.
• Another, the rarity of it magnifies the effect. Right now, given how easy it is for me to get Gold and Elixir (oh hell, especially with how Elixir is Lol) I have stopped minding losses in those. Yes, annoying, but it hardly causes much of a blimp on an annoyance meter. Dark Elixir on the other hand, totaly different story.
• Lastly, how it is taken from you. If I made a base that is as good as I can make it, and it does in fact hold off most raiders from Town Hall levels equal to me or lower I feel like I have some control over the matter. Then some TH+1 comes by and raids my base with basic troops, as if to mock my efforts. It is discouraging to say the least, and even more so if it is a regular thing. On the flip side of that, a TH+1 (or higher), gets thier Dark Elixir zapped, they get painfuly humbled by the fact they aren't as impervious as they feel thier rank and status should be alotting them.

Based on that, there are two gameplay factor which are at the root of the drama around Dark Elixir; the rarity, and the methods of which it is taken...
...
That's all well and good, but how the hell do you go about fixing that? Current ideas I've seen usually are direct, simple, but aren't usually thought out far enough ahead by the person suggesting them. I should. know... I see those suggestion get proposed time and time again, with almost exactly the same arguments used against them to shoot them down.

We can't exactly propse any other change in Dark Elixir rarity, because that deals with statistical work and analysis only Supercell is able to muster and use. Though technically we can 'whine and complain' as we have been, and Supercell can judge from that, adjust values again, and feel it is a success when such 'whines and complaints' are at acceptable levels, along with positive feedback from the playerbase stating they are enjoying things more to help confirm things.

So how about fixing the bitter feelings of how we get raided? Again, that has ran into similar problems. So much so, I really don't want to go into detail about. Again ideas are proposed, but either are shot down, or given some support, but all too soon forgetten. I've worked on this angle for awhile, but nothing apparently spectacular enough has came from my brainstorming to cause a big enough impact to be to widely noticed (maybe it is the presentation, but can't personally do much on that right now.)

So what is left? Both factors are stalled at our end due to one thing or another. So there isn't possibly anything left to do, right?... Well... there is anger management and counseling. No, really! I mean it! What can help for now, until something makes headway, is talking with others on the issue, and at least unwinding some of the stress this game puts on some people, and gaining some much needed perspective on things. This is after all a game, and you are supposed to have fun, but it is really easy for people to get caught up into things and have thier enjoyment wrecked.

---

In the mean time, could try to hash out some ideas here. I'm not about to promote my ideas again, given how well those have 'worked', and how easy it is for people to find them if they really really want to know.

Another thing I guess is have this thread list other thread ideas that may work, or ideas that won't work, and shouldn't be repeated. Both are equally valid, since knowing what has been tried, and failed, is still progress. It shows not to go in that direction.

(Gah, I wrote all that?! guess that last raid with an Archer Queen shooting my damn Dark Elixir storage... again... really got it me... again. )

[Xitra]

And 2 minutes after you post this, someone else posted this gem in the same subforum:

zappers

get rid of zappping dark elexar

BTW, Warren (or should I call you James?), yes, it was long, but a good read. No ideas yet. Well, none substantial or original. But I'll keep an eye on this thread.

Edit: I mean that I don't have any ideas yet (none substantial or original). I wasn't critiquing your rant.

[WarrenJames]

I chuckled when I saw that as well with the zapping thread.

Anyway, the annoyance just had to get moved somewhere, and putting it into text seems to help. Also with it on something I know will last, it just kinda triggers my mind to say "OK, can 'delete' the original copy', and *poof*, it's more or less disconnect from my head . Honestly, I also post it as an amusing insight for others, since I know I can't be the only one that is this annoyed by the topic. Logically I very much know the issues, but sometimes you just have to rant. But did put it to use. Did dissect the bugger!

James, Warren, doesn't doesn't matter too much. Respond about the same to both, than just to my real name of James.

I don't expect any outstanding ideas to fix things any time soon, but who knows. Obviously I'm frustrated to the point on this I'm making long frick'n posts detailing what I know, in efforts to somehow help others understand what the problem might be.

[Drackos]

I'm scared to even read this....

[Xitra]

Well, things are still a pain in the butt. Not sure about others, but I still find the stuff too rare to use on just troops training. Ironicly, I get stuck into the trap of dumping it into my King, mostly because I want to be rid of the stuff and get it invested into something at least half useful. I do a good enough job Revenge Zapping and raiding to keep and recover what my max level drills make, with a marginal profit at times, and still build up faster than I expect, to a point. That maddening point where just as you get enough to pay for something nice, *BOOM*, you are raided, and knocked down several notches in progress. I feel surprisingly relieved when 90%+ is all spent in one place. Why the hell is that?! That doesn't seem right! Just shows that the stuff helps ruin your fun and I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels this way.

You know, this is probably one of the most annoying factors of dark elixir (and to a lesser extent, the pink stuff).

I've got a TH7 with no drill. My main account was already a TH8, so I'd "been there, done that". I wanted to try it without the drill. Partly for the challenge. Partly to help me understand what DE farming is like, when you can't just coast by on drill output.

It was nerve-racking, to say the least. Any time I got close to upgrading my king, I'd get raided by TH8's. (Only got my DE stolen by one TH7.) I'd have that awful dilemma of trying to session raid for 1-3 hours (depending on loot and patience with Nexting), or risk losing 1-2 raids worth of DE each time I log off.

Two things really helped:
1) I ran out of things to upgrade with elixir. So I just started running dragon raids. No more settling for 300-500 DE that I might or might not get. Now I could wait for TH8's (or the rare TH7) sitting on 1000-1500 DE. Even if I didn't manage to 3-star all of them, I never failed to get to the DE storage. The TH8's with 1500-2000 DE tended to be close to maxed (with 3 AD6's), so I avoided them (I was running 8 level 2 dragons, 8 level 4 balloons, level 5 loons in the CC, 3x lightning).
2) I finally got my king to level 5. I still need 20k DE for the hog rider upgrade, but I'm honestly not worried about it, now that I'm doing the dragon raids. I can make more in one raid than I can possibly lose in one raid, so I don't even need to session raid. I can take my sweet time, and when I get a free TH snipe shield, then all the better.

This last point, I think, is what took away the most pressure. Being able to get more DE from a raid, than I could possibly lose from a raid. It's unbelievably relieving. Having the king to 5 (or I would assume a multiple of 5 at higher TH levels) was also good, because that sense of achievement helped me to ease up. I'm actually planning to do some all hog raids, and just burn through the stuff. You know, just because I can.

When I first got DE, I was so careful with the stuff, I was afraid to upgrade my minions, because it would make them cost MORE of the precious stuff. That's just no way to enjoy a game! Now I plan to do hog raids with level 1 hogs, and then get them to level 2, and then see if I can notice the difference. I plan to be a maxed TH7 for at least a couple months, so I'll have plenty of time. (This is my second account, so intentionally keeping it one TH level below my main, which still has a couple months at least at TH8.)

[Xitra]

It was nerve-racking, to say the least. Any time I got close to upgrading my king, I'd get raided by TH8's.

True story: I was saving up for the level 3 king upgrade. I was getting close, maybe another day of farming (casually). Then we started a war. As war day approached, I realized I was going to have to go through war day without a king, or I'd have to try to hold the DE for a full day (two shield breaks, minimum). I was so worried that I'd lose any DE, that I upgraded my minions instead.

[iceageg]

OK Warren. I'll bite. Let me start off by saying that the only point of CoC is to attack people and take what they have. That means you are going to have your stuff taken too. If it is not possible for my stuff to be taken the game is completely broken, or that loot has to come from thin air. Anybody who gets butthurt over having their loot taken is playing the wrong game. That is the single point of CoC. Sure it can be played like Farmville but that is not what it was designed to be. Getting mad at people who raid your village is like getting mad that the new shotgun you bought doesn't shoot 9mm . . . because you bought a shotgun, or getting mad that you can't plant a flower garden in Call of Duty . . . wrong game.

So, an update to an earlier idea I added to one of your other threads with no feedback. Again, in an effort to make the TH your most valuable building, add more people worth attacking to the queue while never loosing entire play sessions worth of progress, and rewarding defense . . .

1) When you log off your available loot at that moment becomes your shield trigger (no more shield for a TH kill). Once you have lost that amount of loot added together by all attackers you get your shield.
2) You also get a shield if you have survived 3 attacks without giving up your maximum. If 3 attackers can't take enough to add up to your limit your defense is rewarded with a shield.
3) If your TH dies 100% of the loot taken comes from your loot. Doesn't matter how much it was, it comes from your available loot cap.
4) If your TH lives the loot comes partially from you and partially "from thin air". The loot that comes from thin air is the % damage done. The loot that comes from you is the % of your base remaining.
5) Everybody sees your maximum total available loot even if you have already been attacked. If a previous attack took some of your available loot the "from thin air" loot covers the difference on subsequent attacks. You can't loose more than if you had been wiped the first attack
6) Revenge gets it's own separate shield timers.

How does it all work? Lets use the 200,000 loot available when you log off number again and work a few scenarios.
Scenario #1 (Base layout doesn't matter because 100%):
If somebody attacks you for 100% you loose it all and get a shield because you have given up all of your available loot. No change there.
Result - You loose 200,000 and get a shield. 1 attacker got 200,000
Scenario #2 (most likely you have a TH exposed village):
If 3 players in a row attack you for 50,000 each and all of them kill your TH it works like this
Player 1 sees 200,000 (your maximum available before shield), kills your TH, gets 50,000 and because they killed your TH it all comes from you. You now have 150,000 available to be taken.
Player 2 sees 200,000 (still your maximum available), kills your TH, gets 50,000 and because they killed your TH it all comes from you. You now have 100,000 available to be taken.
Player 3 sees 200,000 (Still your maximum available), kills your TH, gets 50,000 and because they killed your TH it all comes from you. Since this is the third attack and you have not had your maximum taken you are rewarded with a shield after loosing just 150,000.
Result - you loose 150,000 of 200,000 then get a shield. 3 attackers got 50,000 each.
Scenario #3 (You put your storages outside with your TH protected):
Only 2 players will likely attack you because it will take only two to get all of your loot.
Player #1 does 10% damage killing only your storages and gets all 200,000. Because he did not kill your TH only 10% of the loot comes from thin air. 180,000 comes from you, leaving 20,000 available to be taken from you and leaving you in the queue to be attacked.
Player #2 does 10% damage killing only your storages and gets all 200,000. Because he did not kill your TH he would normally take 90% of your loot. But since you only have 20,000 left from your loot cap he takes that and gets 180,000 from thin air.
Result - You loose 200,000 to two attacks then a shield. 2 players get 200,000 each.
Scenario #4 (exactly the same as scenario #3 except you protect your storages and TH):
Player #1 brings a strong army and does 80% damage to your base but the TH survives. He gets 150,000 loot but because your TH survived only 20% is taken from your loot. You loose 30,000 and 120,000 comes from thing air.
Player #2 still sees 200,000 available but is a bit weaker. They attack for 66% and manage 90,000. 30,000 comes from you and 60,000 comes from thin air.
Player #3 still sees 200.000 and storms in. They manage 95% before time runs out. Your TH survives but they still got 200,000 loot. You pay out 5% of that for 10,000 and the other 190,000 comes from thin air. Also since this is the third attack you get your shield.
Result - you loose 70,000 of 200,000 to three good attacks and get a shield for good defense. Three players got 150,000 120,000 and 200,000 respectively for good attacks.
Scenario #5 (farm attacks when collectors are empty):
Player #1 barches for 50% and only taps some of the storage loot for 50,000. You pay 25,000 and 25,000 comes from thin air.
Player #2 barches for 50% and only taps some of the storage loot for 50,000. You pay 25,000 and 25,000 comes from thin air.
Player #3 barches for 50% and only taps some of the storage loot for 50,000. You pay 25,000 and 25,000 comes from thin air.
Result - You loose 75,000 of 200,000 to three attacks and get a shield. Three players got 50,000 each.
Scenario #6 (farm attacks when collectors are full):
Player #1 barches for 50% and scores 200,000. You pay 100,000 and 100,000 comes from thin air.
Player #2 barches for 50% and scores 200,000. You pay 100,000 and 100,000 comes from thin air.
Result - You loose 200,000 to two attacks and get a shield because your loot cap was met. Two players got 200,000 each.
__________________________________________________ ___________________

I understand that this could introduce too much loot from thin air into the economy so as an alternative your visible loot could not remain at the same number as it did when you first logged out. Instead it continues to diminish as if it had been taken but the actual quantity taken from you is still calculated using the inverse percentage calculation. The downside to this is that eventually you would not have enough to be worth raiding again and the queue would be flooded with even more low loot villages to skip over. This could be addressed by adding a shorter term shield of just a few hours if more than 50% or 75% of your available loot was taken from your storages and your TH was crushed. Not quite enough to make you safe but enough to take your low loot base out of the queue for a little while anyway.

As always please pick it apart and suggest alternatives. Personally I would love to be justified in cooking a GoWi _ _ army before I go to sleep at night so I could attack ANY base I came across and be confident that I would recoup at least most of the cost before cooking faster armies for regular farming sessions. As things are right now I may wake up to 20 or 30 minutes of nexting before I see the loot needed to make anything more than a barch attack worth while. The risk simply isn't worth it.

[chrispeterson]

essay after essay....I have a headache right now so I'll be reading this later James.

[firestar123]

Best essay ever! You should write a novel 10/10

[WarrenJames]

Kind of assuming a few things in my post that aren't totaly true, iceageg. For one, it is 'butthurt' from the still rare Dark Elixir resource that has been the issue with more than a few players in the game once they get to TH7. Depending on where you stand in the Leagues, a person can actually not mind at all being raided. Remember, I did make an anti-barcher base design thread, and posted the wins. Many of those had substantial Gold and Elixir loss, but I was fine with that, since it wasn't an issue for me where was in the League I was in. Not to mention the fact 90% of those that did attack me back then regretted it within 10 mins to 10+ days later (which is the same nowadays as well )

I am not saying "don't attack me, it hurts " and want to defeat the purpose of the game. What I'm saying is that it 'hurts' some or most people too much to be fun. It is like the difference between (American) football before and after Teddy Roosevelt stepped in. Teddy loved a good fight, and loved football because of it's fighting nature. However, you think our athaletes have it bad with news of concussion plaguing the sport today? Imagine people dying every now and then from just playing! It was so bad, colleges where thinking of dropping the spot, effectively killing it where it stood if that happened. President Theodore Roosevelt stepped in and worked with people to help rewrite the rules to ease the roughness of the sport to a point to prevent the occasionally involuntary manslaughter, while keeping the main spirit of the game intact. Most of what you see in football today is a result of Teddy keeping it fun, and not let people get too hurt.

I don't know how many have noticed, but more than a few defence ideas I have made actually promote attacking back! Literally, it is setup to cause a chain reaction of raids, with a combo of reducing the 'butthurt' of being raided, which reduces the desire to hide behind a shield, which expands the attackable base pool, and encourages people to attack after getting raided.

So you can kinda see, being attacked isn't my issue, it is being attacked to where it violates the average person's arbitrary sense of fairness and fun that I'm trying to address.

---

Anyway, the proposed idea...

uh.. Sorry, I can't get past the "no more shield for a TH kill" part Been made too gun shy from previous 'arguments' to even touch that approach until the current gameplay environment has changed drastically to where people aren't going to explode in a fit of rage at such an idea. I'm likely not going to be the best person to ask in regards to this. Or maybe I am since I know all too well it will have really bad naysayers... I don't know. Just how I see it from my angle.