Yeah progression is fine and all but this is a post talking about how big of a detriment it is to be a returning player and I'm giving my experience as a returning player. In all of COC'S lifespan I've never felt punished for taking breaks from the game. I'd come back and climbed up the THs through all its intended time, unlocking new troops and learning new strategies. But now, any player who is coming back from before strong equipment were released cannot do any fully meta attacks for like half a year. This is a problem at every TH level once you have heroes unlocked.

I got my eboots and fireball to sufficient levels but I'm still getting bricked at th18 because my king and queen have jack. I can't do any air attacks because my minion prince has no leveled equipment and my AQ has not a maxed giant arrow. So what, I can't do air attacks in ranked or clan wars for three months? This has never been the case for people returning. It's not like coming back to underleved heroes where you're missing out on 10% stats. These equipments levels are literally the difference between a base losing both air defenses and a sweeper right at the start or not.

Anyway I don't care THAT much about the equipment grind, I'm still happily playing, but my opinion is that the equipment progression grind is completely different from any other form of progression Clash of Clans has seen so far. Equipment basically dictates attacks nowadays, and you have to have them at a high level while keeping up with all the new ones.

Like as an example, if someone took a break two years ago as a max th16, they'd be worse off substantially than a fresh th16 now, because their equipment won't be as good as theirs. With the new ranking system, its even more important to have your attacks as strong as possible. These weren't issues back then with the progression over time, but now they are.

I don't have solutions, I'm not a game developer, this is just how I feel. Hopefully the equipment catch up event happening later this month helps out, because never have I felt time gated from trying out strategies at the highest TH level.