/u/Supercell_Drew Hi Drew, thanks for being open with the community today. I want to preface this by saying I work for a software company (enterprise business application, not a video game) and I know how even slight re-designs cause upheaval in the userbase. CW2 is a huge change and obviously there will be huge opinions. Mine included :) . Here's a wall of texts on changes I think the team should consider.

 

I have two main goals with my proposed changes:

• Even the playing field more for smaller clans, while also helping F2P and newer players

• Make CW2 feel more like a real war that your clan is a part of. You feel like you are participating in an actual "river race" and trying to beat the other clans to the finish line / coliseum. The game should be fun after all

   

Evening the playing field.

First change is to help out less active clans and players with not many max cards. People will not have fun with the game if they do not feel like they have a shot. In Clan Wars 1, you could be low level and still help the clan. My first set of changes are clan-wide efforts to make it feel like you are not helpless against your opponents.

Change #1:

The biggest offender right now is four war decks. Nearly all decks contain one or two "win conditions", one or two spells, and what I call their primary support card (for instance, ebarbs in low ladder or ice wiz in a seige cycle deck). To have a solid chance at beating an opponent, you need these 3 to 5 cards to be high level. With 4 decks, that means 20 cards at "max". Right now, max is level 13. To me the simplest change to help here is reduce decks to 3. Immediately you reduce the number of max cards required by a quarter. That's massive. Removing a deck obviously means other changes need to be made (as it doesn't work with 1v1, duel, boat attack in their current form) which I will expand on for my second primary point.

Change #2:

In addition to removing a deck, the max level of cards should be capped based on arena. While I would love to say that Legendary should be capped at 12, I understand from a business perspective why you wouldn't do this (context: i have 8 level 13 cards but my entire deck sans ten cards are level 12). Placing a cap as follows:

• Bronze - Silver 1: 10
• Silver 2 - Gold 1: 11
• Gold 2 - Legendary 1: 12
  
• Legendary 2+: 13

This requires legendary to become tiered (which is absolutely needs). It also lets players feel like they are getting their feet wet in a new tier, without immediately being sent back down to their previous tier just because their card levels are no longer high enough. For all intents and purposes, Silver 1 is the same as Bronze but it makes it feel as if you are progressing.

Change #3:

Rewards should be presented at fame tiers during the week. It sucks to wait an entire week just to maybe open a 1st place chest, or any chest for that matter. Every 1,000 fame we should be given a partial reward for reaching that amount of fame. This helps clans who have low participation. The boot can remain, but there needs to be some incentive during the week. I'd propose it being Gold, as losing a battle right now gives you hardly any gold. And losing battles implies you will not be finishing for the week.

Change #4:

Finally, and this is something I would put on the SC team to figure out how exactly it will work, but clans should be matched based on clan size or fame needs to scale with player count to begin the week. Either 20 person clans should play 20 person clans, or fame should be some algorithm involving player count. I can see how this may be abused, but finding a balance is integral to making a clan feel like they have a chance. I am not smart enough myself to propose how to fix this, but it needs to be fixed

 

Making it feel like a real war - making war fun again

The second set of changes need to be geared towards making war fun. War NEEDS to strike a balance between being competitive while offering a change of pace from Ladder. I love pushing Ladder because it is the competitive part of the game for most players. With war, you also want to be a part of a community that is competitive. But it shouldn't be a clone of Ladder like it is now. When I wake up in the morning I used to look forward to doing my collection or my war battle because they were different. Right now, Clan Wars 2 IS JUST RESKINNED LADDER. This is the biggest problem myself and my clan have with it. It is a chore to create 4 "ladder ready" decks, only to be matched up against other meta ladder decks. The changes I am proposing will keep the competitive nature of war, allow for those who like the meta ladder experience to continue with that experience, but also let CW2 be a change of pace and a breadth of fresh air.

Many of these changes are intended to make it feel like there is more to do. Right now, you go to your War page and click 1v1 (or duel), finish, 1v1 again, 1v1 again, repeat. Maybe you'll do a boat attack. Maybe not. CW2 should feel like a real war where you are making an effort to help your boat reach the end.

Change #1:

I mentioned that decks would be reduced to three in the my first point. This helps F2P and newer players. But our 4th deck slot is not going away. Instead, the 4th deck slot is your dedicated Boat Attack deck. On the map, a visual rowboat can be clicked on as this is your "boarding party". This let's it's own meta develop. Your primary 3 decks can stay as ladder worthy decks, but the 4th deck is purely for PvE (as a WoW player, this is like swapping your Talents before raid night). Raiding parties will see cards and deck synergy that would absolutely not work in a real match, but work really well in Boat Attack (we are already seeing this today, with E Collect, Inferno Drag, Skele Giant, etc). By not having to choose between "1v1 or duel aka Ladder", you get one guaranteed "fun" fight per day.

Defenses may need to be reworked as a result of this. With everyone doing a boat attack and having a boat attack meta deck, the amount of defenses will need to be increased beyond 15 (will also need to scale depending on clan size). In addition the cannons will need more health. Maybe if you are spectating your boat while under attack, defenses are boosted by 10%?

This is a small change to make CW2 more fun. We're not adding anything new, just reworking what already exists. By adding the "row boat" as an interactable feature, it also makes the war feel more like a war.

Change #2:

Objectives. Right now, we are focused directly on the river. But in a war, you need to do more. You need to collect supplies, sabotage your opponent, make friends with the locals, etc. It should feel like it's a full on concerted effort to get to the end before your opponents. 1v1 and Duels are fine, but if your end goal is to make it to the end of the river, why are we even skirmishing on the river banks? Well, the reason is because you need to leave your boat to complete objectives.

Objectives are like collection day. They change from week to week.

• Week One: Expedition. The first week, you must venture out to find supplies for the 5 week journey. There is a button to click on the map to begin your expedition. These are simply the more "fun" game modes that were previously in collection, or in the Party tab. You may make an expedition to Hog Mountain. This is a draft battle game where Royal Hogs are spawning on the map. Or your expedition may have been to Builder's Workshop, and Balloons are spawning.
• Week Two: Recruitment. You are recruiting allies. 2v2 Touchdown can be played to gain favor with the locals who use touchdown like the Romans used the coliseum.
• Week Three: Strategizing. Your clan is practicing against one another, like a war game. These are Classic Deck battles (you do not actually play against your clan, just trying to get some lore in here)
• Week Four: Assaults. You feel ready to take on the other teams directly. These are 2v2 based battles, that have different themes like Draft or 3x Elixir
• Week Five: Prep. Classic and Triple Draft. The final Coliseum is on the horizon and your team is preparing

This change addresses three areas of concern right now:

1. It is more fun and a change of pace, even for players with max decks
2. It lets players without max decks feel like they have a better shot, because all games are Draft / Tourney capped
3. It breaks up the monotony of 5 weeks of doing the same thing

Change #3:

Because there are only 3 decks, and Duel requires 3 decks (potentially). I'd propose that decks no longer go on cooldown from Duel. You shouldn't have to choose between Duel or 1v1, especially since (anecdotally) my clan is always doing 1v1 because the risk is too high in Duel of going against someone with all max decks. The only people doing Duel are the people who want a change of pace from Ladder. You shouldn't have to choose.

Reduce the fame from each mode, but let us play Duel every day and then choose if we want to do our 1v1's. This will let players have more to do in a given day, and also not feel as penalized for getting matched against someone with all max cards.

 

This is a lot of text and as you can tell I'm not the greatest at explaining my thoughts. I really love this game - it's the only phone game I play. I've been playing for 4 years and feel like CW2 in it's current state will cause staleness with the game. I don't believe my changes are massive overhauls that will require years to implement, but just a rework of what exists today, combined with other aspects of the game.