A CR RANT BY A STUPID OLD MAN FROM AUSTRALIA

I have to commence by giving credit where credit is due. Survival in the mobile gaming world is no easy gig. Thousands come and go each year, but through this cluster fuck of apps offering a constant barrage of in game purchases to help you to progress (make them rich), only the strongest will survive. Clash Royale has been through some tough times of late. In 2020, it felt like the Rona infected not just the globe but the game as well, and for many months CR had it bad as it clung to survival on a ventilator. The dev team worked, well kinda worked, to keep it alive. In a Herculean effort, the game made it through the worst, but Covid in the form of CWII has left long term damage on the lungs. ...yet it lives, and for that CR deserves credit. *applause* I'm not the most experienced gamer in the world, but in my humble opinion, the reason CR keeps kicking and fighting is because at its very core, it is the best mobile game out there. Ignoring all the copycats, it is a unique mano el mano test of skill. Okay, stop laughing. Lets just pretend for a moment, as we pay credit to CR, that match ups are not a serious blight on the game. I'll cover that later. ******************************************************************************************** It is easy to be critical of updates but it is incredibly tough to create an update which significantly advances the game and pleases a large portion of the player base. I think we often forget that and judge the updates from within our own experience, our personal bubble. I try and avoid doing this. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have survived for this long in the game as a maxed player. I would have quit a long time ago. Alas, I'm still here, perhaps stupidly, but hope burns eternal. From within my own bubble, I have two criticisms about the more recent updates. The first is directed at CWII. When the game first released Clan Wars, I think it was mid 2018, it was outstanding new content. My own clan became deeply engrossed and it was not unusual for 10-15 people to be watching someone's final battle. With about 15 real life friends in my clan, we even got together for games nights which incorporated our final clan battle. For about two months it was a glorious time, but then the light began to fade quite quickly and soon Clan Wars became a monotonous chore for most. Clan leaders all over the globe began adding "Clan Wars Compulsory" to their clan bios. It stopped being a choice you made to have fun and became an order. The public uproar soon followed. SC heard us and thus we must take half of the responsibility for where they decided to put their time next. A lot of time. A SHIT LOAD OF TIME We waited nearly a year for CWII. At times I felt like Vladimir and Estragon waiting for Godot (do some reading, you heathens) but unlike Godot, the update finally arrived. Welcome to CWII, basically the original clan wars rebranded with a few bells and whistles. When you strip away all the bullshit, the pretty river, the boats, the Colosseum... It's just four battles. Just like the original. Where is the fun, the very reason we play games? This, for me, is where people should have lost their jobs. I'm not a cutthroat businessman who has no empathy for his employees, but my limited knowledge of this industry tells me that being a game lead or a dev in one particular game is not a long term proposition. It seems that you need to rotate people so as to find some spark, some freshness, to avoid the incumbents becoming bogged down by the same old tired ideas. It is apparent that SC does this and moves staff around from what I've seen, but maybe they have been too slow in reacting to the recent CR disasters. This might have finally changed, but more on that bombshell later. I think we just need to let CW go. It had its time but now it is taking up valuable space. Kill it and replace it with new game play content. My second gripe is the lack of new content for maxed players like myself. I accept that we are not the largest demographic in the playing pool, but you can bet your arse that we are the most loyal. After all, we've made it to five years. We've spent enough money on our accounts to give someone at SC the luxury of adding an indoor pool to their holiday home in Monaco. Since Clan Wars, every single update has been aimed at the casuals and helping them with progression. Tokens, Trophy Road, Pass Royale, etc etc...and now Magic Items What about me? Where is the return for my/our loyalty? How about you stop focusing on milking the new players for $$$ and give something back to those who have given you so much? There have been many ideas thrown around and I'm certain those at SC have heard them. Those most common and popular was the request for 2v2 content, in the form of either ladder or GCs. The former is a tough build. Making that idea work so that all who play the game embrace it is not easy, but the latter is straightforward and would have appeased the patient Maxes (my cool name for maxed players) We've had many 2v2 challenges so how hard can it be to make it a GC mode? Well, it's not hard. The problem is wait times. This is already an issue in 1v1 GCs, so if you introduce another mode, it will get worse. Or you could make a slight modification to the game economy by cheapening the cost or giving out GC tickets, and suddenly you might have a vibrant challenge scene, and who knows, with that vibrant scene might come a new found enthusiasm for spending? I liken this to the pizza franchise model. Back in the day, we used to pay a lot more for pizza, but it was quality pizza and nobody thought anything of it. Then the franchisees became established in the industry and suddenly instead of paying $15 for a large pizza, you could get 2 large pizzas, a garlic bread, and a bottle of Coke for $19.90 (Australian dollars) The public went nuts and started buying these horrible cardboard pizzas. There was far less margin for the retailers, but their profits went up significantly because the demand became so high. Quantity over quality. So all I'm saying is maybe try giving us some cardboard GCs. You might actually make more money. I think that was a good analogy? If not, then at least try something else. We can live with failed efforts like Touchdown if we know that you are trying to give us new content in terms of how we play the game. Eventually, through all the mud, you will strike gold, and everybody will rejoice and be happy again. Before I end the discussion on updates, just a couple of QOL changes I'd like to see... Deck slots? We're crying out for them. 10 would be nice but I'll take 8 as a compromise. My other request would be for rewind on match replays. I understand this is happening in Brawl Stars. I don't even know why they need it but in CR replays are one of the best learning tools, but not being able to rewind to catch particular interactions is incredibly frustrating. If I miss something, I have to stop, go back, get into the replay again, and then try and find that moment to catch it the second time. Far too laborious. ******************************************************************************************* CRL is a nightmare in my eyes at the moment. I went from avid fan with a tribal affiliation to my team, to becoming completely uninterested in watching guys 1v1 the same three decks. Granted, we had the deck issue in the old format too, but at least I had some interest because I supported a team. I can't support an individual player through an 8 hour qualifying. I don't even know how to find his matches unless he adds me as a friend. My feelings might be personal and not what others are experiencing, but the final days of playoffs with the top 8 lacks the same aura as teams format. I also think this new system is akin to slave labour. Under the old format, those with a contract were assured of a retainer with bonuses coming from performance. You can justify asking someone to train for 6 hours a day when you are paying them a salary. Now we have 1000 people, all of whom must put in a lot of work if they want to get results, playing for an 8 person reward system. A lot of people are working for free. For nothing. ...and, of course, many administrative, coaching and managerial positions were vanquished. The old system had flaws, flaws which the orgs abused for personal gain, but they could have been remedied. Bottom line: I don't see any growth in this current format, thus no long term survival for esports in CR. I believe we are witnessing a comp with a terminal condition. Finally, lets get some consistency with the rules. It is ridiculous to see people get bans on accounts for historical indiscretions after using that account in CRL on many occasions. Why not just wipe everybody's slate with an amnesty effective from a certain date, and then monitor those who break the TOS going forward? *************************************************************************************** Finding the right balance with balance changes is a task when a team commits their time to quarterly updates. What we do know is this: The current 3 month system is FUCKED. I think that sums it up. Players are suffering with stale metas and content creators are losing viewers because they have nothing new to showcase. We have a responsibility to collectively maintain the community. This issue stems from Supercell's insistence to retain small teams. I don't see why some of the work cannot be contracted out. If devs spend 90% of their time debugging, then give that shit to someone else to do and we might not wait 6 months for a fix to deck copying. These contractors do not have to be a part of the game development. You can still keep that small team, but increase their productivity by hiring labour to free them up. It is plainly obvious that we need monthly balances, and further to that, the ability to act quickly to respond to mistakes which become obvious. Hello, Ebarbs? I saw Brawl Stars advertising for game testers. An actual paid position. This is funny because one of the most comment laments we here in the CR community is "did anybody even test this shit?" I've never seen a game tester position advertised in CR. I play 50 games a day. I'd do it for free if it makes the game better. I'm certain there is a core group of highly knowledgeable players who would be willing to get involved somehow in helping ensure the balances are actually balanced upon release. ******************************************************************************************* The final thing I want to talk about is communication. If we go back to CR circa 2017, I used to avidly read Reddit because there would be lots of feedback from community managers. I remember lists like "We are looking at this right now. We're considering that for the future, and definitely won't be doing this". That's just one example. Point being, the player base who love the game were kept in the loop. I don't know what caused Drew and co to drift away from this, but we, the players, were basically thrown into a cone of silence. I think it's insane. Surely if you begin releasing info on things you are working on, Joe Average might read it and say, "Hey, did you think of this?" and give you the inspiration to make your update perfect. A choice was made to exclude the greatest source of information from the conversation, one of the worst decisions CR made, and I believe it stemmed from someone's inability to handle all the toxicity which comes with the job. I think it is common knowledge that Drew struggled with this. It doesn't make Drew a bad person. It means it weighed Drew down and he began making bad decisions. It reached a point where if anybody disagreed with him in some way, they were in deep shit because Drew was all powerful as far as CR was concerned. RIP Koji, one of the greatest servants of the game. It would be a massive travesty if that guy, who is much loved by many, is not returned to the casting scene. It is beyond disgraceful that he is being black-balled from even casting within his own organisation. I'm not here to play Brutus and stick daggers into Drew Caesar, the ides of March have already passed, but it was this news which I heard on the grapevine that inspired this blog. The rumour floating around is that Drew has left CR indefinitely on stress leave. I wish him well and hope he makes a speedy recovery. I know at one time he loved the game, his job, and wanted to make CR the best it could be. It's a tough gig. Anyway, I think this is why Rick has come in. What I want to see is us become a community again, like the Brawl Stars community. I want to see a co-dependent relationship between the SC team and players become a thing again. This is the only way forward which will ensure another 5 years of CR. I've seen Rick in action first hand from being one of the most committed Hay Day Pop players. I like the way he rolls (yes, that was a very clever reference to his rick-roll tweet) He talks a lot. Is kindly blunt, but also prepared to help if he can. I think he sees all information as potentially good information. We're working with a fresh slate now. Time to let go of past mistakes and shape the future. How do we do that? Well, apart from the stuff I mentioned above, the foundation of any successful game is fun. That's why we play. If we bring the fun back to CR, we'll fight off the Rona infection in our lungs. As far as I am concerned, the key to making this game fun again is fixing the match up issue. Casuals don't know this because they are not good enough yet, but as they improve, they'll soon learn that skill has less to do with getting dubs than having the right deck against your opponent does. This needs to be the No #1 priority on any CR dev team roadmap, but as you work on that monster problem, slip us a 2v2 GC. Please. Thanks for reading. Get Vaccinated Gramps.