Darrian was doing an AMA on Reddit. The AMA is now over.
I will add his answers to all questions without any editing except removing profanity and typos on this blog post.
- Is there plans to bring in a new recruitment system or is sc still trying to better it?
Regarding the Recruitment Tool, I'll have to repeat something I said a while back. First, the tool isn't developed by the Clash team. I don't say that to try and wipe our hands of any obligation to it, but it genuinely is something the Clash team has little control over. However, with that said, regardless of who the tool is made by we have tried communicating with the community about its features, and even its shortcomings. But because of the nature of social media, online posts, etc. much of that gets lost hours after it's been posted. One of the things we've repeatedly stated is that the Recruitment Tool suffers not from a lack of functionality but from a lack of transparency. The Recruitment Tool actually does a lot of the things behind the scenes that players feel there is a lack of control over. And because they don't see how those work, it can feel like it doesn't work like they expect it to. I'm not saying it's perfect - far from it. We know it could use some improvement, but the biggest area it could be improved on is helping people understand exactly how it works so people are a bit more confident in the searches it pulls up, or at least understand why it gets those results.
2. Will sc ever remake the video “ 5 Years of Destruction! “ ( The video ). I think it would be a cool thing to remake on clash of clans 10th year. Seeing the vast difference throughout the years.
We're still another year away from the 10-year anniversary (2022). Rest assured, we definitely want to go big for the big one-zero. The "5 Years of Destruction" was indeed a cool video and hopefully we can put together something meaningful as a celebration.
3. Any plans to reduce cost/upgrade time? For me at least 2-3 weeks for upgrades is getting slightly excessive and going further than that. I can’t imagine many players will be very excited to grind it out. Especially casual players.
As we add more content higher up (TH14, TH15, and beyond) we keep a very close watch on how long it takes for players to start from scratch and climb to max. We try to keep the ranges relatively similar so I would say it's a fair bet we'll adjust the upgrade times and costs in the future. In fact, that is a regular facet of the game that can be expected every so often. I can't say if it'll be once a year, or once every new TH level, but refactoring and rebalancing the costs and time are a regular part of that strategy.
4. Currently, Do you think the game is balanced ? I’ve heard quite a lot of complaints saying th13 is too easy.
The game will never be 100% perfectly balanced. It's just impossible. There are simply too many moving parts, too much randomness, and too many variables to consider. We try to balance the game the best we can, based on player data as well as feedback from the community. But adding more content will always shift the balance in one direction or another. Sometimes it may skew towards offense, and sometimes more towards defense. When we see the game shifting like that, we start looking at how we can balance the game to bring it back more towards the center.
With that said, we try to balance the game more towards being offense-friendly. Now, before you get out your pitchforks and protest we're making it too easy, what I mean by this is that we try to make the game as rewarding as possible while still keeping it challenging. If defense was always OP, then the win rates would plummet. If you're unable to win, this is incredibly frustrating as a player and would cause players to leave the game. That's not a good thing. Like any other asymmetrical multiplayer game, you almost always tend to win more often than you lose. We try to maintain a degree of balance slightly leaning towards offense.
5. Any plans to add family clans features ? Like a way to add other clans to chat, white list/ black list players etc. A
Clan Alliance/Family feature has been on our Wishlist for quite a few years. We simply haven't sat down to truly discuss what we want that feature to be. When we work on a new update, we have to prioritize what new features we're implementing and any additional content must thematically feel appropriate or can be fit in resource-wise (meaning time). Creating a Clan alliance feature should be more than just being able to cross chat and donate troops. That alone isn't worth reprogramming the multiplayer functionality of the game. An alliance system has to be meaningful in order to be something the players enjoy. But what that is, we still have yet to decide.
6. Has a complete remake/ sequel to clash of clans ever been considered?
No. Why create a sequel when we can just keep adding new content to the current game without creating a brand new one? What would the goal of a sequel be? As long as Clash of Clans is live, creating a sequel would cannibalize players from one game to the other. That is not a viable way of game development. Additionally, let's say you've been playing Clash for 8 years now. Now let's say we release Clash of Clans 2. If all this game is is just a prettier version of Clash, you'll be less likely to invest the same amount of time as you did the first one. So you quit Clash 2 but the likelihood of you going back to Clash 1 will be reduced. Also, let's say not all of your friends are willing to play the new one. So now that your friends aren't playing, you're more likely to quit because of split loyalties between the games.
7. Is sc more focused on bringing more tasks, events and in general things to do during the game or are they more focused on bringing new content like troops ,spells ,defenses etc?
The best thing we can do is keep improving Clash so you're not forced to choose between which ones you want to play,
I'd say it's all of the above, depending on the needs of the game. Content will always be the primary driver for Clash of Clans. It's where we see spikes in players returning, players being more active, etc. But in between content releases, it's good to give players more activities to do.
8. Are you able to provide any details on what the priorities are/what is being worked on for 2021
Lots and lots of new content for 2021. Lots. And it is bad*ss.
9. How is the cost/ sell price of magic items determined?
I had an answer for this and I cannot for the life of me remember what it is. Unfortunately our Live Ops guy has left for the evening so I can't cross check with him. I'll try to ask him tomorrow and I'll post a reply here.
10. Is there a reason as to why all the hammers cost 120 medals ,but the hero hammer is 165 and the opposite happens for books? All the books are 925 gems, but the hero book is set at 500 gems.
One big reason with the cost discrepancy is due to the resources you spend to upgrade those units. The cost to upgrade a Hero uses Dark Elixir which is a much more premium resource to farm/earn compared to Gold or Elixir. It's far easier to earn Gold and Elixir for upgrading Buildings/Troops. So the cost for the Book of Heroes is to help offset that. Whereas, because it's easier to earn Gold & Elixir, the other Books are more expensive. With the Hammers, the Hammer of Heroes is more expensive because you don't need to farm the DE for it.
11. What has been the biggest challenge for the Clash of Clans team working on updates during the pandemic?
Not having day to day conversations in the office has been the biggest adjustment. So much of the design work and discussion ideas came from simply turning your chair around and proposing something to the team. It took us a little while to adjust to it, but we now have daily Zoom calls to discuss whatever is on our mind, tell jokes, etc.
12. Are you able to share any details on ideas/concepts that were designed and/or tested within the team that were then scrapped?
The Elixir Monster was a troop concept we prototyped during the development of TH12. The Elixir Monster was a troop that gained strength and size as it destroyed things. Similar to the Lumberjack, it would drop a Rage Spell after it was killed. In the end, the mechanic was really cool but way too complex for the average player. Additionally, because the unit required to make the kill attack in order to earn it's level up, with so many other troops attacking it actually rarely made a kill so it didn't morph? Mutate? Evolve? as fast as we thought it would. So it's a troop we might save for a rainy day and tweak it a bit to see if we can get it to balance correctly.
13. What is the status of World’s 2021? The entire competitive community has been eagerly waiting for news about this. We need time to plan and prepare, and if it’s not happening we deserve to know.
We are still working on the Worlds stuff and we're inching closer to announcing the 2021 season. We've made a few changes so we're still putting the final polish on those details. But we will announce the 2021 Worlds when we're ready.
14. Will there be any defensive buffs to the game anytime soon? Currently offense is far too overpowered, more than it has ever been. Balancing offense and defense would make the game much more enjoyable to all.
See my comment on balancing here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClashOfClans/comments/l5hny0/ama_i_am_darian_community_manager_for_clash_of/gkue4of?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
15. Are there any plans to include any in game esports tournaments other than ESL?
There are tons of community-run events around the globe. We simply can't add them all in-game.
16. How will the release of TH14 affect the timeline of World’s this year?
That's a good question that we're not quite ready to reveal just yet. :-)
17. Apart from Supercell games, which other mobile games do you like as a gamer?
I play every Supercell game frequently, though Brawl Stars is probably my least played. It's just not my cup of tea and I'm terrible at it. I also play the game my wife works on, Empires & Puzzles, along with Hearthstone, and a bunch of classic JRPG's that got ported to mobile.
18. Also, which game development company would you rate as the biggest competitor(in a good way, of course) of Supercell?
Which studio would be our competition? Hmm...that's a bit of a tough question. We tend to focus on our own game development and try to be a leader in that category. The thing about the Finnish game dev scene is that it's very cooperative and information is shared frequently.
19. Just one question, what's your plan for TH14 in terms of a built in weapon?
We're not quite ready to reveal our TH14 plans just yet. We have quite a few things in mind that we're looking at though.
20. So like a year ago you guys posted a graph that showed how many players had all the different xmas trees, I was wondering if we could get something similar for the players that have the old 2012 stone that no longer spawns. It would be just with how many there are, no ids or names so that the accounts don't get stolen.
Yes! I know the community loved seeing things like that. I would love to pull more charts and get more player data like that out there. I'll see what I can do with our data scientist.
21. Is the maximum Experience level, which currently is level 500, gonna be increased any time soon?
We might address it in the future, but I wouldn't expect any changes to it in the next couple updates. Apart from vanity purposes it doesn't really do much else so it's not a major priority for us.
22. If there'll be more than 100 buildings after TH14 update, how will % be calculated? What about bases that have the 6th builder compared to the bases that don't?
We won't hit the 100 building limit just yet so we still have some wiggle room left to go before we start needing to worry about it. But it is something we are worried about for when we finally do hit that limit. We haven't found a solution to how we want to address it, but it is something that comes up every time we start working on new content.
23. Can we donate super troops with gem donations, even if we don’t have them unlocked?
No. Being able to donate them without spending the upgrade cost kinda defeats the purpose of spending the upgrade cost.
24. Can we have separate clans for home village and builder base (so I don’t get kicked out of my top clan for not having a good builder base)?
No. Programming the logistics behind this, having separate chat UI's, Clan logs, match logs, war logs, etc. would be an absolute data nightmare.
25.Add a clan search filter for CWL league (Champs 1, Champs 3, Master 2, etc.)
As a reflex response, my guess would be that it would lead to just those Clans at the top tiers being bombarded with invitation requests while lower clans would remain unfilled. And because they remain unfilled, it would make it harder for them to climb to those ranks, thus perpetuating a bit of a cycle.
26. Can we cap the level of the CC troops donated to lower town halls / CC levels? (Ex: A level 9 loon donated to a TH3 caps at level 2)? I feel this will make it easier to balance lower THs and make it more fair for those who can’t get CCs
No. The levels they are donated at is intentional.
27. Hi Darian, what do you think about a new game mode in clash. It can be solo or multi (like clan base or something)—> you could create multiples worlds with the clash universe like a goblin village etc were we can attack the king of goblin
I'm curious, but you don't really give any kind of idea what kind of feature you're suggesting. It's like saying "have you thought of a new multiplayer game?" Yes I have, but without knowing what kind of game you want, it's kind of an impossible question to answer.
28. Will we ever get a rewind button for replays? 😯 not sure if it’s possible but it would be a small but incredible QoL improvement for many. 😁
The challenge with this is that replays are not stored as videos. So you're not actually watching an actual "replay" of the match. The game stores your screen taps that you performed when you played your game. So when you watch a replay, you are actually watching a live version of the game where the AI is simply reproducing the same screen taps. Because the pathing algorithm and AI functions the exact same way, the system can recreate the same conclusion of the game every time.
So because you're watching the AI play the game using your screen taps, it can only go forward.
29. Hi Darian! I’ve started 3 mini accounts and I’ve made one big observation: the beginning is by far the worst, slowest section of the game. The rest of the game is fun and it’s a great grind, but those opening 3-or-so days would be very unappealing to newer players who don’t know much about the rest of the game yet. Even for me, I absolutely hate those first few days. While I understand CoC is a game meant for people to grind out, I think something needs to be done to attract newer players. Have you considered fixing this/ is there a reason you haven’t yet?
This is actually a topic of discussion we're looking at; how to make the lower TH's more engaging and less grindy to make the progression to higher levels more enticing. So we totally understand where you're coming from. It's something we hope we can address in an update this year.
30. Why was the cost of gold pass increased but not the rewards?
We have not increased the price of the Gold Pass. What likely happened is that your country or state probably increased the tax around online purchases. We have no control over that.
31. Any plans on player made maps as single player map?
Player made maps are never a good idea, though they sound neat on paper. We'd need some kind of moderation process to remove inappropriate submissions, and given there'd be thousands upon thousands of entries, it would require full time moderation.
32. Any plans on mega base type mode?
We see this request a lot. Again, on paper it sounds really cool. But what would the overall goal be? What would the benefits be to the Clan? There are a ton of logistics you'd have to look at. Like who would be the caretaker of such a mega base? The leader? What if the leader left or stopped playing? Co-leaders? What if they disagree with how the mega base should be laid out? Would Elders and Members have access to editing the mega base?
33. What are big features which aside from new troops, buildings, townhall levels?
We've got something pretty big planned this year (fingers crossed we can finish it in time). We'll announce it when it's ready. And it's a doozy.
34. What are your plans on bringing more social features to the game?
It entirely depends on what social features players want (features that aren't Global Chat or similar function).
35. Can we have something like a campaign/tutorial on learning how to attack, because as new players play the game they aren't familiar with the attacking strategies or compositions and there's no other way to learn except from watching yt videos, so any feature to improve the skill of players.
There are practice levels already. We are working on creating newer ones though.
36. Would you consider going to a 24-month instead of a proposed 18-month cycle of new TH levels to sync with World Championships better?
24 months of no new TH content is simply too long. We're really happy with the pace we've been releasing new TH levels. One of the things we have to look at when spacing out the content is how long before maxed players start to get bored and stop playing. New content is always the biggest driver of player activity, and the longer you draw out not having new content results in players becoming more likely to leave the game. The World Championship is an exciting and cool facet of Clash, but it's not the main one and only a very small number of players will ever compete in the Championships. That small percentage of players cannot dictate the pace of content progress.
37. Could we get a double deployment bar on phones?
We tried looking at this but the UI became so small that it was super inconvenient to use, even with a stylus.
38. Could people be able to at least FC with upgrading heroes up? To be able to learn the game as they grind. This game already has a very inhospitable grind to endgame for new players despite some recent improvements.
We feel that allowing this would be a slippery slope of then asking if we allowed it for FC's, then why not FW's. Then why not Clan Wars. As of now, this is a definitely ruled out idea. That mentality may change in the future, but for now the team is adamant in its position.
39. Can we expect a goblin map maker where community can make goblin maps and clash team can check them and add it to the game.
This sounds like a good idea, but moderating all the entries that would come in would require it to be a full time job in itself. Checking to make sure the map isn't broken, or doesn't have inappropriate content, or doesn't cause any problems. It's not a matter of just pulling it up on the screen and say "ok there are no middle fingers hidden in the images so it's good to go." It would require playtesting, feedback, etc.
40. Is there going to be more goblin maps or winter challenge type of maps?
We were really surprised with the feedback we got regarding the Winter Challenge map. Players really seemed to enjoy it quite a bit! So you can expect we'll add more in the future. Plus I think our designer kinda enjoys making them.
41. When are we getting BH10. Lot of people who are more competitive on B-base, but aren’t playing much because it’s the same old thing every season. We’re all feeling kinda forgotten about ☹️
It's rather interesting that whenever we released new BH content, there was general disdain that we were allocating development resources to it. But now there is a lot of clamoring for when the next BH level will be. :-)
We don't have any solid plans for BH10 yet, but we have discussed it on occasion. We're reluctant to simply just do a new level as we're still trying to decide where we want to take the Builder Base feature. We don't want to keep adding features that are already available to the Main Village; otherwise why not just keep developing the Main Village?
42. In an interview with galadon around 11 months ago you said “ Part of it is as we see a lot of activity of a lot of players returning a lot of them are coming back to their old clans” In response to why sc hasn’t added a clan name change. Has this changed, Is there a still a high amount of players returning? If not is sc planning or at least considering adding it?
Clan name changes are still a ruled out idea for now, for the same reason. Additionally, changing your player name is one thing. That's personal to you. Changing a Clan name is something that affects the entire Clan. While sure, many Clans would be ok with the name change but what happens when members don't like the name that it's changed to? If that original Clan name had sentimental value, and someone changes it, that would feel really cr*ppy for those who liked the original Clan name. So rather than try to come up with rules and edge cases for it, and introduce possibly more unnecessary complexity, it's simpler to prohibit for now.
43. Is there a reason to why clans that have already maxed out clan games have to wait until clan game ends to redeem the rewards? If not could this be changed? I’d like to get my rewards quicker.
Nothing has come out of that discussion apart from the idea being presented.
44. As my final question I’d like to as you if you could explain the choice of sc censoring the whole clans chat when a kids account join?
The rules for this only applies to new underage accounts created in the US. The reason for this is for compliance with new online regulations that are required for certain kinds of games. We have no control over those regulations.
45. What was the “big thing” that was meant to be released in the winter?
We have a super cool feature we're steadily working on. We're not ready to share what that is just yet, but we're hoping we can reveal and release it this year.
46. Defense at the moment is very much behind the attack, take 3 start was never been easier. In my opinion traps should be much more powerful as it also requires the skill of good placement, I think it could balance the game perfectly. How SC looking on that? Is there a chance to make the game a little harder, building a base is something that makes this game different from the others and makes it more special, it is a pity to neglect it.
Game balance is already answered in a different thread.
47. Did you watch Dustin vs Conor?
My gym trainer is Irish, so of course I had to rub it in that he was beat by an American. :-)
48. Hello Darian! Is there any Chance we can get second abilities for Heroes? You can either choose the first or the second for a attack? For example the Barbarian King gets stationary and is immune to all damage for 5 seconds. Queens shoots faster and her shots pierce through buildings for x amount of second. The Royal Champion deflects damage for x amount of seconds. Warden heals troops over time
We had considered this idea and while it's cool, it doesn't offer quite the flexibility and variability players are looking for in a feature like this. We would want a feature like this to feel like players are able to customize their experiences. A second ability doesn't really do that as players would just choose a favorite one, then set and forget. We think there is a better way to offer that kind of customization. Additionally, balancing new abilities would be super challenging compared to new troops or new spells.
Please note that numbers 49 through 53 were asked by me.
49. Does the barrel shaped building where you boost super troops have a name? If not, then what did the dev team call it?
It's called the Super Sauna. The image of the modern sauna is a Finnish invention, and since we're based out of Finland, it seemed like a nice cultural touch to the game.
50. Will th14 have a hero? If so may you share any info about it(abilities, is it tanky, etc.)?
Any new TH14 content announcements will be shared when we're ready to share them.
51. Do you guys plan on adding more achievements?
Yes!
52. Will there be more single player campaign levels as part of the next update or th14?
We really liked the Winter Challenge map and plan on doing more things like that in the future. However, we'd like players to remember that Clash is a multiplayer game and designed around that idea. Adding more single player content, while fun, minimizes that multiplayer aspect so it's not a primary focus of ours.
53. There has been an insane amount of rumors and ideas as to water based troops or gameplay. Is the dev team even considering something among those lines?
Water based troops? First time I've heard this rumor. Considering the map is based on land, a water troop would be a bit like...a fish out of water? In other words, I wouldn't listen to rumors.
54. On a more serious note though: You expressed maybe a year ago that the gap between town halls is 18 months and you wanted it to be shorter. The teasers about th14 have already begun but I guess it's been like 13 or 14 months now since th13 released. Has covid affected your plans about the quicker releases and will we get th14 before summer when you can be outside in the warm weather and hopefully sunshine even here in Helsinki.
What teasers are you referring to?
Fortunately, despite the world situation being what it is, we've adjusted to working from home and it has not impacted development. All of our devs have the necessary resources and access to materials needed for developing new features and we sync every day to make sure we're on track.
As far as the release date...well...that's still a secret.
55. Is there a plan to give the clan castle treasury an update to be able to take out how ever much loot out of it rather than taking it all out?
No. This has been a ruled out idea for as long as I can remember.
56. What’s your favorite update since the game started?
Hmm...I'd have to say the Season Challenges update. It gave me a drive to complete as many tasks as possible as I hate having unfinished ones. And because of that, it drove me to upgrade even faster than I ever have due to the rewards I was earning.
57. Just wanted to ask, do you love cats?
I love all pets. I have 2 cats and 1 dog. Over the 45 years I've been alive, I've probably owned 30+ cats, 20+ dogs, 5 rabbits, 3 parrots, and 2 cockatoos.
I've also had a 70-gallon saltwater reef aquarium with a psychedelic mandarin dragonet, and a host of other salt water fish.
58. Is there a possibility of a 3rd village coming into the game?
Probably not. Many don't even like the 2nd village since it's a distraction from the Main Village. Adding a new village on top of that just wouldn't be very fun.
59. Hi Darian! Would you consider Clash of Clans a good representation of mobile gaming? Has its impact matched up to other notable titles on PC and console? Is it Smash Ultimate worthy?
Every so often, a game will become a cultural icon of the platform it's released on. For consoles that would be the Mario franchise. For MMORPG's, that would be World of Warcraft. For mobile, that's Clash of Clans. What I mean by cultural icon, is that it's a game that has lasted far longer than most others due to the sheer number of people that play it and the popular success it has had because of it.
Clash has been out for almost 9 years now. On any game platform that is almost unheard of apart from those other games that are cultural icons themselves.
I'm not sure what you mean by "good representation". But I will say this: The Clash community is possibly one of the best gaming communities. Period. It's one of the least toxic, most supportive, and fun communities I've ever had the privilege of working with.
60. Hey Darian, I’m not sure if this question was asked before but do you think it would pose a significant challenge for your team considering what a new a Town Hall would be due to the weaponization of Town Halls 12 and 13?
Coming up with new and unique content will always be the challenge as we create new features. It came up when we were working on TH13, and is in discussion as we work towards TH14. And it will likely come up again as we work on TH15 and beyond. Making sure something is cool and unique is always a fun challenge, but we shouldn't make something JUST because it's unique. It has to also be fun and exciting.
61. Is there anything huge planned for lunar year 2021? Skins, scenery etc.
You can probably bet on there being Lunar New Year content that's exclusive for the event.
62. Do you play clash on a personal account. And if so what TH are you and how much time do you have to play?
Hey!
I have 6 different personal accounts I play on. Just for clarification, no one at Supercell has a "dev" account that is played on the public servers. Every single person who works at Supercell has to play the game like everyone else. We don't get free Gems, free items, or anything else that the players cannot get. We go through the exact same experiences the players do. We buy our own Gold Passes and offers, we go through the same upgrade grind times, etc. So no, we don't get a free max level base when you start working here.
Ok with that out of the way, my main account is a TH13 but I only hit TH13 in November. So I'm still a very low level TH13.
I did take a long break over the winter holidays and barely touched any video games as I wanted to unplug a bit during the break. But I'd say on average I play around an hour per day.
63. My level 24 clan got stolen. I have contacted supercell they are not helping. We spend 7 years building it. Can you help us get it back? Clan tag is #28UJUVL9 . Former leader is #GQQ2U992.
Community Managers do not have access to any account related information nor do we have any ability to affect or expedite account related problems.
64. Hi darian will there be more super troops in the future and the big question will there be a th14?
There will definitely be more Super Troops in the future. We have quite a few of them planned out.
And yes, there will be a TH14. Likely this year. And there will be a TH15, 16, 17, 18, etc. in the future.
65. how did you find moving to Finland? What are your favourite parts of Finnish culture and cuisine?
I found Finland incredibly comfortable as soon as I stepped off the airplane. I absolutely love it here and don't have any plans to move back to the States any time soon.
The parts I love about Finnish culture are the sense of collective cooperation. That my needs are not more important than those of the community. There is no sense of "me first!" Additionally, Finns are very pragmatic people that do the work in front of them and they do it to the best of their ability to take pride in their work. It doesn't matter if they are a doctor, or CEO, or the guy who cleans the trash at the dog park.
66. Why do you never address the censorship question head on. We are not asking why things must be censored, we are asking why they are censored for everyone. The game already allows censorship on an individual level, why does this function differently? There's absolutely no reason the entire clan needs to be censored when the game is already capable of censoring chat for individual players. You've ignored this aspect of the question a ton of times from multiple different people. Please address it. We are all fine with censoring the experience for the child, why is it also censored for adults unnecessarily? By this point, how much you've intentionally avoided talking about it, I think we can safely assume that there just isn't a good reason for this implementation. If there were a reasonable explanation we would have heard it by now...
I'm pretty sure I explained it. It's to comply with new US regulations. I'm not sure how else you want it explained. That IS the reason.
67. Hey Darian! What are some relatively unknown Clash facts that you know, but the majority of the player base doesn’t?
The Clash team doesn't let me name new units/spells/buildings because I always make dad jokes or punny names. Whenever it comes to naming new things, the team now just tells me to get all my ideas out first so they know which ones to reject right away.
68. Would it be possible to have custom CC's for friendly challenges implemented into the game? To further explain what I mean, lets say I have my normal raid army set up with the cc troops I would usually take. However I want to practice new armies in friendly challenges but every time I do that, I have to dump old troops and request for new troops but those in my clan who have the troops I need for my friendly challenge army aren't always online. So a feature where I could customize my own cc troops for a friendly army is what I'm getting at.
The Friendly Challenge is an interesting facet of the game that was introduced much later in the game's development history. So the functionality of it is wholly based on how the rest of the game functions with regards to troop donations, troop deployment, etc. Creating a unique set of functions for this feature is something the team sees as a priority at the moment. However, that priority could change when we start to look at what QoL changes we want to implement in future updates. Many of the changes implemented into the FC/FW features were based on QoL requests from the community so I wouldn't say it's a ruled out idea. Just not something on the production schedule at the moment.
69. Additionally, is SC still planning on using the 18 month period/range to release new th lvls or is 18 months just an approximation?
The 18 month period has never been a hard set limit. It's always been more of a guideline based on analyzing the data of how quickly players progress. We look at what percentage of players have reached max level, along with trying to predict what percentage of players will be maxed, or at least near maxed, by the time we release the new TH level.
It's been purely good timing that we were able to do TH13 18 months after the release of TH12. Future TH releases may come sooner than 18 months or may come later, wholly dependent on where the player base is, level-wise.
70. Hi Darian. I asked a question earlier but I wanted to add a new one.
At the start of playing the game, whilst battling the goblins, we hear references to something called 'Ivory Tower', from which the wizards come to help. My question is whether this topic will be used in any way in the future, maybe in goblins maps and maybe in something else entirely. Thanks for doing this AMA!
I will admit ignorance of the Ivory Tower reference and I'm usually pretty knowledgeable regarding the in-game texts and references, so I will concede to your superiority...this time.
I do like when we take obscure references or forgotten things and incorporate them into the game at a later date so...maybe?
71. Hey Darian. Just wondering what to do with full collection of de...would it be possible to donate excess to other clanmates?
No. There will never be a means of donating resources to other players. This opens up a huge Pandora's Box of people selling resources outside the game.
Purging excess resources was one of the reasons we introduced Super Troops to begin with. They are meant to be a resource sink for those who have maxed Heroes and cannot spend any Dark Elixir.
72. Is there potential for more Supercell crossovers? Would love to see more Clash Royale or Brawl Stars things in CoC. Would also love to see some Boom Beach related thing, as I don't think it's ever had anything in CoC. Edit: Hayday is a thing too, I forgot haha
We're always working on new games, and when new games launch it's always fun to do some kind of cross-promotion to celebrate its release. We included the Spike obstacle and El Primo temporary troop for the global launch of Brawl Stars. But we didn't do anything for Rush Wars or Hay Day Pop since those were just soft launches and not global launches. Should another game get to global launch, we'll probably do an in-game event for that as well. However, we try to keep the games as independent from each other as possible. Even though Clash of Clans and Clash Royale technically inhabit the same universe, we still try to not have them overlap frequently. We want each game to maintain its own identity as much as possible. It would be very easy for us to copy Royale troops over to Clash, but that feels like a cheap way of coming up with new content. Plus as designers, it's always more fun and rewarding to create something entirely new and not copy your neighbor's homework.
73. Are there any features from the other SC games you'd like to see carried over into CoC?
The only feature I really wanted to see come to Clash was the Supercell Make program that allows artists to possibly make content for the game. It was super successful with Brawl Stars and I'm glad we finally have it for Clash. I'm really looking forward to seeing what new skins and sceneries the talented people in the community create!
74. What’s the reasoning behind not changing the colour palette of the floor tiles to match new sceneries & has the team considered changing their approach on this in the future?
It was actually intentional. The map is coded so that only the scenery areas are interchangeable. Allowing the main map to be customized added a huge amount of resource overhead and we have to work within a certain space limitation for certain app stores.
75. Has an increase to the 30s scout time in legend league been considered along with viewable building radiuses?
While it had been discussed, at this time the team feels there's no need for it.
76. Are there any plans to restructure the Legend League system i.e rewards / ladder / ranks?
While the LL system could certainly use some new polishing and some shiny chrome, there hasn't been anything internally proposed that has made us say, "YES! That's what it needs!"
77. Is there any scope for treating special obstacles similarly to statues i.e being able to stash them & can we expect previously purchasable $ offers in the shop to ever return? i.e hero skins / statues / sceneries etc.
Obstacles and statues (decos) are coded differently in the game, and the spawning system only functions on things classified as obstacles. The spawning algorithm takes into consideration how many obstacles are on the map whereas decos do not affect it at all. Creating a system that bridges their functionality is something that, to put it bluntly, the team doesn't really see a point to. Being able to purchase previous obstacles is absolutely ruled out. We want them to retain their exclusiveness.
One counter argument I've read was then why not make obstacles available based on when the account was created so someone who created their account in 2018 couldn't purchase obstacles that were available in 2017. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Collecting seasonal obstacles is meant to be a bit of a right of passage. That includes make sure that the obstacle was able to spawn when it was available. There are numerous conditions that could prevent a special obstacle from spawning and there's no way to tell if an obstacle would've been able to spawn on your base when it was available at the time.
78. How does the Eagle Artilleries target prioritisation work?
According to the wiki:
The Eagle Artillery targets according to a "heat map" or "hitpoint map". In other words, it targets the area with the largest density of hitpoints.
However this doesn’t seem to apply most noticeably during a queen charge / walk. 5 healers for example have a greater combined HP than a maxed queen yet 9/10 the eagle will target the queen so I suspect there’s more going on here. Whilst targeting the queen over your healers is far more favourable for the attacker it can be incredibly frustrating when the opposite occurs. As far as I can tell the logic currently appears to operate under RNG although I hope & suspect I’m wrong. Perhaps someone from the dev team could elaborate on this?
There is no RNG in how the AI targets units or paths towards a target. Every target is calculated based on the rules programmed into the algorithm. For the Eagle Artillery, yes population density does factor in. In your particular example, it could be that the Archer Queen had taken damage, where the collection of Healers now collectively had more HP resulting in a more desirable target before the AQ was fully healed again. I would need to see a specific replay of any instance before making a definitive call on what you're seeing.
79. Hey darian, here is my question
Any plan to speed up the lab?
What do you mean by speed up the lab? If you mean make research times shorter, we've done that in the past and as we add more content in the future then it is likely we'll adjust upgrade times as well.
80. Hello Darian, I am Maria Pla BiG BanG Oi leader and I wanted to ask you, what is what you like most of your profession and which is what he likes least, thanks Darian
My favorite part of the job is the direct player interaction like this. Posting on the forums, replying on Twitter, doing AMA's and getting in some fun banter are probably the most rewarding part of the job. Although doing these things are just a small facet of our jobs as CM's at Supercell, it's the part I look forward to the most.
The part I dislike the most is creating and organizing social media calendar posts. It's tedious, a monstrous pain in the rear, but is necessary.
81. Hi Darian, why your main profile pic is with the dog and not with the cat?
Olive is my 7 month old English Springer Spaniel and I would die for this puppy. She is my sidekick, wakes me up in the morning as my alarm clock, and is my constant companion when I'm watching TV. In fact she's actually curled up at my feet right now.
I love my cats and would happily give my life for any of them. I don't favor cats over dogs or dogs over cats, but there is definitely something more...interactive...with dogs.
82. Could you give us some examples of new character/troops/heroes/ideas that were very close to making it into the game but eventually didn't make the cut?
When we work on new TH content, we try to prototype new troop ideas. When we were working on TH12, we had several troops we had tested out before we finally settled on the Yeti. One of the troop ideas was a Goblin Glider. It was basically Goblins that flew in on little gliders and dropped down to attack resource storages and collectors. If I remember correctly, the Goblin Glider eventually inspired the Builder Base Hog Glider unit since we liked the glider function. But the Goblin Glider felt a bit TOO spammy.
83. Hey Darian! In the future, are you planning to make it so that we are to select any of the seasonal sceneries (the winter one or the fall one for example) at any time?
The seasonal sceneries are meant to be just that...seasonal. I know it's not a "realistic" game but we just didn't like the idea of a snowy scenery in the middle of July. It's one of the reasons the permanent sceneries have minimal seasonal influences in them.
84. What is your favourite ice cream flavour?
Ben & Jerry's: Late Night Snack
Baskin Robbins: Chocolate & Peanut Butter
Haagen Daz: Bourbon Praline Pecan
85. Will we ever get a new gamemode like the builder base?
I'm sure there'll be new game features we'll introduce in the future. It won't be like Builder Base, but will be something completely new. In fact we're working on something that I think will be pretty enjoyable. No release dates yet, as it's a fairly complex system. But we're excited to announce it when it's ready.
86. Why are super troops taking up so much space? This makes them almost unusable.
The housing space for Super Troops is to balance out how much stronger they are than regular troops.
87. Well there ever be super golems?
Maybe? We have a huge list of Super Troops we are working on.
88. Hey Darian. Thanks for doing this. Right now, every month we have cwl in the first week and clangames towards the end. I personally feel like this is getting tedious. Are there any plans to mix this up more? Thanks. Luke
We planned out the calendar of events for a very specific reason and the timing is intentional. Having them set the same time allows players to more efficiently plan out how they upgrade and how they spend resources. Mixing up the schedule would make it more difficult for players to do so.
89. Will we ever have a troop, or Super Troop, with the capability of switching from Ground to Air? <I think Ice Golem/ Ice Hound could've utilized this feature.>
This is something that has been considered, like making a "Fallen Angel" Healer who is a ground troop but heals air units. This is just an idea and not something being worked on, before everyone starts saying it's confirmed. Changing a unit from air to ground or vice versa is actually pretty complicated because the pathing for ground units is different than air units as is the logic algorithm. So it's not just a matter of allowing it to swap places. But I wouldn't be surprised if we introduce a Super Troop that does do this.
90. Will Super Ice Golem deploy "Ice Mites" when destroyed?
No idea. We haven't started on a Super Ice Golem design yet.
91. Without the ability to add new buildings due to percent damages, could you have a "Gear Up" feature at TH14 which would combine all Builder Huts and /or Barracks to 1 main building, which must be upgraded FIRST before being able to purchase new TH14 Defenses?. <Multiple problems solved>
We've contemplated the building fusion idea in the past and we're not convinced that is a good solution.
92. so about friendly challenges. I think they are great and all but never understood why we can't use heroes in Friendly challenges when they are under upgrade. I feel as if this is a big reason for people only using edrags and not trying to branch out to use other strategies where the heroes are used more then just for funneling is that since heroes are down upgrading 24/7 most players don't have any opportunities to practice these strategies in multiplayer but maybe friendly challenges would allow them to try out other strategies that they might like more than edrags and its not interfering with the risk to reward descion of having your heroes upgrading since your not gaining anything from winning or losing a friendly challenge.
I actually address this in a different reply here.
93. a youtuber named kenny jo had this idea of a 1v1 townhall tournament where u face of against other people at your townhall level and can only use troops and troops levels available at your townhall level in both your defenses and offensive cc. I was wondering what's the viability off this idea coming to the game since we haven't had an update that affects all townhall levels in awhile.
We don't actually host the tournaments apart from the World Championships and those are done in conjunction with an esports partner. It would entirely be up to a tournament promoter if they wanted to implement rules like that.
94. do you watch cobra kai and if yes what did you think of season 3.
haven't watched season 3 yet. I didn't even realize it was out already. As a person who's been teaching martial arts for 30 years, I was a kid when the original Karate Kid came out so I do feel a bit of attachment to the show and characters. So many of my martial arts colleagues are stunt performers for this show. In fact, even some of my colleagues kids are stunt performers in the show.
95. My question is whether you guys are planning to add various 'quality of life' updates, such as heroes being able to fight in friendly battle despite upgrading, or being able to share army compositions as you can share bases?
Thank you for the kind words. I do address the Friendly Challenge thing elsewhere in this AMA, but the short answer is no we don't plan on adding that. On the topic of other QoL improvements, it's simply a matter of how much development time do we have left and how complex of a feature it is to improve.
When we work on a new update, the new content is always the priority. Once we feel comfortable that we'll be able to release the update by a certain date then we start to look at and triage other QoL ideas. We've had quite a few QoL improvements in almost every update and most of them are sourced from suggestions by the community. So we always keep an eye out for great suggestions to help improve the game.
96. Do you plan on bringing back clash-a-rama?
We still do occasional one-off episodes, like we did for Christmas. If you mean are we doing more full seasons, then no. We don't make Clash-a-rama and the group of people who make it simply want to do other things.
97. Do you have any alt accounts?
What is your preferred upgrade strategy for your account(s)? E.g. maxing, mild rushing, strategic rushing, something else?
I play on a total of 6 accounts. My main is TH13, my mini is TH11. The rest are parked at various TH levels largely for research purposes. I prefer to max within a certain reason. I always do Walls last and I'll upgrade to the next TH if I just have a few walls left to upgrade.
98. Can we see more events like the winter challenge? It was really interesting and fun.
Yes! We will do more special events like that. It was incredibly popular and we had fun creating it.
99. hello there, Darian, thanks for taking the time to answer my question if you do,
one thing I'm recently annoyed about is botters, it seems like they are everywhere, is it possible if you could give me a percentage of how many players out of total players are botters?
also, i use the same army, time and time again, Im worried my account will get banned one day due to Supercell suspecting me to bot, are there any other measures you take into account when banning botters?
We never publicly reveal numbers. With regards to bots, it's a constant game of cat and mouse. We improve our systems to detect them and they improve the botting software to avoid detection. So we then improve the system again to detect them and then they improve the botting software to avoid detection. You can see how this goes on. It's one of the reasons why we do mass bans of botters instead of just individual cases. If we banned players who bot on an individual basis, it allows the bot software creators to analyze what it was that allowed them to be detected and make changes even faster. So by banning in mass groups, it slows down their development a bit.
To answer your question about using the same attack, that's not how the detection system works so as long as you're not using a bot program we don't care how often you attack with the same army.
100. Have you thought in adding any more goblin-maps?
We had a blast creating the new Goblin maps a couple years ago and also enjoyed the new Winter challenge that was released last month. Creating Goblin maps is a bit more time consuming. Additionally, it's content that you'll only do once. From a development time management perspective, it's not very rewarding or efficient to create permanent content that just sits there in the game after it's completed. We will likely follow the Winter Challenge format and do more seasonal single player content like that in the future.
101. Could we see an increase in clan member space?
We really don't see the need for the player ceiling to increase.
102. Will there be any extra hero levels for TH13 this year? (Please say no Its taking forever to max my king) JK up to you! ;)
I don't think there'll be more levels for Heroes for TH13, but there will likely be more Hero levels for TH14.
103. Will we see TH14 this year in 2021?
All I can say is that there will be a TH14 this year. I cannot say when just yet.
104. Clan War Leagues and Clan Games are monthly events that last a week. Are there any plans for introducing another monthly event that lasts a few days in between CWL and Clan Games? (Townhall Tournaments, etc.)
Yes. Although what that is we're not ready to reveal yet.
105. As the army camp size increases and the possibility for more troops in battle at any given time increases, will we be seeing troops with higher and higher housing space to avoid overcomplexity?
It's unlikely we'll adjust the housing space for older troops like Barbs, however, how much housing space a troop takes up is actually an essential part of the design process as we design a new troop.
106. Will we be able to use two Siege Machines at the same time in the future? More than two Super Troops?
Two Siege Machines would be a bit weird since you only have a single Clan Castle. Being able to deploy two and divide up the CC troops between them would genuinely be way OP. As far as allowing more than 2 Super Troops at a time, I mean, we just started allowing 2 recently! We're keeping an eye on their usage to see if allowing 3 or more would be something positive for the game.
107. Have you ever considered making a green or purple themed town hall color? I love the blues and reds we’ve had in the past but hopefully different colors will get explored in the future!
Maybe ;-)
108. Is it true that Supercell is going to remove builder base by June?
Wait. What? Remove Builder Base? Where the heck do you guys find this stuff? We're not removing it.
109. Why don't war donations account for donation count?
Part of it is because you can remove and edit War donations, at least in the War Leagues. So it would be easy to abuse to edit/remove cc troops and keep re-donating just to get your count up.
110. Why is builder base's attacking AI is different from Home village's?
The AI isn't different, it uses the same logic engine as the main village. However, a big factor in what causes some issues is the Guard Post. The wandering units cause havoc with the pathing AI because the attacking units have to constantly recalculate their position and the targets it's tracking.
111. Do you consider the ideas we post in this sub while adding new features to the game?
Absolutely.
112. Do you guys have plans regarding banning accounts? I see so many times players are perma banned for “account sharing” or “account stealing” when nothing like that ever happened. Even someone in my clan was perma banned, and I see posts on Reddit all the time about this. Do you have plans to change the process of being banned or the criteria to avoid these situations?
In the near-4 years I've been at Supercell, I've had hundreds of requests from players to investigate their account ban. Out of those hundreds, I can count on a single hand how many of them were incorrectly banned due to agent error. A single hand. Time and time again such threads rarely ever reveal any kind of loopholes or weaknesses in the support recovery process and more often than not highlight how players treat their account security by engaging in behavior that violates our Terms of Service policies. Almost every single one of those players underestimate just how accurately we can investigate an account issue. Many of them start off with a friend who let another friend do their War attacks, but most of the banned accounts have shown very suspicious activity of account sharing, buying, etc.
How do these accounts get phished? It's simply because most people don't realize just how manipulative scammers/phishers are. Also most people fail to realize exactly just how much identifiable information they put out for the public to be able to see.
That's the thing about scammers/phishers. The good ones rarely make their intentions obvious until it's too late. There's a reason why scamming is a multi-billion dollar industry. Good scammers are charismatic, manipulative, and convincing. They are also relying on the fact you have no idea just how useful the information you gave them really is, especially when you think the information is banal or mundanely useless.
The fact they leave you blaming a lax in security instead of blaming yourself shows A) just how manipulative they are and B) how willing you are to deflect blame in order to admit to falling for a scam.
Admittedly, that second one is a tough pill to swallow. No one likes admitting they made a mistake, and that's especially so when you have to face severe consequences for those actions. But as I said before, we can tell the difference between someone's compromised account vs. someone who fell victim to a scam or gave/bought/sold their account. Usually if the account is compromised, Support is fairly quick at restoring access to those accounts. But because there's no reason to voice any complaints about it, you don't read about those thousands of success stories. What we do hear about on the forums are those examples where support was unable to restore the account because they can see suspicious or fraudulent activity on the account.
113. What is your opinion regarding queen walks after indirectly nerfing them so hard? This year, you guys added headhunters and super minions, both of which destroy queen walks if your not careful. Did you guys think they were OP before this update, and do you think they’re still OP now?
114. I still use Queen Walk at TH13 so you're asking the wrong person. I find the strategy still viable and very strong.
115. Do you believe that the game has done a good job balancing progression? For townhall 10, IMO you guys did a perfect job, I finished my hero’s, walls, and defenses at almost the same time (got screwed up since at that time there was the event where everything was half off. But for th11, I am currently almost max, just working on my last lab upgrades and walls, but I’ve been full on dark elixir for the past 3 months. Do you think progression overall is super balanced and any plans to change it?
I do think we've done an overall good job of maintaining balance. It's not perfect, nor will it ever be perfect. This is especially true as we add more content in the future. There is no such thing as a perfectly balanced multiplayer/PVP game. All we can do is try to balance it to the best of our ability when we release a new troop or keep an eye on the data and balance it as we see the data coming in.
116. Hello, thanks a lot for all the AMA you are doing for the community Darian. Last AMA, we asked you about more info for the API, etc. You did give us some useful infos, as the state of the API, who was working on it etc. You said you had a meeting planned about the API, do we have any news regarding the API, your vision on it, what's your plans for it, etc.? Few days ago, you added the endpoint for using the API token of accounts, and thanks a lot for this!
I am not a programmer so I would hate to misrepresent something I know little about. You'll have to forgive my lack of correct vocabulary. There has been some API discussion recently to make certain data more accessible, though what those data are I can't say simply because I didn't understand how that process works. But I can say there has been some movement in the API discussion on the team.
117. What are the plans for the future of the builder's base?
We don't have any concrete plans for new Builder Base content but it is something we discuss on the team. We just haven't come up with something we're absolutely in love with.
118. Do you intend to improve the time to update buildings and troop level TH11, TH12 and TH13?
Eventually, most likely.
119. Is there a possibility to create a new hero in a new update?
We don't want to do a new Hero with each new TH level. The earliest we will likely add a new Hero would be TH15, but that's not a guarantee.
Summary:
The clash team is planning on reducing upgrade times once new Town Halls come out. The next hero is probably th15. There is probably going to be another month other than clan games and cwl added soon. There will be at least 18 town halls added to the game at some point. Supercell probably will never add a donating resource feature. The 18 month period for town hall releases is just a goal and not mandatory. There will be no mega bases coming out. There will not be a CoC sequel.