Apparently, Supercell Games hasn’t heard of the “if it works don’t fix it" principle because it has decided to overhaul the multiplayer scene of its juggernaut, Clash of Clans (Free). The developers want to improve the fairness of Clash of Clans’ competitive play, improve high-level matchmaking, and create a true, competitive experience to many more players than before. Considering that this is a game played by half the world’s population (by my empirical estimation), Supercell definitely risks getting so many curses from so many people. Good for the company though for daring to change what it felt wasn’t working properly.
And what exactly wasn’t working, you might ask? Firstly, the matchmaking search times were very long, the Trophy offers were repeatedly lopsided (+1 Trophy Win/ -39 Trophy loss), and the Trophy ladder’s low mobiility made players feel stuck in place without the ability to improve. The main cause of these problems was not enough players at the top, which meant matchmaking suffered greatly. So, the developers decided to introduce the Legend League Tournament, the biggest step in their attempt to address this problem. This new Tournament will introduce the Legend League at 5000 Trophies and a new, monthly Legend League Tournament in the Top Players List (go here for more details on the Tournament).
The upcoming update will also drop a Trophy reset on players to bring them closer to each other level-wise and improve the Clash experience. At the end of every Legend League Tournament, Legend League players above 5000 Trophies will reset back down to 5000. The developers hope that this change will get all Legends to push for global rank #1 each tournament, which will mean more players in the top levels, higher mobility, and less wait times. Knowing that players might rail against this trophy killing, Supercell will add Legend Trophies that preserve the Trophies that got reset. That way, the company won’t damage the players’ sense of achievement. The company aims to continue rethinking the high-level competition in Clash of Clans, so if you are one of those playing the game, expect to hear more in the near future. What do you think of these changes, will they have the effect the company is hoping for or are they too much?
