Hey guys.

Clash Royale is about an year and a half old.
Is it dead? Is it developing? What are the changes needed to make the game last?

It’s that time again.

Today, let’s discuss about these matters. Let’s discuss about the state of Clash Royale. This is the second such article . I wrote the first one about an year ago and pretty much all the things I wanted to change were changed in exactly the way many including me wished for.

Clash Royale is an absolutely wonderful game, that’s for sure. But, like every other game in this fast changing gaming era , it needs to develop. The developers need to keep evolving the game to match it up with the requirements of the players. Supercell has done that time and time again, but the development has come to a halt.

We need REAL change.

The State of The Game

Clash Royale is stagnant right now. Supercell is basically introducing weekly so called “challenges” of a new card, say the Mini Pekka Challenge, where you can win 20-30 cards along with some gold as the top prize. This has been going on for months now. Does Supercell actually think people enjoy these challenges?

Talking about challenges, is it even fun to play challenges anymore, Where more than skill it is the kind of deck you play with, with 2-3 “Popular Decks” that tend to win most of the times? I’m sure none of you would like to play in such a game mode. Challenges were fun initially , when there were no “winning decks”, when skill decided the winner of the game, when people would genuinely spend hundreds of bucks just to be able to play challenges, not caring about the rewards as much as the excitement to try out new decks and strategies.

That’s not even HALF the problem.

Let’s talk about how Supercell releases New Cards. They tweak them out , officially show us their pictures and their statistics, but no gameplay. Well, fine right? The cards will probably be released within the end of the week, couple, tops?

Nope.

The Cards are released one after the other, with a gap of 2 WEEKS between each released card. That chain was too broken, after the “Bats” were released atleast A WHOLE MONTH after the Night Witch. That’s just pathetic. Supercell said that it was because bats “behaved” in a very unexpected way. They said that the bats turned out to be much stronger than expected and thus had to be balanced.

Take the example of the newly announced batch of 4 cards. This is what is their releasing date:

These cards will probably get completely released by the end of September. Mark my words. Is it fair for the time gap between cards being announced and cards being released to be 3 months?

I certainly don’t think so.

But 1 Whole month for a card to be modified? Is that justified, for a multi-million dollar company, with the best of developers? I certainly don’t think so.
Many players were even confused why The Night witch was released before the bats, as she already spawned bats.

Do Supercell developers even play their own games? Judging by their attitude towards the game and balance changes, it certainly doesn’t seem so. Do they actually think releasing 1 card EVERY 2 WEEKS will help, with a stagnation period of no new cards?

The truth is, that Supercell need to realize that the game is not about cards. They simply cannot expect a game to survive and players to be happy by releasing new cards. People nowadays like games that have great modes and a “oomph” factor .

Clash Royale is a pay-2-win game. But honestly, that’s the least of what is wrong with the game right now. The game does not have the “thrill” that the players need. It’s the same grinding on the ladder every season, losing to the same Over-powered decks , ending up in the same position unless you really spend some cash. Sure, Supercell introduced 2v2, and it is good, take nothing away from it, but I don’t think it is enough to make the game survivable in the fast changing gaming environment, where there is no place for those who fail to adapt.

Another very disappointing thing about Clash Royale is how the Tournaments deteriorated. It is absolutely a shame. They had so much potential, but were destroyed by the developers. The rewards were lynched to ash, which no longer made them feasible. You need to invest 1 hour on a tournament for , in most cases,a top prize of 30 cards, and if you lose even 1 match your chance of achieving that becomes none and you get 4 cards. Imagine. Grinding for 1 hr to get 4 cards. It’s pointless.

Tournaments are very boring. They really need a rework.

Earlier you got twice or thrice the rewards you get now. Moreover, the chances of getting epics and legendaries from the chests were very high- people were getting epics even from 4 card chests!

Seriously, if Supercell want their game to last they need to make some serious changes.

The Solutions

Every Problem has a solution. It’s a matter of hard work and creative thinking, before Supercell finds one.

Lets make their work easier. Here is a compilation of the solutions :

Weekly Challenges

Lets talk about the weekly challenges that Supercell releases. Supercell needs to add a twist in them. Simply giving 10-15 rare cards will not help. They need to add some new rewards, maybe like a wheel of fortune having the biggest prize of 500 gems will be great. Adding new kinds of rewards like Tournament “Tickets” or ” Mastery Key(Both Discussed later) will add a thrill and need in players to want to play in them.

Weekly Discounts on Upgrades

Credits to u/CRsean on Reddit for this idea.

I totally agree with this idea, and feel that it is much needed. As you progress higher up in the game, the need for gold becomes very high. The developers should introduce Weekly schemes on different cards offering discounts on buying and upgrading them. This will bring in excitement and happiness among players.

Here’s what Sean had to say

“To expand on this – the idea is to mirror the feeling of the shop. Most people (I hope) generally buy 3-5 of each common/rare when it appears in the shop. You might buy more if you’re really close to an upgrade and don’t want to wait. This discounted approach would allow SC to build a discounted upgrade cycle that gives that same look & feel, but has the added advantage of giving just a little relief to us for the cards that we want to upgrade.”

The problem I’ve noticed at the upper tier of the game is that you’re in need of upgrading cards to compete on ladder, but it’s difficult when the upgrades get to $20k+. A 50%-60% discounted rate would give us the ability to upgrade the cards we need to upgrade while still needing to both a) grind for coins and b) continuously monitor the shop & discounts in the game (thus driving activity even further).

I could see approximately 5-10% of the cards being “on sale” for upgrades each week. That would mean approximately 4-7 cards go on sale when the shop refreshes.

I’m really happy with the changes that have been made over the past month or two — just throwing out some additional ideas to improve the replay factor of the game and make it seem like just a little bit less of a grind.

Missions & Quests

Credits to u/JonEagle on Reddit for this idea.

Expanding on this, i would like to emphasize on the need for missions and quests. The game needs a new mode, something to keep players excited and in suspense . Quests are a good way to do that. Quests will promote healthy and positive interaction of the players with the features in game. Eg- A mission to donate x number or y troop will yield z gems. Rewards can also be tournament tickets , as pictured below :

Tournament tickets can be used to enter tournaments. Eg- 1 Ticket for 50 player tourney, and 20 for 2000 player tourney. Also, to promote “Ticketed Tourneys, The organiser will get 5% of all ticket collection. This will promote healthy competetion and a win-win situation.

Clan Perks

Clan perks need to be added in the game. There can be clan levels and each level will add benefits to all clan members.

Now here’s the interesting part. The perks will be based on the person’s loyalty to the clan; i.e. the longer a person stays in a clan the more % of perks he will get.

This will stop Epic sunday hopping of players in a bid to collect more gold, which leads to instability of clans at times.

Adding on to this, Clan levels will be increased by donating cards to a storage called ” Reserve” and to stop people from dumping their unused cards, Only cards that people have already upgraded to “Their Level” ( If a player is lv12, He can only donate lv12 cards and say lv9 Rares). The more a person donate, the more gold he will get along with Titles like ” Hero of the Spiral” “Captain” etc, that people can add between their names displayed with a different color. This will make the game very enjoyable.

Mystery Rewards from Chests

Credits to u/Bathorius for this idea.
u/Bathorius

“After getting the cards and gold, there’ll be a text saying “But there’s more…” and then the surprise will be revealed! I was thinking of stuff like: – free Grand Challenge/ Classic Challenge entry ticket – 10 rares / 100 commons of your choice – free 50 tournament host – extra card request – x2 gold for 24h – extra gold maybe? To keep the gold shortage lower, like 500/1000/1500 extra gold

For example after every 50 chest, you should get 1 random surprise! I think it really would freshen up the game! Of course some surprises are better than others but it keeps things more fun this way.”

Challenges & Tournaments Revamp

Challenges and Tournaments need a MAJOR revamp. Neither of those are enjoyable anymore. Why are challenges only match based?

How awesome would it be if there were other “types” of challenges. Eg- A challenge to put the maximum number of x card on the field, etc. Where the aim is not to take down each other’s tower but to actually see who can be more faster and evasive.

Tournaments were good earlier, when their rewards were good. Supercell really needs to add some more rewards to justify the 1 hour spent on a tournament.

There are so many more ways in which challenges and tournaments can improve tho.

Mastery

Last but not the least, the Mastery.

It will be similar to leveling up troops but it will unlock special abilities that can be used ONCE per game. The mastery will consist of 5 “stars” Each star will be completed by winning x number of Ladder Matches, y number of challenge matches and z number of tournaments with that card. This will ensure that the player indeed has mastered the card and deserves the special ability. Special abilities will become stronger with increase in “stars”

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That’s it for this extremely long summary of the state of the game guys. I felt the need to express my thoughts and opinions on the game and how it could be improved. Special thanks to few Reditors, as their ideas were fabulous.

What do you guys wanna see? Comment below!