Red face Official 10 Questions For Supercell
This thread follows from http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...Supercell-here .
Tim has kindly offered to answer 10 questions put forward by the community. Here they are. I understand that your question might not be here, but I have asked questions that felt relevant and/or were more frequently asked in the linked thread above. I wanted to ask much more but we have to be happy at what we can ask
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Questions are preceded by a short explanation for context.
1. One of the most frequently asked questions had to do with invasion rate. This has been changed a few times in previous updates and it has shaped how often people can play or how they approach playing. Many are unhappy the invasion rate can be slow, which limits how often someone can ‘play’ the game and the total number of bases they can have at any one time, which is probabilistically limited.
Q. Are there plans to change the invasion system in the future to offer more ‘game time’?
2. The matchmaking system (MMS) has been a source of contention. From early game players who come up against higher levelled players after attacking frequently, to mid-levellers who hit VP walls, to endgame players who see the same opponents too often and get many more raids.
Q. Do you understand the issues with the MMS for different levelled player and playing styles, and what can be done to bring better balance?
3. One of the most pertinent issues at the moment is the ‘ice age’. That is, after the recent update, there has been a greater emphasis on defence. Most people wanted a better a balance. However, this particular approach has had a very negative effect on playing style and the morale of players, particularly higher level players. To use a case study – my 10 man TF – as an EXAMPLE. We are a close knit group since TFs began. Since the ice age update, one has gone AWOL, another two have reduced playing time by around 90% while others have dropped playing time significantly so, almost all have significantly dropped VPs, and importantly, the attitude towards the game has become one of demoralisation. They are demoralised because there is so much time and investment into the game for seemingly little or no return. As a TF we have dropped from 7th to 33rd. This is the result of half-heartedness and people going missing because of lack of interest. 6 or 7 of the TF were in the UK top 10 and now there is 2 in the top 10.
The leaderboards have become particularly stagnant, and players are forced to use more power powders (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing) and work very hard to maintain their VP or reduce the net loss at the end of the day. Generally speaking for Boom Beach players, unless it has suited their particular style of play (or they aren’t interested in local/global leaderboards), players are feeling demoralised, playing less, or leaving – which isn’t good for the game or for business! The main issue from this is not that defence isn’t important, because I do very much believe it should be. But the issue is that the current approach doesn’t address the defensive imbalance in a way that promotes interest in defence or playability of the game – particularly so when people work very hard, playing often and aggressively, only to have the same VP they had a few days ago, or have limited the net loss.
Q. How do you feel recent updates have panned out, and how do you plan to improve gameplay/morale whilst improving offensive/defensive balance?
4. As mentioned, there is great stagnation in the leaderboards, and with recent changes, or related factors, this has led to great difficulty in climbing the leaderboard or persons monopolizing the leaderboard for long periods of time while somehow rising vastly in VP while others struggle.
Q. Do you have plans to change the way leaderboards work to give more people a fairer chance?
5 & 6. One of the issues toward endgame is that operations rewards become redundant and resources from enemy bases and reward boats become redundant, with the exception of gold, stones, and crystals. The incentive for endgamers comes from Dr Terror, operations, and the leaderboard. And if leaderboards become less of an incentive then some players are getting bored with nothing much to aim for.
Q. Should there be plans to stratify the types of rewards players get based on their XP level?
Q. Are there plans to increase HQ level beyond 21 and XP level beyond 61/62 with new content to generate more interest?
7. There was much interest in the future of Task Forces (TF), a feature that most people have really enjoyed.
Q. What are the future plans for TF – will there be new operations or TF wars?
8. Another issue around stagnation is the repetitiveness of NPC’s and non-PVP content. The range of NPCs seems very limited with the same NPCs spawning multi times on a daily basis. This results in very repetitive gameplay. It can feel a little monotonous. Lt Hammerman is a fun addition to the game but 10 bases doesn’t seem enough.
Q. Don’t you have a program or staff that can create more NPCs to keep things fresh, and will we see more of campaigns, Lt Hammerman, or general Zhao?
9. We don’t have access to the statistics SC has and we can be unaware as to what changes are happening or why they are happening. We also can feel unaware as to what SC’s rationale is in terms of it’s future and the developments/changes it introduces. At times it is strongly felt that SC do not listen to forumers (who represent a minority but influential group of customers who can have very insightful suggestions) and that issues are not addressed or ignored. That may or may not be true but forumers can often feel in the dark.
Q. How do you plan to keep us updated on future changes as well as SC’s reasoning behind those changes? Will communication improve and perhaps would you consider a monthly Q&A?
10. We are all interested in the vision of SuperCell (SC) and the future of Boom Beach.
Q. Where do you see the game going in the future? Are your plans on track? How do you envisage the game in another years time?
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Thanks Tim and Supercell
Tim[Supercell]'s Avatar
Tim[Supercell] said:
13 Hours Ago
1. Probably not, but we're trying to think of different ways to bring more gameplay in other areas, such as new events, instead of changing the invasion system too drastically. It's working pretty well overall from our perspective and seeing as it has such a delicate balance, we don't plan to make any big changes here.
2. Yes, we're aware of this and discuss is regularly, but we don't think there's a magic bullet solution to accommodate all types of player - at least not with the current system. So yes, we know it's not perfect and it can be a bit of a problem, but similarly to the invasion system, we think it's working quite well overall.
3. The last update took the defense/offense balance in the right direction - defense matters more now - but it lacked the defensive tools to make things interesting. So in the next update we're bringing some fun defensive tools to spice things up
4. Short answer: no. The leaderboard shouldn't be easy to obtain, especially the #1 spot. There are millions of Boomers, which makes getting to the top 50 a HUGE achievement - let alone global #1! We know the leaderboard still has room for improvement, but it's working much more like we want it to now.
5. A better solution would be to make resources have more meaning in the end game - that's how we'd like to tackle this. It's on our radar, but we aren't sure how just yet.
6. XP levels naturally increase whenever we add more content, such as a new troop or building. Additionally, the XP requirements for HQ upgrades increase dynamically with new content, which means they'll sometimes increase when an update arrives. The next update will most probably trigger this. There's no consensus in the team about introducing HQ 21 - it's something we'll no doubt be revisiting many times in the future, but as of right now we don't have it on any roadmaps.
7. Yes, we've designed a new operation or two for the next update. Improving the Task Force element of Boom is one of our priorities. We've got some ideas about adding Task Force stats somewhere, but haven't finished this enough to implement it yet. We've talked about "Task Force Wars" a fair bit and have an idea bouncing around, but nothing concrete that we're developing right now.
8. We're a small team (just like all game teams at Supercell), which means that even though we'd like to add new NPC content every update, we can't. Sometimes we're able to prioritise it and sometimes not. That's one of the side effects of keeping the team small. However, we are bringing some new events with this update! General Zhao is still a very mysterious character.
9. More Q&As sound good to me! I don't want to promise something and then not deliver, so I'd rather not say we'll do one each month (for the same reason as above: small team). I think our communication has improved a bit over the past couple of weeks with the likes of this Q&A and the 'event changes' post, so I'll try to keep that up. But ultimately, yes, more stuff like this would be cool and I'll do my best to make it so
10. First and foremost: we don't have a grand plan or multi-year roadmap - that's not at all how we work. We more or less work from update to update, implementing stuff that makes the most sense at that time and trying to stay as flexible as possible to the current state of the game. The most important element from our point of view is that the core of the game is solid and can be improved upon for years to come. What this means to you guys is that we don't have big plans in terms of features, but we do in terms of longevity and continuing to improve Boom for many years. If someone starts playing in one year or five years, we want it to be good experience for them. We want them to be dropped into a game with a healthy ecosystem for all players. That sort of longterm thinking is crucial to us and by comparison it makes the big gameplay features seem less daunting to develop - additionally, we're not in a place right now to be thinking about the next big thing, but we will come back to this after the next update lands.
