Its going to be another long one so kudos if you get through this:
So the first 2 sneak peeks have come and the changes to the way we shield have been game-changing but why have Supercell decided to do this?
The biggest single reason I can come up with is simply to level the playing field for casual players
I played the game like any other mobile game with a few raids here and there during the day UP UNTIL reaching TH8. At that point, it was impossible to make significant process without riding shields and doing massive raiding sessions for several hours at a time. In fact its the recommended way to play once you get to the point where upgrades start to get expensive and the opposing army includes a queen.
What other mobile game on the market forces you to invest that kind of time into it, especially when trying to keep the biggest portion of the userbase (namely people who dont have numerous 2 hour blocks of free time) motivated to keep playing.
The simple fact of the matter is that casual players have found it more difficult to make progress once they reach the end-game and I suspect that a simple analysis of TH level quit rates would probably point to TH8 being the beginning of the end for most people that give up playing
What the new shields do is apply that same ability to play as you did all the way through the early / mid game by being able to space your attacks out and not being 'forced' to raid in long sessions. In my mind, its healthier for everyone and encourages people to keep playing.
Now you can raid before getting ready for work, then at lunch break and then when you get home, a casual player can raid once more before losing their shield and the hardcore can then still do their 3 hour boosted session
The other notable factor is that with the ability to attack under shield, Supercell have finally given everyone incentive to build stronger armies. The biggest motivation behind barch raiding was the time-efficiency it allowed when attacking during a long session. With the new shield and village guard, the need to be online whilst your army cooks is gone and thus the need to Barch or BAM is massively reduced
Supercell have been trying to reduce the effectiveness of barch for a while now (adding mortars, increasing archer and barb costs, archer towers firing faster etc) and were never successful because they simply never got to grips with why the time-efficiency argument was so strong. This update addresses that. However I dont expect barch to die out completely as its still a very cheap army, I do expect it to be used a lot less though
The new system encourages you to attack more whilst not penalising you for not being on the game constantly, whats not to like?
And for everyone complaining about the loss of free shields. As a TH-out user, I recognised that it was a blatant abuse of the intended system and found it amusing that the very mechanism that allowed low town halls to snipe to champions and above was allowed to continue for as long as it did (The last matchmaking change was an attempt to address that particular exploit, but it didnt go far enough)
If you had been paying attention, you would see that Supercell have been trying various carrot methods for a while now but the incentives have never been that great. The incentives have failed so the carrot is gone and they have come back with a huge stick!
Remember that if Supercell dont like the way a game mechanic is working, they can change it, so be mindful of any particular mechanic exploit that you are using, because if a lot of people are doing it and its something Supercell dont like (the clues are usually there), it could be gone in the blink of an eye. Remember when storage zapping was a cool thing to do and all the arguments about whether it was fair or not?
Arguments about what the game does or doesnt allow you to do, are only valid if your supported practice is also supported by Supercell. Thats always worth bearing in mind when they make a change that you didnt see coming
TL;DR So in conclusion and a this updates helps every end-game casual player, removes everyones need to spend large amounts of their life attached to their device and is actually detrimental to very few people (maybe heavily rushed bases, but Supercell dont seem to like them much anyway)
Attacking through the shield aims to primarily help casual players, village guard is extra assistance for the hardcore
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