Reddit AMA with Clash of Clans Community Manager: Town Hall 13, Revenge, Skins and much more!

img src="default_banner.jpg" width="549" quality="50" alt="June 2019 Clan Games"

Hi Clashers! Every once in a while the Clash of Clans Community Manager Darian makes an Ask Me Anything session on Reedit. This time he talked about Town Hall 13, new Revenge, Skins and the game future. Here are the most common questions:

Q: Any plans to re-work the Revenge feature? Right now revenge is completely and utterly useless.

A: Oh boy. That's a tough one. We agree it's utterly useless after a certain TH level. We had thought about getting rid of it entirely, but there is a certain feeling of gratification when you can retaliate against the jerk...err...I mean player who raided you, amirite? So we do think the Revenge feature needs an overhaul. We don't plan on getting rid of it, but we're still not entirely sure how we want to make it better. Yes, there are a ton of easy ways to do it, like allow you to revenge through shields but for reduced loot or none at all, etc. But revenge is a dish best served cold, and it needs to have that feeling of gratification when you do use it.

Q: Will TH13 be coming this year?

A: It's inevitable that this question will pop up. We have two more updates planned for the rest of the year. While we don't generally announce major updates like a new TH until we're ready to announce it, we have updates planned for mid- to late-autumn and one more for the end of the year.

Since we have our ESL World Finals at the end of October, we won't introduce a new Town Hall level before the ESL Finals have completed as introducing a new TH level would throw the entire competition into disarray. Plus we would want competitors to have had the chance to max out their bases before competing with them.

With that said, it took us 2.5 years to introduce TH12 after the release of TH11. As we've been saying, we don't want the same gap of time in between TH12 and TH13.

It's not giving anything away by saying that there will be a TH13 at some point. While this is not a hard commitment to timelines, we would like to release a new TH level every 18 months or so. That's not a guarantee that's when a new TH will arrive, but just a guideline of how frequent we'd like new content of that scale to be released.

We have a pretty big update slated for the end of the year. Feel free to speculate, or try to read between the lines if you will, but it's going to be a friggin' massive update with some really cool new features

Q: Are we going to get a Grand warden skin soon?

A: Yes. When it comes to the Grand Warden, the number of players who have unlocked him at TH11 is significantly lower than players who have a Barbarian King and Archer Queen. So we won't be doing Warden skins TOO frequently. But the Warden has been aching to get his party clothes on, as he's a wild one under those scholarly robes so keep an eye out soon when we invite you to the grand celebration.

Q: Will we be receiving a 4th siege machine?

a: We do have some new Siege Machine ideas, but nothing that really makes us go, "Yes! That's an idea that works!" There are some cliche ones, like one that digs underground, but we're not sold on that. So we're still experimenting with ideas.

Q: When Builder Base was introduced in the game on May of 2017, was it Supercell's plan ever since then to add 6th Builder in the Home Village after more than 2 years or it came as an idea later on; a special addition for BH9?

A: Adding a 6th Builder to the Home Village is something we've wanted to do for a while. We've talked about it, and almost added it for the release of TH12. But we didn't want it to just be a feature where you dropped a bunch of Gems and called it a day. When we first worked on Builder Base, it was never the end goal to allow the Master Builder to...commute...to two different jobs; it was an idea that came up during the development of BH9. We wanted the 6th Builder to feel like an accomplishment at the end of a long journey rather than just something you purchased. It had to be something F2P players could attain but it wasn't going to be so easy that you got it as soon as it released.

Q: Are you able to provide any details on what the priorities are/what is being worked on for the remainder of 2019?

A: This is actually a really excellent question. Up until the recent update, our priorities have been to speed up the upgrade process and also fix the clouds. We did both, and words can't describe how happy we are with Operation Blue Skies. There are probably some incremental improvements we could apply to the system but overall we feel it's been a major success, albeit a few years later than players would've hoped.

So with those two major obstacles out of the way, what are we focusing on?

- New content: This is always a driving force on the team. What new cool stuff can we release that would improve the game. We never do content just to release new content. To paraphrase Marie Kondo, when we do new content it must spark joy in us and the players. It's gotta be fun, it's gotta be different, and it's gotta make sense. And while those guidelines may sound common sensical, sitting down for those team design meetings are some of funnest (and funniest) meetings we have.

- Better Clan experience: This is something we've always had our eye on for the past couple years. It's easy to come up with a list of things we'd like to do to improve the Clan experience, but coming up with a project plan on implementing them is quite different. But, we are looking at a ton of QoL improvements on this front.

- Single player content: While it's not high on the priority list, we would like to add some cool single player/PVE content in the future. What shape that'll take is still up in the air as we have thousands of really cool ideas we'd like to put into the game.

- Esports: This was the first year Clash took to the world stage in the form of esports in partnership with ESL. It was a gamble, given that it's a 7-year old mobile game. But partnering with ESL was a match made in heaven as we've seen so many pro teams come out of the woodwork. Tribe Gaming, Team Queso, and many, more have thrown their hats into the ring with sponsored teams. With players from various countries going to the finals, it's truly a World Championship. So we'd like to explore the esports space a bit in the coming years.

Q: Will F2P players be able to get future skins with Gems, for example, or event rewards? (I'm Season Pass holder though)

A: At some point we might offer previous skins in package deals or special seasonal offers. We need to make sure we're striking a balance in those offers, to ensure that the Gold Pass is the more attractive value, as it really is truly a great deal. It's something that's been discussed but nothing has been committed to yet.

Q: Will we get any third village in the future ?

A: Probably not. And that's not because of the community divide between Home Village lovers and Builder Base fans, but because allocating development resources to three different villages simply wouldn't make sense. The Home Village is clearly the mainstay of the game where we see the most activity. We don't want to divide players' time between having to tend to three different bases as that would simply be too demanding on players and on us.

If we saw a reason for one, then maybe. For example, if there was a third base that all Clan members contributed to, then that's perhaps something we might think about. But a feature like that is nowhere on our radar at the moment.

Q: Pretty much understood that Legends is now a TH12 game, but don't you think doing eight attacks per day and defending the base eight times makes sometimes difficult for a busier player to maintain the trophy count? I'd suggest that the players are able to choose how much attacks/defenses he wants to have per day. Say, I'm a Town Hall 12, and chooses four attacks per day, meaning defending the base four times. That works with the work and clash schedule, just a suggestion, what do you think?

A: We intentionally made the number of attacks the same for everyone. We're getting an equal number of complaints saying it's too many attacks as there are complaints stating it's not enough attacks. Averaging it out, I'd say that's pretty balanced.

Q: the 3 minutes mark is a reason for a lot of failures at TH12, have you looked at that data? Any chance that this changes with the next TH level or even before? Like adding extra time or just let the battle go to the end with no time limit? The player couldn’t act after the 3 minute mark, but the action could go on until the last troop dies... not sure of the way that could affect an esport event, it could be time consuming and ‘annoying’ to watch. But the game could speed up the process.

A: So far in the ESL Qualifiers, only a few matches have resulted in time running out. Most of the attacks resolve before the timer reaches zero. We think there's still some more life that can be squeezed out in the 3 minute span, but it IS starting to get close to that limit.

Q: Will the Battle Machine ever get a skin?

A: Probably not.

Q: I asked about the idea of linking sister/feeder/ally clans in the last AMA, and I am curious about any updated thoughts in regards to that general subject.

A: Up until now, our main goals have been speeding up progress and fixing the clouds. We've delivered on those promises, but now our priorities are shifting to what we can do to improve the Clan experience and develop new content. I don't have a roadmap I can share just yet, but we are aware this is one of the most requested ideas. But if we were to do it, we'd need to make sure it's something that would make sense and could be useable rather than just linking two Clan chats together.

Q: BH9 hasn’t even been out for even 1 month yet but I feel like asking this: Will it take double the amount of time to release BH10 considering it took a pretty long time to release BH9?

A: Truthfully, it's going to be a while before we do more BH content. We don't have BH10 on our production calendar. As I've said elsewhere here, we've got a ton of things we'd like to focus on first before we come back to Builder Base.

Q: Will there be in near future a way of including the Builder Base into some kind of "Clan Wars"?

A: We were thinking about that for a while, but for now, we've got too much to do in the Home Village for a while.

Q: I know supercell is pretty happy with OBS. Overall I like it. But would supercell consider allow Legends players to farm in titans after the 8 are done (But have no affect on legends standing), perhaps this would help with titans clouds?

A: We want to keep the Legend League as separate as possible from the other Leagues. Being able to farm in lower Leagues would have an effect on the economy by reducing the amount of resources available to other players in those leagues.