Clash Royale Community, we need to talk. You’ve been having a collective hissy fit over these changes for a couple of weeks now. You’ve turned r/clashroyale into a nearly constant stream of negativity. I’d like to offer another (probably unpopular) point of view.
The Store
You have a better chance of seeing the cards you actually want to buy. The old store offered you three cards every day. The new store offers you 5-6 cards every day. Your odds of getting the cards you want have doubled.
Over leveling of cards has been restricted. The old store facilitated over leveling by offering large stacks of cards. The price scaling benefited players are willing to spend hundreds (thousands?) of dollars leveling up their decks. Flat pricing on smaller packs levels the playing field.
You can no longer buy cards to donate for profit. Honestly, your profit was very small anyway. You’re still getting XP for those donations. That’s reason enough to buy cards if you’re out of the ones that your clan mates request a lot.
The Quests
Free Loot! Two of the most common quests are three “free chests” and “Daily Gifts.” Something for nothing, what could be wrong with that?
Earn more loot! Every completed quest awards you with quest points to open up chests. Real chests, including magical, super magical and legendary. This is an opportunity for chests that you did not have before the update. BONUS: every completed quest awards you with gold or GEMS in addition to the quest points.
Meta diversity in the arena. Diversity in the meta is probably the biggest issue in the game. No one likes a stale meta. Quests that require you to play specific cards will directly affect the meta. If you’re tired of going against a hog deck every other match then this is exactly the relief you’ve been looking for. Everyone is getting quests that ask them to try new cards.
More players on the ladder (1v1 Arena). Some quests require 1v1 Arena play. Clash Royale IS the ladder. Since day one, your goal has been to earn trophies to move up through the arenas and eventually to ranked play. That’s the game! Casual 2v2 mode has drawn a lot of players off the ladder. Come back! Your clan needs you to start climbing the ladder again. Your trophies count to the clan total and more players of different skill levels on the ladder is good for the game.
If you really hate a quest, you can replace one every day. If you really really hate quests, just ignore the them. They aren’t required, it’s just extra loot if you decide to complete them.
Did this replace free chests? I guess it did. Free chests are gone and it’s hard to know if quests are a net loss or gain. I know this much, there’s nothing interesting about opening my app three times a day to open a chest. If I had the option to go back, I would stick quests.
New Game Modes
Goofy, temporary game modes like Touchdown and Mirror are exactly what is needed to keep the game fresh without taking away from the main objective (trophies). Last Summer, 2v2 was a paradigm shifting new mode. It brought cooperative play to the arena and made Clash Royale feel like a completely new game. But it’s a casual game mode, completely disconnected from the arena trophy system. When casual players are opting to play only 2v2 it makes the ladder much tougher competitively. The truth is, we don’t need more full-time game modes (like 2v2) that further divide the player community into different play styles.
Free practice challenges. These new game modes showed up as challenges and people are pretty pissed that they didn’t get a free entry for each one. But you did get to play the challenge twice, for free AND you got to the play to the end no matter how many times you lost. Sure, the awards for the practice challenges are small but they are commensurate with a challenge you don’t have to pay for and can’t lose.
No free entry into the competitive challenges. That’s true but look at the rewards. In the mirror challenge, you get a one-time reward of 4000 gold at 2 wins plus the contents of the chest. If you’re just average and lose out at 3-3, you’re walking away with 5000 gold and it only cost you 100 gems to enter. That’s a way better gems to gold conversion than you get from the store.
Other random stuff
New chat feature. Meh.
News Royale in full screen. Meh.
Copy decks from the web. Sweet!
Free Epic card on Sunday. I don’t hate that.
Tournaments. We didn’t get major changes but they did get rid of the spammy ones.
What’s the problem?
Some people want a new store AND the old pricing that scales up from 2 gold for commons and 10 gold for rares. Some people want their quests AND their free chests. Some people want their practice challenges AND their free entry into the regular challenge. I don’t know how fragile the game economy is. I don’t know if having all those things at the same time would break it. All-in-all, I like the changes and I think players come out ahead.
Bugs? Yes, every new update comes with bugs and this one seems buggier than most. I think mortar should have been fixed by now but I’m sure they’re working on it. Do you miss that red text on the cards you can’t afford to upgrade? I don’t know if it’s a bug but it seems like something they’d probably fix.
Balance Changes? I’m with you. Enough with the Hog Riders already! but, I’ve played this game long enough to know that Supercell rarely sees balance issues the same way that I do. I also know they LOVE that hog rider and if he gets rebalanced it will come from nerfs to his support troops or buffs to his counters.
The “Biggest Update Ever?”
Probably not, but it’s pretty great and I think it has the potential to improve the meta and ladder play. Also, we haven’t seen everything we were promised with this update yet. If you’re feeling short on funds, there are still gold and gem rush events in the pipeline.
Supercell doesn’t want to kill Clash Royale. A Chinese internet company recently made those guys billionaires. They’ve got to give Tencent some return on that investment. They can only do that by continuing to make great games and Clash Royale still their flagship title. Quit your bitchin’ and get in the arena!