CoC - December 2017 Update News!
Today, on the forums, we got our first concrete answers on the upcoming December 2017 update. It's just a few tidbits, but some of the news was pretty significant. Darian, the SuperCell Community Manager for Clash of Clans, answered messages as he often does and dropped these bits.
First and foremost - there will be no TH12 ***OR*** BH8. This news is actually pretty huge.
A lot of players on the main game ("DayMode") have been hoping for new content. There are a fair number of players at TH11 who are maxed and looking for something new. While the Builder Base certainly represents a great deal of new content and "stuff to do", many players still want to see more on the game they've invested years of time and effort into already. As it's been almost two years since the last new TH was introduced (TH11 in December 2015) there was speculation that TH12 might be coming this year.
SuperCell has been clear that although they're looking at TH12 for the future, they're not there yet. They have ideas but they don't want to just add more levels; they want to look at what cool features they can add that would make it distinct and fun. In the meantime, they really want to focus on other areas of the game that need improvement first. One sore point that has come up before - and was mentioned during the recent Clash Q&A - is the ongoing effort to improve the Clan Wars matchmaking algorithm. The guys at SuperCell have been pretty clear they want to see this, and other features, improved before bringing around TH12.
Darian also mentioned that there are many players who are reluctant to move up from their TH9 or TH10 games due to the increase in difficulty and the time investment required. This makes sense - I know the amount of time required to max TH10 and TH11 both, has been a deterrent to my own upgrading. SuperCell is looking at ways to make the transition easier and to incentivize more people to upgrade. Increasing the population of higher level THs (TH10 and TH11) would reduce clouding and improve gameplay at the top levels.
On the Builder Base side, it's good to hear an official nod that BH8 is not on its way in the December update. Although there are a number of players who are already fully maxed at BH7 (gemmers), the vast majority of the player base still has quite a way to go. BH8 coming in December would have seriously pushed back Free 2 Play (F2P), F2P+, and light gemmer progress as we began the mad scramble to reach BH8.
My games are all BH7 right now, but at varying levels of development. Some still have level 4 and 5 defenses, level 3 walls, a level 5 Battle Machine, and only one or two troops at level 14. Even my flagship game (Noctaire) still has 4 levels to go on the Battle Machine, several point defenses and resource buildings to upgrade, and mostly level 4 walls. Knowing I have at least another month to work on my games is a major boon to my upgrade path.
This extra month means that many of us can get those Battle Machines upgraded, knock out some walls, and finish off some more troops. Players who had been holding off on upgrading Drop Ships can now take the month or so required to get them to level 14. There's no reason anyone shouldn't have at least all level 4 walls by the end of the year, important when going to BH8 and useful even at BH7. (The Bomber can destroy level 3 and lower walls with one bomb, even after his initial, Big Bomb, special ability.)
Darian went on to to say that this December update will be focused largely on the main village and bring something new to the game. He's previously hinted that it would be something starting with the letter "Q", leading many of us to speculate it might be some kind of quests. This would make sense, especially with his other statements around wanting to ease the transition burden when upgrading to new TH levels.
He also said that the update will focus on the clan. That could mean a lot of things. The social aspect of Clash has suffered a bit in the last year, and a number of players have complained that they just don't get as much chat time out of the game as they used to in the early days. Focus on the clan would be welcomed attention.
He went on to say that none of this would affect Clashmas and we could still count on some fun, temporary features like always. Each year, the Clash team has given us decorative obstacles, a new troop, and new traps to play with - for example, we've had Santa dropping "gifts" through a spell and the Ice Wizard paid us a visit.
On the topic of sneak peeks, he was still a bit hazy. We heard "soon" before but now we have "...in the next couple weeks" so there's a little progress there. Most importantly - we know there are sneak peeks coming our way.
It's a great start to answering our questions about what's coming soon. Now we just have to wait for the details in the sneak peeks!
First and foremost - there will be no TH12 ***OR*** BH8. This news is actually pretty huge.
A lot of players on the main game ("DayMode") have been hoping for new content. There are a fair number of players at TH11 who are maxed and looking for something new. While the Builder Base certainly represents a great deal of new content and "stuff to do", many players still want to see more on the game they've invested years of time and effort into already. As it's been almost two years since the last new TH was introduced (TH11 in December 2015) there was speculation that TH12 might be coming this year.
SuperCell has been clear that although they're looking at TH12 for the future, they're not there yet. They have ideas but they don't want to just add more levels; they want to look at what cool features they can add that would make it distinct and fun. In the meantime, they really want to focus on other areas of the game that need improvement first. One sore point that has come up before - and was mentioned during the recent Clash Q&A - is the ongoing effort to improve the Clan Wars matchmaking algorithm. The guys at SuperCell have been pretty clear they want to see this, and other features, improved before bringing around TH12.
Darian also mentioned that there are many players who are reluctant to move up from their TH9 or TH10 games due to the increase in difficulty and the time investment required. This makes sense - I know the amount of time required to max TH10 and TH11 both, has been a deterrent to my own upgrading. SuperCell is looking at ways to make the transition easier and to incentivize more people to upgrade. Increasing the population of higher level THs (TH10 and TH11) would reduce clouding and improve gameplay at the top levels.
On the Builder Base side, it's good to hear an official nod that BH8 is not on its way in the December update. Although there are a number of players who are already fully maxed at BH7 (gemmers), the vast majority of the player base still has quite a way to go. BH8 coming in December would have seriously pushed back Free 2 Play (F2P), F2P+, and light gemmer progress as we began the mad scramble to reach BH8.
My games are all BH7 right now, but at varying levels of development. Some still have level 4 and 5 defenses, level 3 walls, a level 5 Battle Machine, and only one or two troops at level 14. Even my flagship game (Noctaire) still has 4 levels to go on the Battle Machine, several point defenses and resource buildings to upgrade, and mostly level 4 walls. Knowing I have at least another month to work on my games is a major boon to my upgrade path.
This extra month means that many of us can get those Battle Machines upgraded, knock out some walls, and finish off some more troops. Players who had been holding off on upgrading Drop Ships can now take the month or so required to get them to level 14. There's no reason anyone shouldn't have at least all level 4 walls by the end of the year, important when going to BH8 and useful even at BH7. (The Bomber can destroy level 3 and lower walls with one bomb, even after his initial, Big Bomb, special ability.)
Darian went on to to say that this December update will be focused largely on the main village and bring something new to the game. He's previously hinted that it would be something starting with the letter "Q", leading many of us to speculate it might be some kind of quests. This would make sense, especially with his other statements around wanting to ease the transition burden when upgrading to new TH levels.
He also said that the update will focus on the clan. That could mean a lot of things. The social aspect of Clash has suffered a bit in the last year, and a number of players have complained that they just don't get as much chat time out of the game as they used to in the early days. Focus on the clan would be welcomed attention.
He went on to say that none of this would affect Clashmas and we could still count on some fun, temporary features like always. Each year, the Clash team has given us decorative obstacles, a new troop, and new traps to play with - for example, we've had Santa dropping "gifts" through a spell and the Ice Wizard paid us a visit.
On the topic of sneak peeks, he was still a bit hazy. We heard "soon" before but now we have "...in the next couple weeks" so there's a little progress there. Most importantly - we know there are sneak peeks coming our way.
It's a great start to answering our questions about what's coming soon. Now we just have to wait for the details in the sneak peeks!
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