This post will delve into my recent upgrades in the game, including discussing the post I read from reddit as well as a certain Boom Beach YouTuber. Rather than respond on the threads myself, I preferred keeping the content here where I could speak my thoughts on certain subject matter, namely the Boom Beach community and Supercell as a company.
For starters, I want to say that I’m getting close to finishing off one of my accounts. Today, I hit level 65 and started work on maxing out a 2nd mortar. At this rate, I feel I’ll have a finished base in a matter of a few months. Once that’s done the only remaining task will be to max out the heroes.
On my secondary account, I’m at level 61 where I’ve managed to max out my rocket launchers and now started work on my Boom Cannons. So far, I have one Boom Cannon maxed out and started on a 2nd level 15 Boom Cannon. It’ll take a little over a month to finish up these bad boys, which ought to deter quite a few tank-medic and possibly grank-med combinations.
While the vast majority of the grind is now behind me, pretty much I just have to look forward to maxing out both bases and then doing better at Hammermans on Mondays. I think once my main base hits max level, I’ll probably scale back my playing to just auto-destroying NPC bases and skipping out on most events just so that I can focus on collecting tickets for the Trader. Everything from there will just be getting more prototype parts and finishing up the heroes.
But this outlook may seem grim to the more hardcore fanatic of the game. In fact, the end game meta is where most players end up slowing down or downright quitting. And this issue is the crux of most of the people complaining on the forums and whatnot, which is what I want to talk about.
Stale end game metas typically are situations where the community just bashes the developers/company/community as a whole because they lack new content. Boom Beach really isn’t much different than say Diablo 3 where new content really hasn’t been produced in the way the community desires. The result is that many people feel the company becomes apathetic to the community, which may be slightly true but not in the way the community can realistically expect.
The thing with Boom Beach is that at the end of the day, it’s not a huge money maker for Supercell. Let’s be real here and note the two big focuses are on Clash of Clans and Clash Royale. I feel that Clash of Clans already had managed to develop a solid niche whereas Boom Beach, while having better game play (in my experience/opinion) felt too similar to really differentiate itself. Clash Royale managed to find its own niche borrowing part of its identity from Clash of Clans along with MOBAs and card games.
Still, Boom Beach itself is just a very casual game that has employed similar mechanics to Clash of Clans at the basis. Sure, it has its share of leaderboards but I feel that for the average player, those aspects are not what draws them into this type of game.
Many of my friends had progressed much farther into Clash of Clans than in Boom Beach. I think the perception there is that they already had invested both time and potentially money into a similar game. So at a certain point, most people stopped.
I don’t think this story is vastly different from other people who started in Clash early but picked up Boom Beach later on. Those that might’ve started Boom Beach at the same time possibly could have seen a mechanically tighter game than Clash. Nonetheless, it’s still a very casual game that’s meant for bathroom breaks.
The thing with Boom Beach is that the game does not pick up until around the middle, say HQ 13 where more offenses become available. Because people might perceive how Clash of Clans is more defense oriented, those transitioning to Boom Beach might attempt to play the game in the same manner without realizing that the HQ upgrade penalties no longer apply.
Unfortunately, due to the horrible early game match making, it can be frustrating for new players to really dive into the game as their bases get decimated, resources plundered and higher level players begin populating their maps. It makes progression seem quite daunting, unless they become invested enough to read guides. Again, most people are at best casual players, which means that this is not their mojo.
The game takes a nosedive in the community area as well just with how operations are handled. Sure, it’s essentially raiding but there’s quite a bit of pressure to perform as well as having attendance. Thus, the chance to receive faster progression again is thwarted by poor mechanics.
But the game has a hard time really improving the community relations. The community managers from the forums do not do a great job in communicating with people. The game has a certain artificial “meanness” to it in providing obstacles that only hardcore players might enjoy. If anything only the super bored hardcore players are the ones calling for this artificially elevated difficulty where the only end game metas are smookas and warriors.
And like games such as World of Warcraft, the vocal minority end up overshadowing their boundaries to what might appeal to the audience at large. Such communities tend to alienate large segments of the audience to the point where a game may never recover. I feel like Boom Beach might be in that type of place.
For myself, I’m glad I started when I did because I managed to bypass most of the stupid obstacles that now seem to be springing up left to right. I would certainly hate to start a new account because the game can be frustrating.
One issue that keeps cropping up is increasing the power creep. In other words, at least a new HQ level. Supercell has admitted that while they have considered the possibility, it doesn’t look like something on their radar. I might’ve mentioned it in the past too where it simply is not worth the effort due to how they would be forced to rebalance the game.
What I mean by “not worth the effort” is simply that the vast majority of players, in my view, never pass the first 5-10 HQ levels. Instead, Supercell seem to prefer focusing on ways to push them forward such as the Builder as a catch up mechanism. Even then few people are going to want to dish out money each month for a silly subscription service to a mostly free to play game.
And that’s where the impasse lies. I think there’s not enough of a unique, addictive hook for the casual player to really entice them into spending and progressing. Leaderboards just aren’t a good enough incentive. Even the discussed Task Force vs Task Force idea in my estimation won’t be enough.
But let’s look at what the game is once more: it’s a casual game. That means, there’s really not a whole lot of thought that really should go into such a thing. As disappointing as that may sound, it’s the raw truth. If you really want complexity, pick up something like World of Warcraft or Path of Exile. Boom Beach is something that you spend 30 minutes at most a day on and it’s really designed around that idea.
What drives me crazy are the YouTubers and people in the community that want to think this game ought to be more. The problem with the YouTubers is that they really have no content to provide at a certain point. But that’s their issue alone in not choosing a larger selection of content beyond a small game like this. And the people in the community who expect more just have unrealistic ideas of what type of effort should go into a game like this.
For myself, I’ll be satisfied once I max out my bases. I might continue for a little longer just to max out every little aspect. But I’m not going to make a huge deal out of the game being stale once I reach that point. If I quit, it’s not because I’m bored but that I have nothing else that I want to accomplish. And I accept that fate. Also, if the game adds new content, I’ll give it a whirl. But I’m not going to whine about new elements that supposedly I’m entitled to by Supercell. That’s just being selfish.