Clash of Clans Design Values
At a Glance
The Clash of Clans team’s goal has always been to build a game that people would play not just for weeks or months, but for years. Achieving this goal is an epic challenge that keeps the fire lit under our team. So how do we tackle this?
To help you better understand how we think about the game, we would like to share the team’s core design values with you. We know that with a community this large and diverse, not everyone will feel the same way about changes or agree on what’s best for the game. Hopefully, sharing our development philosophy will give you more insight into our decision-making process and set the stage for many, many fruitful conversations for years to come.
So without further ado, here are the key values that drive Clash of Clans development:
Depth
Clash of Clans is a game full of choices and trade-offs, and a big part of what makes Clash fun is the variety of strategies on attack and defense. Different armies and Village layouts appeal to different players, and each carries its own unique strengths and weaknesses.
For Depth to flourish, there should always be lots of compelling and competitive strategies to choose from. Keeping the game well-balanced is super important and we never consider a troop or defense to be set in stone. As a player, that means you might invest time into a strategy that gets nerfed or disrupted, but these changes always aim to enrich gameplay depth overall.
Playstyle Diversity
Clash of Clans strives to be a constant source of lasting challenges for a variety of interests. Whether you enjoy Clan Wars, Trophy pushing, or going after loot, there should always be something interesting to try, learn and master.
Playstyle Diversity means always keeping the different interests of Clashers in mind. Sometimes we do (or don’t) develop things in certain ways to help ensure that these different interests, from looting to warring, are fairly represented. This can be a tricky job and player feedback is crucial to getting it right!
Simplicity
Just because a game is deep and challenging doesn't mean that it can't be simple to play. The most timeless games harness the best of both worlds: being easy to pick up and challenging to master. As a player, this means that while you should always feel like you are learning something new, you should never feel too overwhelmed or confused by new game elements.
Developing with Simplicity means we focus on simple and small sets of meaningful actions for players to master instead of unnecessarily complicated game mechanics. We may even change or remove game elements that we feel are unnecessarily complicated!
Meaningful Progression
In Clash of Clans, leveling up is not just a matter of strength, but of meaningful additions on attack and defense. Clash of Clans is an unfolding experience told in many different chapters, and players will discover unique gameplay, strategies and challenges as they progress.
Because of this value, we painstakingly develop each new troop, spell and defense with its own specific role and playstyle in mind. Each addition to Clash should feel like a significant and fun challenge to master, instead of just a copy of another unit with a few minor tweaks.
Social Play
Clash of Clans is a game best played with others. The social interaction between Clan members is the glue that holds all of our other values together. Clans strategize, progress, offer tips, celebrate achievements and share in defeat together, so supporting social play is hugely important to us. Clan-wide features are among the slowest and most complex to implement, improve and get right, but we are committed to moving forward on this front. We will always look for ways to help Clashers not just Clash, but Clash together.
We hope that sharing our values with you will lead to some awesome conversations about Clash of Clans going forward. Help us stick to these core values by keeping the feedback coming! Together, we’ll continue to guide Clash of Clans forward to be the best game it can be for years to come.