Squad Hoarders: Is hoarding over?
Authors:
Alpe (Head of Content at RoyaleAPI)Author's note:
As a Supercell Super Creator, we often have more information than general players around certain topics. This one is not the case, so most of this blog is opinion and interpretation of everything we've seen in recent months.
Until this day, Squad Busters updates have strongly rewarded hoarding resources.
For example, when Lava World was released, all players from Squad League were reset to Level 120/150. Only those players who had saved troop evolutions were able to spend them and quickly return to Squad League.
The most recent update was arguably even more impactful for progression. Players who saved evolutions were able to convert them into Star Tokens instead of Portal Energy; which are much more valuable. As a result, some players were able to obtain thousands of Star Tokens to spend on Star Chests.
This is undesirable behaviour, and probably something that Supercell is trying to avoid moving forward.
Why? There are several reasons:
The main one is that it directly disrupts how players perceive progression. One of the main incentives for players to keep engaging with a game is that they see how it grows their collection. E.g.: they unlock new characters and level them up. This is carefully tweaked in Squad Busters, so that normal players can upgrade troops every few battles, creating a very engaging cycle. Hoarding resources completely breaks this cycle, and likely hurts game retention in the long term.
Hoarding also affects progression pace. Each of the levels in the World Journey has a very specific amount of PE requirement, which regulates how much you have to play to reach new worlds. Game designers adjust this path so that players unlock new content at the right time, avoiding burnout and making the game feel fresh again. Hoarders will remain tied to the same content for longer than the designers intended, and as a result will be more likely to get bored.
Altering this progression pace also changes the expected time to consume new content. When Supercell adds a new world, they probably expect it to keep players engaged in completing it for X amount of days. Players who hoarded resources can instantly burn through that new content, harming the lifetime of that new content.
Lastly, hoarding also disrupts very basic feelings that players may have when engaging with long-term progression, and this affects monetisation. It's probably safe to assume that designers would like players to want to level up and advance in the game. Player appetite for progression is core to monetisation and player retention. The progression treadmill is very powerful once it becomes a habit; hoarding breaks that habit and significantly reduces that appetite.
With the September update, the incentives that encouraged Portal Energy hoarding have been removed. Now Portal Energy is mainly limited by a daily bonus and the amount of battles you play.
The only way to accumulate PE is with the Achievements Book, but it doesn't have a significant amount, and it halts your progress for the next tiers.
This separation was possible thanks to the addition of Star Tokens. By evolving troops, now you simply obtain Star Tokens; unless the conversion ratio is changed, there's no good reason to hold these upgrades back.
The final question is: should you hoard Star Tokens? Or spend them freely in Star Chests?
I can't think of good reasons to save them. In a similar way to the conversion rates, the odds of these chests may change in the future, but that's a very uncertain reason to save resources compared to the very real advantage it used to have.
Overall, this seems like a fairly elegant solution to a relevant liability. This problem was likely to affect the most active and engaged players, and now they have been freed from the wrong incentives.
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