When Finnish game developer Supercell released early this month the much-hyped ‘Town Hall 11’ update to the freemium mobile strategy video game “Clash of Clans,” it was not expecting that it will be up against a major storm of gamer complaints.
The windfall of complaints stemmed mostly from the revamped Personal Break Timer system which resulted to some instances where the counters continue to rise causing gamers the opportunity to get shields due to constant attacks.
Some of the gamers call it a blatant unfairness of the new Personal Break Timer time limits that Supercell has implemented.
Even in its home country in Finland, local media has taken notice of the anger behind the Personal Break Timers.
Supercell initially kept mum about the whole thing but when the Finnish local media started raising a howl over the issue, the developer finally broke its silence and assured fans and gamers of “Clash of Clans” that it will be fixing the current issues with the Personal Break Timers.
Fixing the Personal Break Timer bug
Because of the storm of complaints generated by the ‘Town Hall 11’ update, Supercell immediately released a critical bug fix to “Clash of Clans” but it came out only as optional to gamers.
As a result of the bug fix, “CoC” players are no longer forced into a Personal Break when they had already been offline for a period of time.
The fix also increased the Personal Break online time limit to four hours and that it shall also reset itself when a “CoC” player has been offline for 15 minutes without either a Shield or a Village Guard, details iDigital Times.
During the launching of the ‘Town Hall 11’ update early this month, the Personal Break online time limit had been set for three hours and “CoC” players needs to be offline for 30 minutes without a Shield and Village Guard before it resets.
Supercell has also increased the Personal Break time limit extension from 15 to 30 minutes. The extension is only activated if a “Clash of Clan” player is kicked out of the game while not being attacked or if he takes a defence without a shield.
The fix also extends the Village Guard buff in all league levels which can actually be activated when a Shield expires. For Below Champion levels, the Village Guard will stay active for 30 minutes. But for the Champion levels, players will now have a one-hour Village Guard.
Regular maintenance updates
The ‘Town Hall 11’ update came out on December 9 but because of gamer complaints, Supercell immediately implemented a maintenance update on December 10, which it announced on the game’s Twitter page.
One week later, another maintenance update was made in Supercell’s continuous effort to address the Personal Break Timer issues.
Two days before Christmas, Supercell also made another maintenance update on “Clash of Clans” all meant to provide stop-gap measures on gamer complaints on various issues that came with the ‘Town Hall 11’ update.
It is likely that Supercell will come up with either a major maintenance break within the next few days or a major update on ‘Town Hall 11’ to fix all other remaining bugs on “Clash of Clans to ensure hassle-free gaming by players.
What gamers did not want with the setting of the Personal Break Timers that came with the “Town Hall 11” updates is that they are kicked off from the game after three hours of cumulative online time without a shield.
In addition, any 30-minute rest period away from “Clash of Clans,” unless that time is spent under the Village Guard, resets the Personal Break Timers too.
Writer, the reason TH11 update is a disaster is 1 )because they are combating farmers (players that get lots of loot by attacking dead bases). 2) no more bonus for getting just 1 star 3) no other way of getting resources, the resources they took out by combating farming 4) the new update punished strong defensive bases by making them get attacked over and over again without getting a bonus beside the trophies, no-one cares about trophies.
The personal break is not the biggest issue gamers have with the new update. It is the fact that Supercell eliminated the 12 hour shield that was recieced when a players town hall was destroyed. In a nutshell Supercell made it more difficult to hold onto resources a player had gained while simultaneously making players spend more to gain resources. There are at least four major ways they did this but suffice to say they took a lot of resources out of the game. Many people believe they did it in an effort to increase profits.
Completely agree with the other two comments. The personal timer is not the issue. The issue is what used to be a fun relaxing game, has turned into a stressful chore. Supercell has declared war on the casual gamer–the person who gets on the game for 15 minutes at a time 3-5x per day.
I’m not sure if that was the intended result, but with the update they are squeezing out the casual player.
I tried giving the update a chance, but it has just become too stressful to play. I have officially stopped playing the game, but would love to return if Supercell decides to stop hiding in its cave.
Personal break timer isn’t the issue. Supercell fundamentally changed the game by eliminating the shield for destroying the town hall. This is why everyone is quitting.