Table of contents:
Has it ever happened to you that you started playing a title like Clash Royale and after six or seven wins in a row you start losing over and over again for no apparent reason? We dare to affirm the answer will be yes, if you are a regular player of this type of game. In such a frustrating moment, we end up blaming the game itself for our losing streak And this statement could have more reason than we think.
It is an open secret that many Free to Play games would make use of certain techniques to promote addiction and, consequently, that players spend money on premium products.However, from tuexpertoapps we want to focus attention on a specific game. One of the most important games in the current mobile market. We are talking, of course, about Clash Royale.
The matchmaking algorithms in Clash Royale
Any average Clash Royale player has ever heard of the algorithms the game uses to deliver chests. It is not a secret nowadays that a sequence is followed in which, after every certain number of normal chests, the next one will be rare. Something similar happens with the player matching system. A large part of the community of Clash Royale players defends that there is a certain "fixing" when looking for an opponent Through the statistics of victories and defeats that these players have been collecting, it has been concluded that the game follows a kind of algorithm based on specific cards.As an example, we have the case of the Reddit user demosthenes327, who comments on the results collected over approximately 200 games.
According to demosthenes327, cards like the elixir collector, the cannon, the tesla tower, or the graveyard lead to certain specific encounters. Based on his stats, he has found a certain pattern in matchmaking. He affirms that, by winning two or three games with some of the cards already mentioned, the probability of encountering a "counter" in the following games is very high.
This game is rigged confirmed @ClashRoyale fix matchmaking.Also plz take accs away from ppl that lose these matchups pic.twitter.com/gad2IgkjWs
- Code: SirTag (@SirTagCR) July 27, 2017
In other words, this belief states that if you go on a win streak with a certain deck, the game will try to find players to counter that deckin the following games.However, Supercell has not ruled at any time on this controversy, and on their page they indicate that their matchmaking only takes the players' crowns as a reference.
The repercussions of this kind of pairing
Anyone could think that these assumptions are closer to a conspiracy theory and that the statistics that the players talk about are a matter of pure chance. However, earlier this year we learned how other companies already work with similar policies Without going any further, Electronic Arts has patented a matching algorithm that, in In short, it also fosters addiction. Clearly, the increase in addiction favors video game developers, even more so if we take into account the new micropayment policies.
As we said, Clash Royale is not the only video game that would resort to these practices. The already mentioned EA does it, and other companies like Activision also make use of these strategies. As an example we have the latest installment of Call of Duty. In this video game, the lootbox system allows you to open your chests during online games, so that the rest of the players can see what you've got. In this way, the company encourages players to get more chests, spending extra money.
It is for all this that we must be careful with all games, but especially with Free to Play. And it is that this kind of games are the ones that most encourage this kind of addiction. In addition, to these matching algorithms are added the already mentioned chests, which promote compulsive gambling Putting these two variables together, becoming addicted becomes a real danger.