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10 View2024-09-03
This is the graphically most impressive, and the most polished "clash royale", and i immediately fell in love with its mature atmosphere, and the feeling of epic abttles. Adtionaly, the gameplay offers more depth than other alternatives, with hero skills, race bonuses and equipment, which leaves and amazing first impression, and i spent a lot of time in Empires, and bought two subscriptions per month, as well as a 30$ mythic chest.
As in most other f2p games, though, you will start with extreme disadvatages, and will never reach a competitive level, if you dont spend much, MUCH money, or buy both subscriptions every month and have a LOT of patience.
There is a level cap for units, but it is just representative. Ive watched the top players in the world, and none of them had a single maxed-out unit above common rarity. And, they all have been spending much money for a long time.
The same applies for rare equipment, that is even harder to get than mythic units, and extremely expensive to upgrade. But at the same time, adds hilarious strenght to units. Needless to say, that long-term-players have all units equipped with high-level, rare gear, and you will be just wiped away when playing against them, no matter how well your deck is balanced, and how good you play.
And if that wasnt bad enough, leaders do also have levels, which determine, how fast their mana bar replenishes, and how early and fast they can use their skills.
Taking into consideration, that a player's account level, which increases by leveling up units and leaders, does also affect the gameplay, by improving your castles health and damage output, there are no less than four (!) layers of pay2win in Empires, that you have to compete against. That you will never make it into the top 200, no matter how hard you try and how good you play. And that your winrate will be stuck at 50%, forever!
In my case, i climbed to a rating, where i had to fight with disadvantages every single time, and at some point, i burned out. Because the matchmaking pairs players with similiar rankings, not similiar strenght. Which means, that i needed to play against stronger opponents, got little points for winning, and lost many points for losing, if i was unlucky enough to get paired with a "farmer". Its the perfect formula to burn out, and i went the only way that was left for me, and started spending money. And kept doing so.
So much about the 1vs1 experience: It doesnt matter how good you play, or how optimized your collection is: You will reach a point, where you wont be able to succeed anymore.
The cooperative ladder is somewhat better, as it raises all units and leaders to lv10, which leads to fairer matches. The equipment remains unchanged, though, and the higher the league you're playing in, the higher the level-cap, so again, you are punished for being good.
To make things worse, there is a trend from whales, to downgrade the own rank, to easily farm afterwards. So, even on the lowest ranks, you will be coupled with people who dont do anything, or paired against teams with insanely strong units. And theres no way to report those players, and no mechanic to prevent that playstyle.
Do i recommend Empires?
No, i do not. From the bottom of my heart!
I have spent 200 Euros, and 300 hours of playtime. And yet, my best equipments are rare (rarity 2 out of 4), and i am still missing several mythic units!
I am account level 12 (of 15), and my strongest leaders have 3 stars (out of 5).
I am tired of the endless grinding, and have finally understood, that i will never compete on a fair level. That all my endevours were destined to fail from the beginning. That Empires is nothing else than an open-ended cashgrab.
I regret, deeply, that i have supported those developers, and wasted so much time for nothing...
Dont do the same mistake...
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