I'll just get straight to the point. No bashing, no sarcasm, no opinions, I won't mention anything subjective, just the more objective things about the format that can be considered issues. Stripped to its core, Clan Wars II still has a lot of issues, and I believe those issues are what seeps into the surface level. They make Clan Wars II seem bad even for people who don't think about Clash Royale so deeply.

I'll bold some exclamation marks next to everything that HAS to change for CW2's format to become respectable. u/Supercell_Drew

The finish line (the biggest issues are here)

1. The core of all problems of the finish line is the fact that it puts a lot of different clans under one umbrella. No matter how the finish line is adjusted, within the same league there will be clans that move 10x faster along the river than others. This is not about fairness or matchmaking: the playing field for the biggest clans is extremely different from that of the smaller clans.
2. Racing for time makes for a timezone issue. Those who sleep during the global deck cooldown put their clan at a disadvantage. And in general, you shouldn't be punished for a decision to play in the evening, rather than in the morning. Also, I have heard that Clan Wars II starts at different time for different clans, which could also be an issue. (!!!)
3. In fact, the cooldown creates a choke point that makes speed more important than winning. Here is the current most advanced strategy for highly organized clans: Speed-losing: first, do river tasks, and if after all attacks are exhausted the clan is 10-15k fame away from the finish line, the strategy can continue; second, get most people in the clan to be on when the cooldowns are over; third, have 7 people do the river tasks at any given moment, trying to lose on purpose as fast as possible (duels, special, 1v1, and each of the 4 boats). The boat would just jet past everyone and moreover, boat attacks would be clogged for other clans in that time. (!!!)
4. Because the games are the same between leagues, but the finish line is different, some clans that don't finish in gold/legendary league might have been able to finish and get a better reward if only they were in a lower league. Imagine hitting 40k fame in Legendary and getting a boot, when in Silver you would've finished the race and gotten a better chest. This is just messed up! (!!!)
5. Expanding on the above: the equivalent of it in lower leagues are clans that get the chest consistently and gain trophies, but then consistently get the boot when the fame requirement goes up. (!!!)

Comment: The finish line is not entirely unnecessary. Clan Wars II still needs some kind of limit, like how old clan wars required the participation of at least 10 people. The finish line should be used as a minimum for a clan to advance, not as a photo-finish to distribute rewards.

• Also, if the developers discussed the above and were commited to changing it, then the fame doubler would not be needed and the finish line itself would be properly adjusted around the clans that get a boot but deserve a chest.

Duration, participation and moving clans

1. New players in a clan are able to participate, as long as they have not used their clan war deck in another clan that day. The attacks may be capped at 50, but this limit still feels arbitrary for clans with less than 50 people. It's like it's not there to fully prevent exploitation, just its extreme cases.
2. 7 days is a bloody long period for a race. A lot can happen in a clan within a week. It would be bad if new players weren't able to participate. The old wars had the only possible good system, but waiting 6 days in a clan when a new race just started is not like waiting 1 day for the old wars.
3. The old wars also only had a limitation based on participation. If you were trying to build up a clan, you could still start wars and get gold from collection day that gets added to an eventual bounty. But with a minimum limit now, that's no longer possible and you lose out on rewards if you try to start a clan.
4. Dead clans with enough players can join the clan wars.
5. Overall, with the participation in a race being so fluid, which it has to be because of its super long length, it becomes hard to actively monitor anything about a clan's size and activity.
6. Clans are matched against each other every week within a clan season, aggravating the last problem and everything about the match-ups. One week is already a long period, but even more can happen in a clan within a month. Clans' positions often stay the same, discouraging clans in 4th or 5th place and potentially making their members leave so they don't get bad rewards for 4-5 weeks straight. (!!!)

Implications over the game

1. So, there are no card level caps. Getting 24 extra maxed cards for the new 3 war decks is about as difficult as getting a full level 12 collection. While this isn't harder than before for legendary, it is much much harder for the other leagues.
2. Let's expand the last issue. Underleveled players no longer have the fair gamemodes they used to have in Clan Wars. Because of the deck requirements alongside a lack of level caps, decks in low leagues are usually Frankenstein monsters. This, in fact, hurts strategizing at low levels because duel strategies become more about levels than the decks themselves.
3. Cross-teaming is ultimately possible. Theoretically, four clans can gang on one clan boat. The only thing stopping this is the lack of communication between clans, but even then some clans get attacked more than others out of pure randomness. Nothing your clan can do.
4. The rate at which you get legendary cards is almost entirely dependent on your clan's success in Clan Wars II. The better chest plus a guaranteed legendary card for the 1st clan was already screwing with the game's economy in the past, now it does so even more.
5. Everyone needs to play 4 battles every day to not put their clan at a disadvantage. This isn't very respectful of people's busy lives, to say the least.

Boat battles, Boatyard, Trader

1. Boat attacks are maddening when instead of slowing you down from reaching the finish line, they stop you from reaching it at all and giving you a stinky boot.
2. A king tower in that boat, that has a tiny fraction of the HP of a normal king tower? It's a visual disaster. It doesn't make sense to be there and it misguides new players that it's their big bulky king tower, when in fact it's made of paper.
3. Even after playing dozens of them, it's still hard to tell what exactly is going on. For example, what exactly do the defense towers do when they get destroyed? They seem to all return 10 elixir, have some massive blast wave, and keep spawning units at a lower rate despite not existing. None of this is particularly clear even after you play a lot of boat battles. It doesn't help that there are no stats and no explanation/tutorial of Boat Battles anywhere in the game.
4. The Boatyard is not well-communicated and often confused for being the only way to repair the clan boat.
5. The boatyard uses your levels, making the optimal variant throwing in your highest-level cards, even if the decks are very sub-optimal, then switching back. It gives the same repairs as losing on purpose with the deck, however, unlike losing, it doesn't even give any gold. This makes it always inferior to losing on purpose.
6. The boatyard can be glitched with poor network strength. (!!!)
7. Some of the cards the trader takes can be the same as some of those he gives. This isn't a bug, but it still results in one less meaninful trading opportunity when it happens.

Suggestions

Why not revert to the old Clan Wars? There are a few reasons why I think Clan Wars II has more potential. The most important two:

• 4 war decks & Duels: I think this would be positive if level caps were introduced. I am iffy on it, as having 4 attacks per day can burn people out, however, boat battles are shorter, and also sometimes the boatyard is available, so I'm in favor of this change. 4 decks also make duels possible.
• Boat Battles: They make for actual clan interaction, clans can now actively attack each other. They are a clever way to bypass the issue of people not being online at once. u/Goblin-Guru popularly claimed that CW2 feels like a race and not a war, with which I disagree. If the visuals of the old Clan Wars changed to the new ones and fame represented the war day wins, the old clan wars would be more analogous to a race. Boat battles are something that gives the feeling of actually fighting other clans. And besides, those finally introduced a decent PvE gamemode.

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With this, I'm over with stating the issues, I wanna put out some ideas about adjustments to the format to help out the developers. The racing mechanic MUST be fixed, and so far it's only been bandaged.

These changes are rather trivial and they fix almost every problem I have mentioned.

Clan matchups change every week.

I don't think this is one I really need to explain. We all thought it was a bug at first and after figuring out it was not, no one liked it.

Card levels cap at 10 for Bronze, 11 for Silver, 12 for Gold, 13 for Legendary

Clash Royale battles are real-time, so it's a lot less fun losing to a max level player than it is, say, losing to a maxed town hall in Clash of Clans. Less strict leveling that still ends on level 13 in the legendary league would be better for everyone and I highly doubt it would be a major ceiling for a clan with bad players but high levels.

Race doesn't end when you cross the finish line. Rewards are given at the end of the week based on position.

Like now, the finish line is needed to dodge the boot, but after the finish line, the race goes on. The positions would be determined when the week is over. This solves timezone issues and retains the importance of participation during the entire week, rather in just the first two days for some clan races. It also values success rather than speed, making speed-losing a non-viable strategy.

Finish Line fame requirements changed (stay the same for the final race):

• Bronze: 25000
• Silver: 27500
• Gold: 30000
• Legendary: 32500

A clan with only 4 people attacking, full participation, max levels for its league, and a 98% winrate, would be able to cross the finish line.

More realistically, a clan with 10 participants, on average 1 level below the max for the league, and 75% participation, would need a measly 16% winrate to cross the finish line.

So most clans that would have been able to join 10-player wars in CW1, would be able to dodge the boot in this version of CW2.

Fame boosts only work before the finish line is crossed. Boat Battles are not enabled until the finish line is crossed (except for the final race).

Boat Battles are only possible after the finish line now; this is to prevent struggling clans from basically being bullied.

Fame boosts remain a catch-up mechanic, so they wouldn't be needed after the finish line.

Boat repair requirements reworked:

• Bronze: 3000
• Silver: 3300
• Gold: 3600
• Legendary: 3900

Necessary to adapt to the changes of league caps.

Rebalanced Boat Battles. (These are just my ideas)

• Ten boat defenses for every league.

Fewer but tougher boat defenses, more frequent boat take-downs. This would make clans with few players able to fill the full capacity of the boats. It would make boat battles more worth it if you want to set back another clan, which is the core of CW2 being a team game. And most importantly, it makes Clan Wars II consistent between leagues.

• King Tower renamed to King Fort: a fort of sandbags with a cannon that the king stands behind. It has 1/4 of the normal HP instead of 1/8.

The new visuals would explain the low HP intuitively, wouldn't be a visual disaster, and tiny mistakes would no longer cost the battle.

• The middle boat defense is buffed to summon units even if not attacked, though at only 1/3 the speed of an attacked defense. Also, its cards are shown before the boat is attacked.

This would make stalling strategies leading up to a dual all-in-push a little harder and not something that works no matter the setup. Also it leads to deeper strategizing as you know at least part of what you can expect from a boat.

• Destroyed boat defenses don't summon units

Just a balancing factor to balance out the buff to the middle boat defense, also because it, well.. makes more sense.

Boatyard can no longer be glitched for extra repairs with a poor network strength

Bugfix.

No matter the deck you use in the Boatyard, you get the same repairs and gold:

• Bronze: 80 fame, 45/50/60 gold
• Silver: 88 fame, 70/75/80 gold
• Gold: 96 fame, 90/100/105 gold
• Legendary: 104 fame, 115/120/130 gold

Always the same as the repairs you'd get from losing with a maxed deck for your league. This fixes the fact that the most optimal way to use boat battles is cramming your most upgraded cards in the four decks. This way, Boatyard would mostly be a way to use a deck you're not confident in and that's not maxed for the league, or to help out if you don't have time to do battles. Also, they give a tiny bit of gold so they are not worthless compared to losing on purpose.

Rewards: Legendary chances increased by 50%, but the winner of the race no longer gets a guaranteed legendary

The fact that you can miss on ~4 legendaries every season based on Clan Wars II is... horrendous for the economy. Weaker clans don't just get less rewards, they get a disproportionately small number of legendaries compared to clans that finish 1st consistently.

Minor QoL & fixes

• Make the info icon above the Goblin Hut not disappear
• Fix music and emoting in duels
• Make the trader unable to give a card he takes
• Clearly communicate the following: that the boatyard is not the only way to repair your boat; that the Goblin Hut shows league info; some stats of Boat Battles
• I have a lot of other ideas, but honestly, it's hard to have a clear mindset. I think QoL should mostly arrive when the system itself is working.

Any other issues you discovered, or any ideas of your own you want to discuss? Share them in the comments. I might drop edits if there are valid clan wars issues I missed or clean ideas. I want this post to open up good discussions, so I'll report anything non-civil.

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