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I noticed that it is way too difficult, actually impossible to complete the difficult levels without making a purchase to help boost your way through. You can be stuck for days/weeks on end without making a purchase. And it seems like the more your stuck more marketing ads pop up to try to get you to purchase extra things as to suggest you NEED to spend money to get ahead. I’ve won extra tools like the Switch hands, Lollipop hammer, etc., and it still doesn’t help enough to complete before running out of moves. If it really was about fair play, the app developers should come up with more ways to win more moves or tokens, specifically when it comes to the more difficult levels. Has anyone else noticed this money grabbing maneuver as well?
Hello @gjohns7419 Welcome to the community. Absolutely, the game is running the game on us, but there is a way to turn it around and play the game on THEM. Understand the algorithms that underpin the game and the events, and Candy Crush can be played without spending a penny/dime.
We have long been debating here how the game has changed and there have been many complaints about how "money-grabbing" the game has become. King certainly try to get us to spend money! That seems to be whole purpose of how the game is designed now. Unfortunately often the fun element seems to get lost because of this.
Candy Crush Saga is certainly fixed, meaning the possible outcome of each level at each attempt you play, is pre-determined by the starting game board you are given and the candies that then drop for you. If you make all the right early moves, then with about 6 to 8 moves to go the algorithm may switch to either allow you to pass easily or leave players one move/candy short of passing, whatever move they make. I call this a "near miss" board, and if this happens that is the time to use one of those few precious lollipop hammers the game lets us have for free.
There is a way to play without spending money. It involves using boosters wisely and only where they are needed to help pass a level. It takes a lot experience with the game to know exactly which boosters should be played where, and I often get it wrong myself, after years of playing. We also need to use our gold wisely to pay our way out of those impossible-even-with-boosters levels (mostly legendary) once the game offers us enough extra moves for 10 gold bars. Thirdly we need to use the events in the game wisely. Understand which events and prizes are worth going after and which are not. The episode race is the way to get free gold bars and is key to playing without spending real money. Every player can win every episode race if we play the entire race within 24 hours. The other players in the episode race are illusionary.
@gjohns7419 hello there! Greetings lovely @christinewupp, you are right about the game. The game plays US, so we play the GAME!
The only thing different for me is the Episode Race. When I do manage to get one, it sometimes hangs around for two or three days for me and I win? (playing some levels each day or holding off). Must not be enough data or everyone in my race is slow? Only hurry it when I want to. No races lately.
As far algorithms go, I just watch things and act. Math is well, I don't like it, it don't like me… ʕ´•ᴥ•`ʔ
You guys are lucky with your episode races. I have lost my champions race win streak quite a few times when for some reason I got called away from my game mid episode, and then forgot I hadn't finished it, and by the time I opened the game 30 or so hours later I found I had already lost. So I always say it's 24 hours as that must be the guaranteed time all of us can count on. But sure, some players and some races get much longer.