Spearmint Snowstorm is rigged

I will take that back saying the earlier ones are easy: I've just had to play the first snowstorm level which has boosters locked in my regular game (Cornflower). I was on a Candy Royale run, so no choice to fail and replay. I had to watch ads for 5 extra moves plus a UFO. And I still had to play my own UFO to pass. Definitely rigged!

I've now played through enough Spearmint Snowstorm levels to make this assumption:

There are (at least) twenty different boards.

All players get the same sequence of the first 20 boards (assumption based on two players).

The first boards are easy to pass, at least if you have win streak plus starting boosters.

Subsequent levels are mostly impossible or require specific boosters to be played near the end +/- also payment for extra moves. Most boards super colour bombs and win streak boosters have practically no effect with the exception when the game places two colour bombs side by side

Here are the 20 different boards, in sequence. Anyone who has got this event if your sequence is different please could you share this here. Obviously most of my screenshots are with starting and win steak boosters in place.

The 21st board I got was a repeat, so these may be the only board types.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272416#Comment_3272416

Ya fully agree, just leave the end levels of episodes alone.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272402#Comment_3272402

I would probably choose Alien Invasion as my favorite because I like the ingredient/dragon levels in general. Volcanic Panic was good, but three times for 20-30 days each is too much. I almost started to hate bubblegum. What I really want though is for them to stop replacing levels on the main map altogether. Not going to happen, I know.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272312#Comment_3272312

Honestly I am not finding much issue with the dragons clogging up the board compared to the aliens. Might have something to do with the game being a complete #$%^ atm and not even letting me get to the point where it would matter.

What I have found is that it is… so boring to do. Volcanic Panic and Alien Invasion are miles more interesting to do. I mean Volcanic panic is clearly the best of the bunch by a long shot.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272056#Comment_3272056

I was going to say the same. Are they even real? I doubt it

Maybe some bots have voted for that.

It's not possible to remove blockers at the bottom in any way that will NOT break the ice and release them clogging up the top.

Exactly.

The spaceships in Alien Invasion were generally placed in a way that made it possible to clear the blockers without adding all the aliens on the board, and strategize to release them gradually. The Snowstorm boards seem to be worse, and the level posted above is a good illustration. I have screenshots of Alien Invasion boards and I took a look at them, they are not nearly as bad as this one.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272128#Comment_3272128

I have played about 12 different levels of this event, some many times trying different strategies and there is absolutely no way I could do anything useful without releasing all the dragons. It's not possible to remove blockers at the bottom in any way that will NOT break the ice and release them clogging up the top. I'll be adding all my screenshot this weekend.

Having played it now, ya it is just Alien Invasion again without the, legitimately adorable, aliens. Bigger boards but otherwise basically the same.

I would say this one is slightly better as I really really hate small boards.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272128#Comment_3272128

Kinda sounds like Alien Invasion if you ever used the super colour bomb haha. Oh yay I just let 16 aliens out and now there are no useful spaces left :D

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272117#Comment_3272117

I have the game that has them, might test them out. It also has the new fish which might make a difference. I am curious now haha.

I can tell you that fish WILL make a difference, based on Alien Invasion. They target spaceships/ice blocks before everything else, and you'll find all the space on the board clogged with aliens/dragons before you have a chance to clear the blockers a bit. Basically, the whole board is blocked up, and the game is over.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272111#Comment_3272111

"number_of_tiers": "5",
"number_of_repeating_tiers": "3",
"collection": "Exp_SpearMint_NM_SG_Feb25",
"tier_ordinals_0": "1,2,3,4",
"tier_ordinals_1": "5,6,7,8",
"tier_ordinals_2": "9,10,11,12",
"tier_ordinals_3": "13,14,15,16",
"tier_ordinals_4": "17,18,19,20"

A way to look at the data here:

So one starts with each tier think of them as normal, hard, super hard, nightmarishly hard and @$%# me that is brutal :D.
There are three repeating tiers
The repeating tiers will not be random.
Based on the alien invasion I would say, tier 0, 3 and 4 were what was repeated.
There is no indication if all levels of a tier appear as levels or it is just a selection from them.

So basically if one played only a few versions of the event one might have only see the first two tiers and not dealt with the higher tiers and the repeating nonsense.

I have the game that has them, might test them out. It also has the new fish which might make a difference. I am curious now haha.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272056#Comment_3272056

An interesting observation about the names of voters. There are so many with zero discussions or comments, and so many names I never encountered. I can't help but wonder if they are real as well.

I only played the first few levels of this event in December, and those were not good, but doable. If the later ones are impossible to complete without a double color bomb combo start, it's worse than Legendary. Looks like I won't be playing much for another couple of weeks 😕

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272049#Comment_3272049

What you see is called JSON, it is just a format for data. All I did was actually take the configuration file and toss a few examples into the thread. Some of that won't have any meaning unless you reference the actual game code, some is somewhat self explanatory.

Basically with this and poking around the json parts of the game code you could likely tell in general what to expect from the game as far as mechanics go.

At the bare minimum

{
"name": "expeditions",
"enabled": true,

means I have the event but that does not mean I actually get the event in my game. ie weekly_contest is also enabled but no one on windows get that one.

This is of course just a surface layer view you would need the actual game tools to really take a deep dive.

Note changing these files does nothing. They are generated from the game code and save file and are more of a reference. You would have to manipulate the save file but again you would need the tools to do that. Also that would be blatant cheating.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3271944#Comment_3271944

I couldn't agree more with you on this. In fact the names are available to see when you click on the little icons in this thread. It's an interesting one. Yes, only @MannyFae and myself chose the "didn't enjoy" option. Some of the people who wanted more are people who have never commented in this community (were they real?) and then of course there was our favourite spammer Courtney, who cares about nothing other than the exit button.

Check this thread:

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/484042/%EF%B8%8F-spearmint-snowstorm-check-in-what-did-you-think

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3271989#Comment_3271989

Wow @Insertnicknamehere that is a hell of a lot of computing stuff! It's impressive though understand nothing! But it seems that by different means we both come to the same conclusion here.

@Insertnicknamehere
I am interested in your comment from another thread that you thought King were testing out a new level difficulty, worse than "legendary". Do you think this could be part of these tests?

Ya, I saw it with Alien Invasion as well and even in the one game I started recently. Basically they added a, what I suspect will be hidden, difficulty setting that does not allow for a lucky board. You basically have to all but match the algorithm perfectly to pass without turns.

Also as you noticed boosters and such mean nothing for this difficulty setting.

There are currently 7 versions of "difficulty (the 7th one I think is new).

{
"name": "dynamic_difficulty_v7",
"enabled": true,
"strategy": "legacy",
"majorVersion": 2116,
"minorVersion": 1,
"configurationId": 2116,
"parameters": {
"mode": "2"
},
"serviceConfigurations": []
}, {
"name": "dynamic_difficulty_v6",
"enabled": true,
"strategy": "legacy",
"majorVersion": 3013,
"minorVersion": 0,
"configurationId": 870,
"parameters": {
"min_extra_moves": "15",
"percent_extra_moves": "50",
"stagger_fail_attempts": "3",
"stagger_max_fail_attempts": "15",
"stagger_percent_extra_moves": "10",
"var_percentage_filter": "true",
"control_group": "true"
},
"serviceConfigurations": [{
"type": "otaService",
"parameters": {}
}
]
}, {
"name": "dynamic_difficulty_v5",
"enabled": true,
"strategy": "legacy",
"majorVersion": 3009,
"minorVersion": 0,
"configurationId": 438,
"parameters": {
"min_extra_moves": "15",
"percent_extra_moves": "50",
"stagger_percent_extra_moves": "10",
"stagger_fail_attempts": "3",
"stagger_max_fail_attempts": "15"
},
"serviceConfigurations": []
}, {
"name": "dynamic_difficulty_v4",
"enabled": false,
"strategy": "legacy",
"majorVersion": -1,
"minorVersion": -1,
"configurationId": -1,
"parameters": {},
"serviceConfigurations": []
}

Also the below is the info for the event aka expedition.

{
"name": "expeditions",
"enabled": true,
"strategy": "legacy",
"majorVersion": 13975,
"minorVersion": 0,
"configurationId": 13975,
"parameters": {
"event_start_timestamp_in_seconds": "1739869200",
"event_end_timestamp_in_seconds": "1741593600",
"active_booster": "0",
"catalog_id": "expeditions_rewards_more",
"number_of_milestones": "3",
"episodes_between_milestones": "1",
"number_of_tiers": "5",
"number_of_repeating_tiers": "3",
"collection": "Exp_SpearMint_NM_SG_Feb25",
"tier_ordinals_0": "1,2,3,4",
"tier_ordinals_1": "5,6,7,8",
"tier_ordinals_2": "9,10,11,12",
"tier_ordinals_3": "13,14,15,16",
"tier_ordinals_4": "17,18,19,20"
},
"serviceConfigurations": [{
"type": "otaService",
"parameters": {
"crateName": "expeditions-snowstorm",
"version": "1.17.0",
"baseUrl": "https://candycrush-live.midasplayer.net/s/ota/",
"manifestPath": "crates/be58c6d7d3e1e7ed95a0e7e32b81123c/manifest.json",
"contentRootPath": "crates/be58c6d7d3e1e7ed95a0e7e32b81123c/files",
"manifestHashAlgorithm": "MD5",
"manifestHashChecksum": "2c29a8efe2a5a0bc1b492ebcb0a84187",
"sizeUncompressed": "14973505",
"sizeCompressed": "6740247",
"compatibilityMode": "major_version"
}
}, {
"type": "cdsService",
"parameters": {
"domain": "expeditions",
"instance": "exp_snow_feb25_new_set",
"syncStorage": "true"
}
}
]
}

I really wonder who the hell voted on that "... I'd love to have more events like this"

Cuz this event is ridiculous

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/487777/spearmint-snowstorm-is-rigged

100% true

Extremely stupid levels. I probably had to spend more than 100 golds on just 3 of them. And the rewards aren't even worth it.

We cannot get rid of this event. Once loaded onto our devices we are stuck with it.

My advice would be:

Do NOT play starting boosters after your first attempt. As with all legendary levels play them on your first attempt as you might get a double colour bomb combo, which will help with these levels. But with only one colour bomb there is no way that starting boosters alone will help to pass these levels. Colour bomb+wrap and colour bomb+ stripe combos are completely ineffective.
If you don't have any gold left in your accounts think about stopping to play until the event is finished. The levels replaced by Spearmint Snowstorm are much, much easier to pass. This event is a money grabbing insult to players

This is the normal version for me of the level I tested out above:

I just passed it on my first attempt with no boosters and 5 moves to spare.

Comments

I've now played through enough Spearmint Snowstorm levels to make this assumption:

There are (at least) twenty different boards.

All players get the same sequence of the first 20 boards (assumption based on two players).

The first boards are easy to pass, at least if you have win streak plus starting boosters.

The 21st board I got was a repeat, so these may be the only board types.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272416#Comment_3272416

Ya fully agree, just leave the end levels of episodes alone.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272402#Comment_3272402

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272312#Comment_3272312

What I have found is that it is… so boring to do. Volcanic Panic and Alien Invasion are miles more interesting to do. I mean Volcanic panic is clearly the best of the bunch by a long shot.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272056#Comment_3272056

I was going to say the same. Are they even real? I doubt it

Maybe some bots have voted for that.

It's not possible to remove blockers at the bottom in any way that will NOT break the ice and release them clogging up the top.

Exactly.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272128#Comment_3272128

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272128#Comment_3272128

Kinda sounds like Alien Invasion if you ever used the super colour bomb haha. Oh yay I just let 16 aliens out and now there are no useful spaces left :D

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272117#Comment_3272117

I have the game that has them, might test them out. It also has the new fish which might make a difference. I am curious now haha.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272111#Comment_3272111

A way to look at the data here:

So one starts with each tier think of them as normal, hard, super hard, nightmarishly hard and @$%# me that is brutal :D.
There are three repeating tiers
The repeating tiers will not be random.
Based on the alien invasion I would say, tier 0, 3 and 4 were what was repeated.
There is no indication if all levels of a tier appear as levels or it is just a selection from them.

So basically if one played only a few versions of the event one might have only see the first two tiers and not dealt with the higher tiers and the repeating nonsense.

I have the game that has them, might test them out. It also has the new fish which might make a difference. I am curious now haha.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272056#Comment_3272056

An interesting observation about the names of voters. There are so many with zero discussions or comments, and so many names I never encountered. I can't help but wonder if they are real as well.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3272049#Comment_3272049

Basically with this and poking around the json parts of the game code you could likely tell in general what to expect from the game as far as mechanics go.

At the bare minimum

{
"name": "expeditions",
"enabled": true,

means I have the event but that does not mean I actually get the event in my game. ie weekly_contest is also enabled but no one on windows get that one.

This is of course just a surface layer view you would need the actual game tools to really take a deep dive.

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3271944#Comment_3271944

Check this thread:

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/484042/%EF%B8%8F-spearmint-snowstorm-check-in-what-did-you-think

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/comment/3271989#Comment_3271989

Wow @Insertnicknamehere that is a hell of a lot of computing stuff! It's impressive though understand nothing! But it seems that by different means we both come to the same conclusion here.

@Insertnicknamehere
I am interested in your comment from another thread that you thought King were testing out a new level difficulty, worse than "legendary". Do you think this could be part of these tests?

Also as you noticed boosters and such mean nothing for this difficulty setting.

There are currently 7 versions of "difficulty (the 7th one I think is new).

I really wonder who the hell voted on that "... I'd love to have more events like this"

Cuz this event is ridiculous

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-saga/discussion/487777/spearmint-snowstorm-is-rigged

100% true

Extremely stupid levels. I probably had to spend more than 100 golds on just 3 of them. And the rewards aren't even worth it.