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Clarification Required of Event Testing & Disappearing Treat Calendar
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One of the most common responses to questions regarding items such as the Episode Race and the Daily Treat Calendar disappearing is that the items are just a test.
The guidance on this issue says this:
In fact, the Event feature is a delicate testing phase which is available to randomly selected players only. To ensure the functionality of the feature is stable before we roll it out to everyone, a group of players is chosen to trial the new in-game concepts, design and implementation. Based on their reaction, we decide whether the change is what we want to adopt or not.
I have the Daily Treat Calendar, The Episode Race & Dexter, but not once have I been asked for my reaction on any of these items.
My question then is how do King actually determine the reactions of people like me that, going by the information provided, are taking part in a test?
Best Answer
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@Alienscar exactly. The “test” response is nothing more than a canned answer, & without further explanations on how these “test groups” work, and why these “tests” take years, it’s meaningless.
I think most regulars here don’t believe that answer anymore, & the fact that King still uses it is a bit insulting.
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Thanks for your help again @Freddy_Falkner I wonder how you manage to find time for anything else other than this community.
I thought an answer would take the form you have provided, but this doesn't really explain how King can collect any meaningful data from their tests. The Daily Treat Calendar just logs when a player logs into the game, but this on its own doesn’t allow King to form any conclusion as to whether or not the player likes the Daily Treat Calendar.
It is the same for the Episode Race. I have no choice other than to take part in the Race, so again King can't form any meaningful conclusions from me taking part.
Simply put King cannot draw any conclusions from features that start automatically.
The process is already unfair as the system is providing free boosters and a means of winning gold that is not available to every player.
I must admit my concern is that maybe King are using the tests in a negative way. That is, I wonder if they monitor whether or not a player plays less when a feature they have had is taken away. I hope this isn't the case as that is a poor way of treating their customers.
The case of disappearing features would also point to King not being able to measure people reactions to a feature as what is the point of a test feature that is so unstable that its appearance seems to be haphazard.
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@Alienscar Hi Again, That is something we will never know as King never release
sany game data or conclusions from these tests. All we can hope is it is being done in a fair manor and the data is not used incorrectly. You will see many different opinion's throughout the community on what people think and a lot aimed against King, but for me i know there is no way to prove either way and i am sure as it has additional purchases that some goverment groups would be making sure it was all above board. -
Quote @Freddy_Falkner . You will see many different opinion's throughout the community on what people think and a lot aimed against King, but for me i know there is no way to prove either way and i am sure as it has additional purchases that some goverment groups would be making sure it was all above board.
Please don't get me wrong Freddy, I am not trying to suggest that King, or anyone else is up to no good, I just don't understand the whole 'test' response that is the answer to a lot of people's problems.
A little bit of searching reveals that people have been having issues with the Daily Calendar for over a four years. Whilst issues with the Episode Race have been going on for about a year and a half.
These timescales are far too long for the features to be considered a test.
The Piggy Bank is another feature that is supposed to be a test, but the official information from King does not state this as a fact, so makes it look like it should be available to everyone. In fact, the Piggy Bank article has only just been updated on the 22nd March. This is true of the King articles for the Episode Race and the Daily Calendar as well.
It is transparently obvious from the number of posts related to the issue of disappearing, or non-availability of features that it is an issue that is quite important to this community. Surely the Community Managers @Pounawea, or @Crazy Cat Lad could provide an answer that is better than 'this is a test'. Afterall they talk to the games developers on a fairly regular basis from what I can gather.
For information I have included King's official statement regarding the Piggy Bank. I hope you agree that there is nothing here that indicates that it is a test.
What is the Piggy Bank?
By King GamesLast Updated: Mar 22, 2021
Other Languages
English
Everybody loves a Piggy Bank and here's how to use your special Candy Crush Saga one!
To help you get more Gold Bars with your purchases, the Piggy Bank will offer special deals for those who fill it up!
Earn extra Gold Bars by collecting stars when you beat a level. The more stars you get the more Gold Bars are added to the Piggy Bank, especially on those 'Hard' and 'Super Hard' levels!
Keep filling the Piggy Bank until you see a message stating 'Piggy Bank available'. Choose whether to pay to unlock it there and then, or keep on collecting until you get the "Piggy Bank full' message and then unlock it. The Piggy Bank will stop collecting Gold Bars when it's full.
Like emptying any Piggy Bank, you'll now have the opportunity to fill it up again.
It's a great and easy way to collect precious Gold Bars. Piggy Bank Gold Bars are discounted against the price of the bundles offered in the store!
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Welcome 🤗
Whenever king development crew wants to introduce a new feature, they try it first on a number of players that are randomly chosen, to check if everything is alright.
A/B testing is very common practice in the IT industry and it is put in place for technical reasons. king need to know if the feature can be supported before releasing it to the whole world.
Here's an article on Wikipedia about A/B testing, which might spread some light on this practice and why king do this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/B_testing
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Welcome to you as well @Sukanta_Biswas
Thanks for the link, but unfortunately the information provided by the wiki just reinforces that what is happening with the various 'test' events are not A/B tests.
For the Daily Calendar, Piggy Bank and other events to be part of an A/B test there would have to be two variants of each of them, and King would have to gather information from the use of both variants to determine which of the variants was the best.
That is plainly not what is happening with the CCS events. As a player it would seem you either have the event or you don't. This is not therefore A/B testing.
Quote Wiki: A/B testing is a way to compare two versions of a single variable, typically by testing a subject's response to variant A against variant B, and determining which of the two variants is more effective.
By and large A/B tests are completed for statistical means and not technological reasons.
The other thing that points to the Events not being part of an A/B test is that an A/B test that involved the amount of users that play CCS would be over in one day.
https://vwo.com/tools/ab-test-duration-calculator/
I note that @Crazy Cat Lad has this to say about the Daily Treat Calendar.
We are monitoring the feature closely and hopefully it will work smoothly and also be introduced for all players in the future.
As the Calendar has been available for approaching four years it makes me wonder why it hasn't yet been introduced for everyone yet.
Looking through various articles I think I might have answered my own question. King has this to say about the Chocolate Box:
When is it available to play?
As with our challenges and events, they'll come and go and you'll see different events at different times. We like to keep things varied and fun!
The Chocolate Box event will appear as a pop-up when it begins and you'll see it in your Power Up's menu when it's running. Time to jump on in!
From this I gather that the events aren't a test they are, as I have seen @Freddy_Falkner say recently, just random events that some player's may get whilst others do not.
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Hi @Alienscar 🤗The Treat calendar has been around since the beginning of the game when there was no test group and I never mentioned that the Treat calendar belongs to the test group. You can be sure, that currently each event and feature is managed by a test groups, but a few Tests get almost 100% players.
However I will try to get the latest information from my team one more time to be sure😊
I am quoting the question I answered.
"My question then is how do King actually determine the reactions of people like me that, going by the information provided, are taking part in a test?''
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Very interesting conversation. What I’ve always wanted to know about these”test groups” is how large are they, how often do they rotate the events, are they truly random?
My daily treat calendar disappeared a few weeks ago, despite having it in the game for years. Was I suddenly removed from a test group? (Yes, my game is up to date, I tried logging out & all that usual stuff.)
And I’ve been playing for years & have never had the opportunity to watch a video a video to start with a booster or spin for more moves after failing. I know there are millions of players out there but if they are randomly giving these things to players, & changing test groups, should it have found its way to my game by now? I’d love to know how they manage this “testing”.
There are other events I’ve seen mentioned here over the years that I’ve never seen either.
It’s unfortunate as it creates an unfair playing field for everyone.
