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Booster + Level Analysis
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Pyrolight
Posts: 883 Level 3
So been playing a serious game since Winter Season started on Jan 8.
While playing I have noticed a few things in general beyond what might have been discussed in the past.
Few Notes:
No Hints
6 Hour unlimited lives
2000+ for levels
Anyway I was trying a two/three booster (sometimes) playstyle trying to keep win streak when possible. Long and short after a week of 6 hour session, plus any extra time, I had spend ~125-200 gold more than I made from all sources.
Monday I did two 6 hour sessions, yes, my eyes were bleeding by the end, and after the first session I was 130 -140 gold down, this was what I was down on the first session + the 6 hour for the second session.
This time I was far more conservative with boosters and such. When it was all said and done I was only down 19 gold and 3/4 done an episode when I ran out of time and lives. In the end I would have been up a small amount of gold had I had time to finish the episode.
Basically I found while you get more levels done using boosters the end effect is you have to shell out more than you can realistically gain from ingame sources. Additionally if you run out of turns with a win streak and spend gold to keep it going, the game usually keeps trying to aggressively break it.
To sum up: If you can stand it, go for the 6 hour unlimited lives booster and only use extra turns as needed and skip boosters for the most part at the level range I am at. You will, from only episode wins, make more gold than you spend.
Comments
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Nice summary. I play fewer episodes per day, can't quite do the 6 hours you do, but I have found very similar findings to yours @Pyrolight . If I had the patience then yes, I do believe a gold profit is possible while still winning the champions race. I did try paying for the 6 hours recently and wished I hadn't. (I paused playing in the middle of it as well, I can't play 6 hours nonstop). I found it a waste of gold. The 30 mins pre game boosters for 9 gold each were useful to keep my win streak, but when I did have to lose it, then my 20 lives from friends were enough to still win the episode race. There are per episode one or two blocker levels which require us to pay for extra moves. As you say, if you keep hold of a win streak too long the game will become more aggressive at trying to break it, but if I do pay up at points where the game wants me to, then it will usually allow me to regain my win streak pretty soon. This still hold true at the 4000-5000 level range I am playing. In practice I am losing gold in my game, but I think if I had more patience then I might still make a small profit, certainly if I just play one episode per day.
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Haha ya 6 hours can be a slog, used to it from MMO's and strategy games. You want a real challenge, do 6 hours with the game music on... hahahaha.
Additionally (moved here from the original post),
I did see some Trigger levels where if you did x or y, like blow up a mixer/last mixer, you got a bunch of boosters and they level became easier. Was able to repeat this so add that to the algorithm mix... joys.
Also just saw an Order level 2950 required the bottom mixer to be destroyed first in order to get the candies needed to win.
So I can say there are Random (regular), Trigger, Order, Gimmick levels. Gimmick being the worst levels I have seen, 2608 and 2623 being examples. If the gimmick does not trigger/breaks you are in for some serious frustration.
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So I tried out my own boosters and level analysis this morning on episode 4671-4685.
My strategy was: Use hints and follow first move as recommended by game, use all three starting boosters for hard or worse rated levels and timed colour bombs and wrapped/striped for all levels, use single booster to keep win streak if I can see it will be successful, if I fail to keep win streak, try starting boosters on next attempt, use 10 gold to play on only if I see that it can be done with the moves offered.
I buy all the boosters at the best discounted rate for 20 boosters each.
I spent:
colour bomb x 30 mins = 9 gold
free wrapped/striped candy from daily treat machine 45 mins = free
fish boosters x 4 , (gained 1 back through Hungry Hatchling) = 3 x 1.95 = 5.85 gold
hammers/ hand switch/striped candies x 6 total (- 2 lollipops gained with Season Pass & Hungry Hatchling) = 4 x 5.5 gold = 22 gold
play on once = 10 gold
= 47 gold spent
I gained 45 by winning the episode race, so made a net loss of 2 gold but:
For some reason the Vault Event freezes up whenever I click on it, so I can't play it on my iPhone 6 at all (the same happened last time the event was on). Without this glitch I would have gained some lollipops through it (I have 15 keys and am on the gold vault!). So if the game was working as it should then I am sure I could have made a small gold profit.
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So did another 6 hour slog, very very interesting.
So for the last few days double boosters were pretty meh. I have not bothered with them and not really noticed a huge difference.
Tonight it was different. I spend 3 hours getting 1 1/2 episodes done. The first one I had a full streak and it was fairly balanced in general. The second episode I lost the streak and it was about 2 hours getting 1/2 of it done.
Once I started using double boosters I managed 3 1/2 episodes in the same amount of time. Levels were either easy or reasonable with the exception of a few that seemed to be fixed in difficulty, the streak breakers and anything when Candy Royal was active.
In the end I was down 37 gold but that really came from being foolish and trying to save the Candy Royal on a legendary level... ya terrible idea, and going with 30 min fish for amusement sake.
One other thing I noticed. When using Striped & Wrapped with/or color bomb and the third booster it dramatically limits how often it activates.
I really noticed this on 2681. I had used Lucky Candy a few times since it seemed like a level that might benefit from them and they were dropping fairly often. I then added a 30 min Striped & Wrapped and the Lucky Candy dropped once, maybe twice. It is like the number of special candies at one time is limited.
So only so many special candies can "drop" and Striped & Wrapped Color > Bomb > Third slot candies and the effectiveness of boosters varies from day to day or some other random factor yet to be discovered.
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So did another 6 hour slog, very very interesting.
So for the last few days double boosters were pretty meh. I have not bothered with them and not really noticed a huge difference.
Tonight it was different. I spend 3 hours getting 1 1/2 episodes done. The first one I had a full streak and it was fairly balanced in general. The second episode I lost the streak and it was about 2 hours getting 1/2 of it done.
Once I started using double boosters I managed 3 1/2 episodes in the same amount of time. Levels were either easy or reasonable with the exception of a few that seemed to be fixed in difficulty, the streak breakers and anything when Candy Royal was active.
In the end I was down 37 gold but that really came from being foolish and trying to save the Candy Royal on a legendary level... ya terrible idea, and going with 30 min fish for amusement sake.
One other thing I noticed. When using Striped & Wrapped with/or color bomb and the third booster it dramatically limits how often it activates.
I really noticed this on 2681. I had used Lucky Candy a few times since it seemed like a level that might benefit from them and they were dropping fairly often. I then added a 30 min Striped & Wrapped and the Lucky Candy dropped once, maybe twice. It is like the number of special candies at one time is limited.
So only so many special candies can "drop" and Striped & Wrapped Color > Bomb > Third slot candies and the effectiveness of boosters varies from day to day or some other random factor yet to be discovered.
At this rate King might really send a hit squad after us haha.
P.S.
Edit tried to eat this post, glad I copied it before I posted and edited
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Episode 4701-4715
This morning a change of strategy: Check each level out first by playing the same level on my other game by scrolling back to assess how difficult it is and which boosters would be helpful to play. This is more time consuming, so no timed boosters:
Gold spent: 49 on 20 starting boosters (combination of lucky, coconut wheel, striped/wrapped and colour bombs) plus 7 fishes costing 14 gold. Total spent: 63.
Total gained: 30 with Candy Royale and 45 champions race: So I made a net gain 12 gold.
Interestingly not a single level needed lollipop/switch or extra moves. Lots of lucky boards triggered just by win streak plus starting boosters today.
I did not find that Candy Royale made any difference to how difficult the levels were to pass. In fact the levels played with similar difficulty on both my devices.
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I liked your theory about third slot starting boosters and tried a few legendary levels out to see if I find the same.
I certainly found on level 2639 this was indeed a pattern: Playing only fishes got me a lot more of them than if I also played colour bomb and wrapped/striped. In fact the level that finally gave me the lucky winning board I played fishes only, and it produced a whopping 9 of those!
However, not all levels follow the same rules. Level 2697 I played at least 30 times with varying combinations of starting boosters and NEVER got more than two fishes, nor ever a lucky board. No rule fits them all, but one rule is clear: If starting boosters don't work, don't keep wasting them at every attempt! Some levels you are clearly meant to spend gold or a UFO to pass.
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Interesting
I know there is a limit on some boards to how many special candies can exist when they come from the generators in the level ie once a Striped & Wrapped drops from one of those another will not appear till the first is gone. It seems like there is also a hard cap on how many of any per level booster can appear in a level in some cases beyond everything else.
Candy Crush Players Guide - 500 pages of info on the rules of Candy Crush.
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After some more testing, running two boosters is just a money loser. It is almost given you will have to use 2x2 for any of the harder episodes so 36 gold. That means you lose even on a single set of extra turns. Single booster is the way to go unless you have extra kicking around.
On a positive note, I now have the 5 min gold gold box. That was unexpected but nice to see. Also my Hatchling is now actually permanently legendary.
