About the Contest

The levels are not much easier in the beginning. This is no longer true. I have played at all level ranges in the game and I find the game boring now because for me Candy Crush basically plays just the same whatever range I'm playing at.

From about level 150 onwards King have now incorporated some levels in each episode that force players to pay gold bars or deplete their booster inventories in order to keep their win streaks. Players at early levels therefore cannot build up a booster inventory or make thousands of gold bars any more (like we did when we played those levels years ago, when they really were easy) unless they replay some levels 50 or more times to wait for a lucky board. What makes levels above 15,000 harder is that some will require a party popper to pass, whereas in the 1-1000 range a lollipop or 10 gold bars for extra moves is usually is enough. This is how the game is designed. Players need to play the appropriate boosters to pass levels. If you do then you can pass any episode of 15 levels in half an hour. If you don't then you will be stuck at any level range, from level 200 onwards.

The weekly race is nowhere near as unfair as you would think. There are lots of players who play hundreds of levels per week in the higher level ranges and there are huge numbers of players in the lower ranges who get so stuck they quit long before they reach level 1000.

I disagree @BossKing. Levels are not easier in the lower ranges.

I must say I am very surprised that you are suddenly struggling to compete against players way lower than you in the Winter Cup after you managed to play well over 600 levels in the past week?

Thank you for your comment. Yes, I just played some episodes today in the 300-500 range and needed to use a lot of boosters and gold there too. Whether players will pass a level is determined by the occurrence of lucky boards. If King do not include lucky boards in a level then that level will not be possible to pass without gold or boosters. This is what determines "difficulty": how long it takes until a lucky board shows up. Some legendary levels require players to replay them about 50 times until the game gives them a lucky board. For players in the early level ranges this is a real problem because they have not yet been able to accumulate as many friends to give them lives. In my game at level 400 I run out of lives! I don't have many lives from friends, so if I fail a level five times I'm out and might lose the episode race because I have to wait for lives to refill. In my game at level 18,140 I can use 20 lives from friends and I also have a lot more gold and boosters saved up. I therefore know that I can play whatever gold or boosters are needed to finish the episode and win the race. Players in levels under 500 don't have this luxury, nor do they have our experience and understanding of the game, how the levels are fixed or how the events are manipulated. I stand by it: Players in the early levels are not at an advantage. The playing field is a lot more even than a lot of people think.