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Candy Crush Saga

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Prize Palooza: only new levels count....for one group but not the other....

christinewupp

Hey guys. The version of Prize Palooza that started today is only counting new levels!

Also the player allocation is definitely not random.

Tests, tests, tests and more tests going on at King headquarters this November. I am sick of it.

Edit two days later: This only turns out to be for half the players. The other test group get the event 24 hours later and it works by the old system. So it looks like King are running two test groups, probably based on how many new levels players are crushing. Those who crush the most get this version and seem to be competing against other keen crushers:

Those accounts that crush 60 or less levels per week (or those who have not logged into their games or not played new levels every day) seem to enter a day later and get this version, again competing against similar slower players:

Testing, testing, testing…..

This may answer the question about the Star Tournament as it is mentioned above @HM100 : Those player I assume would be part of the 60 new levels or less group. (If their accounts haven't been blacklisted…)

Welcome! 👋

Comments

christinewupp

So strange things happened in the palooza test event right to the last minute. It's broken apparently (see the official thread in Support).

My "only new levels count" group

Look at us all three at the top with the earmuffs! Mar got them right at the last minute, which is a sign that they finished the Concert Chaos event during that period. However according to this leaderboard Mar did not pass any new levels…. No one did in the last hour.

The leaderboards in the two "30x multiplier for new levels" games are here and nobody played a single level during the last hour of the event:

Cornflower saw the finals hang up: There was a "play" button but the event refused to load no matter how often I tried to reboot the app. I suspect it may be due to the old iPad I used. It takes too long to access the app store. Everything else loaded fine but the event did not.

christinewupp

There is also a small part of me which wonders if the opponents we see in our qualifier round leaderboards are real: I mean are they themselves playing against us? Do they see us and do they see the same opponents we see in their leaderboards? Do they even see the event in their games?

We know for a fact that in the weekly contests the others do not see us in their games even though they are real players of the game. I wonder if something similar is going on in live leaderboard qualifying rounds: I always find that players are quite competitive during the first two days, and I have to make sure I play enough to stay in one of the qualifying places, but after I go to bed on a Sunday night I hardly see any change when I get up on Monday morning: No one seems to play during the last night even though they live in countries that are awake (Asia). This is quite similar to what I always see in the weekly contest so it makes me wonder.

Anyone got any thoughts on this?

christinewupp

What I learned from the qualifiers is this:

King are experimenting with different algorithms to organize qualifier groups for leaderboard competitions

Player allocation into the groups is not random.

Players are likely grouped according to recent playing history and performance. This balances out groups so that all players have to play at least one and often two new episodes per day to qualify*

King are maybe trying to experiment with ways to weed out players who use tricks such as offline playing and late entry strategies.

Beware for future live leaderboard competitions

*I have found this rule seems to hold for all leaderboards in all my accounts that I have played in recent months as well as those posted by others, so I assume it probably is universal

Billy254

Then that is quite unfortunate

christinewupp

My other two accounts which had not been playing new levels on a daily basis got the event with a delay today. It turns out they got the old version with the 30x multiplier and are competing against other players who crush a lot less. So the "mad crushers" are competing amongst themselves in one group, and the "occasional crushers" are competing amongst themselves in the other group. Interesting…..

The 15 players in Allium's group had crushed an average of 38 levels/7 days and were playing at levels 43 - 6500.

Cornflower might have confused the system due to a merger. I can't recall how many new levels I played on that account, but definitely less than 60 in the past week. 13 of the opponents had played an average of 30 levels/7 days. But there was one outlier: One other player had played 259 levels/7days. My own player card mistakenly shows 295 due to the merger. It supports my hypothesis that they deliberately put two strong participants into each group. My own game is at level 11,556 , level ranges for my opponents were: 32 - 4200

Conclusion:

Testing, testing, testing and more testing going on.

Nothing is random.

christinewupp

Here my explanation why I think that player allocation in this event is not random.

So far I have two players participating. The newbie who started playing two days ago and my latest real account practising for All Stars at level 2665.

The newbie had passed 202 levels in two days when the event started. Almost all its opponents were at levels above 10K at the start: Eleven at 11,000 + , the remaining three were at levels 7000- 10,000. This is not representative of the game!

The account at level 2665 (which had played 259 levels in the previous 7 days) had a wider player distribution, still overly heavy on players at levels above 10,000 (five opponents) but more spread out.

The two other accounts have a countdown timer still. I think the game won't enrol inactive players, so I must wait two days to play. It's a bit odd.

The two accounts that are playing:

Average of "levels played in last 7 days" for all players at the start of the event was round about 100 levels per week, which is about half of what I had played.

Again, the range was a lot bigger for the established player: range was 8 to 457 levels/7days.

The newbie got a range of 26 to 280/7days.

My theory is this: The player allocation is set by an algorithm in a similar manner to the weekly contest. Players are grouped so that they have a chance to get into the qualifying zone, but at the same time it's not meant to be too easy for anyone. This sounds similar to us getting on the podium (but not winning) in the weekly contest.

The newbie game may have got such odd opposition because it confused the algorithm: A newbie which passes 200+ levels in one day is unusual and the computers could not compute it properly to allocate opponents. In fact I saw a similar mix-up about a year ago in the weekly contest when I played over 700 levels in one week as a newbie: I got one player in my first weekly contest who also played 700 levels, all the others had stopped playing.

I like the fact that such strange behaviour confuses the programme because it gives away how the player allocation works.

I would like to add that there is nothing innately wrong with this. It's just an observation, that's all. At last year's All Stars many players complained about being grouped with others who are playing easier levels, so this non randomness appears to make the game fairer. On the other hand it could just be another of King's illusions: It gives players the impression that they are better than they actually are, and it will give them the impression that they stand a better chance in the finals. So like everything in the game, it's probably another illusion designed to make players spend money and not much else.

Also King keep claiming that the player allocations are random, and I am sure this is incorrect. I do not like being lied to. If they won't tell us the truth they should just keep quiet about it.

HM100

Yes. You can't get these events if you have more than 30K bars, ala Candy Crush All Stars 2024/2025

Billy254

Why won't you be able to test such events, does king exclude anyone with such a high number of gold bars

HM100

Does Star Tournament count? Because with my 30K+ Gold count I won't be able to test such events any longer.

KiwiBird97

No 30x multiplier here, either. It may be time they added a Prestige feature...

Comments

christinewupp

So strange things happened in the palooza test event right to the last minute. It's broken apparently (see the official thread in Support).

My "only new levels count" group

The leaderboards in the two "30x multiplier for new levels" games are here and nobody played a single level during the last hour of the event:

christinewupp

Anyone got any thoughts on this?

christinewupp

What I learned from the qualifiers is this:

King are experimenting with different algorithms to organize qualifier groups for leaderboard competitions

Player allocation into the groups is not random.

Players are likely grouped according to recent playing history and performance. This balances out groups so that all players have to play at least one and often two new episodes per day to qualify*

King are maybe trying to experiment with ways to weed out players who use tricks such as offline playing and late entry strategies.

Beware for future live leaderboard competitions

*I have found this rule seems to hold for all leaderboards in all my accounts that I have played in recent months as well as those posted by others, so I assume it probably is universal

Billy254

Then that is quite unfortunate

christinewupp

The 15 players in Allium's group had crushed an average of 38 levels/7 days and were playing at levels 43 - 6500.

Conclusion:

Testing, testing, testing and more testing going on.

Nothing is random.

christinewupp

Here my explanation why I think that player allocation in this event is not random.

So far I have two players participating. The newbie who started playing two days ago and my latest real account practising for All Stars at level 2665.

The two other accounts have a countdown timer still. I think the game won't enrol inactive players, so I must wait two days to play. It's a bit odd.

The two accounts that are playing:

Average of "levels played in last 7 days" for all players at the start of the event was round about 100 levels per week, which is about half of what I had played.

Again, the range was a lot bigger for the established player: range was 8 to 457 levels/7days.

The newbie got a range of 26 to 280/7days.

I like the fact that such strange behaviour confuses the programme because it gives away how the player allocation works.

Also King keep claiming that the player allocations are random, and I am sure this is incorrect. I do not like being lied to. If they won't tell us the truth they should just keep quiet about it.

HM100

Yes. You can't get these events if you have more than 30K bars, ala Candy Crush All Stars 2024/2025

Billy254

Why won't you be able to test such events, does king exclude anyone with such a high number of gold bars

HM100

Does Star Tournament count? Because with my 30K+ Gold count I won't be able to test such events any longer.

KiwiBird97

No 30x multiplier here, either. It may be time they added a Prestige feature...

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Chat about Candy Crush Saga, share thoughts, news, or anything sweet!
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Stuck or having trouble with Candy Crush Saga? Ask your question here and get help from others.
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Enter for a chance to win Gold Bars and sweet in-game rewards in Candy Crush Saga!
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