I was taking a nostalgic tour into past Winter Cup threads and it saddens me how the game has changed. There were over 500 posts in 2023/24 and such a bustle of enthusiasm. Those were the days when players still had control over their achievements and strategies gave us control.
Then I came across this thread from a year ago:
Such happy memories. It's when we first met the wonderful Tiago @GiggzZz who went on to win All Stars. It's also when we met @Nobody1 who came to become such an asset to our community only to then be excluded from every single live leaderboard tournament. And of course happy memories of when @MannyFae and I were delving into statistics.
Nostalgia apart:
One year on and everything has changed. I mean everything.
The AI is running the game now. All levels score the same no matter what we do: 2000 per episode of blue, on average. No snowflake candies. Old levels can no longer be used AT ALL.
No way of knowing how the leaderboards are organised or how many of them there are.
Is there a point to competing?
The reason I am competing is this:
- I have enough gold bars to spend to play the game as intended by the algorithms. The gold is of no use to me as I will not use my Cornflower account in All Stars and there is no other incentive to continue to play Candy Crush
- I am playing at a level range where there are still some old interesting levels left that were lovingly written by humans, and I can actually enjoy playing these levels
- It will -hopefully- help me understand how the algorithms work so I can continue to advise players accordingly
So here we go in the finals. I'm not playing to win, just to enjoy myself.
I started ten minutes into the three day final.
This was the starting position:
I played three episodes at a leisurely pace this morning. The leader had played five episodes as is now obvious from the number of blue candies collected. So I kind of like this new system of all episodes scoring equally and there being no multipliers. It helps analyse the game.
Are these players seeing me and are they seeing each other on their leaderboards? I'm really not sure of this any more. The others are playing ad hoc. They stop and they start. Not one of them is playing continually to actually win. And it's a Sunday after all…..
This is a three day event. So is it set out to help anyone win the prize if they crush through enough episodes?
This is what I have found in the 70 players I am teamed up with:
12 are from Europe
1 is from Australia
3 are from the Americas
2 are from Africa
All the others are from Asia!
I checked each player card when I started to play. Out of all the 70 players I had played the fewest levels in the previous rounds: I had played 136 levels/days. One other player had played 197 levels/7days. One was playing the Star Tournament. All the other had played hundreds of levels in the past seven days. It was mind boggling how many levels these people have crushed through.
Clearly these players are enjoying the game. So just because us old folk, used to the good old days, hate what has become of the game does not mean that King need to care: There are millions of players out there who love what this game has become and who will pay good money to King in order to win such events. If my hunch about the Winter Cup is correct then for me it will take the last fun element out of the game. I enjoyed competing against others. If we are now just competing against the game I cannot enjoy this game any more, it's just so boring.
But I will play on while I enjoy these levels:
My playing strategy is:
- Play timed starting boosters from events or paid with gold for all levels
- Play a hand switch as a first move if it's enough to bring two colour bombs together
- Otherwise play the best (often hinted) first move
- Continue with my usual strategy at a leisurely pace
- Pay 10 gold bars for extra moves if it looks likely it might be enough
- Play one or two boosters in addition if that is what the game demands for me to pass (often it's obvious which boosters are needed)
- If I spot an obvious win streak blocker level I replay until I get offered +35 extra moves for 10 gold
So basically this time I'm playing the game exactly the way that I think that the app wants us to play. I follow the lead of the app, play the algorithms as intended. I am curious to see how much of my gold this will cost me. And I'm also curious to find out if this will still leave me in with a chance to win.
