I am quite shocked by the findings I am making with the Valentine Cake event. To be fair the official info for this event makes it quite clear that this is not a live leaderboard: No terms and conditions, and the way the information is all phrased is pretty much like other fake events (episode race, weekly contest etc).
But still the way the event masquerades like a mini All Stars makes me quite concerned as to what the real event will look like when it comes.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt this qualifying round is manufactured in some way, though I am no longer sure to what extent we are seeing a response to our own games. Even my account that played hundreds of levels prior to joining is finding it extremely easy to qualify for the knockouts. I wonder now if this is a trial to allocate opponents in a specific manner so that each group has one strong player and three who have effectively stopped playing, which would make it possible for every player to proceed to the knockout phase.
I won't bore you with all the evidence from all five flowers but in short:
All my five flower accounts joined their leaderboard about half an hour into the event, to eliminate any effect of joining time. Those accounts who were stuck and had played few levels have got opponents who are also stuck. After just over one day in each case only one opponent is really hard to catch.
Just how King do it is what I would like to know. How can they know if a player will use their multiplier? How do they know if someone who was stuck won't suddenly take off again and crush episode after episode (like I've done)? And what, if anything, does this tell us for All Stars?
For now I'll conclude that All Stars will be a genuine leaderboard event as always, and that King are merely testing out the mechanics with these fake events. After all, that's exactly what I am doing.
