No longer able to exit an unstarted board without losing lives - Information and feedback

LuckyMe1189 said:

See, that’s what I was afraid of😫

Hi there, @LuckyMe1189 !

The Thread is NOT CLOSED or TAKEN DOWN YET!  I was just sharing an Observation on the Thread as one of the Highlights in the Community Opening Page. There is no reason to panic.

One thing is for sure, someone who is in control of posting and removing Highlights in this Community is reading the Thread.  Right after I posted The Board Reset Thread No Longer A Highlight On The Community Opening Page comment, the Win Gold Bars and Exclusive Community Badges was taken down as well. I certainly hope that the Authorized Person who has a say will pay attention to the 68, almost 69 Pages of Comments here, not just someone who can't make a difference, defending any changes on the Thread or the Community Opening Page. Not that if it means anything, when the response that we are expecting is from the Higher Authority who has a say in this ridiculous change.

And another thing. The fact they try to sell this as “ fixing an exploit” is an insult to our intelligence.
reshuffling has been an option for over a year, so if they cared so much about people “ abusing “ it, they would have fixed it days after they realized.....

this is nothing but a holiday cash grab. They are squeezing their customers for $$$$ because they know during the holidays people have a lot more time on their hands...

I have still been playing because the money is the issue.  This change was done to increase the money for shareholders.  I haven’t used any boosters because they are no longer of any value without the shuffle.  Who would use them when it’s an almost certainty that they will be wasted?  I play my 5 rounds then I leave.  iTunes still charged me on Dec 14 for the last purchase I made before the change so up to Dec 14, King wasn’t aware that money from me had stopped.  They should be feeling the effects by now.  I will continue to play without boosters until I reach a board that can’t be beat without them and then I will stop playing.

So King decided to remove perhaps THE most effective tool used to solve difficult levels... mainly to force players to have to spend money buying boosters.  Not that difficult to understand from the standpoint of King to garner more revenue.  They knew they were going to catch a lot of flak for this move.  You can bet they will be paying attention to the revenues for the next few months.  If revenue goes up despite the loss of players, they'll keep the game as they've changed it.  If revenue goes down because they lose players, they'll reverse the so-called fix.  The ONLY leverage we players have is to cease purchasing boosters.  I know it's hard to resist, but that's the only thing that will change their minds... loss of revenue.  Stay the course!

I am not sure Activision is really that interested in having many users if these are not spending. Being able to reset the game ad infinitum allows you to do it until you get two color bombs side by side, then 80% of the hard work is done already and you can pass without ever having to spend anything. I was wondering how long it would take Activision to find that out and allow it.

On the one hand I do not like to spend money for a game, on the other hand I realize they have a studio to run, staff to pay, etc, so I empathize with them partly. They have been making billions of dollars in the past, and maybe now their stats are sliding, so they are searching for solutions.

They also have the other candy crash, the Soda one, where this ability to reshuffle the board was absent from day one, and apparently, people are still playing and buying, I read something recently that they have been making more than 2 billions dollars on that one alone, so I guess they are trying to align the saga one with it. Unfortunately, this last one has hundreds of old timers playing it and they got used to the facility of being able to reshuffled the board. The question for Activision would be which strategy would be the most beneficial on the long term, having many of angry old-timers who will quit the game and counting on their newbies base to make up for it eventually, or tolerating the reshuffling with the knowledge that at least some of that money will eluded them.

All levels can be passed without boosters at all, there is a very good website (Candy Crush All Help) detailing that. I have done it occasionally, but with 6000 levels, it would take several life-times to reach the end, and that is not very motivating for people. The ability to reshuffle the board was mitigating that and giving them some hope that they would reach it within reasonable time. Maybe the Soda story doesn't have that many levels, I never looked at it.

Even though i have used the reshuffling facility, I still have been buying, much too much in my opinion, because there is always this last nasty candy that doesn't want to blow, and it's too frustrating to quit so near, so you buy. Or you spend even more time on the game to redo the level. Actually, I observed that all levels are built this way, not that difficult at the outset, but almost impossible to finish off with the number of moves available. I suspect that this is how they decide how much move they will allow for each level, by trial and error.

<end of rambling>