What's your experience when you ran out of moves? - We want your feedback!

Alessandro_S

@pieter0000 : I have a very different experience vs. BGH, as I piled up 250 hammers in 6 weeks.

Main tip: play BGH when you have daily 2-hour boosters, better when you have two at the same time, best when one is double-fish (start playing minutes before the day is over, so right after midnight you have 2 hours' worth of double boosters); BGH will be easier. I usually rack up 18 to 30 hammers every 2 days.

Alessandro_S

JetKuil-Snaterse said:

Alessandro_S said:

I usually rack up 18 to 30 hammers every 2 days.

You are exceptional and special..
Nobody can do that but you...

I honestly doubt that - have you actually tried playing BGH for 2 hours with double boosters?

Please do and post back! 

Xarly

Hi all,

Thanks for your time and your feedback - it's of great use to us. That said, I would like to re-emphasize that our games do not have an algorithm that makes it so that when you have tried plenty of times or when you have spent gold bars then the difficulty of the level changes. I explained it above, and what I am saying is the truth of how we work here: our levels follow algorithms of difficulty based on chances. As you know, chances differ and are, well, random. The combination of those chances, your skills and the right use of the multiple possible boosters when needed that you can acquire (via in-game rewards or by purchasing) are what end up giving you the sweet feeling of passing a level.

I'm very happy to collect feedback but please, keep it constructive. Soda is indeed one of the most challenging games of our Candy franchise, with levels and difficulty that is hardly met in other of our games. That's what we want to do with our games: provide scenarios of excitement and hours of fun to our gamers and offer the multiple different types of players an enjoyable experience.

I'd love for the conversation to keep going but, again, please stay constructive.

Cheers,
Xarly

Mark_Adcock

I'm sorry but the game is not random in any way - it is rigged and manipulated by the program. If the chances of failure or success were random, then after 1580 levels I would have cleared at least some hard/super hard levels on my first attempt. But it rarely happens. Even when those super hard levels begin with a booster earned by completing the previous level.

When you have a board with more than 100 available squares and the one fish goes across and destroys your colour bomb, you call that random? I call it cheating, rigged, manipulation.

When you combine a fish with a horizontal stripe, it has more than 100 squares to choose from, and it lands on the only square with licorice either side, thereby completely nullifying the effect of the stripe, you call that random? I call it cheating, rigged, manipulation.

When you can see that you can create a yellow colouring candy, you do so, only for the game to bring in two more yellow candies next to it so that it simply explodes immediately, you call that random? I call it cheating, rigged, manipulation. It happens too much for it to be just "random".

There is almost zero skill in the whole game. Your chances of success are dependent on what falls into your screen after almost every move - in other words, what the program decides to give you. Totally out of your control.

And I repeat what I said earlier - you talk of algorithms and whatever. I play on FB via PC and have no opportunity to gain a single booster. I have cleared around 1580 levels without using a single booster. I have played it enough, obviously, to know that the game eventually LETS you win. Nothing random about it. No strategy needed. Certainly no skill. A recent level I was struggling to clear - nowhere near winning for many games, then a bit closer, then almost winning but not quite, then down to needing one more move but still failing, and then letting me win with 19 moves left. This is nothing to do with chance, or strategy. It is the game letting me win because the last thing King wants is for me to say I have had enough and delete the game. And if it were random, then this process might occur on my initial attempts at the level, but it never does. I almost always have to play a hard/super hard level around 20 times before winning. Not always, but I'd say around 80% of the time. I can't remember ever beating a super hard level first go. Surely if it were random I would have done by now?

Super hard levels take me about 20 goes. I can tell exactly when I am going to win - usually when the game decides to drop in a few colour bombs etc beyond my control. It is obviously doing so to make my life easier. And if I still fail, it throws in even more, sometimes with a colouring candy too. To make my life even easier. Until it becomes so easy, a child could do it.

To clear 1580 levels without ever using a single booster - you might say I am a skilled player. But I am not. Sure, I don't just make stupid, useless moves. But the difference between winning and losing is only down to the program. This is also true on occasions where I have one square left to hit, but only one move left. No boosters. And no move will hit that square directly. So, I make a move where maybe one or two cascades might happen. And lo and behold - sometimes that move is useless, but sometimes it will miraculously make a fish, trigger that fish and I win. Random? No way. Manipulation? Precisely. The game decided to let me win. 

As the poster says above, there is little fun to be had. It is not very entertaining or fun to be stuck on stupidly hard levels for ages, waiting for the game to finally feel sorry for you. It is also not fun where the level is designed so that you barely have any room to make moves. No fun at all when you are faced with making one forced move, and a forced move which is useless. Forced move, shuffle, forced move, shuffle is lazy developing and tedious to play.

There is also a very fine line between making something challenging and making something so difficult that it becomes frustrating. What annoys me the most about the game is that King decide to make it so difficult, but the reward for eventually winning is....? To do it all over again on another level. I realise it is free to play, but there is little motivation to keep trying a level over and over and over for so little reward. It is why people give up. If success is down to the program, and whether it wants me to win or not (and I win nothing tangible anyway), I may as well go and play a slot machine and try my luck there. At least if I am lucky, I win something.

And slightly off topic, but people often complain about levels being so hard, just to get them to buy boosters. King denies this at every opportunity. Well, if this was not the case, then please explain to me how I have spun the Jackpot wheel in CC Saga probably 700-800 times (I am on level 2600ish) and hit the Jackpot once. Once! The wheel has 8 sections. Therefore, odds of hitting the Jackpot are 7-1. One in seven spins - NOT one in 800! That is so pathetic, so blatantly rigged, it is actually insulting. Insulting in that all the Jackpot gives is one of each booster. That's it. It's not the Crown Jewels. But such is the greed, King refuse to give the Jackpot away so often. So, is it any wonder people say the game is rigged and manipulated? 

Oh well, that's my contribution ;-)  I have a few lives back, so may as well go and burn them ...

Good luck one and all.

Mark_Adcock

Xarly said:

 the sweet feeling of passing a level

This does not apply to me in any way whatsoever. The only feeling I get when I beat a level is the relief that I never have to play that level again.

This is due to the complete lack of skill needed to beat a level. You win when the program allows you to win, and that is all there is to it. You can be as skilful as you like, but if the program just drops in junk every time you move, you lose. If the program wanted to, it could make you lose 10 times every day for 6 months. You can ONLY win when it drops in the combos you need. Hence, there is almost zero skill and, therefore, zero satisfaction when you win.

I get satisfaction from winning at chess where I outsmart my opponent; at something like Freecell or Mahjong where the board is set and doesn't change, and I can use strategy and planning to win; when I complete a crossword etc. Something where I have used my brain, my intelligence, some planning. Not some computer-rigged program where the only intelligent thing I do is match various symbols and wait to see what the program throws at me before my next move. 

Excellent post from Jetkuil above - I too have been stuck on a regular level now for over 25 tries and have come close only once. And it says that 86,800 people have asked for extra moves. On a so-called Regular level?! One thing I have noticed though is this - I am in a race with 4 other people and I am 3 stages in front of everyone else. And because I know the game is totally rigged, I suspect that the game is deliberately holding me up until the others catch up. Of course, King will deny this. But then again King swear that a Jackpot wheel with only 8 sections, and which hits the Jackpot once in 800 spins, is also totally above board and fair. I'm afraid that is an insult to anyone's intelligence.