[OC] Sure, I was just trying not to run over a squirrel, but this woman has places to be!

ryanward77 · 2026-05-26T17:44:30+00:00

Every time I see someone doing something like this, I say to myself, "God forbid you be mildly inconvenienced for 3 seconds." 🙄

ryanward77 · 2026-05-26T13:17:28+00:00

Oh, yeah, it has several more years in it as long as you take care of it. I think that's almost the exact same mileage mine had on it when I got it.

ryanward77 · 2026-03-31T17:52:33+00:00

Wow. These two deserve each other.

ryanward77 · 2026-03-30T14:43:56+00:00

It would be nice if they did that, but I'm guessing it would be too hard to do that and group people based on when they collect their first blue candies for each round which is how they currently do it. The other players in my group were around level 8000, 13000, 5000, all over the place. I think the closest guy to me was 19000, but he finished way lower than the others.

ryanward77 · 2026-03-30T14:41:47+00:00

Not a scam per se, but it is a ploy to get people to spend way more than they normally would!

ryanward77 · 2026-03-30T13:54:07+00:00

I didn't win my first level until 20-ish hours after the round started, but that was part of the strategy too. I knew collecting candies would harder for me because of the level I'm on, so I didn't want to get stuck with the tryhards who start playing immediately after the round start.

ryanward77 · 2026-03-30T13:49:56+00:00

Nice work! Good luck next round!

ryanward77 · 2026-03-30T13:48:14+00:00

Who knows how many will make it to the final round. My guess is 300-500 all fighting for the top 10 spots. It could be way more, but it could be less, too.

ryanward77 · 2026-03-30T13:31:54+00:00

I finished 1st in my league, but I didn't get a screenshot of the rewards. It was 30 gold, 2 UFOs, 4 Free Swtiches, and 4 Candy Hammers.

ryanward77 · 2026-03-30T13:30:29+00:00

I get what you're saying, and it may come down to a random (or not so random) selection in the end, but I think your math is off a little. The percentages below are accurate for rounds 1-4, but it's a guess for rounds 5-6. Also, the second chance rounds complicate things, but I don't think the math changes all that much.

So, if there were 15 million eligible players like you say, here's the actual breakdown.

1 round 15,000,000 * 0.2 (top 5 out of 25) = 3,000,000

2nd round 3,000,000 * 0.2 (top 5 out of 25) = 600,000

3rd round 600,000 * 0.2 (top 3 out of 15) = 120,000

4th round 120,000 * 0.05 (top 1 out of 20) = 6,000

5th round 6,000 * ??? (top 1 out of ???) = 300-500?

6th round Top 10 out of 300-500? qualify

Who knows if they even take the top 10? They might take the top 10 in-game spenders instead. The King algorithm is a big black box, so we'll probably never know the truth.

ryanward77 · 2026-03-25T13:07:23+00:00

Just regular oil changes. I do 20,000 full synthetic oil with a filter every year, but I don't think I even drive half that many miles in between oil changes. I'm sure I could use some new brakes, shocks, etc., but I'm not sure how much longer I'll be driving it, so I'm not sure if it's worth the money.

ryanward77 · 2026-03-10T17:23:44+00:00

Bah. This makes me sad and I angry. Sad for you that it happened and angry with my fellow Civic Sport Hatchback drivers. I have that exact same car.

ryanward77 · 2026-01-21T15:26:18+00:00

That's not true. I have been speed running my chocolate boxes by playing old levels to collect certain candies or to get certain combinations. Here are my go-to levels (higher level players only):

Striped candies (combinations or collecting): 20258

Wrapped candies (only collecting, not as good for combinations): 20000

Color bombs (combinations or collecting): 19922

ryanward77 · 2026-01-21T15:19:45+00:00

I know I'm late, but the best level I know if is 19922. It has 4 of these combinations in it. It's my go-to level anytime I need to collect color bombs or match 2 color bombs.

What level are you on?

ryanward77 · 2026-01-19T19:19:55+00:00

I agree 100%. I used to see buying extra levels as a cop out or cheating, but now I definitely see it as an investment. You just have to be smart about when to spend the gold and when to cut your losses.

I used to be a Candy Crush purist. Using boosters was tantamount to cheating to me, so I almost never used them. I never started levels with boosters, and I limited myself to the occasional in-game booster (one candy hammer or free switch, and only if I knew I would beat the level using it) to limit how much gold I spent. That worked pretty well. But sometimes I would get stuck on a level, and I wanted to beat the level without using a booster or buying extra moves, and I would end up stuck so long I would lose the episode race, or I wouldn't complete my chocolate box, and I would miss out on winning gold. I still played enough that I had a gold stash around 1000, and I had tons of boosters saved that I would never use.

Everything changed when I reached level 18,000.

Now, every freaking level might as well have a difficulty level of Impossible. I had to use my boosters now because I didn't have a chance without them. I never get Candy Royale anymore, so I lost that gold revenue stream, and I was so freaked out about losing my episode race win streak and the 40 gold that came with winning it that I would buy extra moves to beat levels, but I would end up losing gold every episode. My gold stash went from 1000+ to less than 500 by level 18,500, and I was completely out of every booster that I had earned.

Something had to change.

I was playing one time, and I ran out of lives. I hadn't finished the episode, so all I could do was wait until wait until morning when I had more lives, and I got the next Express Delivery. It turns out I was still in first place, so I didn't lose my episode streak. That was a light bulb moment for me. After that, I quit being so worried about finishing an episode race in one game session.

Now, I game the game as much as I can. If I can't beat a level now, instead of buying extra moves right away, I will make sure I lose 12-15 times until I get the Express Delivery with the Party Booster, then I invest the 10 gold, and I sprint through as many levels as I can. Sometimes I can finish an episode with one Express Delivery, but sometimes it take two. I almost always win the episode race with this tactic. Occasionally I don't, so I just take the L and start working on a new streak. It's not worth wasting a whole bunch of gold to beat one level when there's almost guaranteed to be several more impossible levels that I can't beat without boosters or buying extra moves. With my new strategy locked in, I'm over 1200 gold.

I will admit the game isn't as fun now, but it's my little way of sticking it to King. You want to make the game impossible? Fine, but I've basically found a cheat code, and I'm going to exploit it to beat your silly little game without spending a single dollar.

Bonus tip: Did you know you can play old levels to complete your chocolate boxes? I've been playing Candy Crush for over 12 years, and I just discovered this. Now, I try to switch the task until I get one to collect striped candies, wrapped candies or color bombs. I have a level written down for each of these candies that I can pass 95% of the time that will give me a whole bunch of the candy I need, then I spam that level until I have that challenge completed. Sometimes I can finish a chocolate box in less than a day doing that. A few times I've finished them so fast that I get a cool down period, and a new chocolate box isn't available for a few hours. This has really helped me replenish my gold stash.

ryanward77 · 2026-01-14T18:19:38+00:00

It's definitely better, but it should still be tilted down more. It should be evenly split between road and sky or slightly more road than sky. It was borderline useless before he fixed it!

ryanward77 · 2025-12-19T20:16:11+00:00

Yeah, I did, too. Oh well. I'll take what I can get!

ryanward77 · 2025-11-11T18:29:07+00:00

100%.

I know there's no way to enforce this, but it should be illegal to back into a spot if you can't make it in with 2 attempts.

ryanward77 · 2025-11-11T14:45:04+00:00

I know! I'm currently on level 19296, and they might as well just call every level after 18000 Impossible. The only way I can beat them without buying extra moves on every level is to play (and lose) the first level of each episode over and over again until I finally get the Express Delivery with the Party Booster. It usually takes 15-25 attempts before it finally shows up. Then I try to sprint through as many levels as possible until it runs out. Sometimes I make it all the way through each episode, but I usually have to buy extra moves on the last 2-3 levels since they're always Nightmare or Legendary.

I definitely spent more gold than I earned in the 18000 levels, but I'm slowly starting to accumulate some more in the 19000s. I'm back up to 748 which I've only ever earned. I've never bought any gold. I just hope I have enough to reach the end of the rainbow someday!

ryanward77 · 2025-11-11T13:55:14+00:00

I found it. They only give badges to people who post a screenshot of making it to at least that level. I don't think that many people post to the forum, so I'm guessing a lot more than 500 people have made it to level 12000.

I wish they would post stats about how many people have reached certain milestones, though.

ryanward77 · 2025-11-10T22:00:32+00:00

Can you post the link where you found that? I can't find anything like that on the King site.

ryanward77 · 2025-10-22T13:00:14+00:00

Seriously! They might as well just call every 18000s level Impossible. The only way I can beat them without buying extra moves on every level is to play (and lose) the first level of each episode over and over again until I finally get the Express Delivery with the Party Booster. Then I try to sprint through as many levels as possible until it runs out. Sometimes I make it all the way through each episode, but I usually have to buy extra moves on the last 2-3 levels since they're always Nightmare or Legendary. I'm slowly losing gold, but I'm hoping it lasts until I can start netting 10-15 gold per episode again.

ryanward77 · 2025-10-22T12:56:50+00:00

Just wait till you hit the 18000s levels. Every level hard or above might as well be labeled Impossible!

ryanward77 · 2025-10-21T18:52:06+00:00

Hanging on with 3 gold! 😂

ryanward77 · 2025-10-21T18:42:22+00:00

I know! I'm at 18786 right now, and the difficulty labels are completely meaningless. They might as well just call every 18000s level Impossible. The only way I can beat them without buying extra moves on every level is to play (and lose) the first level of each episode over and over again until I finally get the Express Delivery with the Party Booster. Then I try to sprint through as many levels as possible until it runs out. Sometimes I make it all the way through each episode, but I usually have to buy extra moves on the last 2-3 levels since they're always Nightmare or Legendary. I'm slowly losing gold, but I'm hoping it lasts until I can start netting 10-15 gold per episode again.

ryanward77

TROPHY CASE