User blog comment:Tricoro/Random Variable during Gameplay/@comment-25968376-20160313215554

Great post. I think the main reason why the game has become luck-oriented rather than skill-oriented is because of the variations we now have with Cookies, Pets and Treasures, which makes up for billions of combinations. Remember in the past when you had no Crystal engine and upgrading the cabinet cost 100 Crystals? Back then you couldn't afford risking keeping low-level treasures for other purposes than scoring if that was your primary goal-

I do remember vaguely in the first (couple of?) season(s) that while the stages were fixed, the jelly patterns were not. Sometimes you'd get a decent points run, sometimes a coin run and so on. We can see elements of this in some episodes today as you mentioned, but given the higher number of combinations it's not a relevant factor anymore.

The game kinda lost its focus on skill and is now more focused on collecting treasures, ingredients, achievements and so on that I mentioned in my blog post. However, I'm really happy to see that The Tower of Frozen Waves mitigated this issue, since most of those later levels are purely skill based.