For those who are interested, I tested some scores on Rare stage 1 where you can isolate one variable. They were identical to the scores in this thread:
This suggests that the formulas for time, health and combinations are the same. I did not have time to test other levels but I suspect they go up the same way as in the last iteration of the challenge.
From my BRIEF observations, I believe that there have been several things changed:
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Rare chests often wreck havoc on the score (they may enhance scores on early levels per one of the beta testers but will reduce scores in many levels, especially chests that take several turns to be vulnerable)
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The minion health and boss health is higher than in the previous challenges, especially in the later levels. I can still kill the rare level one enemies with items only. However, some of the later stages require multiple rounds of items just to kill the second wave, and the later bosses cannot be killed as easily as in the past.
While the same people will probably win the event and place high, item usage will go way up for these folks. It will be much more difficult to be in the top 10 in all three tiers, which I think is a positive.
The UCLA/Dator strategy of flee and wait for a perfect board will still be somewhat effective but with increased item usage. However, the one perfect board plus items will probably not get many through the upper levels without some additional tile play. Unfortunately, some of the measures that were suggested to counter this strategy were not implemented, but at least the changes are positive. My guess is that the loudest complaints will be from folks placing top 10 in multiple tiers every month, and I don’t have a great deal of sympathy for them because the changes will not upset the order too much.