So again, it’s all about the gem deficit, because gems can be gobbled up at such a fast rate and come back to you at a severely slower rate.
Black pearls can be won but at a slow rate and usually with a cost of playing measured in gems. Only hats/slingshot upgrades can be purchased with black pearls but not gems, so their exchange liquidity is low.
Spells can be won/gifted/bought with gems.
Continues for Arena wins can be bought with gems (or video viewings, but ultimately ends with gems for continued playing). Same with regular gameplay.
Tickets for Arena play can be bought with gems.
So much can be attained with gems, but large lots of gems themselves can only be attained by using $$$ (or hacking/cheating).
It all comes down to gem deficit = cash spend = game progress.
This so-called elevator challenge just exasperates the gem situation, much like a slot machine because payout will never override buy-in. It just smacks of cash grab.
BTW having coded games in my job history, just an FYI: when the elevator cards are laid out, they are NOT as shown when they flip over- they are designated at the moment of flip over. Every digital guessing game does this so they can make split-second changes based on how you are playing. When you click on a card it is named at that second when it is revealed to you. You would actually be better off playing with real cards.
Rovio could make it look like you select the greedy pig card every time if they wanted to when in fact it would just be designating the pig card at the time of your selection. But instead the random number generator stacks the odds against you higher and higher the further you get in the elevator quest.
I would be interested in hearing if putte kept stats and kept on playing since he is using an unlimited gem hack. I’ll bet that the closer to the top floor he gets, the more instances of the greedy pig show up.
Either way I’m staying as far away from this stupid elevator thing as I can.
