What a leaderboard event is actually measuring

Leaderboards · published 2026-07-31 · checked 2026-08-12 · 7 min read

A weekly ladder looks like a competition against everyone playing the game. It is not. You are placed in a small bracket of players on a similar schedule, and where you finish depends far more on when you play than on how well.

How the bracket is built

When an event starts, the game groups a few dozen players together, usually by level range and by when they joined the event. Everyone in that group then scores against each other for the duration. This is why the same effort produces a top-three finish one week and a mid-table finish the next: the group changed, not your play.

What is being scored

Levels completed, which rewards volume over precision.
Stars or points per level, which rewards finishing with moves left.
Specific actions such as clearing a particular obstacle, which rewards choosing the right levels to replay.

The first is by far the most common, and it means a player with an hour of ordinary play will usually beat a player with fifteen minutes of excellent play.

Royal Match screenshot — Royal Match by Dream Games — from the official App Store listing (Australia).

Royal Match progress screenshot — Ladders and progress bars are the visible part of the event system.

Candy Crush Saga screenshot — Candy Crush Saga by King — official listing image.

Joining late is often better

In games that bracket by join time, entering an event at the start places you with the most active players. Entering later can place you in a slower bracket. This is not a trick and it is not guaranteed, but it explains a pattern many players notice without understanding.

Every reward in these events is an in-game item: coins, boosters, decorations, a badge. None of them has cash value, none can be exchanged for money, and no entry fee is charged by the game for the standard ladders described here.

When to ignore a ladder entirely

When the top reward is a booster you already have too many of.
When finishing would take a run of levels you were not going to play anyway.
When the event ends during a week you are busy: an abandoned ladder costs nothing.

The ladders exist to make a session feel purposeful. When one starts doing the opposite, the design has failed for you specifically, and closing it is the correct response.

Short version

You compete inside a small bracket, not against the whole game.
Volume of levels usually decides placement.
Join time can influence which bracket you land in.
Rewards are in-game items with no cash value.

Royal Match on Google Play · on the App Store. Event formats change often; what is running today is shown inside the game.