Strategy Guide for winning in party mode

Hi there :)

I've written some rules that might help you win a party in SP2. I'd appreciate any comments you might have, and please feel free to add your own tips.

1. Never go for the win if you don’t believe you can get it. I can’t stress this enough. So many times people are getting into a situation where they lose a game after investing hours in it, and for some of them, this will cause them to leave Songpop for good with hard feelings. Before you decide if you want to keep playing, ask yourself:
   • Will you be there at the closing time of the party? In most games I’ve seen, the person who is in the lead an hour before closing time will win only if they’re able to defend that lead. Otherwise someone else will probably take advantage of their absence and take over the lead minutes before closing time.
   • Do you have enough tickets available? If you’re basing your strategy on free tickets, the last thing you want is to get into a tight race with someone and run out of tickets while your opponent passes you and claims victory. See “How many tickets will be enough to win”
2. When should you enter the party? There’s no absolute correct answer here, but here are some tips to help you make your mind:
   • All parties fill up to 150 participants in the first 12 hours of the competition (and once a party reaches 150, a new one opens). After 12 hours, the last party fills to 150, and then each of the parties continues to up to 300 participants. Obviously it would be better to compete with 150 opponents than with 300, so you need to keep this in mind. This might help you in the less-popular categories (like Classical, Reggae, Latin and Praise) where the first party will probably include the stronger opponents, so your best bet would be to enter the second party (if on that day there are more than 150 people entering the party in its first 12 hours).
   • Entering the first party of the day is quite costly. In most cases there will be at least that one guy playing all night which means you’ll have a high bar to pass, so if you’re short on tickets, I would suggest to start playing on the morning (except for weekends of course). If you have enough tickets, on the other hand, then you might want to do the exact opposite - and use up your free time to have a promising lead.
3. When should you go for the win? That really depends on you. I’ve noticed that different people have a different breaking point. One wouldn’t mind playing 3 hours in a row, while the other would get a headache after 30 minutes. Find out what’s the longest time you can play uninterrupted, and then check:
   • How many turns (“quizzes”) will it take for you to get to the top? In my experience, the average is somewhere between 1200 pts per quiz for the categories you’re good at, and 500 pts per quiz for the ones where you have nothing better to do than guess. Consider 1-2 minutes for each round, and make sure you have enough time to take over.
   • Is your opponent active? This is very important. If you see the opponent is online, or appears offline but still makes progress, it would be much harder to pass them. Try to go for the win only if your opponent seems to be resting (or the difference between you is small enough and you believe you’re good enough to close it).
4. How to perform a “takeover”? Try not to “wake up” your opponent. When you pass someone who is ranked #1-#5, they will probably receive a notification to their device about it, and if they plan to fight for the win, they will start racing you (which will cost lots of tickets to both of you). I suggest getting close to the lead (let’s say a distance of 1000-2000 points), and only pass them when it’s getting closer to closing time. Of course, getting close too much might also be a problem if your opponent keeps checking periodically for threats. Once you pass your opponent, I suggest opening a lead (of 5000-10000 points), and then stop playing and keep an eye to see if anyone is coming close to you.
5. How many tickets will be enough to win? That really depends on your strength in the relevant category. As mentioned above, the average points each ticket will win you is somewhere between 500 to 1200. It’s hard to predict what will be the ending score in each category, but I can estimate from my experience, that in the lower leagues it is usually somewhere between 40K and 100K points, while in gold and platinum it’s usually between 80K and 250K for the ones who get out-of-hand. Of course your best strategy should be to go for the category where the leading score is lowest (considering also your own strength in that category, and above all, how fun will you have to play it :) ).
6. How do you get enough free tickets? Watching ads is of course the most efficient way (assuming you’re not willing to pay for them with real money). Keep in mind that the availability of videos is platform-independent. So if you’re playing on Facebook and have no more available ads to watch, you can try in your mobile - there are different ads there, and videos might be available (but still, the 5 minute waiting period between ads is cross-platform, you can’t watch two videos on two different platforms at the same time). Another way is by winning prizes, but that’s much more complicated. For most categories, you would have to play more than 30 tickets to win back 30 tickets - but some of the less-popular categories might help you there if you’re strong enough (for example, Blues parties sometimes close with someone who has 20K points winning 30 tickets, so if you’re strong enough to score an average of 1000 points per ticket, here’s your chance for a profit). Also, if you’re in the gold or platinum league, ranking anywhere in the top 100 gets you 2 tickets, so you might be able to win a ticket here and there by playing one round and making it to the top 100.
7. There is no rule #7. This one is just to remind you of rule #1: Do not go for the win if you don’t believe you can get it. Oh, and have fun!