About the Angry Birds 2 Arena

[heybert17]

Losing by less than 100,000 with my video bird to go. I get Red, unless it is a weird structure 100,000 is easy. Perfect, simple structure, knock it over and win, even though Red fires he bounces away doing minimal damage.

How much more proof do we need this game is rigged?

[ABeggerToo]

@david-martin there is a definite tendency for the first destruct-o-meter replacement bird to be the same as the bird which filled the meter. This seems specific to the first fill. The only problem with the Might Eagle is the scores it achieves are very low. I always try to pick the most destructive bird in my deck when it comes to filling the first meter.

[David Martin]

The Mighty Eagle can score high if it’s a room where the structures can all be pushed over by its “wind”. In a room where they’re mostly floating or supported by balloons, often hardly anything will move and the pigs will just pop in place. More importantly than the score, though, is its ability to bypass a tough room, one which your opponent often can’t finish off with a single bird. So what you may lose in sheer points, you gain back in terms of having more birds left for the remaining rooms.

When I have the Eagle handy, I often psych myself into thinking it’s too valuable to use on a room that I think I can clear with a bird or two, then after actually firing one or two and still having some random pigs left, I sorely regret it, but at that point I don’t want to “waste” it on a room that’s mostly clear. So I’ve learned to just get it out of the way sooner rather than later so that I don’t shoot myself in the foot by trying to save it up for future situations I can’t predict.

[David Martin]

Aha, I think I understand now why you usually get the same card you just used the first time you fill the Destruct-O-Meter. The game starts you with one of each bird at the beginning of every level. To make sure you never have two of the same card visible at the same time, the game will never award you a card you already have. Assuming you can fill the Destruct-O-Meter with a single bird, the game’s only option is to give you back the bird you just used, or else a spell. Chances of getting a spell seem much lower than getting a bird. But if you were to start with all five spells in your arsenal, the game would have no choice but to give you the exact card you just used. So the best strategy, if you had a Mighty Eagle in your first three, would be to use it right away and force the game to give you another one that you can use near the end of your Arena run. Otherwise, if you have a strong bird guaranteed to do a lot of damage, use that and you’ll get another one of that bird for later use. This doesn’t work on the second Destruct-o-Meter fill and thereafter because you’ve used up more cards and the game has more options in terms of what to give you.

The reason I was sometimes getting a Pig Inflator rather than the card I had just used was because I have no Pig Inflators in my stash right now, so I was starting the Arena with every spell other than that one.

[Jon S]

@cognitive

Well here’s my frustration for this week.

Matchmaking, at least for my end, seems fair for now, and I’m winning almost every time (I bring in ducks and blizzards for streaks 5-7) and I’m faced with players with equal star rank and sling. It’s not an issue as it was in the last update. Now it’s a certain amount of cheaters that appeared in my current tournament

As of now: I’m at star rank 55, with all my birds at Elder emerald (trying to accumulate around 2800 feathers for when Elder amethyst (level 14), becomes available, which is likely soon when levels 681-700 are released) and just completed my crown hat set which upgraded the sling to silver

I’ve checked the stats of the 14 other players and 4 of them have

– lower star ranks than I am (29-33)
– all of them have level 13 birds
– the main issue – all of them have AZURE sling shots – which you have to spend 3500 pearls on completing your cowboy hat set, which is really hard to do at this time, since the pearls/hat were introduced last week. I guess they found a way to hack the game to get unlimited pearls.

Well can’t say I’m surprised whose currently in 1st place.. Yup, one of those 4 “cheaters” scored over 500 stars within a few hours. Do these guys ever sleep, eat or even work? I think the main reason people achieving these ridiculous amount of stars are doing it for bragging rights so that they can have a higher count in their gold medals. 300 gems and 300 pearls will do nothing for them.

As of now I’m currently in 3rd place with 134 stars (2nd place has 226). I might try to catch up to 2nd place, but might be more trouble than it’s worth :(

[ABeggerToo]

@david-Martin you summarized my experience with the Mighty Eagle well, I always use it too late after I’ve flung a couple of other birds. I will remember to use it first in the future, especially of there are tall structures which will fall.

[angrynerds2]

Well.. cheaters like Carl are gone, but there are so many guys now who don’t seem to work or sleep and play the whole time to score more than 1000 stars in a week.

It sucks that without the spell card clowns the chances of being in the top three are much harder.

[David Martin]

Well, that’s the downside of making things more fair for everybody. Now everybody has a chance to actually be competitive. Yeah, it sucks that we’ll always be falling behind the players who have no life and play 24/7, but isn’t that how a lot of online games work? You spend more time playing the game, you get more rewards. Any game developer’s gonna want that.

It was probably more fair in the old days when you could log one high score per day and the highest one won the Arena, so your performance wasn’t proportional to the number of matches you played. But of course that doesn’t get us to play nearly as many matches, meaning fewer ad views and less temptation to buy stuff. I’m not thrilled about it but I can at least understand their reasoning, versus other decisions Rovio has made that just result in us wanting to play the game less.

[cognitive]

Well.. cheaters like Carl are gone, but there are so many guys now who don’t seem to work or sleep and play the whole time to score more than 1000 stars in a week.

I’m not Carl :) but I put up 900 stars in a week (6 days actually) before the #2 guy gave up. I spent around 20 tickets in addition to playing the free rounds. I did this as part of a massive rebuilding process to get streaks and upgrade my birds. I now have 3 9’er birds and everyone else 8’s. Plus everyone has a +2 hat and bronze sling. It’s not that difficult mostly because there are so many BAD players even with 10+ birds. I mean, come on dude, you have all birds at 9+ and can’t hit 3 million points?

Occasionally i hit a good player who blows me to pieces, so it’s not like I’m good or anything. Plus I use spells at streaks 3 and 5-7 if the 500 feathers are critical for an update.

[David Martin]

I mean, come on dude, you have all birds at 9+ and can’t hit 3 million points?

I’ve seen it happen. Almost had it happen to me a few times when there was something like a piglet perched on a tiny balloon in the far right corner of the second room, and of course my Chuck and Matilda were buried at the far bottom of the deck, making me waste a bunch of birds just to get to either of them. Fortunately whenever I run across a room that turns out to burn 5-6 of my birds due to terrible luck, the other guy always seems to have it just as bad.

[cognitive]

I’ve used up all 7 birds on the first room once :) but since the 5 spell wonder dudes were decommissioned plus the new Arena rooms were deployed, I don’t see a lot of high scoring games in general. There’s way too much variability – randomness – now. You get the right birds at the right time (hey, that’s a great political slogan :)) and you can do some things. You don’t, good luck… There’s a few rooms that have pigs on balloons in impossibly far places that without Chuck are basically non winnable.

[David Martin]

When I have most or all of the spells at my disposal, I can regularly score 2x what my opponent does, or more… sometimes that can be upwards of 8 million points. My guess is that my opponents don’t see this, assuming my Arena runs are even valid to get matched up against others at all. Either they don’t see me at all, or if they do, they somehow see only what I scored with actual birds. I’ve certainly never seen anything that ridiculously high from the opponents I’ve played against, who by the time I get to 6 or 7 in a streak, have most of their birds at level 12 or 13, many of them with hats as well.

[kelshe]

With over 1100 points in last week’s arena I came in a distant 3rd. 400 points so far this week and I’m a distant 4th. I haven’t lost an arena match in weeks, winning every 7 streak. Three birds at 12, four at 13, star rank 80. No hats, wooden sling. Most of my opponents are all birds at 13, hats, bronze slings. Some of the players in my league are star ranked 115, birds at 13, hats, slings, etc. They must be playing continuously, because I haven’t had a less than 8 star win for several dozen games. So, I’m a decent player, but I can’t keep up with someone who puts 1600+ points in a week. I don’t think most of us can unless we want to buy tickets or have found a perpetual ticket. So even though most of my wins are 8-10, I’m relegated to a lower place in my league.

[reddie]

Well, I’m probably gonna get demoted after this week. I’ve got a cheater named Crash who’s a 77 star ranking and he has 757 points already! >:( Second place is about 250 feathers.

The good news is that I’ve leveled up my last bird of Silver to Elder Silver after another 7-game streak.

[Anonymous]

@reddie250 What makes him a cheat?

I mean I am almost double that score already this week, so I am keen to find out what makes you think he is cheating. If he is jumping up 100-500 points within seconds each time I could agree, but if he is simply using his tickets and going up between 5-10 points per ticket then I am confused how he is cheating or how people are determining others are cheating.

[Pappybear]

I must admit the arena changes have been positive for me except of course for:

Mini pigs who refuse to die. I had one fall many stories from a ballon and survive placing itself in a location that could not be reached. ?

Unreasonable bird order. Has Rovio ever explained why we cannot choose our birds from the whole list of available birds?

I believe you should be allowed to choose which bird to fling. Not just one from the 3 in view.

[Psygaz]

The duck spell has become less useful since the last update. They just float and flap about as ducks do.

And I’m falling out of love with Terence; he seems to stall on a matchstick these days.

[Anonymous]

I found the duck spell always useless, sort of like the birthday cakes, and the other special they had early in the piece that acted like the ducks/cakes. But I agree, where Terrence used to be great, now he is close to the weakest bird in the game……for one so large you would think it would be the opposite in a destruction game.

[reddie]

@chucky-2 When I saw Crash’s score this past Sunday (during the afternoon), he was already at 500 points one day after this tournament started. Second closest was about 100. I already became suspicious of this.

[heybert17]

It is becoming obvious that some of these new levels were created by Drunk monkeys.

Is it easier to win a streak, yes. But levels that take 3 or more birds every time are not fun, there is no challenge anymore, it is just use your birds with more points than you opponent. There is no strategy of where to hit to get the most damage, almost all of the levels are set where you need to use a bird for each structure per room.

All we ever wanted was a fair playing ground. the new levels are not fun, they are just drudgery to the end game.

[heybert17]

@psygaz It seems about 50% of the time or more Terrence just bounces off the structure, you just fling him and hope he does something.

[heybert17]

I hate level 3 of the streak, it is stopping me almost every time. I am highly outmatched, usually the worse of any of the streaks. I get a lead of over 1 million, easily. Then I get a level that wastes all of my birds because I never get the ones I need, while my opponent overtakes me to win by less than 100,000. Every time, it is like streak 3 was designed to specifically egg, pun intended, you into using gems.

[Anonymous]

@reddie250 I was over 700 by Sunday Arvo from grinding tickets that I have saved, it doesn’t make me a cheat (unless you consider Rovio introducing tickets as cheating), so I am not sure why you think that makes him a cheat…..

Let me stress, This is not an attack because you believe that, but everyone keeps chucking around the word ‘cheat’ or ‘cheater’ just because players have a high score, yet Rovio basically asked for people to get a high score by allowing players to play more than once or twice every few hours, by allowing tickets to be saved and or bought.

[Maiasatara]

I’m glad to hear there are still people with birds in the 8-9 levels. I was beginning to think I was the only one. Someone mentioned Terrence. Hunh yeah, big lumbering ox Terrence. Everywhere else he’s powerhouse but in the Arena? A limp noodle. Useless. I had ONE day when I couldn’t play (writing deadline) and woke to discover I’d gone from 4th place to 13th! Took me 4 games of 10/10/9/9 just to get 4 points into 12th. So the struggle begins.

I want to come up with profiles of players based on their bird levels, number of wins, star rank and willingness to discuss gameplay, lol. One quick non-arena issue. The Tuesday Blues challenge – in three hours I haven’t even SEEN the last room of round 3 yet. Seriously? (Think Grey’s Anatony and say 5 times more.) at this rate I’ll never see another pearl…

[heybert17]

@maiasatara I hated today’s challenge, I did see the last room once with one bird, refused to spend gems to continue thinking I would make it again, never did.