All the new things that I've noticed

[Angrycrab]

A list of all the changes I’ve noticed:
Ads no longer double pigs, just coins,
Arcee and Airachnid were added, just nowhere to be founds on the map (only in the missions),
The symbols for upgrading look different, as is the whole upgrading process (now you need the metals to upgrade and the prices have changed),
There is no more “view your photos” icon, you have to go through the “Facebook portal” (or whatever it’s called) to view them,
Some text has been changed and made more specific (like the squad “?” icon says a different phrase then previously),
There is a new “material silo” that you can upgrade for coins and money to help you store more collected metals,
It displays how much health your characters have on the “choose who you want to upgrade” screen, as well as asking if you want to buy accessories or upgrade your character (though you can still get accessories on the specific character upgrade screen),
Arcee and Airachnid have new text as well as a new squad that was hinted in the previous update,
The rank stars look different,
Your characters may not be used in a level while on mission or being upgrade, and your character may not go on a mission while upgrading, as well as the other way around,
There are two new mission portals, one way more expensive than the other,
Your characters can go on “missions” that vary and take a while, but allow you to choose rewards (hidden in presents) afterwards,
You get 20 gems if you log into Facebook,
You can shuffle missions in the “mission portal” for five gems,
You can expand your mission portal’s amount of characters for an increasing amount of gems (and you can buy up to three slots in each portal),
All characters you select for a mission get ranked on a star rating chart for their performance, as well as doing totally new celebratory moves,
The achievements look different, as well as some of them being fixed,
There is a list of new metals that have various uses,
And the game gives you red “!”s when something is complete.

This is all that I’ve noticed different in this update. Tell me if I made a mistake or missed something :) .

Topic

[Angrycrab]

I made a mistake; the picture icon does appear , just after you finish a level.

[Nothing]

“Arcee and Airachnid were added, just nowhere to be founds on the map (only in the missions)”: Read here
https://www.angrybirdsnest.com/forums/topic/gameplay-of-arcee-and-airachnid/

“There are two new mission portals, one way more expensive than the other”: Actually, there are 3 mission portals. The best missions are in the most expensive missions portal, I think 50,000 coins??

“You can expand your mission portal’s amount of characters for an increasing amount of gems (and you can buy up to three slots in each portal)”: There is the achievement “Special Teams”, where you send in 9 Transformers for a mission(20 gems acquired).

You forgot to add that when playing a node, your bot runs differently, shoots differently, etc. Rovio dares to decrease the firepower for some of the Transformers!!

[beaups]

I’m finding my characters are getting beat up badly. The difficulty is way up now.
Egg bots are moving around more and not sticking to the same 10 maps.
Coin farm yields more than 400 now.
You can repair via the barracks prior to level being transformed and fix all characters at once if desired.
Upgrades beyond level 10 now possible.
New achievements added.

[Optimus_Pig]

There’s an article on the front page of ABN that gives a run-down on the new stuff in the update:

Angry Birds Transformers Major Update Adds Mission Portals and More!

[Optimus_Pig]

@grathe

Yup, looks like not only did they increase the difficulty of the nodes (they go up to “Very Hard” now, even for L10 TFs) but it looks like they nerfed some of the TFs at the same time!

Right now I have four TFs that are stuck on the Cobalt Plateaus (i.e. the “River” nodes) and another one in the “Wild West” node that I can’t complete because they keep getting killed almost right away after starting a new run.

The clusters of shotgun and kamizake pigs is just insane.

“Coin farm yields more than 400 now.”

The coin yield is now based on the number of completed “Squads” and is the same as the coin multiplier you get when you complete a run.

So for example if you got the 40% squad bonus, then you also get a 40% bonus on the coin harvests. So you still max out at four hours, but instead of 400 coins in four hours, you get 560 (400 x 1.40) coins in four hours.

[AudioMan612]

I can’t believe they’re allowing up to level 15 now. It already takes months to get everything to level 10 (most of my bots are level 8). Now they add another 50%?!

[Nothing]

@audioman612 But some people have massive amounts of pigs and coins…

[Anonymous]

@audioman612 They also decreased the amount it takes to upgrade them (150,000 to upgrade to 10) so they did level it out a bit.

[AudioMan612]

It’s not the coins that bothers me. Getting the coins is easy. I’ve never once had to save up for an upgrade. It’s the insane amount of time it takes to upgrade.

Also, the last update fixed a lot of issues with enemies being too powerful. It would appear those problems are back (though not as bad). This, plus the fact that I had to reinstall is just sloppy beyond words.

[Optimus_Pig]

@audioman612

The time required to upgrade has dropped. For example it now takes 1d to upgrade from L9 to L10, whereas prior to the update it took 2d12h.

But I hear you, this is going to be a huge slog getting up to Rank 405 regardless.

“Also, the last update fixed a lot of issues with enemies being too powerful. It would appear those problems are back (though not as bad).”

I’d say that it’s actually worse now. Out of my six active nodes, four of them are currently occupied by TFs that can’t finish their runs because they keep dying early. (It was actually five out of six, until I blew one up with a Skywarp Attack).

“It’s not the coins that bothers me. Getting the coins is easy. I’ve never once had to save up for an upgrade.”

It may start bothering you soon. If we can’t complete our runs, then we won’t be able to collect coins.

[AudioMan612]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Hopefully this gets addressed soon. I’m still trying to understand the mission thing, but so far, it seems to be a bit of a ripoff honestly…

I haven’t played enough yet to see if it’s worse or not. I remember when that upgrade broke the flying shotgun pigs, I could usually still beat all of the levels in a few tries. I had to memorize where exactly the flying pigs would come in, and bring in my buddy just before. I would scroll through the buddies until I got a high level Grimlock, which is just insanely good when controlled by the computer.

[Optimus_Pig]

Wow, it took me more than a half dozen attempts (including a totally failed Eggbot Intercept) and I was finally able to complete a Heatwave run in Pig City on Very Hard difficulty.

This is completely insane.

[And on my final try I didn’t even receive a gift box, even though I’d uncovered some in previous runs, but didn’t earn them because I died ….. grrrr …..]

[Triplem]

I noticed the no double pig reward for watching videos too… but what I am wondering is, is it because I’m level 168, and have all the island unlocked; so is it just an option that when the time comes you don’t need to unlock any more characters with pigs, it diverts to not doubling. Or is just that way for good no matter what now? Which I think is a bit unfair to new players, seeing as how we got to double our pigs all the time via the videos, and now it’s going to take much longer for new comers!?

[Optimus_Pig]

@triplem

I’m pretty sure the doubler videos are still good.

Someone mentioned in another thread that it may happen when you have a very weak or slow WiFi or data signal that you won’t get the option because the game knows it won’t play properly.

So try moving closer to your signal source and see that happens.

[Optimus_Pig]

Galvatron – it seems like the number of shots you can fire without having to cool down has increased (or else the cool down period has decreased).

[JuniperBird]

I’ve been wondering about Eggbot behaviour. Has it changed? At the moment I have two nodes with TFs on a mission. One is being transformed normally, one has an Eggbot standing next to it doing nothing. If I manage to clear such nodes, then the Eggbot moves on. Are they supposed to be waiting? I thought they just move on to another node once the transforming is finished.

[Optimus_Pig]

@juniperbird Eggbots are behaving like they did prior to the recent update.

I don’t know what governs their behavior, but they don’t always move right away to transform a new node.

From time to time you’ll see one or even two Eggbots “sleeping” even though you may only have four or five (out of six) nodes active or in the process of being transformed.

[SnTrooper]

@juniperbird @optimuspig Each Eggbot has a set number of nodes and time they do.
One only does one four hour node, one only does two one hour nodes, and one only does three fifteen minute nodes. So for example if you played all three fifteen minute nodes only the fifteen minute Eggbot would get up even though you only have four of the six nodes ready/transforming.

[Optimus_Pig]

@sntrooper Ah, that makes sense, thanks!

Since the eggbots all look identical, it never occurred to me that each one would have a distinct role.

[julrey]

@audioman612: “I’ve never once had to save up for an upgrade. It’s the insane amount of time it takes to upgrade.”

Curious, are you using Jenga mode? I’ve pretty much always had to work incessantly to collect enough coins between upgrades in order to not have any inefficient periods where I don’t have any TFs upgrading at all. But then I’m one of those guys who is too cheap to pay for Jenga.

In fact, I think this new difficulty level is a deliberate ploy to very nearly force you to buy Jenga. All of my TFs without exception were on either level 9 or 10 – about half and half – and even my level 10s can’t get through a single level now without getting killed (I upgraded my weakest TFs to lvl 10 first because why wouldn’t you?, but that seems to be working against me here).

Right now I’m lucky to have a single TF with a difficulty level coming up that can actually be completed. But I’m more dead set against Jenga now than ever, just on principle alone if anything.

[JuniperBird]

@sntrooper and @optimuspig, thanks! I guess I had never paid that much attention to the eggbots because I could actually play the game and concentrate on that. Now that the difficulty level is on a ridiculous level I have too much time to wonder about things.

[AudioMan612]

I do have Jenga mode, but I rarely play it anymore. I think I just used to play the game too much lol.

I’m not dying too much, but I am dying more than I used to. Most of my transformers are level 8. I am picky about what bot I get for my helper though, which does help.

I’ve seen people play with the eggbots. How does that happen?

The more I play, the more this whole update feels like an afterthought. Level 10 was a good level to end at. Now all of my transformers feel so much weaker, and they only increased the max level so that people that were already all level 10 would have something to do…

[Anonymous]

@audioman612 If you intercept a level with gems an Eggbot will be in it.

[AudioMan612]

Ah, alright, thanks.