Cheater(s) in AB2 Arena?

[wrw01]

@clovos @bankler

A fellow AB2 flinger and I are Facebook Friends and he just sent me this note about my scores of how the appear and disappear:

“Okay, this is strange. I just randomly pick level 89 and your score of 463k showed up. Then I went back to 59 and there was no score. Back to 89 and now no score. No scores anywhere, it looks like you’ve disappeared. Played 9/13 to see if I could send you a gift but after a few plays, no gift, but you scores returned. Very, very strange.”

What is going on? This has been a very bad weekend for AB2 and myself…hope you have some good news to cheer me up and renew my desire to play again.

[kedik22]

@clovos

@bankler

Hi again.
Well, my opponent Vasy has almost more than one hundred million stars more than I do.
I guess I will have to improve my flinging skills a lot and also spend a little money.

These cheaters are not only laughing at us, they must be having the time of their lives!

Kind regards.

[Rovio_Bankler]

We are well aware of the problems with cheaters. And yes, it sucks. Short story is that for the next client update, there will be a quick-fix solution in place that hopefully will take care of most of the problems. You can expect this update in a couple of weeks. For the update after that, the ambition is to have a more solid solution.

It hurts to see those screenshots. I wish I had the possibility to go into your arena leaderboards and clear out the cheaters, but at this point it’s not possible from my end. I wish I could do more for you, but at the moment, unfortunately, I can only ask you to stay patient until the next update.

[wrw01]

@bankler

Thank you kindly for the update. It explains a lot as to why it appears that nothing is stopping the cheaters. Also thanks for being honest and to the point about what you and your team can and cannot do at this time. That honesty helps us understand the truth about what is going on with the game. Hopefully the couple of weeks wait will produce positive results.

In the mean time…I hope you realize the “mental pain” all of us end users are going through. We really love this game and its different aspects of play, Arena, levels, the competition etc. I read that it hurts you and that is outstanding that you care but for us end users, some who have spent their hard earned money to improve in the game, it is something we want to do, enjoy doing and have the motivation to spend hours playing in the product you get paid to support and foster.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that we play from our hearts, our desires and our love for this type of game. You play because it is your job that is not saying you do not love the game and your job, but for the end users it is a matter of pure desire of enjoyment and mental satisfaction. We do it for free and some also spend money for the privilege to play. I am not saying anything negative here but only trying to explain the mental discouragement and motivation the end users have to endue when the integrity of the game is not protected by its developers. When that occurs, we loose trust. I am not an IT/game designer/programer person, far from it, but what I do know that when a system (AB games) is hacked they why cannot the corporation input the necessary protective mechanisms across all the games to protect your hard work and our end user experience.

Just some thoughts to consider

[wrw01]

@bankler @clovos

Is there any knowledge you can express on the following situation that occurred to me this past weekend? I have written a request via Rovio.com about this and they want the following info so I will preset it here first and add it to the request later.

After the last update where all the scores for each level were increased I played all the levels from 1 through 181. Some I played again and some after levels 130-140 I played for the first time. I also played these levels while logged into Facebook.

During game play this past weekend I noticed that some of my scores have been reset back to the lower scores that were present prior to the last update. The following are the results that I gathered this morning:

1. Cobalt Plateau Feathery Hills—levels 1-15 ok with all new higher scores

2. Pig City New Port City—levels 16-35 ok with all new higher scores

3. Bamboo Forest Eggchanted Woods—levels 36-60 ok with all new higher scores

4. Cobalt Plateaus Chirp Valley—levels 61, 80, 90 ok with all new higher scores, the rest have been reset to the lower scores prior to the last update

5. Pig City Shangham—levels 91, 92,98, 102, 104, 107, 110, 118 ok with all new higher scores, the rest have been reset to the lower scores prior to the last update

6. Bamboo Forest Greasy Swamp—levels 121-150 all ok with all new higher scores

7. Cobalt Plateaus Greenville—levels 151-180 all ok with all new higher scores

8. Pig City Steakholm—level 181 is ok with the new higher score

Is there anything you can advise me on this situation and if there is a way to get my scores back. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Rovio_Bankler]

@wrw01
Thanks for the kind words. I’m a gamer at heart, so you can be sure that I know how you feel. That doesn’t mean I always have the ability or the mandate to make you guys’ (usually great) suggestions come true. But I try to do my best.

Regarding your scores. I honestly have no idea why that would happen. It sounds like something in the lines of two devices getting some synchronization problem, but I’m just guessing here. I hope CS can help you out, and/or that the problem was a temporary glitch, so if you play again you get to keep your score.

[kedik22]

@clovos @bankler

Hi.
Thank you for getting back to us.
Appreciate your words, but @wrw01 has a nicer way to say things.
Again, total agreement.

Kind regards.

[Shadow 51.2]

Giving up on Angry Birds Arena…now encountering at least 2 players with hacks and/or cheats which makes it pointless. People leaping 50 points or so whilst I fairly play 1 game. Sad it’s ruining it for the majority of fair payers. Anyone suggest other games to play?

[wrw01]

@shadow51-2
I feel the same as you about the cheats. The good news is that they are working on it to try to stop them.

I only play the arena now to earn stars and try to change my star rank on the upper left of the screen and to obtain the daily rewards of gems. Trying to place in the Arena is pointless for now.

You may want to try Season, rio or the original angry birds games. I played GO for a long time but gave it up. It still is a good game. Playing transformers along with AB2 presently.

[Shadow 51.2]

Thanks, glad not just me. Looking forward to a fix. Will try some if the things you suggest. Cheers

[Aeshna]

@MVNLA2 – Rovio got back to me today! I have been offered the same as you, gems, in regard to the missing feathers from the Red King pack. Customer support did say they’d been snowed under with complaints from players about not receiving these feathers.

[ger_ych]

Top 3 cheat…

[ger_ych]

@clovos @bankler

Now cheaters fighting each other, can it get any worst?

[wrw01]

@clovos @bankler @mouldingo

That is outstanding,maybe now Rovio can search and destroy the evil one.

After all this is just a game, someone please explain to me what us the point and end result?

[Clovos_RovioSweden]

@mouldingo
I’m very sorry for the ridiculous amount of cheaters. They will be gone as soon as 2.5 is live. It does hurt me seeing this getting so ridiculous and I really hope you can have patient before its live. There’s really nothing we can do to hurry up the release more than what we have done and hopefully it will be live soon.
For what its worth, the cheaters destiny is about to turn really dark. We are working hard to make our systems bulletproof from cheaters.

[dlad]

Glad to hear that @clovos
Bring on 2.5 ASAP

[Jon S]

@clovos

Although I appreciate the 20 new Ham Francisco updates from AB2, the arena is a place is incredible frustrating to the point I’ll just play it so I can get the daily gems.

Another screenshot :(

https://www.angrybirdsnest.com/members/jon3800/album/picture/17808/

I’m shocked. How does one get that many in a few amount of hours? It’s impossible to catch up to him now, even with my birds all at Diamond. Also I came across this other user “Marc” a little over 2 weeks ago and his profile states he won 205 tournaments (I have a pic uploaded on my profile). If the PvP arena is a little over a month old…how does he have that many wins?

[Circlerev]

I understand how it hurts to see those screenshots. :-(
Let’s hope that 2.5 update helps to get rid of cheating players.

[ger_ych]

New tournament week. Another week with these cheaters…

[kedik22]

@clovos @bankler

Hi.
New tournament, same cheaters.
Suggestion: maybe create a message board within tournament players to exchange views and comments. But also to question cheaters!
The tournament lasts a whole week and three hours between plays, so there certainly is enough time to socialice.

Kind regards.

[wrw01]

@clovos @bankler
Looks like Vasy and another cheats are back in the Diamond Arena. They have zero currently and maybe they are just waiting for a few days.
After yesterday’s Arena ended I came in second and received the metal. No cheats, great. I forgot to notice if the gems were deposited.

The player in first, Dan, was first to the end and when I checked his metals he did not receive the first place metal. Wonder what happened. He does appear to rise to first place in every Arena quickly so maybe high scores are not the only indicator that something is strange. He is in first now with almost three times as many points as everyone else. There is a pic in my album. Not sure how to load them to this post.

[dlad]

Guys it really doesn’t matter now until 2.5 is live…
Cheaters are gonna cheat as no way to stop them.. In my group 1st place have 25000 points…

All we can do is wait patiently for 2.5

But @clovos… When u guys make 2.5 live… Please also reset arena PvP scores as many players have hacked arena scores to… The have like 9,999,999 score or more…

[ubermom]

I ran into this “Matilda” player today three times as well!!! Searched the forum for any guidance/similarities & I came across your post. When I start a battle & see this person as my opponent, I quit the game! I know there’s no chance of winning & the scores they’re achieving are IMPOSSIBLE!!!

[wrw01]

@bankler @clovos
May have a suspected cheater with a low score who rose to the 1st position very quickly. Did not see him/her climb the scoring ladder in the last two days. Name of Unknown. There is a pic in my album if you want to view. It is dated for 2/3/16.

[Aeshna]

We have heard many times to be patient and wait for this ‘cheat killer’ update, but which cheaters will they catch?

The ones that have the ridiculous amounts of gems ?

Or the ones like this? who hack their bird data and end up with vast disparities between them.

The above are harder to detect but we’ve all seen them. Some have four birds at level 8 and a couple with no feathers at all.

Then there’s the ones who have 30 gold crowns for coming first place in the ‘new’ arena despite it only running for several weeks. Actually this last hack doesn’t boil my blood anywhere as near as the first two.

I’ve just lost in the arena to a hacked account. The arena is a total farce and if I was spending gems/money to play in there I’d be demanding it back.

Quite good to see only one player in my league this week spending gems, looks like a few are figuring: it’s pointless to pay to play the arena. There’s a few of us vying for second and it is actually making it more ‘fun’ with a level playing field. Not to say some won’t spend later to clinch 2nd and 3rd, but for now I’m actually looking forward to the timer resetting.

So Rovio, your long promised update needs to root out ALL the cheaters and not just the easy catches with the million plus gems.

And it’s time to have a separate league to run alongside any current ones, but where no-one can pay to play/win. Let skill and a bit of luck decide! Now that would make the game more exciting.