Cheater(s) in AB2 Arena?

[angrynerds2]

Perhaps you could write directly to the Rovio Support because of that idiot.

[wrw01]

@bankler
Wow Carl has 10 point within the first hour, thanks. Hope you and the Rovio staff stopped this guy.

[wrw01]

@bankler
Now Rovio should take away all of Carl’s wins that he obtained by hacking the game.

[wrw01]

@bankler
To date everything Carl has earned has been hacked and all his metals should be reset to zero. It would only be fair to the honest players in the arena.

[wrw01]

@bankler

In the Arena I am in the Diamond League and at level 8 for all my birds. I am playing against a number of other players who also have 8 feathers for all their birds but are not in the Diamond League. They are in every other league, one is even in the Vanilla League.

How can this be?

[wrw01]

@bankler

Started a new Arena game last evening and noticed something a bit off about 30 minutes ago.

In a time period of 50 minutes a flinger #27756 went from zero points to second place with 42 points a few minutes ago. This seems rather odd at this stage of the Arena with six days to go. How did he get 42 stars in 50 minutes without paying for them? And why pay for them at this stage?

Playing every three hours for free at this stage would make more sense. Something just does not “feel” right. Just a guess on a hack.

[wrw01]

@bankler

WOW was I wrong…Carl does not appear to be able to be stopped or…
Rovio just does not care about the honest players to stop this person. He mocks the game, its developers and rubs it into all the honest flingers and workers behind the game that try to make this a great game.

He is back within less than 12 hours of the new Arena game.

This is sad and very disheartening to the honest players. In fact it plainly says that Rovio just does not care about us. I say this because this hacker has been around for a while according to the posts above and for the last four weeks he has disgraced the game, let alone shown what a shallow person he is.

So I will join the ranks of all the past disappointed, discouraged and demoviated flingers and very much reduce the playing time in AB2. Sad because I really love playing it.

I have already stopped playing the regular levels because Rovio would not and/or chose not to verify if j77 has legit scores.

The Arena was the only area remaining that I spent time so now that is also gone.

Thank you bankler for your support and trying to assist us but Rovio with all their financial woes and hardships just does not want to make the game fun and legit for honest players. So why should we care to play?

Good bye and have a great working experience. Wish you the best

[Aeshna]

@wrw01 – Rovio don’t give a flying fig tree about cheaters and hackers. If they did Carl would have been deleted by now, along with the rest.

It’s not like they haven’t been continually pointed out on this forum.

[wrw01]

@aeshna
Yes I do agree with you and that is why I will probably never play this game anymore. As honest players we try our very best to always do the right thing and play the game as it was designed. We occasionally spend our hard earned money to enjoy the experience for the entertainment value. But now at least for me that is an activity of the past.

They have the time and resources to add a promo on save the oceans, which is great, but do not make any effort to eliminate the hacks in the last month.

In short, if they do not care, as demonstrated by their lack of actions and also in their responses in their support tickets then why should the end users care to play this game that is plagued with hacks.

Rovio’s down hill spiral into financial restructuring will be hard to halt if their movie does not bail them out of debt. To watch this company head into bankruptcy is very sad. This financial dilemma speaks a lot about the lack of staff support to fix the existing problems.

[kedik22]

@bankler

Hi.
I must agree with @wrw01, the way you have handled Carl and other cheaters and hacks cannot be called decent.
I do not know where Rovio´s priorities lie, but I guess cheating is part of their everyday standards.
What Rovio shows is just moral turpitude, and should not be tolerated by fair and decent people.
Rovio should be held to a higher standard.

Kind regards.

[Djangosmum]

Although I’ve now reached the dizzy heights of Diamond League, not seen too many obvious cheaters/hackers or opponents with lots of spells, maybe because my birds are still only ranked 5. However, just been drawn against Abdul, a lowly 7 stars (30 below me) who has miraculously already accrued: 3 level 7 birds, 1 level 5, 1 level 4 and 1 level 1 with no Terence at all! Oh yes, and 4 spells too. No attempt to make it look remotely convincing in the mix of levels and with a bird missing!

Needless to say, did not play.

[Dwhite]

I’m convinced Rovio wants and welcomes cheaters in this game. They’ve completely buried their heads in the sand and refused to deal with the REAL problems. How many months have we all been pointing this out to them? It’s customer service and appreciation is a role model for rudeness. They must find it comical and amusing. They must enjoy seeing loyal customers continue to get screwed over. The cheaters aren’t spending money but the loyal players will most of the time. So who is Rovio catering to? The cheaters are obviously considered royalty in their eyes. Untouchable and more than welcome.

[kedik22]

@ Rovio

@bankler

Hi.

@dwhite40704 I totally agree with you.
I have come to a point where I am seriously disgusted with Rovio.

It is obvious that they cater and cherish cheaters and hacks.
Here at AB2 and at the Friends Tournament.
Me and my family do NOT share those values.

This known individual named CARL has again cheated his way into the top of my league for at least the past eight weeks.

@bankler knows about his existence and Rovio has not done anything about it, just to set an example.

And that Arena opponents are random, that is just a lie.
I should not randomly receive a known cheater as an opponent for at leat eight weeks, in a row!!!

Now they are pushing unwelcomed ads like movies, games (Action) and products for kids.
My children will NOT get near any of Rovio´s products.

I have and will further complain on Rovio´s sponsors FB pages about their lack of values.
Sponsors include: Rosetta Stone, McDonalds, Pez, Lego, H&M, Walmart and Toys are Us.

And don´t get me started about fairness…

[angrynerds2]

That’s Bad luck to have this cheater every week in the league. I always find users with a realistic amount of points there.
Only in that matches I find more and more opponents with all spell cards. I restarted the game ten times today, because of that.

[CaptSternn]

One bit of friendly advice to anybody that cares, do not try reading and posting comments while playing the rounds in the arena. I got the first round out of the way and watched the video, then was doing the thing where I keep restarting to get a decent opponent. Got distracted and clicked on Battle against one of those hacks with high level birds and several spells. I got hammered.

This is after not being able to play most of the day because I was at a funeral. And this is after opening the game and seeing that somebody else has been playing all day and came out of nowhere closing in on my lead. That just ain’t right.

[wrw01]

What is interesting is that @bankler last response to anything in this forum was 3 weeks ago. There has been a number of posts asking for his response and assistance.

I have noticed the same lack of any support and response in the ABT’s forums.

Wonder if Rovio has placed a “stop spending” order on all employees and contractors in relation to ABN forums. Stop spending time answering questions so the company stops spending money paying them for this activity.

Considering Rovio lost 15 million in 2015 and lost revenue for the past 3 years, this maybe a reality till the movie comes out and hopefully produces another income source for the parent company.

[Dwhite]

Sadly, many people will spend money in an effort to keep up with the cheaters. This sort of scenario is WIN/WIN for Rovio. It’s all about the Benjamins baby. I’m already 700 points out of 1st place in my Arena league. I think most of us would agree this is a really cool game or we wouldn’t be playing it to begin with but the “cheater’s welcome” policy is ridiculous.

I’m 100% convinced Rovio wants these cheaters. There is no convincing me otherwise.

[Rovio_Bankler]

@wrw01
“What is interesting is that @bankler last response to anything in this forum was 3 weeks ago. There has been a number of posts asking for his response and assistance.”

I’m still reading the forum. Lately there has not been any clear and specific questions that I can give any input too, except for some that have already been answered (in what ways we can prevent cheating and so on), and in those cases I hope the forum veterans here can help out repeating what I’ve communicated before and/or reference my earlier posts. If I’m mistaken, please point me in there direction of these questions, and I’d be happy to help out. I might just have missed them.

There are always post with rants about how bad some things are. Unfortunately I cannot head into these discussions. I’m here to help, answer technical questions, and gather your feedback and forward it. I appreciate everyone’s input, positive or negative, and I often understand and agree with your criticism, but I won’t go into debate. There are lots of decisions taken that are way beyond my control.

[Jon S]

@dwhite40704

I 100% agree with you. Ever since I upgraded to Amethyst league, I’ve been plagued with the same cheaters I’ve been dealing it with the past 2 weeks. I have flinger #7743 in 1st place with 2008 stars a within the first day of tournament (last week with 2007) and I have flinger #23546 with 985 in 2nd place, and the 3rd place is more reasonable at 85, which I’m not too far behind.

[kedik22]

@bankler

Hi, and thank you for getting back to us.
And, I understand your position.

Here are some very specific questions:
1) What is specifically being done by Rovio with this Carl individual, and many like him.
2) What are Rovio´s plans in the future regarding cheaters and hacks.
3) What is the explanation behind the “randomness” of facing a cheater more than 8 weeks in a row in the Arena?

Kind regards.

[wrw01]

@bankler
Thank you for reading the posts and responding to one. It is great to hear you are still on the job. Thanks for the feedback. Since you read all the posts in the last three weeks I am not going to point out that ones that deserve an answer and ones that do not, seems like you made the decision not to answer any of them so I guess none of them deserved a response from your point of view.

I no longer play AB2 because Rovio continues to permit the cheats and hacks to hack the game play. Even the one that have been around for months like Carl who has been pointed out many times. As Rovio has stated they do not have the resources to eliminate all the cheats and hacks then how can an honest player play a fair and competitive game with the other players? How can an honest player respect management’s decision to let cheats/hacks continue to play in their dishonest manner of playing. There is no logic in this for the honest player to keep playing and to spend money on a fixed/rigged/dishonest game. It is illogical and what is worse, Rovio has taken the fun out of playing the game against the known hacks/cheats. We learned that when we were kids playing games in the sand lots, backyards and fields.

I will assume you could care less whether one person decides not to play anymore. There are probably hundreds each day that pick the game up for the first time. Whether I play or not is meaningless in the big picture of the game and the company. What has lead me to this point is the integrity of Rovio’a managers who make these poor short term decisions at the expense of long terms gains is what has ruined the game for me.

The business model of ethics for Rovio’s managers decision is of a very low business standard for the end user. As a result, the company been provided their just rewards, worldwide, with the reduced revenue. On the other side of the discussion, I recently read that the first quarter of 2016 had a more positive outlook in relation to the income revenue but the analyst said this maybe from all the cost cutting measures taken over the last 18 months and not the new games producing new income. Hopefully the success of the movie will place them into a better financial position for the year.

Wish you the best bankler and thanks for all your assistance and support with AB2. It is greatly appreciated. You are a good staffer who has really tried to helped the end users.

[angrynerds2]

This week there’s a user “dieBlauen #31550” who was behind me with about 130 stars, now only one day later he has 500!
Cheater or rich guy, who knows..
Regularly you can play 18 times in 24h (2 games every three hours, alarm clock required in the night!). If you’re really good you win 180 stars – but who wins every time and gets ten stars?
That guy won about 370 stars!

[Rovio_Bankler]

Regarding the cheats, the situation is roughly the same as before. At this point we can’t identify a player you report through a nickname (Facebook name nor anonymous Red#XXXX name). It’s a technical limitation I hope we can work out asap. We have filters that take care of some of the cheats. There will be some better ones in the next update. It’s true that we haven’t focused enough on it. The reason is just resources. We’ve had lots of work with the WWF campaign (which I’m happy we did by the way) and the Daily Challenges. There are now more discussions than before about cheats and quality in general in the office, so hopefully there will be some improvements in these areas in the coming months.

@kedik22
1) What is specifically being done by Rovio with this Carl individual, and many like him.
At this point nothing is being done to target individual cheaters. Unfortunately. All efforts done are on a broader level with filters.

2) What are Rovio´s plans in the future regarding cheaters and hacks.
We’ll continue to improve the cheat-prevention with the resources we have available for it, a little in every patch. We’ll also try to open up a way we can look at individual cases. Today we cannot do this.

3) What is the explanation behind the “randomness” of facing a cheater more than 8 weeks in a row in the Arena?
Arena leaderboard matchmaking is primarily based on bird levels and secondarily on your current league number. If you have the exact same bird levels as another player, and you are in the top 1% of players, it’s not unlikely that you get matched against him/her again. This is my gut-feeling reply on the topic, I haven’t made a technical test to prove this. Is eight(8) weeks in a row the actual number (no single week ever without that player), or is it more like “he seems to show up much more than what seems reasonable”? Both cases are obviously equally frustrating from the player’s perspective, but the reason I ask is if there is a bug involved here, it’d be good to know exactly what happens.

[cognitive]

Arena leaderboard matchmaking is primarily based on bird levels and secondarily on your current league number.

Unless I’m the world’s unluckiest AB2 player I only get anyone with my current level birds if I get the computer generated opponent (10%). Another 10% is people higher than me in player star rating with nearly all his/her birds a level higher than mine. 80% of the time I get some player with half of more of their birds at one level higher than mine but with player star rating easily 10-20 stars less than me.

[cognitive]

I have built a rather insurmountable lead in my league so I entertain myself by looking into how some of those miracle 30 star, 5 birds @ 5 players play.

Not very well.

If I don’t make a mistake and play carefully I can easily win against a good number of opponents with 4 birds @ 5. Which explains the low star rating. Either they bought themselves enough feathers for a mattress or they use hacked APK’s…

But if the opponent is reasonably competent the 5 vs 4 ranked birds give a great advantage, especially on birds that cause a lot of damage like Bomb or Terence… And that’s how you end up under by half a million or a million points at the blink of an eye.

Interestingly enough a few months back when the 3-bird-miracle-at-the-end was rampant, I rarely was matched with opponents this lopsided. Once the 3-bird-miracle-at-the-end issue was addressed the new generation of low 20’s players with multiple 5’d birds began to appear.

Maybe I’m imagining all this…