Cheater(s) in AB2 Arena?

[kedik22]

@bankler

Hi, sorry for getting back to you so late, have been busy though.
And really thank you for taking the time and effort in getting back to us.

Regarding cheaters, well let´s hope things get better in the future.

And randomness, I have been paying close attention and this fellow Carl has been in my leaderboard for at least eight straight weeks, and a lot more than ten altogether.

My gut feeling is that it is not not a bug, just sloppy programming and/or hacking. Do not know for sure.

And I happily agree with @wrw01, you are a superb staffer and your help is greatly appreciated.
And please forgive my ranting.

Kind regards.

[Delano Jennings]

I missed the players name but I KNOW there is cheaters! I had 1.8mil pt lead & they had 2 birds left. It ends with them winning by over 1.5m pts. 3.3mil pts change when they only had barely 1mil over initial part.

I’m tired of having big leads to see them disappear! In last month I haven’t received gold in single tourney, when I had 29 gold in 35 previous. Last few weeks I’ve seen really weird score changes, players starting with 15 birds! Why waste spells in arena like that.

Then if I do happen to beat the other player, it’s only giving me 5 stars when I won by nearly 800,000 pts. I’ve thought it was computer generated for some time & this thread really just confirms it or that someone’s found ways to cheat the game.

Idk but sadly it’s not fun anymore!

[Delano Jennings]

I’ve recently saw a player with 9 ratings on every bird but only had 19 stars. How is that even possible?? I’m barely at 6 and have stars at 47. Just another way people are cheating this game.

[cognitive]

After some careful observation here is what I think is happening.

1. The algorithm that picks opponents seems to consider your almost-5 birds as 5’s. Meaning, if you’re like me and have ONE bird legit at 5 and all the others from 680 or 690 all the way to the 900’s, tough luck, they count as 5 for matching opponents and yet score as 4’s. I saw that as my birds were, ehem, fattening up :) as I kept being matched with increasing number of 5’er birds. Now every opponent I draw (except the computer generated) has 6-7 birds at 5. I have 1.

2. The opponent selected, of course, is at 5’s. And if 5 birds score 5x you have 20% deficiency in each bird vs your opponent. You aren’t going to win unless the opponent is a complete newbie.

3. The computer generated opponent (LOLZ) ironically matches your birds to a tee. ’nuff said. It’s not a gimme, tho. Immortal micropigs cause me to lose to the guy on occasion. This opponent seems to pop in around 10% of the time.

4. A fair amount of players I encounter with score too low for the birds fielded are cheaters – I often see double birds in their line up. But what’s worse, there seem to be some pretty wild scores towards the end of the game, reminiscent of the ‘3-bird monte’ of times past. You’ll both be playing away, no mistakes or immortal piglets, and all of a sudden, opponent flings his final 2-3 birds earning half a mil points per bird. Not always, but pretty consistently. Very disheartening to be so close till the last bird and all of a sudden be down by half a mil or a mil points. Mind you, with level 5 birds it’s feasible to get half a mil points per bird given the proper bird and room, but every time?

[kedik22]

@bankler

Hi.
Was not able to report last week´s results, but known cheater Carl was outcheated by new champion cheater Andrej by close to 2,000 stars, all done in one day!

But, the good news is that in this week´s tournament I am RANDOMLY paired again against known cheater Carl (ninth time in a row) and also against new champion cheater Andrej (only second time in a row).

And the better news is that another week will pass by without an opportunity for an honest player to collect the gold medal, or in this case also the silver.

Have a happy week full of cheaters everyone!!!

[Dwhite]

And a very Happy Cheater Week to you too kedik22!! I have a barn burner of Arena competition again this week. Only about 900 points out of first. Perhaps I should spend about $100 and catch up!! Not!! I’m sure they are legit. ?? (22 star ranking) ?

[angrynerds2]

That will be fun to be in a league of cheaters every week.
I would not spend a single penny to win there, because they would win with in the end their foul playing nevertheless.

[kedik22]

Hi @bankler!

Guess what?
It only took a few hours on Saturday morning for champion cheater Andrej to defeat known cheater Carl in order to win the gold medal.

The good news for me is that this week I only have randomly picked known cheater Carl to deal with, for a tenth time in a row.

It will be a good cheating week this one!

Kind regards.

[Kt]

Now that my birds are leveled up to 8, I have also moved into the venue of cheater/hackers in the Arena in every game. This morning, Tuesday, the #1 player,Bomb#14242, star count was 818! Really? Now, as I am moved from group to group, I am being moved from one group of cheater/hackers occupying the top 2 or 3 spots to another group with cheater/hackers occupying the top 2 or 3 spots. As I have won many Tournaments, this is frustrating, annoying and absolutely takes the fun out of Arena participation. Until the programmers develop better screens to remove these players, I have decided to limit my Arena participation to satisfying the Daily Quest requirements for gems and staying out of the bottom 3.

[cognitive]

I can’t fathom all birds at level 6, let alone level 8. Not thru the daily 50-odd feathers alone but from chests, daily challenge, etc? I’m looking at 1400 feathers per bird to level SIX. Do feathers become more abundant as one progresses?

[Dwhite]

Did another update pass us by and once again nothing was done to help with the chronic cheaters? I’m in 2nd place in my league- only 800 pts of of first. Hmmmm. Now that you can’t back out of arena matches to find a new opponent we are forced to play whoever we draw. I just drew an opponent with a 17 star ranking and all level 8 birds plus 5 spells. I played my best ever with no spells-6.4 million. But I got smoked by about a million. Once again I say it is win/win for Rovio to have the “cheaters are welcome” policy. People spend lots of $$$$ to keep up with cheaters. Of course Rovio will deny this but after 6 months on here I’m more inclined to believe actions and not words. Sad, cause I really love this game and I also really like several changes with this new update.

Prediction: people will become irate now they are forced to play 5 spell cheaters in arena. Complaints will reach record highs.

[CaptSternn]

That would probably kill the arena for me, Dwhite. I am not going to attempt updating until this weeks tournament ends. Then I will do a full backup of my phone before updating so I can turn it back if it is no good and play with the current version as long as I can.

[angrynerds2]

I won’t play the arena anymore when I’m forced to face these idiots with their five spell cards }:-((
I also won’t spend a single gem to buy spells for a match, it’s possible to lose it even with all cards!

[Cheathater]

I sure wish I could post something that can be read. I have a lot to say that will likely be useful!!!

Moderator please provide my freedom of speech. I feel like I can be of help. There is much more good as a result of the update this morning that needs to be cleared up. I for one am now excited about the game again. Can’t wait until a new tournament starts so I can see if the true cheaters have been eliminated. Not everything I have read here is a result of cheating. I also have some thoughts about the concerns of not being able to restart a match against a player without the lob sides advantage of spells. I fully understand why the change and what I think is the positive trade off.

[Cheathater]

Too bad the moderators are still screening my post…it explains much of what is happening. I won’t bother writing more until I know it can be read.

[Cheathater]

I too have been the victim of the cheater Carl. More recently the newest cheater Neha. I hadn’t experienced much until the last 2-3 weeks. I can definitely fill you in on how some of these things have happened that seem like cheating. Some are just people with money paying with jewels for the pay treasure chest to get up to 250 feathers at a time. They don’t have to level up to get them. I have a ton more to add as I have become obsessed with stopping the cheaters by seeing I can catch them. I will tell more of what I found out tomorrow.

I have had recent contact with someone from Tovio named Iida to fill her in on what I have seen. The developers are working on some patches that will stop some of the issues on the next update…hopefully due out next week

Until then I can no longer compete in the Diamond League in the Arena. I used to win with under 500 points. Now the cheaters can get that much ahead of me while I complete a single match. I am almost to level 82…all birds level 8. I never use spells. I occasionally still beat the other level 8 using several spells…but rarely the fully loaded spells. Of course you can extend your game and beat them if you want to fork over 80 jewels. Just can’t get myself to do it as that is just buying a win.

I do love playing and am very competitive. But as humans we just can get motivated when you have zero chance and an extremely unbalanced playing field.

If no replies I will assume no interest in what I have learned.

But I can say that I feel better knowing I wasn’t the only victim of the cheats and hackers.

The most shocking thing I saw today in my research was someone posting a video showing an app called Sb hacker…I watched a guy punch into the screen 999999 and opened the game back up and that is how many jewels he had. You can afford fully loaded spells and buy all the feathers to get level 8 with a cheat like that. I just don’t know if they can use that to up their Arena totals at will. If so no way to beat that and they aren’t paying a cent to ruin the game for us honest players. Pretty frustrating. But how can that be any fun or sense of accomplishment??? I guess they are cut from the same cloth as the hackers that create viruses just to ruin things for otherwise happy people.

Okay..done with my rant for tonight.

All in favor of deleting Carl say Aye!!!

[Cheathater]

Great I can be heard!!!

Okay I will start with cognitive’s point regarding the shear volume of feathers it would take to get to level 8.

I was getting pounded by the same people using all the spells where I never chose to use my jewels that way. So I figured out by accident in the area where the treasure chest is that the 80 jewel pay chest would give you up to 250 feathers. I thought if I leveled up to 7 or 8 with a couple birds it would level the field against the people with spells. So I decided to splurge and paid for the 11200 jewels. Dropped 100.00…it took about 50.00 or 5500 jewels just opening one chest after another and boom I was level 8.

The game is set up in a way to limit the advantage friends m that action. I was now paired with all others at level 8. Now I was back to the same spot. I now had level 8 opponents that had a full compliment of spells. Only way to then beat that was to pay for a win by using 60 jewels to extend the game.

Most times I would just take my beating and go to the next game. Once in a while I would decide to play on and pay the 60 jewels as I knew they paid far more for all those spells.

Yes Rovio designed some of this to generate revenue. But in the end it is still our choice to pay or just play.

Depending on your view point no one really cheated in this whole scenario. But the wins were more purchased than skill when spells are used. Same with extended play.

Now my earlier post shows the cheating part. If someone before the last update used this Sb hacker app on an android device they just plugged in a million jewels and they could feather up add all spells and play continuously without more than whatever they paid for the now banned app.

I will explain why I am not all that bothered about the change where you cannot back out of a game on my next post. Just need to get some work done first.

Hope some of what I post will help

[Cheathater]

One more quick thing. After the update the cheater in first place with over 2000 points in this weeks match disappeared. I am betting Carl went with the update!!!

[ZoomRhonda]

Aye!

I am only at a point where all my birds are mostly 5 and a few are 6 but am matched with higher players all the time in the arena. I wasn’t going to do the update so I could back out if the player I was matched with was too high. Now I turned on the game this morning and they are forcing me to update to play! If you don’t update you can’t play.

[Cheathater]

Zoomrhonda

I was going to mention that regarding an CaptSternn’s post and plan.

To play you have to update.

I will just detail the reason I believe you can’t back out. The new win str am rewards are actually pretty. Oil and reward superior play. You can get as many as 500 feathers if you win 7 in a row. Along the way you get feathers and free rounds for winning. I think that they are limiting how easy a win streak can be extended by not backing out. I guess it bothers me less as I didn’t realize until recently you could back out before the update.

Having said that you can overcomes spell infested match if you pay the 60 jewels to extend the match and as a result extend the streak and the progressively better rewards.

It really just comes down to your personal objectives.

All my opinion from the short experience I have had since the update.

I for one believe that everything so Faron the update is a big improvement.

I even retained credit for all the feathers I was getting while at level 8 for the new level 9. I was shocked as I thought they were just wasted feathers.

Hope this makes sense

[burbman]

In all, I think the update has more good than bad. There are definitely more chances to receive gems via the timed chest, and more opportunities to gain feathers in arena. I still get the occasional all level 8 plus five spell teams, which I have essentially zero chance of beating with my all level 7 flock, but I have gotten to winning streak of three twice, which pays out feathers, plus arena play tickets.

[ZoomRhonda]

@jeffro12

Thanks for all the new info. Later today I will update as I have no choice. Since I wasn’t dealing with cheaters I hope they make it fairer and not match us with those who have so many more cards as there is no way to win that way. Either way I will still enjoy the regular trail part of the game no matter.

[Dwhite]

Two thumbs up for the new update. The game as a whole has improved drastically over the last few months. But the cheaters HAVE to be dealt with. It’s a must. I’m currently in 2nd place in my arena league-2,000 pts out of first. These opponents we draw that are 15 star ranking with level 8&9 birds with 5 spells are cheaters. Period. These are who I’m drawing when I win 2-3 matches in a row.

[ZoomRhonda]

@dwhite40704

Cheaters were rampant in my favorite Angry Birds game ever, the multi-player team play section, of Angry Birds GO! Rovio tried to fix it and in the process messed things up totally and they finally scrapped that feature of that game totally much to the dismay of a lot of people…I hope they bring it back and I hope that doesn’t happen to the Arena in Angry Birds 2.

[Cheathater]

As I mentioned in an earlier post the update eliminated the cheater in my tournament this week. Unfortunately the 2 people above me are around 1200. I have overplayed and used jewels to catch people and know their scores are achievable.

I had written specifics to the contact I was working with at Rovio and shared my account number so it could be seen. This may be how they were able to target this individual.

I doubt they could delete them all. But what I understand is that the developers found a way to block or remove the tools that made the cheats effective. So I would watch the scores of the culprits you believe are cheating and see if there score calms down considerably.

When the new round starts on Saturday the playing field will be much more level. Just an opinion but the information I was given should support this opinion.

There is still not a good way for them to generate revenue and eliminate the spell feature. But you can get even with those players for a lesser price if that is important to you. It costs them about 300 jewels for a single round to be equipped with all these spells. You can use 60 jewels to beat them at the end of the game. It is just personal choice.

There is a chance that there are some residual signatures left from before the update. Just haven’t played enough today to figure that out.

I will say that I did not use a jewel all week after I watched a guy pass me on day one by 500 points just while I played one round.

I am back to enjoying the game as I believe it is the best it has been since the new update. I recall really enjoying it until about 3 weeks ago. Factoring that all in I am back to looking forward to playing