Challenge in C Minor Contest

[Optimus_Pig]

@gradientturtle7

Several days ago, on Day 2 of the Challenge I believe it was, in my grouping the first place finisher only received one hundred (100) tokens, and second and third place only fifty (50) tokens each, instead of 1,000 and 500 respectively, and so on down the line.

Was this a bug? Or was it because I only started playing with less than an hour left until the end of that day’s challenge? Or is it some other reason?

Thanks.

[Pampeans]

@optimuspig

I just recharged for 10 gems to ensure I stayed in 3rd place and the recharge challenge runs were anywhere from 24 to 16 flying pigs. During the unpaid recharges I had several challenge runs with as few as 7 flying pigs. I don’t think you can win a challenge without spending gems. Even when I played “late” during the Christmas challenge, I had to spend gems to win. I wasn’t planning on spending any gems this time around and I have consistently ended-up in the 4-6 group for 300, so I need the 500 tokens today.

One bug I did notice though is the screen that shows your total after the run and the screen on the “Today’s Competetion” don’t match. My TC screen had 10 less.

[Pampeans]

“One bug I did notice though is the screen that shows your total after the run and the screen on the “Today’s Competetion” don’t match. My TC screen had 10 less.”

Update: The correct number displayed on the reward screen.

[sheepybach]

If you notice that with only a few hours to go the number in those node runs drop a big way what u can collect.
Yes i noticed you get less to collect if you charge using Gems.

[taco]

Hey, it happened to me too, I came in first place and the prize was only 100 tokens instead of 1000 tokens. What gives, I want my other 900 tokens!

[SnTrooper]

@optimuspig True. But saying it would take nine days to get them all sounded better than eight days to get all the useful ones. And Rumble is a hat not a shoulder accessory.

[Optimus_Pig]

Well there’s no way I’m going to be able to collect 3,000 – or even 2,500 – tokens in the last two days of the Challenge.

After five Challenge runs I’ve accumulated 133 Hay Bales. And I was lucky enough to hit a Forest Node where there was a huge stack, so I got 90 in a single run (this is exactly like the Holiday Challenge on the day when there was a huge stack of glass bricks in the Forest Node).

But get this: the first place guy in my cohort has 781 freaking Hay Bales already. That’s right: SEVEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTY ONE. Either he’s burning through gems like they’re going out of style, or else he’s figured out a way to cheat.

At this point, it’ll be a miracle for me to place highly enough in the last two days to collect the 2,500 tokens I’m looking for.

[Optimus_Pig]

@sntrooper

OK, I stand corrected.

Still, it’s only +20% defense stat – not really all that excited, lol.

[werehamsta]

@optimuspig,

That’s true, but if I understand correctly, Soundwave can only “wear” one shoulder-mounted accessory at a time, so it doesn’t really matter if you own all three of Rumble, Beatbox, and Cannon – you can only use one at a time, so just choose which you like the most.

Unless you can wear stuff on both the right shoulder and the left shoulder (not sure, never tried since I don’t have any of these yet), in which case you still wouldn’t be able to wear Beastbox and Cannon at the same time since they both go on the right shoulder.

As far as I understand, you can wear one item of each category: headwear (which Rumble is, BTW), glasses, breastplate, shoulder/arm, and backpack. Left and right shoulder do not count as separate (unlike previous version).

Then again, Bludgeon’s Sentinel counts as a backpack, but looks like a shoulder accessory and can coexist with a machine gun in the same arm. Sentinel Prime’s Slamdance also is alright with same-arm’s shield since it placed into a breastplate category. Visual placement of an item doesn’t correspond with logic, as it seems. Only the actual category matters.

You don’t have to own an item to test which one is compatible with which. Simply wear them in try-out mode without touching the gem button.

According to Ravage’s description he’s supposed to fire “acid rounds”. How do the acid rounds work? Do they just automatically keep firing? Or only when Soundblaster fires his weapon as well? And are the acid rounds direct fire, or do they fly through the air and then hit the ground (like the way Prowl and Bluestreak’s grenades do).

Acid rounds add lasting damage in case a piece or a pig isn’t destroyed with the blast itself. For example, look at far-placed gold bricks. If they survive a hit, they start to emit a steady chain of coins, which stands for slow deterioration.

[sheepybach]

@optimuspig,

The Haybales comp today is the the Xmas present’s last month and if you remember you had some nodes with next to nothing and other node’s like in the forest where there were 100’s to collect. We were told they were going to sort this out and make more even on all nodes, It seems they forgot lol

[Optimus_Pig]

@paul13

Ah yes, I remembered wrong. You’re right, it was the Christmas Presents, although I still feel like I saw something similar with the Glass Bricks.

Either way, you need to be super lucky (or just spend so many gems that it doesn’t matter – like the guy in my grouping who’s already over 800 – I’ve just given up entirely).

[Optimus_Pig]

@werehamsta

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I wasn’t aware that Rumble was a headwear, since it’s not currently in the upgrades store you can’t actually try it out.

Also, if Rumble is headwear then doesn’t that mean I can’t use Soundwave’s “Festive Deely Bopper” which gives +10% damage together with Rumble at the same time? I’d still have to choose one or the other. Not everyone would agree with me, but I’d still prefer the extra firepower (Rumble is a defense item).

As for the acid rounds – that’s good to know, thanks. I had no idea how Ravage’s acid rounds worked – I’d just assumed they were an additional weapon and you could actually see the weapon firing in the same way you would with a weapon Energonicon. But what you’re saying here makes sense.

[sheepybach]

@optimuspig,

Over 800 wow, my leader is 458 and I’m sitting pretty with just over a hundred and 20 and I’m only that high due to the fact I hit a forest node and got 80 bales lol

I wait until I got 4 goes before I play and I try to use the same ABT if I can HAL. I got the canon this morning for soundwave but like the acid rounds pass on what it fires lol

[Optimus_Pig]

Yeah, 800 is beyond ridiculous. I wonder how many gems this guy has spent on recharges today already?

I use Soundwave/Soundblaster for static targets like bricks, and I use E. Grimlock for moving targets like flying pigs.

[Optimus_Pig]

“I got the exclusive accessory Rumble, one thing it does do for that TF is allow him to start shooting out of the gate, and before he is down the astrotrain ramp.”

That’s interesting for a “defense” accessory. I wish Rovio would actually tell us more about the accessories when they do more than just a basic stat boost. It would help our decision making somewhat.

[werehamsta]

@optimuspig, if by “Festive Deely Bopper” you mean Soundwave’s earphones, then yes, it can not be used together with Rumble (and yes, I prefer damage inducing ones as well).

[gradientturtle7]

@optimuspig

There was a growing trend during the holiday event of players deliberately joining a challenge leaderboard as late as possible in an attempt to end up in first place with minimal effort. This has a number of undesirable consequences – it leads to higher strain on our servers as many new leaderboards are created at once, it exacerbates the existing issues of players relying on out-of-date leaderboard information in the last few minutes of the challenge, and it trivialises the effort put in by players who join earlier in the challenge.

As such, we have added some scaling to the rewards dependent on how much time is left in the challenge when a player joins, and we will continue to refine this for future events.

[gradientturtle7]

@davidt18

The Token Exchange will remain available for three days after the end of the event. So you will have until Wednesday 3rd Feb 0:00 GMT (Tuesday 2nd Feb 19:00 EST) to spend your tokens.

[Optimus_Pig]

@werehamsta

The “festive deely bopper” (yes, that’s what it’s really called in the game) is basically a star-shaped Christmas Tree ornament that goes on top of Soundwave’s head, lol.

I I’m pretty sure that it was a random daily prize during the Holiday Challenge and it’s not normally available through the upgrade store for gems.

[Pampeans]

“There was a growing trend during the holiday event of players deliberately joining a challenge leaderboard as late as possible in an attempt to end up in first place with minimal effort.”

I remember people were posting this as a strategy on this forum. During the holiday challenge, I won playing the last three hours on Christmas Day. But, there was a bug that required you to play at least once during a challenge and that’s all I was initially doing. So I got placed in a group of “one timers” and seeing this, I kept playing and easily won. However, I spent gems because you don’t receive the milestone tokens if you don’t have a high enough score and I was playing to achieve a certain number of tokens per day, which was >1,000 if you win. The other four times I won, I played like it was my job and spent tokens, so there would be no “come-from-behind” surprises.

[Optimus_Pig]

@gradientturtle7

Thanks for the update. Again, this is something that would have been nice to know about before the current Challenge started up.

As much as I appreciate Rovio setting up these periodic Challenges for us, it’s incredibly frustrating the lack of information we get about them, and how much we have to figure out on our own.

[Melissa]

Okay, this seems highly unfair to those of use who have jobs and do not get an opportunity to start playing until we finish with our work day. For me, that is 6 PM EST, giving me a whopping one hour to play before the start of the next challenge. I DO NOT spend gems, so what I get when I play 4 times during the challenge is what I get. If I place, great…if not, oh well. So, what this tells me is that it does not even make sense to play the challenge because I will penalized for only having one hour to play it. Even if I were to buy gems to get more “plays,” I would still be penalized…because…I work??? We should get what we earn. Period.

If people are trying to strategize by purposely playing at the last minute and are using gems, so they can play like crazy to place at the end, then those are the people who she be penalized…if anyone should be penalized. But, quite honestly, I am not even sure it makes sense to penalize those people who do use that strategy. If they are putting money into a game to BUY gems and lining rovio’s pockets…why on earth would Rovio care if those people pour gems into a challenge to have a better shot at placing? Those people who spend their gems doing it are going to run out of gems sooner than if they did not. That would mean they’d have to play more or spend more to get more gems.

This makes absolutely no sense for those of who have a long work day with a 30 minute lunch break in a hospital and cannot play video games on our cell phones. It just makes me sad…I have only enjoyed this game since Christmas and it was a great stress relief for me. But, now, with nothing really to do past level 175 and being penalized for playing a game at the last minute with what little free time I actually have…it kinda makes me think there is really no point at all in even playing. :( *Rant.* I used to really enjoy this game. Now, I just feel sad and defeated. Honestly, if you are being set up to lose, then it’s really no fun to even try. It’s the competition of the you know, competition, which makes it a competition in the first place? If you literally have no chance at doing well, then it’s purposeless. It certainly doesn’t make me want to buy gems!

[WeeNaoise]

@thebirthoflove – I can’t believe you only have one hour of the day available to play the challenge. As you say yourself, you are able to play for one hour before the next challenge begins. So presumably you could also play from the start of the next challenge but simply choose not to. We all have to work and sleep – we all get taken away from challenges and most of us assume it all evens out in the end.

The playing at the last minute and using gems strategy is like sniping in Ebay auctions – designed to win without having to commit as much resource as you would if you’d joined in from the beginning. It’s not playing within the spirit of the game and I applaud Rovio for doing something about it.

[Melissa]

@ WeeNaoise (not sure if this will work, since I am new to this forum). I truly do only have 1 hour to play (if that). I have a 6 year old child. I am a full-time student in nursing school. When I am in my clinical rotations on Thursdays and Fridays, I get up at 4:30 AM and I am on the floor until 5:00 PM. We have a 30 minute lunch break in which we use the restroom, take a slow-as-molasses elevator down to the cafeteria, order food, wait for said food to be prepared, pay for food, scarf it down and then try to get back up on the floor in time to resume our shift. The hospital has a strict no-cell-phone policy while we are working. We then have post-conference with the instructor. I get home about 6pm. I spend time with my partner and my son, have dinner, use the restroom and then take about 30-60 minutes to play my game before I start my homework. I enjoy the game, but it’s far from a priority for me. It’s just fun and relaxing. I am not dedicated to spending hours playing the game like others might be. I play 4 times in a row (because you get 4 energy bars) and I call it done for the night. I think if I happen to get lucky and place high enough to get some tokens, I should get to keep the tokens I earn and not be penalized because I don’t have time to play all day and the time I do have is right before the challenge ends. If I lived in another time zone, it may not have even have been an issue for me. The workload we have is insane and I literally spend all of my free moments studying (which, quite honestly, I should be doing now, but saw your message and wanted to respond). I do understand people probably abuse the system by trying to exclusively play at the last minute to rack up their rank in the challenge, but *I* don’t do that. Like I said, I don’t have the time, don’t spend the gems or buy them and I am not dedicated enough to the game or trying to cheat it. I just think that if I play, I should be able to collect what I earn if I somehow manage to do well. I usually don’t. I think the highest I’ve placed is 3rd. Usually I fall in around 8th-10th and even lower. Likewise, if I play my 4 times and come in 30th place, I wouldn’t expect to receive anymore than what I should. It’s sad that people who are trying to abuse the game, ruin it for people who just play once a day to take a load off and want to have fun in a competition and actually stand a chance to be able to get a cool reward for participating.

[Pampeans]

I just had a desert node with 50 missiles, but it seems the coin award is lower with these red missiles. Bring back the pink, gold and black missiles!