Join the Birdsnest Arena leagues!

[Immortal… Larry]

We had a partial success. Sadly the leagues did not work out as expected. We were unable to create any of the predicted leagues. The upside is that we can now confirm that the density of cheaters is much lower than anything we’ve had before, which was the main reason for doing this experiment anyway.

The initial conclusion is based on the principle that most cheaters are quite fanatic about their scores. They will likely be playing as soon as the new week starts to get high scores. This means that they will be dominating the boards which are formed in the first hour of the leagues.

The advice would be to start a new week’s league as late as possible, while still allowing yourself enough time to achieve the first set of objectives of the day (let’s say half hour before midnight). This should give you better chances of getting a fair board for the next week. Remember to read up on the cheaters thread for info on what is and is not cheating when you’re looking at the scores.

If anyone else has any great ideas on how to create an ABN league, bring it forth and we’ll have a go at it!

Original message for your reference:
———–
Hi all, we’ve come up with a great idea based on @steven-dunn-5648’s discovery about avoiding cheaters. Check out the cheaters thread as well.

It turns out that we may be able to manipulate our league boards based on when we open the arena after the new week starts. We would like to test this and see if we can generate a Birdsnest rally on the arena.

Here’s the basics:

Drop a message in this thread starting with “@larry” stating your current XP level and expected league level for next week. I will then list you in this first post.

Make sure you don’t collect your prize or open the arena scoreboard when this week’s league is finished (check the timer in the arena lobby). Wait with this until the timeslot of our next league starts. The timeslot is below.

Maybe we’ll try and assign some players to specific timeslots to see how this works out and and if we really get the league boards filled with ABN players.

Before the end of this week’s league, make sure your name starts with “ABN_” followed by your nickname (preferrably your nickname from ABN). This way we can track the placements on the boards.

The initial time slot we’ll use is as follows:
22:00 GMT+0 – as in 26 hours after the official start of the new leagues.
This puts the joining times for some different areas as follows:
Tuesday, 6:00 am in Perth, Australia
Monday, 2:00 pm in California, USA
Monday, 10:00 pm in London, UK

Topic

[burbman]

So, just to be clear, the leagues do not have any connection to the rest of the game? i.e. I can still beat the golden pig each day even if I do not play in the arena league for a day and I will not be added to a league?

[MVNLA2]

@Burbman — I’m pretty sure that I have gotten free rolls from friends on the arena GP machine every day, even though I was not signed in to a league and did not play the arena for 3 days.

[burbman]

@mvnla2 – So you have been into the arena earlier in the week, I am curious if that placed you into a league, or if you get placed into a league as soon as you open up Epic for the first time each week. This needs further research before we can make any concrete plans.

[senigami]

I can confirm that you do not join a new league after the week ends until you open the screen that displays your ending rank. I was able to continue playing the game as normal, levels and golden pig, before entering the arena 30 hours after the league start time. I would recommend simply not entering the arena battle area at all until the time you wish to enter and start a league.

[senigami]

I’m going to duplicate my post from the cheaters board here for simplicity sake,

My suggestion for ABN arena start times are 10:00pm (22:00) GMT+0, precisely 26 hours after day one start time. This seems like the widest coverage of English speaking countries I could come up with. My apologies to those in Asia but I am assuming that the majority of those on this site are from English speaking countries ranging from Australia to the United States, to Europe.

22:00 GMT+0 puts the times as follows:
Tuesday, 6:00 am in Perth, Australia
Monday, 2:00 pm in California, USA
Monday, 10:00 pm in London, UK

Upon joining the ABN league it would also be good, for the 1st day, to adjust your nickname to “ABN_[nickname]” so that we can affirm that we are all in it together.

[senigami]

Also to retell the info from the cheaters forum. I’d like to summarize my theory on how this works.

This is not an exploit, a bug, or cheating, but an understanding of how lineups are created. I have tested this on 3 different games and different levels and can confirm working every time.

The secret lies in understanding the method Rovio uses for creating lineups. When you complete a weekly round and check to see if you succeeded in advancing, you signal the server to enter you into a new league. The trick here is to be patient.

I originally stumbled on the delayed start concept when I began a new game. I wasn’t far enough into the game to join the arena until late Thursday. I thought for sure I would be really behind since others would have had days to beef up their scores. However Rovio is really good about trying to keep the game fair by not joining you to a game where you would have the handicapped disadvantage. Soon I began to see others join my league, none of which had scores that indicated they had played earlier in the week.

It would appear that, by design, you can only join a league where you and the other players have an equal and fair chance at arriving at the same score. (assuming no other cheating methods of course) I decided to test this logic on my level 41 game and waited 30 hours before checking my scores so that I would loose an entire day’s worth of playing in the arena. As it turns out my league creation theory held and Rovio fairly placed me into a league containing all players with a 1 day handicap, which at the time was only me.

Others have confirmed the delayed start method which brought us to the idea of timing the league creation time for an ABN exclusive league. Naturally only 15 members per lineup so we can’t guarantee that we can all be in the same league if we have too many people joining, but it will be fun to try.

[MysticBurn]

i would try a ABN leauge, because of three cheaters i’m just doing daily objectieves now to stay in silver league.
I’m gonna try the day later approch anyway, so why not in a ABN silver league.
I’m in (UTC+01:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna timezone

[KerrAvon]

@burbman It is more likely that you are placed into a leaderboard after you check the results and get the rewards for the previous round. As @mvnla2 has not been playing on the arena, she may not have registered any scores or triggered anything to get her onto a board.

In some earlier rounds, I remember finding names added to my leaderboard over time. I think others have to play in order to get added to your leaderboard. So you may have some empty slots on your leaderboard that get filled after a while when others start playing.

I am not sure about the completely empty leaderboard, although that was how it was for a while in round 2.

Sorry for crossing over threads.

Back to this thread, it is still only a theory. But it’s still worth a try. People may wish to indicate which league they are in during the lead up to the start up time. I am still in the stone league. Cheating is not an issue on my leaderboard, but I might participate to see if it works. Also, reconfirm your times. We are in daylight savings time in Australia, so 7 am here (East Coast of Australia – Melbourne, Sydney, etc.) corresponds to 12 pm (whoops – edited) on the west coast of USA, and 8 pm in Western Europe. Probably good to add time for east coast of USA.

[senigami]

@kerravon, yes, timezones can be tricky which is why I proposed using GMT+0 as a baseline with times that made it possible for those in Australia to join at the same time as those in USA & UK. This way others can compute their timezone offset to whatever their current daylight savings option is and avoid the confusion of trying to accommodate everyone in posting local timezones.

[MVNLA2]

@steven-dunn-5648 — I’m not sure what you mean by “I was able to continue playing the game as normal, levels and golden pig, before entering the arena 30 hours after the league start time.” By “playing the game” do you mean playing in the arena, or on the rest of the island? By “playing … golden pig” do you mean the arena golden pig or the GP in your original nest? What do you mean by “entering the arena?” Clicking the banner on the whole island page, or entering a battle?
The reason I asked is that I did go to the arena and play the arena GP every day since the previous arena week ended. I just did not click on the banner saying finished, or enter an arena battle.

[senigami]

@mvnla2, yes, by “normal” game play I meant everything in the game other than clicking on the banner to enter the arena. I have no idea how the golden pig affects the start of a league. I did click the banner and exit with out having it enter me in a league but did not do anything with the golden pig even though I had a free roll because I wanted my item to come from the new level that I would be entering. It could be that since you rolled the golden pig the system had to check from which set of items to give you and thus spawned a league entry. I would avoid doing that in the future.

[freeman]

I love the idea but how can we be sure the leaderboard will be ours only? And if we get the bad luck of someone else be placed along what shall be the plan?

P.S.: I don’t want to be picky but I’m sure there’s many no native English speaking members of ABN, myself included. Anyway, I agree that a compromise must be reached and the starting moment seems well chosen.

[senigami]

@jorge-freeman-1, good question, “how can we be sure the leaderboard will be ours only”. Which is why the suggestion of adding “ABN_” to the start of your screen name. Also it may be a good idea for #1 place person to agree to change their name to “AngryBirdsNest-com League” thus helping direct the possible straggler here. Then we just go for it. We have never done this before so we have no idea if it will even work, but I think it would be fun to try.

I assume that the start time will be very late/early for you. It may be a good idea to have 2 start times 8 hours apart so that you can join a second league which starts 34 hours after the start time.

[MysticBurn]

How sure are we that the placing on leaderboard doesn’t have a timezone restriction, what I mean is, all players on leaderboard in like a -2 / +2 of your timezone. Or just totally random. That would make syncing start time between players across -8 / 8+ from your own timezone or higher quit difficult or strange times (don’t think I would start at 5 am for example lol)

So league should be with players in same similar timezones (separate American / Europe / Asia / Australia leagues)

[cosmo2503]

@renitz I am pretty sure, let’s say positive, that players on my leaderboard are from different time zones. There are some Asian players as well as some Hispano-American players while I am European.

[KerrAvon]

@renitz This is all guesswork. We don’t know whether it will work or not. I don’t think there are restrictions on leaderboards based on time zones. Based on scoring patterns, I believe the players on my leaderboard are from a range of time zones. So this is really just something interesting that might work.

Regarding time, a start time of 10 pm GMT is pretty suitable for most time zones. This is 11 pm in Central Europe, 9 am on East Coast of Australia, 2 pm on West Coast of USA and 5 or 6 pm on East Coast of USA. These times are quite reasonable and covers most active nesters on this site. You only need to log in and start the round. This time only leaves out parts of Asia. If there is demand from players in Central and Western Asia, then sure a second time could be planned.

[Bubbley]

@larry @steven-dunn-5648 this sounds a great idea. Since we are all in different leagues are you proposing several ABN leagues. We may find ourselves with non nesters or all alone. what happens at the end of the week – same again? If we reach diamond do we have to keep this up until the end of 12 weeks to stay there?

[MysticBurn]

think the syncing will be the biggest factor, being placed on a leaderboard happens when you have clicked the finished banner in arena, and after calculating is finished and you spinnend the wheel. Correct? So are the times in between this actions the same for all players, personally I don’t think so, so still big chance you will not get on the same leaderboard, chances will get better with a big selection of players willing to try this.

[Immortal… Larry]

Hi all, I think we’ve got a lot of questions and many answers and plenty of uncertainty. Let me start by mentioning that this is an experiment. It is in NO WAY GUARANTEED that it will work. We’re gonna try based on best guesses and limited information about how the system works. There also is no guarantee that if it works, the leagues will be ours alone. Anyone in the world could join in, including a cheater.

That said, I propose the following.

Post here with your XP level and expected league level. I’ll document your stats and propose that we then let @steven-dunn-5648 (or myself if he prefers) work out some leagues based on the mentioned schedules so we can see if we all get onto the expected leader boards.

I can imagine some people are getting really anxious to get into a higher league, so maybe we could consider a honor competition between 3 players for some, so all three will advance, but they could compete for first place.

[Immortal… Larry]

@amslimfordy, first of all I recommend you’d join in as well… Just for kicks!

You’ve got contacts with the Rovio devs right? Any chance you could use your back channels to “carefully” inquire if this might actually work? It would be brilliant and has the potential to bring a lot of fed-up people back to the arena…

[Angry Johnny]

Ummmmmm…

For those wishing to use the exploit against other ABN users without feeling bad about those not knowing how to do so.

So if I read this right the ABN League are suppose to consist of people that will use the Arena exploit to play it?
Since we do not know how Rovio will handle the cheaters yet do you really think this is a good idea?
You might encourage people to participate in a form of playing that will get them punished in the game down the line.

[MysticBurn]

@larry, @amslimfordy I think a key question is if the leaderboards are formed on a hourly bases, like larry mentioned in cheater thread to be a possibility, would increase chances of success.

I know this is an experiment, I’m Lvl 41, silver league.
No matter what I will be starting my arena at 23:00 next Monday.
I’m in (UTC+01:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna timezone

So @steven-dunn-5648 still want to try this?

@angryjohnny no to avoid players using arena exploit

[Angry Johnny]

@renitz From the first post:

idea: I would propose those wishing to join an ABN cheaters league to start 49 hours after day 1 start time. For those wishing to use the exploit against other ABN users without feeling bad about those not knowing how to do so.

Does seem like a League of cheaters to me :-/

[Immortal… Larry]

@angryjohnny, some are using the golden clouds exploit which also triggers the arena resets. Also, I’ve been cheatin last week after being overtaken by cheaters. It actually became more thrilling and fun this way with big leaps in scores. Although I lost, I had more fun with the arena than before.

This is all an experiment and we really don’t know what will happen, but some would enjoy the possibility of cheating in a league where nobody is treated unfairly. This is not encouraging, but if it works out, it may offer a playground for those who are interested. I would never suggest that everyone should do it. It’s up to you to do it or not, but if you do, better in a league where everyone knows how.

[MysticBurn]

Ah ok, then I was mistaken about purpose of this thread @larry @angryjohnny, because this thread started after the info about way to avoid them in cheater thread sorry. I want a league without exploit users.