Reply To: Something Fishy Is Going On

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Sutekh137
@sutekh137

@hikaricore (Aaron)

I like to think of myself as a pretty good Angry Birds player as well, though I know I am not as good as a lot of folks out there… I’ll give my impression of each numbered bullet after a summary of my thoughts on this latest update:

I thought the new levels were relatively easy, and I usually struggle. I did the first six of twenty in one morning and then all the rest yesterday throughout the day. I never ran myself out of lives, and I only spent gems on one continuation (just because I was impatient and it was a Boss level). For one thing, these levels had no worries in terms of three-starring. Every other time new levels have come out, I usually get through them but have 3-4 where I only two-starred. Now with the new multipliers (which I feel shouldn’t come into play for non-arena levels, but what do I know) three-starring is trivial. The levels just felt easier, too, though some of that was based more on luck (those spouts can completely annihilate a level even after a sub-optimal fling).

The Arena is a bit weirder, I think, but the motivation is clear. Rovio wants people to come back every three hours without exception. This new scheme does that. Before, I would get a decent Arena score, and as long as I wasn’t last I didn’t care (because I sure as heck wasn’t going to place in order to get more feathers). Their scaling was all off. Now, the top rewards are gems — lots of ’em. And you can rack up a lot of stars assuming you really do play the Arena every three hours (I am currently second place on my board, and I used to be in the bottom third for Arena play).

So, on to your points:

1. I have seen amazing feats of pig balance. A teleporter pig blipped to the top of a thin glass block that was standing UP just yesterday. However, it doesn’t seem any worse to me. I did have several times yesterday where a teleporter pig blipped to an incline, fell a tiny amount, and popped. In summary, this facet of the game seems about the same, and can be frustrating here and there.
2. When I look closer at these scenarios, it seems like there is always a thin stone slab behind the wood, though there was at least one time Chuck bounced off a PIG and didn’t even dent the wood behind. Again, though, this is the same as always IMO.
3. This has ALWAYS happened to me, so I cannot agree that it is happening more now. This is one of the most frustrating aspects of a crumbling room, IMO.
4. Yeah, I can’t figure out eggs either…just had one blow up in green slime instead of coming around. But (I am sounding like a broken record) I recall this always being an issue and have assumed I just sucked. *smile*
5. The only time Red fails me is when I mistime the push, angle it poorly, or miss the fact that there are balloon supports embedded in the back (front?) of the structure. Otherwise Red seems to be about the same as always…
6. Blues do seem to have inexplicable trouble with glass, and that’s a shame for what I already consider the weakest bird out there. However (you know what I am going to say), I’ve always struggled with Blues and just assumed I wasn’t firing right or was spreading too late or too early.
7. Yep, curves have always sucked, and I have never figured out how to make trajectories work better. Of most frustrating note are times when a far, far pig is still perched on balloons and there is no way I can get to him with anything except Chuck. If no Chuck is left, I don’t score a single point more. That’s bogus. Slime paths should LAUNCH birds enough to get hard-to-reach pigs instead of needing to hope the balloon supports magically get clipped by debris from an initial collapse.
8. Terence has always had two scenarios that make him weak, IMO: when ANY stone is involved (even just one or two slabs inside all wood/glass) and those stupid balloon supports (especially the triangular purple ones). In my opinion Terence should be able to plow the road with frickin’ balloons, I don’t mind when some stone slows him down though, because that’s only fair — we already have Silver and Bomb to mince rock. Regardless of my thoughts on that, I can’t say it seems worse with this latest update.
9. Blocks seem about the same to me, and as I said previously, those new spouts have no problem obliterating blocks of all materials, sizes, and build patterns.
10. Same here. But recently (after winning 5 of my last 6 arena battles) I have come to believe that initial burst in score is because we are seeing the opponent mowing through the first TWO rooms right off the bat. Things level off later, and my opponent always seems to run out of cards before I do. Keep playing the Arena (unless you just don’t want to any more, which I totally get) and you will start to see success. I still think it is odd that I am second place on my leaderboard when before I was lucky to be in the Top Ten, but it is what it is.

In my opinion, Rovio’s motivation is two-fold: make people buy gems and make people come back every three hours (if not more often) to watch ads. Changing the physics of gameplay to make things harder does not seem like the right way to do that. It alienates brand new players and irks veterans who know better. I’m not saying the changes aren’t already irksome to a degree, but I don’t perceive there to be a physics overhaul in play here.

This has turned more into me venting about things I have always found annoying about AB2, so thanks for listening. *smile*

Happy flinging (and happy holidays!)

Thanks,
sutekh137