Reply To: Where to Get Gifts?

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DJLarryt
@djlarryt

@maiasatara I feel your anguish and this is interesting to hear from your side of the fence. The reason I say this is because for some strange reason I ended up in your Arena league (I recognize your icon :) ). Over the course of the past week, I have played somewhere around 30 arena matches and lost 28. It’s ridiculous. It seems that suddenly as of last Thursday all pigs take more hits to pop and all construction materials need more hits to wreck them. For example I used to clear screen 13 with exactly 3 birds. Now it takes 5 or 6 making the exact same shots with the exact same birds.

Anyway some of these ‘matches’ were against your recorded ‘games’. Whenever I start a match I always compare my birds against my opponent’s. If they are incomparable, I do the reset trick and try for another opponent.


@maiasatara
Yours and my birds are pretty close… so I go ahead and play the round. Even though I pretty much “strike” or “birdie” EVERY SINGLE BOARD I still get beaten by a whopping 300,000 or so points. And this happens on my last bird, just as you say, even though the icon is greyed out, suddenly 3, 4 cards whip out of nowhere and even though I am amassing points for destruction, I watch my blue bar go flying down. WTAF.

But what angers me about the whole concept is that I know the same thing is happening to you, as you’ve stated above. And even when you “beat” me, you don’t get anything for it. I must have lost at least 6 games against you in the past week. Maybe I could feel better about it if I knew you got a few gems in return. But I know there is nothing… Rovio just awards a win at real-time with a few stars IF there’s a win. But for players that lose, this way they just don’t have to give anyone anything… it really does make me believe this Arena thing is rigged.

It would be helpful if when we went into a round, we could see the score we have to beat- at least then we could bail out and not waste any more time thinking we actually have a chance at getting anywhere… Because nothing happens on your opponent’s side anyway. But this would mean Rovio being upfront with what is going on and that’s not something they’re willing to do.

So here’s how I retaliate- Rovio gets a kickback whenever someone watches one of their paid ads. For the umpteen dozen times I’m not even close to beating my opponent, and the “Watch a video for one more bird” (which not surprisingly that bird never seems to get me enough points anyway IF I go ahead and try) I click out the “X”. So Rovio doesn’t get paid for wasting my time watching the video in which I wouldn’t beat the opponent (or current level) anyway.

I missed hitting a blue gift box this morning when trying for the gem award. I played this POS game until my battery died, trying to get another one, (just for a probably over the course of an hour and a half). Forget it. No luck.

There is no more incentive to play further screens. I’m in the 400s somewhere and every single board that opens up with 6 levels and pigs on little structures in all 4 corners of the room is the same as a big sign saying “Spend gems or you’ll never succeed on this level”. It takes 4 or 5 birds to clear one screen, let alone the entire round. Even though I’ve ranked up a few birds they seem to produce the same amount of points/ damage as they did when I was in lower levels. And my next ranking is an eternity away at this rate. So why even play on? My bird squad can’t clear these levels and I can’t even win in the Arena to advance them, what, 10 feathers at a time? Screw that.

Rovio it would also be nice if we weren’t forced to collect gem awards whenever we earn one. I think I know by now what I need to do, I don’t need that red bird popup locking the game and telling me to collect all rewards as if I’m doing it my first time every time.

And for the last time: WHAT IS THE POINT of even trying to stay in the Arena Diamond league? Do players get higher rewards than if they are in the vanilla league? NO. Do they get advanced gem rewards for being ranked higher? NO. Do they get anything that counts as worthwhile for even making it there? NO. So better to let them get demoted back to vanilla league and wipe out beginning players there with a powerful bird squad to rook a 100 gem award at the end of the week. But you see what that will do to the beginning players, right?

Anyway, Rovio is not getting one more cent of my money no matter how hard they try…. I don’t mind paying into a game that I’m at least enjoying. But I’m beginning to think it’s time to move on- all my friends have dropped the game from their app and I’m close to doing the same which is a shame, this could have been the game of year if it weren’t for all this greed, inconsistent play, hacker-friendly attitude and freemium disruption. It’s all TAKE and very little give- even when it’s REAL money in exchange for VIRTUAL items.

BTW I had a brief career in game development and QA (and have my name on a few titles out there as well) and I recognize crappy in-game programming logic gimmicks when I see them. @bankler, I know you aren’t personally responsible for the shettiness of the game and the money-machine Rovio wants this to be. And I know since they’re paying you to do your job you’ll keep your mouth shut because you need to feed your family. But just remember when you chase players away, they don’t come back- no matter how popular you think your titles are. There are millions of more fun games to waste time playing than to be addicted to a single one that frustrates players to no end. And we’re no longer in the days of the arcades when kids blow their entire allowance trying to beat that next boss. Gamers have come a long way since then and the gaming industry demands something worth their time and expenses.

Bring that to your higher-ups and let them think about that one.