About the Angry Birds 2 Arena

[heybert17]

A couple things happening more often. Down by almost a million points before I fling my second bird. And it seems I am always having to use my free video bird to kill one last pig, so no chance to fill my meter and get more than just a few points that doesn’t help at all since I am usually down by 500,000 to a million at that point.

[heybert17]

I don’t believe a single one of the cutesy bird name players is real.

[Dwhite]

Love the name HeyBert. Absolute classic. I totally agree with your recent observation. I’ve definitely had to watch video for extra bird more than ever. It seems like the game is being set up for it. I’m also noticing extreme inconsistencies in the power of my birds. One game they are like King Kong on steroids then the next game they are literally like small birds on the verge of death.

I don’t keep track of it but I might start but the extra bird I get when watching the video is almost always worthless. Blues-steel, etc. Something else that not so conveniently happens to me is when I’m in a legitimate situation where the extra bird could DEFINITELY make a difference, the ad video crashes. Then I get nothing. Coincidence? All I can say is there are many coincidences that always seem to work in the card dealers advantage.

Cheating has been taking place since day 1 of my AB2 adventure but the amount of cheaters in the Arena now is mind boggling. And yes, many have cutesy names and look like models. I’m still blown away buy the player DJLarryT played who scored over 10 million. That’s pretty much how comical things have become. I hope and pray that Rovio would start doing something about this crap instead of explaining it away.

It’s time for all of us to raise ten kinds of Hell about the corruption taking place in the Arena. I love this game. It’s my all time favorite and I don’t want to quit.

[Saphira]

HeyBert,
I picked a cutesy bird name and I am a real player. I’m sure I can’t be the only one! I am also definitely losing a lot more often in the arena since the update, when I can even play without it crashing (still 2 or 3 matches a day usually). If I can’t play any of the newer levels soon I may have to quit…

[heybert17]

Okay, maybe not all cutesy names are fake, but a lot seem unreal. And today I have played the Arena at least 12 times for a total of 6 stars, that is one win. If my opponent didn’t have me highly outmatched and destroy me almost every One Bird structure has left a single pig alive needing me to waste a bird to continue. The Arena is becoming more frustration than enjoyment, which stinks, I really like the Arena.

[Rovio_Hank]

Hey guys, Hank from Rovio Sweden here.

A lot of topics are being discussed and I’ll try to address some of them.

1. Arena Opponents
With the latest additions to having nicknames in the Arena, it hopefully feels a bit more personal and enjoyable when playing with other people. If you’re up against a player with a cutesy name, that player have actively changed their name.

Players with Facebook images are also very much real.

2. Free Birds
This is a topic I know have been discussed before on this forum. The bird that is given to you after watching an ad is totally random and works just like normal. I understand the frustrating feeling when you don’t get the bird you wished for, we’ve all been there, but I can assure you that it’s not tampered with.

3. Cheaters
No one likes cheaters, especially not Rovio, and we’ve continuously tried to implement new systems to shut down as many of them as we can find. It is sadly a time consuming task that plagues most games and there’s still a few of them out there.

On a positive note we have some really exciting new features planned for you in the upcoming updates that will require us to take a deep look into how we can prevent cheaters even better!

If there’s anything else you’re wondering about just add my tag @Hank to your posts so I can find them quicker and hopefully have an answer for you.

[MG516]

@Hank – thank you for taking the time to visit the forum and providing the information above. I have to compliment Rovio on the latest update. It has made the game fun for me again.

[heybert17]

Thanks for addressing some of our concerns.

[heybert17]

I check the birds of all the opponents in my league, they are all almost identical to me, so why is it even close to fair or even possible to have to face these highly outmatched players.

[heybert17]

I am probably wrong, but it really feels like they have tweaked the structures a bit, for the last 3 days, ever since the last small update, none of them are falling quite the same way, or lining up like they used to. Like I said, probably just me but I have left a ton of pigs standing in structures that have been 1 bird take downs since I started playing.

[cognitive]

@heybert17, if it makes you feel better :) I have noticed the same thing. The first day of this I felt I was ill or something, wasted 5 Arena tickets and lost the first match to each of them. I’m 18 time Diamond league winner, 50 stars, half birds at 6 half at 5 type.

It almost feels like someone at Rovio felt the latest upgrade was WAY too easy. This week earlier I did 6 streaks completed, got a ton of feathers, the works. Today I won a 7 streak after spending a ton of rubies.

At this point anything over streak of 3 is bonus material because I’m paired with all 6 birds vs 3 6’ers (now 4!). And I continue to see double birds on a regular basis.

[Dwhite]

Hank- here is a serious question. Why did Rovio take away the option of us players backing out of our Arena matches when we would draw blatant cheaters so we could find a fair opponent? It was the one part of this game that actually thought of the player as opposed to making $$$$. The arena has been controversial since I started playing 7 months but we always had this one option which brought an incredible balancing act. As far as my experience goes the arena has become unbearable right now. Corruption has become rampant.

[Aeshna]

Great question @dwhite40704.

And another observation: while there seems to be increased paranoia on this forum, from my point of view one of the features of the update was to make more opponents playing spell cards as opposition. Last week out of a run of 7 wins, two players would play spell cards, now I am up against four players who use spell cards. The level of opposition was usually equal to mine level 70+, now anything goes and there are a lot more ‘low level players’ such as level 9, 15 etc.

[heybert17]

I always tell myself when I start one of these games, when the frustration level gets higher than the fun level, it is time to uninstall and move on, Angry Birds 2 is getting close, and the Arena is a big part of that.

Not the first time this has happened. Last night I had lost 3 battles so when I was down by about 100,00 I spent the 60 gems to continue. I went ahead by about 100,00. Then I got the “You are almost there” pop up. I was still down by about 20,000 even though I won according to the score on the game screen. Cheating or glitch I can’t deal with that, if I was actually down by 220,000 I never would have wasted the gems.

[Aeshna]

Been in the arena for the last two hours and I would say that Rovio have yet again made it virtually unplayable and I’ve just loaded up a dozen times in a row and every opponent has been playing 3 to 5 spell cards.

Last week I thought the arena was too easy, obviously Rovio felt the same and have made it so 500 feathers are winnable only by spending.

This company NEVER gets the balance right and have now destroyed my main interest in AB2. The DC is pointless and varies too much, the levels are ok but it is the arena I spend my time.

Last week was enjoyable even though I was spending to play, this week you can stick it. I have never been so close to deleting the game as I am right now.

[angrynerds2]

The arena sucks this week indeed.
Only every third opponent has no spell cards and the winning streak is unreachable because of that douchebags.

[Dwhite]

My opinion of this game has reached an all time low.

[cognitive]

I did win 500 feathers for Bomb but sacrificed 60+120+180 rubies. Reason? 3 spell miracle guy.

[Aeshna]

Anyone less than 422 stars will be relegated out of the diamond league I’m in this week!

That is hard core, because I’ve won 8 diamond leagues with less than 422.

[Saphira]

Really? I was in diamond league for months (until being relegated to amethyst last week due to the game crashing so much) and I only got a medal twice. I generally averaged 350 to 400 plus stars a week and the top three always had hundreds more than that week after week after week….I gave up on trying to get medals.

[Dwhite]

I had over 400 points. My Diamond league showed me 13th place. Thought I was getting demoted but instead got 5th place gems. These leagues really need more consistency in the worst way. It’s just more randomness from a game rooted in randomness and I don’t like it.

[DJLarryt]

New rule in the Arena: the closer you get to the 500 feather streak win, the more unbalanced your opponents are.

The reason? $$$$$$$$GEM$$$$$$$$

Rovio has pretty much made it obvious that they are desperate for impulse/ anger purchases now. Whether it’s the arena, the DC or whatever just to stay afloat, every day I play, it costs me gems. Guess what, when the gems are gone I delete the game.

When the rules change every single time there’s an update, there’s no fun left. And when all enjoyment of playing is squelched out by every attempt in every screen to pull off some sort of BS gameplay to make me waste my birds and force me to spend gems, it’s time to quit and move on.

And I’m convinced that every cutesy bird name WITHOUT an avatar of an actual person is a ‘planted’ player. Sorry. There’s just way too many of them with supernatural powers and unbelievable high scores to accept the fact that these are normal players. 9 times out of 10 when I encounter one in the arena, they blow my score completely out of the water- it’s almost always a guaranteed “watch video for another bird” and “buy in to increase your score!” (which I decline because how can I make up for a 2,000,000 pt lead)?

[heybert17]

I think I am at my limit, every 1 bird structure just took 3 birds, and the little piggy is surviving direct hits, I will not play a game that doesn’t even try to hide it’s cheating.

Dropped a duck on a structure, not only did it appear I only got about half the normal amount of ducks, it only killed 2 pigs, at least 5 were out in the open, should have taken out the whole structure, barely damaged it.

I can’t even win a round 1 battle tonight. My opponent though somehow manages to get about a million more points than me, and their flock and level tells me they are not that much better.

[Saphira]

I didn’t know I was a plant… seriously though, I will never bother to even figure out how to put a real picture in for my avatar. It just isn’t important to me. I picked a cutesy bird name because I liked it better than being called bombxxxx and because it took almost no effort or time.

[heybert17]

I also thought that every cutesy name was a fake player, until just a couple days ago when I got the option to pick a name from the cutesy name generator. Now I only think half of them are.