About the Angry Birds 2 Arena

[heybert17]

I am on my 6th first round today, all have been 2 and done. I have yet to win a round today because we are back in ineffective bird mode.

And I just scored my first unassisted 4 million. 4.365, lost to an opponent I outmatched by 3 birds, he managed to get 4.5. and somehow racked up about 4 birds after my last bird. I have to wonder if a person takes the 3 birds with gems if they are included in the opponents you face, I get a lot of opponents that seem to get a flurry of birds at the end.

[ABeggerToo]

Thanks for your response Hank. While I can appreciate your position and comments it remains frustrating for us players that bugs which benefit us (the incredibly easy matchups in the arena which coincided with the first of the latest round of new bird levels – 10 I believe) were fixed within two weeks, yet the subsequent difficult matchups take much longer to resolve.

Coincidence I am certain, but combined with the radical departure (in terms of expenditure demands and the apparent ability to buy your way through the game) of AB2 from earlier versions, many of us ‘old-timers’ simply feel alienated from what we are being told by Rovio representatives are the new realities and requirements to make profits in the gaming world.

Anger indeed reflects caring, but also disappointment in that what we have come to trust and expect for the past 5 years seems now so radically different. I am not certain there are solutions which can meet your business requirements and the expectations of all segments of your audience, but I do hope there are in whatever games come after AB2.

Best of luck in finding a way to meet the varied demands of the global audience.

[DJLarryt]

@hank I have a question. When players drop out of the game (as several have already done to AB2 as indicated on this forum), and they unlink their FB accounts and delete the game from their devices…. what happens to their ‘saved’ games, aka the Arena matches?

Is there a purge process underway?

Or do their games stay in circulation, icon replaced by a cute ‘birdie’ icon and name, for all existing players to battle over and over? (That would explain why we keep seeing these 16-star, 5-spell wonders over and over again (aka hackers who remain in spirit)

[heybert17]

Beginning to think it is about time to use up my Gems and move on. The fun is gone.

Tired of playing a good round just to see my opponent rack up an impossible score.

[cognitive]

My strategy is simple, and I’m offering it as a Public Service Announcement:

1. Realize that you aren’t going to win or place high every week. There’s always someone who’s either better than you, richer than you, or has more free time than you. That was last week where the top 3-4 players got into a firefight that would be worth money to watch on ESPN. If they were not cheaters they were amazing players.

2. If you have no competition, go slowly and collect / bank tickets and gems. I did that for several weeks when I played the ‘Apathy’ league where nobody competed.

3. If you have one pesky dude in your league that is competitive:

– streak=1 is usually winnable, but only 5-6 stars usually. Use a ticket to win and get 5-6 stars.
– streak=2 is usually winnable, sometimes > 5-6 stars, but don’t play quickly if you lose. That’s where the 5 spell dudes show up.
– streak=3+ is unwinnable by virtue of spells or 2+ levels difference. If you win one, good for you.

So time it so that the FREE ENTRY happens when you play streak=3+ and you’re not wasting tickets. streak=3+ means most likely a defeat, no point wasting a ticket. This seems to work well for me. The free video bird every 3 hours is your streak=2 ticket. So in each 3 hour cycle you can play 2 games without tickets and lose the streak=3. Use tickets and spells and gems as needed but keep an eye on the prize, no point wasting 60 gems to win 15.

[kedik22]

@cognitive

I totally agree with you.
Been doing something similar.

Anybody with half a brain should take your advice.

But, there is always a but…
This will not stand well with Rovio!
This being a legal and fair exploit, will be removed by them before they fix the enormous mismatches.
I bet they will make your accumulated arena tickets worthless.
And probably something with the obtaining of gems will probably be affected in a negative way for honest players.

[David Martin]

When it’s late in the week and I’m ahead of my nearest competitors by a good enough margin that it doesn’t look like they’ll catch up, I sometimes start banking tickets for use in the following week’s arena. The thing is, it’s hard to rely on this when a glitch in the programming keeping shunting you off to an entirely different group of competitors. I’ve won a few gold medals over the past few months that were completely unexpected due to suddenly being in a group where the #2 was over 100 stars below me; if I’d known that was going to happen, I probably wouldn’t have tried as hard.

The thing that really baffles me about the #3 opponent in a streak always being the ridiculously overpowered one is that I recently made it all the way through a 7-game streak, and the #5, 6, and 7 opponents were all pretty reasonably balanced to my own bird levels, with few or no spells augmenting their performance. Why does the difficulty peak so early?

[cognitive]

The recent epidemic of impossible match-ups started not long ago after the tickets were introduced. Back then it got a little harder if at all as the streak progressed, but certainly not 5 spell type opponents.

The mismatches are largely a mechanism for discouraging frequent ticket use.

[kedik22]

@hank

Hi, and thanks again for getting back to us.

Have been pondering what to say regarding your latest post.
As you know very well, there are serious players in this forum and some mayor issues have been raised regarding the game itself and Rovio´s attitude towards it.

The lack of seriousness and clarity of Rovio´s input in addressing this huge minority´s concearns, leaves a lot to be desired.
I guess we all measure seriousness with quantity and quality.

Kind regards.

[angrynerds2]

Even in the first round there are more and more spell card clowns }:-(
I have to restart the game at least three times now to find a beatable opponent. That takes time and is no fun.

[David Martin]

Does the game consider it cheating when you abort a match before it starts by restarting the app? I’ve done that before without consequence, but today it reset my score for the week so far to 0 stars.

[DDeck]

@david-martin

I would think not because they have said the give cheaters just one star. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they start penalizing us for playing in a way that they didn’t expect but the game, as coded, allows. Maybe this is just (yet another) random bug? Sorry to hear that by the way.

[heybert17]

Got me another, 100 points every time he plays, opponent.

Plus I am getting highly outmatched in every round, taking a long time to find opponents that won’t crush me.

It is going to be impossible to catch up, I get 5 maybe 6 each win if I am lucky enough to win. The current leader was playing at the same time and every time his score changed it was 9-10. HOW are our opponents getting great scores when we can’t get anything. This game has gone way down hill in just the last week.

[kelshe]

Comments on this topic are slowing down. Is it because people have lost interest in the arena? I am now outmatched most of the time, even on the first streak. When I get an opponent with 6☆ rank, all birds at level 12 and all the spells what is the point of proceeding? It is a fact that you will not advance in the arena without using lots of gems and spells. The cost of these gems and spells far exceeds the value of the payoff. But wait. Rovio is coming out with a new, improved arena soon and everything will be all better and all fun. You’ll love it. You’ll win a lot more and the prizes will be fabulous. Until Rovio does what it did with this version of the arena; let you win for a while, start making it a little more difficult, and eventually ending up where you are now…unable to win/advance without using /buying lots and lots of gems and spells. Then the outrage will start again with players complaining about cheaters, etc., etc., etc. You might be a player but you are being played.

[DJLarryt]

I haven’t been posting because I have lost interest in this game and its predictable manipulative ridiculousness.

I usually play it for about 10 minutes until I get cornered into buying a win with gems (seems that’s the only way to get a win these days) or bored of same structures and same lineups, with harder requirements to clear (newly-improved structures which don’t collapse and end up burying pigs that are now impossible to pop).

Yesterday I played for 20 minutes and had to pay almost 1000 gems just to win the arena twice because my opponent was stacked with all spells and seemingly made every perfect shot every time. AND my birds suddenly can’t so any damage. Plus all scores to beat are close to 10,000,000 points. But at that point I wanted the 100 feather prize and Rovio had me by the b*lls, so I gave in.

But not anymore because I’m tired of this game and have better things to do. There is not even 1% of the original fun left, the entire game is just one big device designed to take your cash. And without shame either. Good-bye Rovio.

[Dwhite]

I deleted it @djlarryt and have no regrets. It became comical over the last few weeks. I’ve never seen any game so manipulated. Of course the Rovio reps deny it cause it’s their job to but the game is totally rigged. When the new update comes out just get the lube out and be prepared cause they are gonna get you. Might be fun and easy at first just like this last update but look how things have ended up.

I predicted the day after the last update that people would be leaving in droves and I would bet $100 that I’m right. Just look at how the traffic here at the nest has slowed down. I think that’s a pretty good indicator. They do have a AB2 Facebook page now. Looks like it has around 3,000 likes or so. They had their chance with this game- I absolutely loved it!! But now I despise it.

[heybert17]

I am going to use up my gems and spells and move on, not worth the frustration, if I played non stop for the next 24 hours I could not catch up with the player in 1st place, my 5 point wins are no match for his 9-10 points, funny how he is the only player in my league that outmatches me, and he is burying me every time he plays.

[hooksfan]

I quit playing Angry Birds 2 back in March. Best decision I made.

[heybert17]

I may not make it to using my items, now that I have upgraded a couple more of my birds it seems to be getting even harder to beat opponents I outmatch. I have 5 level 6 and 2 level 7, I am facing opponents with all level 6 birds that are getting scores higher than I ever did when my birds were all level 6.

After 10:00 and I just now got my daily bonus for getting 10 stars, that is how bad this day has been, 2 wins.

[Anonymous]

I’m actually still playing this game. However, I’m avoiding all the cash grab possibilities that Rovio has implemented.

Every once in a while I’ll play the arena because it is pretty fun. Sure, I can’t get past the 3rd win streak. Who cares? I’m not going to spend gems/spells to beat it so I’ll just take the loss and move on. After that I just watch a video for the ticket in case the arena ever improves. I currently have 27 tickets banked and I’m not even considering using them until the arena gets fixed.

The leaderboard doesn’t matter one bit to me either. I only care about 3-starring the main game, and I have plenty of gems to do that.

[reddie]

@partshade You and me both. In fact, all my birds are now in level 9 thanks to Matilda getting free rewards from the small chest. For my arena experience right now, I just worry about staying out of the bottom 3. That’s it.

[cognitive]

I actually have began to win against bozos with 5 spells on 1st streak. That seems to be Rovio’s lame frequency control, if you play too often they unleash such clowns. Typically they’ll be one bird level below me and all spells, but usually they’re not that good and if I play without mistakes it’s winnable.

[angrynerds2]

I alway refuse those damn spell card guys!
It’s also possible that they score 10 000000 points and the arena ticket + own spells are lost.

[Angry Beaver]

Give me level 12 birds and 5 spells and i can do scores over 10M in 25% of matches.
My record with level 9 birds and 5 spells is bit over 8M.

[kedik22]

@angrynerds2

Hi.
But don´t you hate loosing an arena ticket without even trying?
I have faced one or two guys like that, when they really mess up.
It´s a tough win, but still a win.