About the Angry Birds 2 Arena

[AngryPlayer]

Today’s advancements:

– Blizzard Spell only turning 50% of building material to ice, rendering Blues almost useless
– Chuck can suddenly and inexplicably knock down stone buildings
– Terrence has now become an anchor… he hits the ground and stops dead on the spot… so no more rolling him into structures to break them down
– many, many, MANY more micropigs being built into structure foundations making them impossible to knock out in one shot (and protecting them when the building collapses)
– Less occurrences of spells granted in first three cards if selected (to minimize the gaining of free ones)
– almost impossible to get ‘Strikes’ anymore since majority of rooms are 3 structures far apart from one another, and strangely taking 4 -5 birds to clear most of them…. plus practically every screen ends with ONE lone pig sitting somewhere somehow avoiding a mass destruction of a room, ESPECIALLY if you have a spell in your queue…
– And speaking of which, the game seems to be DETERMINED to get you to waste your spells. Again see above… if you have a spell in your queue, but continue using birds, the pigs appear to be stronger and will roll further away from the slingshot… I had this happen more than 5x within a few matches
– Duckling spells almost completely useless. Historically, they are most effective when they can be shot sideways into buildings (thru portals, off trampolines from flowers). However starting today, I have noticed a few times I sent them on prime screens and received < 200 points from using them

Don’t think I haven’t noticed these ‘tweaks’ Rovio >:-(

[HaoleDave]

@katydid

What @cognitive and I are saying is that the birds appear in the order that they are *used*. Not necessarily what his first three cards are. He first uses a Terrence (one of his three original cards), gets a strike, and then fills up his meter, which awards him another Terrence. By luck, his new 3rd card (after using one of the original three) ends up being that exact Terrence that he was just awarded. Then he decides to use the new Terrence in the next room.

@angryplayer

The only blocks that I’ve noticed not change to ice with Blizzard is the odd square wood (which appears to be stronger than normal wood).

[Max]

So how to identify you’re playing a bot .. I don’t want to play a bot. If I’m in first I would like to stay in first vs any other player and not a bot … it’s not right to expend resources playing a bot … it’s kind of wrong actually IMO.

So are there ways to identify the bots?

[Katydid]

haoledave:

If the person actually filled the meter would his score not be higher then 0?

[HaoleDave]

@peany

Not that I know of… I can’t really distinguish. I’m not sure if there even are bots. There are some really good players out there. I can get a really high score on some rooms and totally blast the opponent’s score…

@katydid

The first bird he uses could have been in his first hand… So, he would start with a score of “0”. Then fling Terrence. Get a strike and fill up his meter. Then he gets a bonus card for the meter, and it’s Terrence. Then, by pure luck, he gets that new Terrence card in his hand to replace the card he already used (the first Terrence). Then, he decides to use that as his 2nd card.

Remember what I said: The birds appear in the order that he *used* them. It puts Terrence as his 2nd bird because you used it for his 2nd bird, not because he already got the bird before scoring.

@david-martin

That’s entirely untrue. I’ve seen an opponent’s hand with spells.

[David Martin]

@haoledave – Is it really just me? Ever since the update that radically changed how we are matched against Arena opponents (and that also made the Arena rooms far more challenging in general), I swear I have not seen a single spell in any of my opponents’ arsenals. We have discovered in the past that the same rules don’t seem to apply to all of us, so I’m wondering if this is yet another Rovio experiment – let some players go up against Arena opponents with spells, let others go up against opponents with only birds, see how they perform and which is deemed by the players to be more fair. (Of course “easier” means “fair” to most of us, so it would be a pretty lame experiment, but understanding why Rovio does things is always harder than just understanding what the heck they’re actually doing.)

Pre-update, more often than not I’d get matched up against opponents who had 4 or 5 spells showing alongside their birds when we were first matched up. Now I never see even a single one, even though I use spells myself.

[HaoleDave]

@david-martin

Come to think of it, I haven’t seen it in a while… But I wondered if that’s because I got to Diamond… Maybe the update just removed anyone who used spells?

[DDeck]

@haoledave

@david-martin makes a great observation. I had assumed that only runs that didn’t include spell usage were replayed for us. However, my observation of hat usage strongly indicates that the runs are being modified server-side. So it is also perhaps possible that our opponents really are using spells, but they are being removed from the run.

I too have seen back-to-back same birds being used by opponents which, based on the rules under which I play, should not be possible under those circumstances (e.g., start of the match). If there was a spell used in between, and that spell was culled from the run, then it would indeed appear that the same bird was flung twice in a row.

[Djangosmum]

I get how you could see the same bird used consecutively, having got a strike, so you get the same bird back in you choice of 3, then use it again, but I once saw 3 chucks in a row at the start of the match and can’t get my head round how this is possible.

[Jon S]

@angryplayer

I’ll also add that one on a very rare occasion I had Matilda and red go through a micropig And they did not even pop. So be aware of invisible pigs LOL.

[KLM13]

@djangosmum: I also started an Arena match with my opponent’s first three birds being Terence. Room 1, score 0-0, not a shot had been fired. I actually took a screenshot, but since pics are too hard to post here, I’ve never shared it.

[heybert17]

If your first bird is Terrence, even if you filled the meter and got a Terrence that would be your 8th bird, he would go to the back of the deck. While it is possible, but unlikely you could get a Terrence as your 1st and 3rd bird used, it would mean you used Terrence then another Terrence was your 5th bird. But to get 2 Terrence as your 1st and 2nd bird should be impossible. When I was playing, not anymore, after I saw an opponent have 2 of the same birds in their starting lineup I started paying attention.

Not 1 single time in all the games I played after that did I ever get a bird in my 4th or 5th position that was in my original 3. And as many times as I saw it in my opponents first 3 it should have happened to me a few times but it NEVER did, so I call complete manipulation when I saw an opponent with that. It was just one of the many reasons I finally gave up.

[Katydid]

That’s what I thought too. My bonus birds go to the end of the line. Not into the first three.

[MG516]

Interesting Arena league for me this week. Two “0”, three “1” and one “9”. The leader has 1373 and I am in fifth with 452. Obviously more tickets than I can use but I’ll be happy with the pearls in an off week.

[David Martin]

I’ve had bonus cards end up closer to the beginning or middle of the deck before. In my previous observation that if you selected all five spells and the first one you used, you’d get an immediate refill of, I’ve sometimes noticed that same spell show up again a lot earlier than I was expecting. I can’t recall whether this has happened with a bonus bird, though.

Still, even if a bonus bird shows up again relatively soon, and we account for gaps in an opponents’ performance due to their spells being removed, three of the same bird in a row is highly unlikely. I’ve only ever used three of the same bird in a row at the very end of a run, when I filled the damage bar with my last bird, got another of the same bird, and then watched a video for an extra bird (and of course in that case they were all Blues).

[CaptSternn]

Being logged in with the arena open is not helping this week. But I am in a city (on a road trip) where connectivity is very spotty at best. Maybe the connectivity is part of the issue. I was in an elevator when time expired. Wonder how long it will take to connect and get my 4th place (again) rewards?

[KLM13]

@captsternn: I was in the Arena when time expired and it made no difference at all. Still waiting…

[Anonymous]

I was also logged in on my iPad and on my mobile (htc), one was on wifi and one was on mobile data…..as per the past 3 weeks, all that happened was I got automatically logged out back to the main map menu, and I still have no access to the arena.

So I think we can safely say being logged in does nothing in aiding getting back into the arena, and as per my previous comments on the matter, you have just been one of the lucky ones CaptSternn in the past couple of weeks and it had nothing to do with being logged in.

[CaptSternn]

I think it may be a combination of things. Normally I am in the area of Houston, Texas. Great connectivity and high speed. Right now I am a good ways away with very little connectivity and slow speeds. I am even having trouble getting email out here.

But I am still getting the small chests every 15 minutes. Guess that is something more internal than connecting to the servers.

[Anonymous]

I have full service on my mobile, and my wifi is connected to my rock solid ADSL. Again it has nothing to do with being logged into the arena (or the device you are using) and honestly I think you are kidding yourself if you think it is.

I used to get access quickly, now at a minimum it takes an hour. I used to be lucky like you, but again nothing to do with my device, connection, or being logged in has changed and I do nothing different now to what I did back when I had quick access.

It is just RANDOM hence why nobody else can consistently recreate early access.

[CaptSternn]

Sorry, Chucky, but ADSL is not considered fast. Especially on upload speeds. Pretty sure upload speeds are important here. We have to have a fast upload speed to get the rewards quickly.

I am happy that I only play for fun now rather than rewards or other things. But that is a different story. That is why I am not a regular here now. Y’all have fun.

[Anonymous]

Hence why one device was on CELL data, and one device was on ADSL. I am not sure why you keep defending early access with being logged in, but I have proven every one of your points incorrect on any sort of replicatable fashion, yet you are still convinced that is the reason you get early access.

You said: device was the cause…so I tried 2 different devices, and additionally you didn’t get early access from your device this week.
You said: connection was the cause…so I tried 2 different connection mediums Cell and ADSL
Multiple other users are unable to replicate it on any sort of regular basis, yet you still seem convinced that is the way to get early access….WTF?!

[KLM13]

I have to agree with @chucky-2 on this one. I have high speed and full connectivity and it is simply a crap shoot. Every. Single. Week.

[CaptSternn]

It was a guess, an idea, a thought. I barely try to contribute here now. Only where I think I might be of some help, and then maybe I am wrong. Look up my history and you might understand why I am not a regular here any more.

Endless Gems.

[Anonymous]

We all want the gems :P

…also thanks for the support @klm13.

I also wasn’t trying to put you off posting @captsternn (or cause an argument) but rather, when point after point has been proven or disproven, it was simply time to stop going down the line of thought and now move onto the next one (such as maybe high scoring arenas are what is causing the slow arena access) or simply, it is random :P

Edit: FYI, now 1 hour and 54 mins since the end of last weeks tournament and I still have no access. I think this is now the longest it has taken to get access, and I still have no ETA in site.