About the Angry Birds 2 Arena

[Psygaz]

I’ve played against Brad Pitt three times today. Strange, he was using the same retro avatar but with three different names.

[kelshe]

@psygaz
That’s how he kept his AB2 obsession a secret from Angelina. She found out and…well, you know the rest.

[KLM13]

Anyone else unable to get the Free Entry videos to work? Tells me it’s buffering, kicks me back to the Aren,a then isn’t available to try again. It’s been doing this for 24 hours now…that’s a fair amount of tickets I’ve not received. No problems with videos anywhere else in the game.

[Katydid]

Free video trouble was part of the last update. I complained to Rovio and their response was they were sorry. The programmers were working on it. It tosses me totally out of the game not just back to the arena. I have to reboot my iPad to even get back into the game.

[VL]

Having the same issue. Always a good idea to submit a ticket to Rovio.

[Katydid]

I already submitted a ticket and the response was: if a group isn’t filled they choose players from other brackets to fill the empty slots. So comforting to know I not only have my own level to try to advance against but the entire AB2 community!

What a crock!

[AngryPlayer]

#1 place last week in my Amethyst league was 2800 stars.

2800.

I was demoted again with 850ish stars. That means bottom three players.

Screw your stupid ‘game’ Rovio. I have more important things to do with my time than spend it obsessing about playing infinitely trying to win some ridiculous digital prize.

[Angry Beaver]

Something happened with arena. Since birdday update all my opponents were only with “birdnames” but today it changed. I’ve played all day against facebook players. Their birds wearing hats too but birdlevels are
much lower. For example if in streak #6 opponents birds (my birds are 13, 14 and 15) usually were 16 and 17, now they are 11 and 12 but with hats. Winning seems little bit easier now.

[David Martin]

My biggest issue with the Arena nowadays is that after an iOS upgrade last week, I can no longer pause and click my phone off, or go do something in another app, without AB2 needing to restart when I come back to it. This means if I’m interrupted in the middle of an Arena run, when I try to pick up where I left off, the app restarts and I’m treated as though I quit or lost the match.

This is an even bigger problem with King Pig challenge – you pretty much have to start it right after finishing the DC or you lose your one shot at it. I used to be able to start that, pause it, and pick it up later. Now, due to the app restarting, I pretty much always lose my one shot at it unless I have the time to finish the DC and King Pig all without getting interrupted – which is like playing eight individual levels of the main game straight through with no breaks.

This may well be Apple’s fault and not Rovio’s, but it’s always annoyed me that AB2 is such a memory hog that my phone seems to “forget” where I left off the minute I go off to take a call or do something else that is actually important.

[Penz]

It’s changed with me as well, I seem to be facing different type of opposition, but I can’t say they are definitely Facebookers. Their birds are still mostly higher than mine but they have spells as well now , haven’t seen an adversary with spells for ages. They also have random star levels, before they were all the same as me (I’m 71). Faced someone earlier who was only star rank 37 but they had all level 16&17 birds, is that even possible?

[Katydid]

Me too Penz I had a match with a level 31 and level 97 the second fight. I am tired of the whole mess the arena is now and don’t even want to play anymore.

[James Peden]

Of course it is, a cheater. On the day they released the pirate hats which cost 7000 black pearls I was matched up against someone who was level 11 and yet they had all level 16 birds with pirate hats and a diamond slingshot. I sent a screen shot to Rovio about all you have to do to get rid of most cheats is to see who has a diamond slingshot before it is even possible to win all the black pearls playing legitimately, and ban them and close their accounts. All I got was a former letter response that proved no one even read my letter.

[Jon S]

@penz

For a star rank 16 player, to have ALL their birds at master silver status and who has all pirate hats with a diamond sling shot…yes that’s a cheater. For a star level 37 it is somewhat possible. Either 1 of 3 ways that they can get it.

1) They stashed enough gems to open the 25 chests meaning they can gain loads amount of feathers in no time
2) They accumulate 300+ feathers from completing the Daily Challenges and King Pig Panic everyday and pay to win
3) They participate in the arena and they just win the matches right on the nose. As long as you can outmatch your opponent by 1 point (which gives 5 stars in the arena) it’s enough to move on the streak. Remember feathers are guaranteed in streak 2,5,7 and possible to obtain in the chests on streak 3 and 6. If you play 2-3 hours straight…you can stash so many feathers. Currently I’m at level 88 and stashed enough feathers so that my birds can be upgraded to master gold when it releases on Thursday or next week

@katydid

Please forget the star ranks. I’ve made posts on this before, it’s just a glorified number on how they much they participated in the arena. A level 97 means that the guy is glued to his screen and plays the arena several hours/day every day. What counts in the winning the tournament are bird levels (are they on elder diamond, or master silver), use of hats (cowboy hats are very helpful in the arena since they add +3 multiplier), sling shot (is your opponents more upgraded then yours) and spells, the last 2 is assuming you still have the horrible matching algorithm where they match you with different sling shots and spells. Star ranks are irrelevant. I’m at level 88 (all my birds are at master silver with an Amethyst sling shot) and I can either have a breeze or a challenge with other level 88s players in the arena. Sometimes if I have a bad algorithm, I barely beat those low level cheaters and have a breeze with players in the 100s. It’s all about luck and whose in the 3 cards. If I may suggest to you, since premium chests are LOT better now, use spells in all your battles and make use of the spell recovery glitch. It’s the only way to win your matches without having to watching an ad to get the blues and paying for extra birds just to get you 5 stars.

[Penz]

I’ve bought the 25 chests, you don’t get that many feathers, especially when your birds are high level. I constantly win in the arena and do the DC every day, not so much the DC. Im double his star rank yet all his birds were one or two levels higher than mine, that’s a lot of feathers when you put them all together. By playing the arena and winning a lot wouldn’t the star rank automatically go up significantly?

That’s all Katy was getting at was you used to face opponents of the same rank, now it’s suddenly changed, just another random element thrown into the mix I guess.

[Jon S]

@penz

The rewards are completely random so one chest may contain 100-250 feathers. I’ve bought the chest before and over half of them were feathers. Of course now it’s pointless for me to buy another one since all my birds are maxed, and I only would get spells. With DC, you are guaranteed 100 and KPC you are guaranteed 200 to which ever bird is hosting. Then you have the chests they award you, which again is random (could be spells or feathers).

As for winning in the arena…it depends on what much you are beating your opponents. If you’re getting 8-10 stars everytime by bringing 5 spells, yes more stars will be awarded to you which helps you places you better on the other 14 people you’re competing with, and it will eventually increase your rank by 1 unit. Every time you upgrade to a new rank, you need 5 more to get to the next rank.

Example Level 88 I need 445 stars to upgrade to 89. To upgrade from 89 to 90, I need 450.So how does it work?

If I play super well and get 10 stars…I’ll need to play 45 consecutive matches and win in order to upgrade the rank to 89.

If I don’t play well and bring no spells and I end up beating the opponent by a couple of thousand points, I’m only awarded 5 stars, and it’s going to take 90 consecutive matches in order to upgrade the rank.

Remember getting the FULL streak guarantees you 630 feathers + more if you end up getting feathers in the chests. It’s enough to upgrade your bird handsomely depending on what level you are on. Again star ranks are totally irrelevant because I face level 88 opponents with level 15 birds, and I’m maxed out at 17.

[Proteus]

Today arena was a nightmare. I already facing an opponents scored over 8 million in streak 3. I’m guess that i’m gonna stay low for a while until this thing fixed once more

[Penz]

Ha yeah I know how the game works don’t worry and I also understand the math involved. I’ve been trying really hard to level my birds up the last few months,they should all be 17 in the next couple of weeks. So I’ve been prioritising feathers during that time, and like I said I do well in the arena and complete the 7 streaks 3-4 times a day, I also do well in the daily challenges and often get feathers in the half hour chests. Yet if you work it out this person had managed to gain 30-40,000 more feathers than me, you are talking in 100’s. Add to that his star rank is half of mine, it doesn’t quite add up in my head. Anyway, I beat them so who cares ?

[Epic Buttstomp]

I think the best strategy for casual playing is not to get into the top league. Top league even now gets the worst match making. Just playing every 3 hrs will keep you at the bottom. To get full streak (birds in lvl 13 + 14) will mean using spells since you are up against top levels most of the time. So get demoted to 2nd highest and stay in #4 position is probably better.

I am going to adopt this strategy unless Rovio bring back the leaderboard shuffles. Or start giving more spells in chests than feathers.

[KayBird]

Is it possible to cancel out of the arena when you’re on the screen where you press the “Battle!” button? I sometimes get paired against a player that I cannot compete with. I sometimes get paired with a player that is too far advanced for me to keep up. Looking at a screen now where I am up against a player with a star rating of 76 when mine is only 33. The other player’s birds are at levels 12 and 13 when mine are only at 8’s and 9’s. Even if I am spot on with shot placement of the birds, I won’t be able to compete.

[Jon S]

@penz

If you want to get feathers sooner, why don’t you play AB2 on multiple devices (Ipad/Iphone or even pc) and sync your data on your facebook account. That way you can play multiple matches in the arena 3 hours as long as your data is fully synced. You can also have a double play of DC and KPC. That’s what I’m been doing and it’s taking me half the time to get Pirate hats (black pearls and gems are the only items that are NOT synced). I just won my 3rd hat, and I’m halfway to getting my 4th one.

@kaybird

It is only possible to back out when you at the beginning of the streak and ONLY at that streak. If you choose to back out a battle on streak 2-7, you automatically lose your place in the streak and a ticket. Unfortunately you are forced to battle them.

As for star ranks, I’ve explained it to Katydid, it’s 6 replies above yours lol. In short, star ranks are bragging numbers saying how often and how much you are playing in the tournament. It does and should not affect your battle outcome in any way shape or form. A person can have difficulty battling a level 20 opponent but can easily cream a level 100 opponent.

To give you a perspective of that…I just had a battle today with Lola Hamchop (star rank 84 level 17 birds with mixed match cowboy and beach wear and amethyst sling) and myself (Jon Sosiak, star rank 88, all level 17 birds, full set of cowboy hats and amethyst sling). Had I not bring all my spells, I would have lost the match. Lola scored 10,515,000 and I scored 11,200,000 with spells. A bad round. Talk about a close call lol. So it doesn’t matter which star rank a person has. As with all Rovio games, it’s all about your birds and more importantly..LUCK :( Also when Rovio messed up the match making…I could just not beat those rank 12-14 hackers with a fully maxed out birds, and a diamond sling shot.

I fully agree that if you’re completely outmatched if your opponents birds are 2-4 levels higher than yours. If I were suggest you something, if you have hoarded enough spells, use them (make sure to force close the app after the match and not go to the map) and Start use your pearls that you earned to buy set of hats and if you complete a set, you upgrade your sling shot. Cowboy/pirate hats does the most damage as they add +3 multiplier, so if your birds are at level 8-9…a bird with a cowboy hat will rack up points equivalent to a level 11-12 bird with no hat. Also if you have upgraded sling shot that adds also a multiplier.

With level 17 birds with cowboy hats (+3) and an amethyst sling shot (adds a +6 multiplier), my birds can do a 17+3+6 =26 damage multiplier, so if I bring my level 17 spells I usually average in the low-mid teen millions, depending on the round I have.

Remember AB2 is all about destruction…so if you manage to obliterate a room and can fill your destruct-o-meter… that can award you a loads of points rather than focusing on just picking the pigs one by one.

[Putte]

Allways full sets of spells. Rank 70+ level 17 Amethyst sling. Very selldom under 9 points win. see no problems at all, just a little bit bored right now…

[Jon S]

@proteus

I’ve noticed the arena has become a nightmare literally overnight. Rovio has tweaked the arena yet again and changed the algorithm back to the unfair one. On the supposedly “easy” streaks 1,2, and 4, I am now getting “super players” with unequal bird levels and star ranks to mine (I’m at rank 88 with all cowboy hate birds at level 17 with an amethyst sling), some of these supers had ranks of 56, 60, 99, etc. As I said that ranks don’t matter, but hell, they’re a force to be reckoned with. Their destruct-o-meter fills up more than twice as fast as mine, and in 2-3 rooms; they’re getting over 5-6 million and finishing with 13-14 million points. What’s worse is that their birds are either equivalent to mine or significantly lower (lvl 14- 15) and still are beating me out of the water. It was the first time in 1-2 months I had to both watch an ad and spend 60 gems to beat the star rank 56 super player with level 14-15 birds…on top of my 5 spell cards. How that happened remains a mystery. I consider myself a relatively good player since I’m usually placing 3rd or 4th place in the tournament, so I can’t be that bad.

[Krakham]

I’m glad somebody brought that up. The arena lately had been challenging but I could easily beat my opponents. For the past 2 days, opponents with equal birds, are beating me by 3million+ every time. I went from winning every match to only winning 3 in 15 matches. My birds don’t seem to be getting the same points as it use to. I was always getting close to 1 million with black bomb bird on certain structure, now I can’t even get 250,000. All the birds are like that now. I cleared a room with 1 bird. It was 1 tall rock structure and 2 others that were glass I believe. Used Terrance against the wind thing and he sailed through all 3. I didn’t even get 100,000 points.

I was within 20,000 points of beating an opponent who had no birds left. I had 1 blue bird. I used it and knocked down this glass/wood structure with 4 pigs. That should have been at least 200,000 for me. I didn’t even get 15,000. That was the point where I was about to through my phone across the room but I just turned it off and haven’t touched it since.

[JezzaH99]

The September management accounts have obviously been done by Rovio and they are not looking good. There must be serious losses and their management team have said “we need more money so please screw our punters for cash cash cash”.

I have just played two level 1 Arena games and been humiliated – losing by several million both times. To put things into perspective I am good at this game.

Rovio – just so you know – I won’t be falling for your tricks so you won’t be getting a penny from me. I’ll leave that to some other mugs.

Sorry.

[Soren Hecht]

Same issue with arena. Other matching system. Before today it was opponents with same rank, same group avatar and different bird level. Now it’s different rank (I had to play the “supposed-to-be-easy” 4th fight against 30-rank higher with maximum lvl birds). Even supposably equal birds are impossible to beat.
Not fun. Two first fights are the limit.