ABTF Challenge Events – Bugs & Issues

[Mighty Red]

Since every Challenge Event in AB Transformers seems to have bugs and other issues, from now on this will be the ultimate topic for reporting them (credit goes to @aliaspbj & @pampeans for the idea).

When you spot or experience any issues in a Challenge Event, be sure to report them here. Make sure you also mention @gradientturtle7, @arceemega, @madalice & @lewie4, nesters from Rovio that gather feedback on AB Transformers.

FAQ:

If I’m still playing a challenge node after the day’s competition ended, will my collected items be added to my total in the leaderboard?
Nope, those collected items will not be added because the final scores are determined the moment the timer for the day’s competition expires.

My token reward for a place in the leaderboard was lower than promised. Why is that?
It’s either because you started competing too late in order to secure a top position with little to no effort, or, if that’s not the case, it could be an issue in the game itself.

What do UTC and PST mean?
UTC stands for Coordinated Universal Time, which is the equivalent to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). It is the time at Greenwich, London, United Kingdom. PST stands for Pacific Standard Time. It equals to the UTC time subtracted by 8 hours.
You can use this website to calculate the time in your area, taking into account Daylight Savings. UTC & PST can be selected in Time Zones.

How often are leaderboards refreshed?
According to @arceemega, leaderboards are refreshed when you:
1. play a Challenge Event;
2. suspend and resume the app;
3. reboot the app.

Are all people in my leaderboard real?
Yes, all your competitors are real life people and not computer-generated.

How long does the token exchange section last after the event has ended?
It lasts for a minimum of 24 hours.

* Topic is subject to change.

Topic

[sukerman13]

This is a very nice topic and that shows us that you really care for your players… We spend tons of thousands of hours to play the game and due to the bugs that come up almost in every event,i personaly think that this topic will help…

[arceemega]

Just to add a bit of confusion, I’ll try and clarify the leaderboard refresh FAQ entry:

The leaderboards don’t automatically refresh every 5 minutes, they currently only refresh when you either: 1. play a challenge event, 2. suspend and resume the app, or 3. reboot the app. (When you see the spinning blue icon on the challenge icon, that is basically what is happening)

The 5 minute thing is that the app won’t even attempt to get fresh leaderboard data, if it already has done so in the last 5 minutes. This is to prevent heavy server load.

[MillForce2k]

@mighty-red-1

Thank you for setting this up. On the UTC/PST, PST is currently 8 hours from UTC(GMT), but will be 9 hours this fall when the clocks are moved back. Here’s a converter to go from/to any time zone.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

[Optimus_Pig]

@mighty-red-1

You may want to add, on the topic of PST and UTC:

* UTC is an absolute reference time. It doesn’t move with standard and daylight savings time.

* North America went to Daylight Savings the weekend of March 12/13, 2016, so even though the newsfeed currently says that the end time is 16:00 PST, that’s equivalent to saying that the end time is 17:00 PDT. PDT is UTC-7.

* Similarly, when the UK goes to BST (British Summer Time) on March 26/27, 2016 the end time of 00:00 UTC will be 01:00 BST for the British. This doesn’t apply to the current event of course, as that will be long over before the switchover, but there’s rumours of another event happening towards the end of March, so depending on when that one ends, this may come into play.

[Mighty Red]

@optimuspig Considering that not all areas do the daylight saving thing, this info is pretty much irrelevant. My answer already covers the point that the difference between these times are 8 hours.

[sheepybach]

* UTC is an absolute reference time. It doesn’t move with standard and daylight savings time.
Don’t you mean GMT????

[Optimus_Pig]

@mighty-red-1

I disagree. Given than Angry Birds Nest is an English speaking forum and 99% of native English speakers reside in North America and the United Kindgom, this information is highly relevant.

[Optimus_Pig]

@paul13

Nope. UTC is always UTC. The military equivalent is “Zulu Time”.

GMT is the local time zone for the UK during the winter months, and BST is the UK local time zone during Daylight Savings.

It just so happens that GMT = UTC, but BST is defined at UTC +1.

[Mighty Red]

@optimuspig @paul13 Okay, I added @millforce2k’s website that lets you calculate time based on your area, so there’s no need to keep talking about the times. Instead, post any and all issues you’ve encountered in the Event, because that’s the point of this topic.

[Pampeans]

@mighty-red-1

Thanks, this is beautifully done and I think it will help a lot of people.

[Mp127]

Are all people in my leaderboard real?
Yes, all your competitors are real life people and not computer-generated.

I have a question about this: If all competitors are real, how is possible for bottom of the table has scores like 11, 41? BTW, half of mine board has 1st score less than 50, from my experience it’s very hard to get less than 55, even don’t thinking about 40/50.

[PBJ]

@mighty-red-1

Thanks for setting this up. I hope it helps with info and makes management of the forum a little easier. :)

[Mighty Red]

@mp127 You do know that it’s possible to finish a level without destroying the boss pig, right?

[TriPolar]

@mp127 I didn’t understand it either… It’s almost like they played one run for the entire day and somehow got an incredibly crap run. Even if you make to end and don’t kill the boss, that should still give you the encouragement to continue with free runs. I’d expect that it would be someone new with lower level Transformers, so in that case, getting coins as a prize for the tokens would be helpful.

My question would be, do you get on to the leaderboard even if you die?? I know the kills still count towards the daily’s but the rare times that I’ve died, I’ve had successful runs afterwards. I can’t see someone trying it only once, dying and giving up. Especially when it’s free runs and you can at least get coins at the end of next event… All of these things make it incomprehensible for scores that are that low!!!

[Mp127]

@mighty-red-1 Haven’t tried it yet, I prefer to kill boss rather than see him shooting rockets all the time. But after all I thought that more than 50% of the players can complete the node.
Also, do coin prizes from the nodes are really worthy? They’re low without Variant TFs.

[sheepybach]

So its the 19th March now and I have 14 hours + left to run on this event, Am I correct in my thinking that this is the last run and it’s all over in 14hrs or so???
Sorry gotten confused on this 1 lol

[MillForce2k]

@paul13 Yes, last run.

[sheepybach]

@millforce2k
Thank you I thought it was but wanted to make sure lol Ah well no chance to get Windy now any way lol

[Francis Crawford]

I had one terrible run where I got in the low teens as a score. Presumably I didn’t destroy the boss, as he’s worth 42 points on his own.

[Francis Crawford]

One bug — on the last day of a challenge event, the main challenge panel still has a countdown until the next day’s challenge.

[Optimus_Pig]

@franciscrawford

“I had one terrible run where I got in the low teens as a score. Presumably I didn’t destroy the boss, as he’s worth 42 points on his own.”

As @mighty-red-1 so succinctly pointed out to @mp127 earlier, it’s possible to complete a competition run without killing the Boss Pig if you just quickly speed through the level and avoid getting hit by the missiles too many times.

“on the last day of a challenge event, the main challenge panel still has a countdown until the next day’s challenge”

I’d say that’s more a case of Rovio just not bothering to update the text. On any other day, the countdown to the new Challenge is just another way to say the countdown to the end of today’s Challenge.

[Francis Crawford]

@optimus_pig,

It’s a UI giving incorrect information. And it’s not static text, because there’s a countdown widget.

I classify that as a bug. Others may disagree. Whatever it is, it should be fixed, and it will take a small amount of coding to fix it.

As for the scoring comments — obviously. And by the way, there was somebody on my leaderboard at 25, so they seem to have done TWO runs w/o killing the boss.

[acwb16]

I’m experiencing a competition bug – if I open the game with my wifi on the game crashes, usually about the time the competition popup comes up and/or the rank indication arrow shows up on the competition box (my terms are bad, I’m sorry). I’ve tried reinstalling the game – no help. Rovio support did give some good advice (clearing the game cache) and while that worked for a while it’s right back to crashing. I got through 4 competition runs, a handful of nodes, and even used the lab a bit. I let the Kindle sit for a few hours and went back and the crashing restarted so it’s not a matter of overheating. I did respond to Rovio’s email, so I think they already know, but I’ll mention @gradientturtle7 & @arceemega just in case (I hope I did that right). It’s too late for this competition, but it would be nice to have a chance in the next one.

[Francis Crawford]

Rovio, please clarify: Are there NPCs in the Challenge Competitions?

Linking the thread in which it was “unreservedly” asserted that the competitors are all real people.

I hadn’t seen that before when I started a thread questioning the point.

[Smokescreen]

@mighty-red-1

Thanks for setting this up. I’ll have to disagree on one of the FAQ items though. In regards to persons on the leaderboard being real, I have found this not to be true. At the beginning of each event, the majority of “other” names are computer generated. One such time, I ran across the name Admin2001. I’m sure many people have seen this name listed as a buddy when you play a node, and are not connected to Facebook. Admin2001 is a computer generated name which I’ve seen at least once on a daily challenge in the leaderboard. Whether this be a bug, or a glitch, or unintentional, is unknown.