Beyond Diamond League

[leeav.amar]

I finally made it into the Diamond League and earned my new slingshot. However, I now see there is a possible level after Diamond League? It appears as a star with a 1 in the center? I also see green advance arrows at the top 4 spots. Is there another league beyond diamond or is it just bragging rights? Thanks for any input.

Topic

[tempestJCM]

Once a player advances to the Diamond League, you can continue to gain enough league points to receive a star ranking. If you were to finish in the top 4 this week, you’d have more than 700 league points, and you’d receive a 1-star ranking. Presumably, 800 points would qualify you for a 2-star ranking, and so on.

[leeav.amar]

Thanks for the explanation, 18Stars. I am currently 20th in the diamond and I was 1st on both silver and gold – this tier is MUCH tougher.

[tempestJCM]

@leeav-amar Yes, it certainly is more difficult to make progress in the Diamond League, and the league points given out drop off VERY quickly. See the thread League Scoring for more scoring information. Please consider helping us to fill in the gaps.

[Bill]

Diamond is still the final league, and the stars will keep going up indefinitely as long as you keep advancing.

[leeav.amar]

Thank you both for the helpful information. I currently have a league rating of 677 (whatever that means).

[Divelucaya]

But what are the green arrows (they look more like boomerangs to me) for? I placed 3rd in the Diamond League last week and the 25 points put me at 717 points. This gave me a 1 star. I thought I had some sort of 1st place ranking but reading this topic it looks as if I am at the bottom of the star ladder.

[Arlington Bomb Bird]

The green arrows/boomerangs indicate players who will automatically advance to the next level (the next league if you’re Gold or below; the next star level if you’ve made it to Diamond league) when the tournament ends. The top 1 or 2 players on your Diamond league leaderboard will have the green arrows. There are similar red arrows you’ll see at the bottom of the leaderboard. Red arrow players are candidates to be demoted a league or star level when the weekly tournament ends.

[myhthk]

I’d been at Diamond for a few weeks now and have been stuck at “league rating” at about 610.

I thought I’d done pretty good to gain some score but too bad that i got -1 from last week (at 21st). My friend even got demoted down to Gold level again earlier then made it back to Diamond 2 weeks ago but after a low score and ranking he was back to Gold level.

So the above case is possible and can happen to anyone?

also how can i get more score? to rank in top 5 at diamond in a particular week?? Not easy to do so. thanks.

[parohl]

All the cheaters end up in diamond league. I’ve reported and got rid of 10 the last two weeks. Most of them gain a lot of points very fast in the beginning of the tournament and are rather easy to discover. Just send an e-mail to Rovio (or use their homepage) and report your suspicions, they’ll have a look and take away those who are cheating. Unfortunately they are not banned, I’ve seen many of them coming back the week after. Reporting cheaters doesn’t necessarily make it easier to stay in diamond league but at least it’s fair play and you don’t psend your well earned PU’s for nothing. A tip, wait a couple of hours before joining, the chances are then bigger that you end up in a league with not so good players.
Good luck!

[Divelucaya]

@parohl, I think you are right. I am usually right there to collect my coins, if Ive been lucky enough, and start the new tournament. This past Monday I was busy doing other things and didn’t start the tournament until 6-8 hours after the start. I am now first in my Diamond level League and have first in several levels.

I have reported suspected cheaters and only once have seen the leaderboard change. Typically what I see is the #1 player owning five #1 spots and the remaining level being less than #5. I guess they figure that if they have at least one level where they are not #1 then Rovio will not suspect cheating. In my opinion, it is simple enough to use statistics to eliminate cheaters. If the #2 through #5 players in any particular level all have close scores yet the #1 player is significantly higher then their playing skills are questionable. An example; on one level during a past tourney, the #2 through #7 players all had scores within 1,000 points. The #1 player had a score more than 15,000 higher than #2.

I would like to see league players all being close in level. I am a Star 1 Diamond player. When I see the #1 player being greater than Star 15 or 20 it makes me wonder whether that achievement is legit.

[myhthk]

can you please explain what you meant there by “cheaters”? just in case i misunderstood you, thanks.

[parohl]

@myhthk, there are more than one way to cheat. I haven’t tried them myself so I don’t know exactly how it works but I think you can find more information here in the nest. As I understand one way is an external plugin that gives you eternal power-ups with mo limit how to use them.

[parohl]

@myhthk, of course I didn’t mean to call you cheater. I just meant that there’s a lot of cheaters out there and they all gather up in diamond league. Which makes things more difficult for the fair players to keep and increase rating.

[myhthk]

is this possible or i am just not good enough …. i’d been playing ABF since day one on iphone …. now at diamond level (no star) at rating 610.

this current at the moment i got 2.47M, ranked no. 4 now but the 3 above me are over 2.5 m so not too far away BUT amazingly got 4, 8 and 9 stars …. so does that mean they always at the top 5 or sthg? just a bit curious … thanks.

[PurpleMoon]

@myhthk

I play on PC so i dont know if that makes play easier than a iphone.

Being 8/9 star , i’d say they were certainly near the top most of the time. Since 1st place gives +100 , 2nd +50 and 3rd +25 , you can be 4 star without being frequently near the top. I play about every other week and am 980 so need another 3rd place to make 4 star. Generally, when i do play, i try to place in top 9 just to get points. I also pick the weeks to play, if i see that its going to be 1 shot wingman/powerpotion/kingsling (or earthquake) for almost every panel, i dont play that week as that just means everyone will be using specials to be in the top 9. I like to play where almost all panels make you take 4-5 perfect shots, just in the perfect place (skill & patience) , BEFORE you use specials (or dont need specials). So i dont play some weeks.

You really do have to use power-ups to move up unless you just want +5 for being 4th to 9th.

[Makin Bakin]

There is an illegal, third-party plug-in to the FireFox browser that allows the use of unlimited power ups. In normal LEGAL play you can only use two of the four power ups: Power Potion, King Sling, Scope, or Birdquake, plus only one Wingman per bird/shot. But using the illegal plug-in on Firefox browser, you can use any combination of power ups or Wingmen unlimited. This is how the cheaters get seemingly impossible high scores. There are other illegal “boost” plug-ins available that make each bird much more powerful. Any such “hack” software or plug-ins NOT approved by Rovio are a direct violation of international copyright. Rovio loses money on their sole ownership of copyright as well as the honest players who cannot possibly compete with the cheaters. Very frustrating for all.

IMO, Rovio implemented ABF league play as a means to weed out the cheaters. This is a good thing. If any player with super high scores is suspected of using illegal “hack” software or plug-ins, then their names and IP addresses are immediately blocked from further participation in ABF. I could be wrong on this observation, however :)

Main thing: enjoy your game! Don’t worry about the cheaters or hacks. Report to Rovio if you’re particularly bothered by a known cheat/hack, otherwise ignore. They’ll eventually be kicked out. Continue to post your comments and strategies on Nest as usual, and continue to enjoy the social interaction among us fellow HONEST Nesters. There are far more honest ABF Nester-friends than there are cheaters!

–MB :)

[Jenrose]

I don’t cheat, heck I don’t even pay money for powerups, I either earn them I or I go without, and I don’t have many friends who play, but at this moment I’m in the #1 for my diamond league this week. I’m sure that will change over the weekend.

I just play a fair amount until I get a feel for the level, then apply power ups as sparingly as seems reasonable. I’ll try a couple per level each week, usually.

Honestly it’s a casual game. I like being on top of the pile but there have been plenty of times I’ve bounced back to Gold too.

I’ve only seen a few scores I would consider “highly unlikely”, though I suppose it depends on who ends up in any given league in any give week.

[Heavyrail]

I use a similar strategy to Jenrose, though I don’t usually start playing till late in the week.

When I was previously in Diamond League (playing on an iPad 1 before the app stopped working) all the star players were mixed in with the normal diamond league players. Now (playing on a Mac via Facebook) I see they’re all separated (I’ve got one star and so have all my opponents). When was this done?

And does anyone know how the points are calculated? I finished 11th but didn’t gain any.

[Carl Winkler]

It’s sad that you think anyone in Diamond League is a cheater. I’m almost in D4 my mom is in D2 and my pops the same. We don’t cheat or make purchases for coins. I wonder if you’ve ever reported me because you thought I was cheating. If you are hoping to progress through diamond using just one or two powerups per tournament, forget it. You have to stockpile and make runs.

[Divelucaya]

@carl-winkler  It is not a matter of “thinking” someone is a cheater. People DO cheat on the tournaments and Rovio is aware of it. Browser plug-ins allowed endless use of power-ups. Back when only 2 (or 3?) power ups could be used, there was a player that posted a video at this site showing him achieving a top score and it showed the use of all power-ups. When his top score and video were challenged, he apologized, stating he did not realize he was using his “practice account” that used one of the browser plug-ins. Tournaments used to end every Monday at 7 am Finland time and the cheaters would play the tournament within 24 hours prior to the end time. Because of the weekend any suspected cheaters reported by players were often not investigated by Rovio in time because no one was working. Thousands of other players, including myself, suggested varying end times/days. This is part of the reason why the tournaments now do not run a whole week. Rovio also worked on a program that would use a scoring matrix to detect cheaters, who were then ejected from the tournament. Unfortunately, many return as guests until they can create a new account. It used to be a more common thing to see players with names like Guest 12345 in first place with scores that are statistically improbable when compared to other players near the top. If, when close to the end of a tournament, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc., players have scores that are all close and 1st place is several thousand above them, cheating may be the reason. I have in the past reported many suspected cheaters and most have been confirmed (unfortunately some too late for Rovio to boot before they won) and some have been deemed legitimate.

I stopped playing ABF for many months because of the cheating. Now that I have resumed, I no longer care about cheaters. I have dropped from D8 down to D2 and have worked back up to D5. I do not check top scores near a tourney’s end because it used to be too frustrating to see 1st place having an unbelievable score. But Rovio must be doing a much better job weeding out cheaters because typically all top scores now seem to be statistically close.

[Carl Winkler]

I don’t doubt people cheat.  I was just stating that myself and many others do not and still achieve high scores.

[Michael Oakey]

I am a 2 star Diamond player it’s hard but don’t play on phone or tablet the ad’s are horrendous thoroughly spoils the game.

[Mechanic Pig]

It’s hard? I’m 2nd place on star ranking 1!

[Juan Luis Valenciaga Parma]

Hi, I play Angry Birds 2 with the old IPad of mine wife, yesterday I was making two full Arena playing only with one player (for me…robots) , in one stage he tuck me 4500 points advantage tucking down 3 stones towers only with a Blues bird (cannot crash stones), the heaven was clean of any object that can help him, them impossible to do for a normal player.

[Tobias Baumgart]