destructometer no longer gives spells if you only brought in birds
The maximum number of cards you can have is now capped at the number you brought in to a level. If you came in with 7 birds, you can no longer get spells by filling the destructometer multiple times for a single fling. It now rolls over and you get nothing, just like on boss levels where spells are disabled.
I noticed this on yesterday's DC and have found it is true with today's and also verified on map levels. (I quit playing the area months ago because it has become a joke.) I guess this change was made for v2.28.0 (or Rovio has targeted me for experimentation again).
This is
HUGELY DETRIMENTAL to gameplay; it is neither an "improvement" nor a "bug fix". Because it takes progressively more destruction to subsequently refill the destructometer, not getting any cards back for refilling it early on makes it that much harder to fill it later.
Up until now, one could argue that Rovio was at least pretending like they cared about anything other than revenue from AB2, but think about the implications of this:
The fundamental gameplay premise of angrybirds is destroying as much as possible per fling.
This forces you to actively attempt
not to do that in the beginning of the game because you might fling too well and pay for it at the end when you run out of cards. And of course this would enhance revenue because maybe you'd watch an ad or spend gems for three more cards.
Or maybe you just uninstall it since who wants to play a game where the developer is openly f**king with gameplay to increase revenue?