How often are you matched with hacked arena opponents?

[TomC]

Just yesterday I was seeing normal opponents (i.e. wood league banner parts and partial Mastery level progression), but all of a sudden starting this morning, for 17 battles in a row until I lost, all my opponents had gold, platinum, diamond etc. banners (which won’t be available for a few weeks at least; stone will be available in a few hours).

Stats breakdown:
Wood (Green): 0
Stone (Yellow): 3
Silver (Orange): 5
Gold (Sky Blue): 1
Platinum (Purple): 5
Diamond (Red): 3

With battles already pretty stacked against you, Rovio turning a blind eye to these Android APK hacks is unfortunate. One common sign of these hacked teams is that the all 3 birds’ Mastery progress bar has no partial fill, so they’re all exactly Level # mastery.

Is anyone still getting wood or stone banner opponents? My encounter rate of legit teams right now is 0%…

Some screenshots of the encounters in order of appearance:

Topic

[2000mushroom]

I’m not even entirely sure I’m matched against real people…but if they are, they might be annoyed because I get distracted sometimes and my opponenets have to wait around 5 minutes…

[sal9]

@tomc You must report those to Rovio directly.

[TomC]

@2000mushroom They are real people’s birds and items, but the computer makes the moves so it’s not real-time or real people waiting for you :P

@sal9 Will Rovio be able to find them if they’re all “Unnamed Player”? I was hoping they could just do a server-side check on existence of all unobtainable items; this is a game requiring constant internet connection after all.

[2000mushroom]

Can you choose which birds your computer will control?

[KerrAvon]

@tomc I have had them constantly tonight. At least the last 5 opponents that I have seen. I am level 41 and I think most of the opponents were also level 41. I paid more attention to the mastery level. I currently have a stone banner set with a level 39 opponent, mastery levels 6.

cosmo mentioned seeing these earlier during the event. There was a forum topic on higher arena levels.

[TomC]

@2000mushroom Nope, it’s basically your birds’ data is put into a pool and other players end up randomly drawing your birds and the computer does everything.

What’s not random right now though is the 100% encounter ratio with hacked teams haha.

[TomC]

@kerravon Yep the majority of the hacked teams I’m seeing are exactly Mastery level 6 with no partial progress, and all of them are Red, Chuck, and Matilda with variations in headgear. Right now I’m up to 17 in a row of hacked teams, not a single wood banner.

[KerrAvon]

@tomc Yes, another one with level 39, mastery 6. And Red chuck and matilda,

I do remember seeing wooden banners earlier on tonight though. These have been much easier battles than in the previous rounds.

[TomC]

@kerravon Yeah I’ve had 99% wooden banners since the update until today, but luckily I’m only Level 35, can’t imagine going against Level 41 hacks.

All of my opponents have been Level 32 to 36 with most of them Level 35 or 33. I’ve seen two Level 4 exact Mastery bird sets, rest were Level 6 exact.

Here’s the amount of each I’ve seen:

Wood (Green): 0
Stone (Yellow): 3
Silver (Orange): 5
Gold (Sky Blue): 1
Platinum (Purple): 5
Diamond (Red): 3

[Angry Johnny]

Same experience here, I got Wood opponents as late as yesterday but today teams with hacked Items is the only thing that pops up. I did report this to Rovio but I think that the more people that reports it the better the odds that they will make it a higher priority to fix.

Since the people with hacked items show up as opponents they must be stored in Rovio’s servers so banning them might be very possible even though they do not have entered their names as identifications.

[KerrAvon]

@tomc The next couple were also level 39, mastery 6.

In previous rounds my opponents have all been level 41, with mastery anywhere between 7 and 10 – very difficult. I have lost the coin toss and still been able to beat these opponents.

I don’t think these are actual players. More likely they are teams created by a hacker to screw around with the event. As easy opponents or the like.

I am finished for the night. Good night (or morning)

[drobbinsjr]

Some of these items cane be purchased with LC on the Golden Pig machine.

[MVNLA2]

Not sure I’m seeing hacked opponents, but I am seeing opponents who don’t appear on my leaderboard. There are 13 players on my leaderboard, 9 of whom are named; everyone is level 41. Most of the opponents I’m seeing in battle are less than level 41, and unnamed.

[Grumpy Cat]

@tomc If the majority of hacked teams have the exact same bird stats, I wonder if it’s likely that they aren’t actual players, and instead Rovio-generated opponents.

No reason for a hacker to not max out their birds I guess?

[TomC]

@mvnla2 I don’t think opponents have to be from your leaderboard or from the same league level. Have you gotten opponents from your leaderboard?

@inimical Very good point; I wonder if these preset opponents occur when they’ve run out of real opponents as almost every battle now takes me multiple button presses to find another opponent. Seems like opponents don’t repeat either (maybe they’ll reset weekly).

[Abyssuss]

I havent seen green banner for a while. And I wonder why Rovio would give us fake birds for battles if there are few millions players in ABE

[CalvinJJ2009]

Maybe this is just a way of making things tougher from Rovio? All I see are stacked opponents and I can’t believe that many are backers. Started the stone keagye and gad a crash right out of the gates. 1 banner down already. The foes I’ve seen so far in stone are avg mastery 9. Good luck

[Jaeger]

Lvl 41, 890 stars, 162 team mastery ranks, no Facebook, playing on iPad.

In the first event, I was against all level 41s, all named. Managed to get fourth with never a chance at third since the first three score were so high. Biggest problem was losing events because of game freezes – five that I remember. In the new event, I seem to have no competition as I am in a group by myself. Done for today because of losing two battles due to game freezes.

[Adolf Stalin]

I did not realize those colors represent different league level items. That’s why they are so hard to defeat.

How to report to Rovio?

[MysticBurn]

Don’t think I will playing a lot in arena, lost all battles so far, I like the idea of the battles but if I get constantly stronger (hacked) oppents or mayby computer oppents (level 41, mastery 10). What the point trying, gonna lose any way. Think Rovio has work there, to make more even battles. At least in the beginning wood against wood, not wood against silver or higher.

[2000mushroom]

I don’t have to battle in the arena this week – I’m in a league by myself, with no one else to compete against. Don’t know how that happened,but not complaining. Free 1400 snoutlings! :D

[TomC]

It seems like pretty much everyone is in their own league, which is kind of strange. I feel like this might be a facade where there are actually other players in your league you just can’t see, and when the week ends you may find yourself like 8th place.

[KillerKea]

Maybe this week is like a qualifying week. They should have done that last week. That would be the fairest way to put people in different leagues.

[Immortal… Larry]

Hacked accounts are constantly bothering me. It’s extremely annoying to see a constant line-up which is impossible to defeat unless you get the first attack. This makes it virtually impossible to win anything.

This game was fun because everything was do-able and with enough time/effort you could reach any level.

I don’t think the hacked accounts are to blame though. It’s the way Rovio is lining up different parties. They do not look at the actual damage which can be done, but only at the level someone is at. Lvl 41 is the max level, but the mastery and epic items differ wildly in this level. This means that you’re constantly lined-up with overclassed opponents. It would make much more sense to balance the line ups and change the attack behavior when playing against player’s birds. More so goes for the coinflip at the start. An enemy starting is almost certain defeat, while the opposite is true for a positive flip.

A different way of attacking which would in itself balance things out could involve playing only one bird at the time to prevent a knock-out in the first round. It would then involve strategy against a predictable computer instead of luck on the coinflip.

[burbman]

Funny, toward the end of last week, I ended up playing an endless string of very difficult (probably hacked) opponents, but this week, even though I moved up to stone class, my opponents have been much more similar in strength to my own team. I thought Rovio had culled the herd so to speak, guess I have just been lucky.