Is the competition recording progress?

[PapiPJ]

@sntrooper @weenaoise I also had the challenge window open at the end of it. There has to be a fix and solution for this.

[nemisispig]

Can confirm that they do count towards your total,have destroyed a walking mortar tower next to a stack of gift boxes couple of times now,some gift boxes are worth 5(the larger blue boxes)so far max I’ve had is 85

[Mp127]

As the one who finished the 85-gifts node twice a row, I can confirm it’s repeatable.

Always the same – some gold blocks, Mortar, one gift, Mortar, 2 big gift piles, than 2 more and finish with 85 gifts.

[Optimus_Pig]

Got pissed off, and spent 10 gems.

From the four events this bought me, snagged a grand total of …. wait for it …. 34 gift boxes.

I’m such a sucker. Never again.

Edit: the sucker that is me spent another 20 gems for another set of recharges, sigh.

[werehamsta]

I guess the 85 gift boxes glitch is an unforeseen side effect. The challenge levels are standard levels with certain elements automatically replaced with holiday tokens. Now this particular level always had a pile of crates with a mortar popping from behind, except that they used to cost 1 gp per each. Probably when Rovio choose to replace those crates with holiday gifts they completely forgot about the single level where there’s a motherlode of them. Pity that this level is so damn rare. I had it only twice during this day challenge; mostly stuck in that same damn desert, with rare exception of a Pig City level. Then again, with so many competitors having above 500 tokens in my league today, certain people get it more often. It’s hard to imagine that somebody could grind this much on regular levels, even paying gems, considering that each next payment is bigger than previous.

[shrug] Since this challenge ends in two hours, and the next one will probably include other sort of tokens, it won’t be relevant for long.

[EDIT] *Now* I got another 85 gifts level… just minutes after the challenge switched to bloody snowmen, 4 per level. Big thanks.

On Android, have any of you selected a character, but Energon Galvatron popped out instead? That crazy overcharged hog hijacked several of my events!

This happened to me on the very first event. I thought that the challenge is broken and prepared to say “Oh well, that’s Povio, what’s a big surprise?” one more time, but since then all other events had the character chosen properly.

[Optimus_Pig]

@werehamsta

“I guess the 85 gift boxes glitch is an unforeseen side effect. The challenge levels are standard levels with certain elements automatically replaced with holiday tokens. Now this particular level always had a pile of crates with a mortar popping from behind, except that they used to cost 1 gp per each. Probably when Rovio choose to replace those crates with holiday gifts they completely forgot about the single level where there’s a motherlode of them.”

I was wondering that myself. But then all of a sudden once Day 3 started, I started off with three Forest nodes in a row. And of those three, only one of them had the massive stacked gift boxes in them. So assuming that Rovio can preset the frequency and configuration of Challenge event nodes (and there’s no reason to think they can’t) then I’m thinking that the stacked boxes were more by design rather than by accident.

[Optimus_Pig]

Day 2 after-action report:

I was in second place with three minutes left to go. Not enough time to spend a bunch of gems for one last recharge. It was tempting though – I was only 18 gift boxes behind the leader at that point.

Logged out of the game to avoid the end-of-day tallying bug. When I got back in, turns out I’d fallen to third place. In three minutes, though?????

At least that didn’t affect my final payout, but it was bloody close. I’m really glad that I didn’t try to push for first place, as I’m sure the app would have found a way to completely screw me over.

TL;DR – spent 30 gems on recharges on Day 2. Just barely cracked the Top 3.

[Optimus_Pig]

Day 3: immediately after completing my first four Challenge events, I’m in fifth place with an underwhelming total of 30 snowmen. On the bright side, I only saw a desert node once during that (and I only earned 4 snowmen in that entire event!).

Looks like today’s cohort is going to be fairly competitive – the top 15 are all within spitting distance of each other. We’ll see how things shake out in the next few hours.

[sheepybach]

I had over 80 boxes twice in the Forest nodes, the other nodes you be lucky to get 10, RIP OFF

[werehamsta]

@optimuspig, levels never were 100% identical at each run, it’s more like a set of templates with certain variation gap.

[Optimus_Pig]

@werehamsta You’re correct that the levels are never completely identical, but on Day 2 I encountered the Forest three times, and I was 3/3 with the massive stacked gift boxes.

Today I started off with three Forest events and only 1/3 had the stacked boxes.

[PBJ]

Well if you thought gift boxes were rare (except on that forest run), the snowmen are even more so. Mostly in the single digits with some occasional exceptions. I think my highest run has been 20, only once. Also, the walking towers are more variable, some seem more like the towers in the regular game nodes, where others you can just hit once and they explode.

[Optimus_Pig]

After six runs, I have 63 snowmen, so an average of 10.5 / event. Highly variable though: my lowest single score was 5, my highest 19.

But it doesn’t really matter if my average is lower than Day 1 or Day 2, if that average of 10.5 holds true for all the other players in my cohort as well.

That’s a big “if” though, of course.

[sheepybach]

It looks that way as the leader and second on my bd are over 100 while the rest of us struggle to find snowmen lol

[Optimus_Pig]

After 11 events today I’m at 107 (an average of 9.73 / event).

The leader in my grouping is at 185. So either he’s super lucky, or has already spent 30 gems on two sets of recharges.

[SnTrooper]

Got a highly competitive group today. I’m at 98 after ten levels but am only in twelfth place. Might have to spend to recharge just to crack the top ten.

[starscream]

I hope the christmas trees aren’t thw next target given you have to hit them a certain way to take them out and many characters seem incapable of it altogether.

Anyway, I must say this competition is very well done so far what with getting to select your character, the 30 gem gift boxes at the and of each day, and being able to unlock a character with a challenge.

[Smokescreen]

You say you guys are getting 19 or 20? I haven’t seen that many Snowmen in one node yet. My lowest has been 4, and my highest has been 18. This competition has been very tough since I took first the first two days. I’m currently in first now but 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th place is nipping on my heels. Its a very close race! I have a feeling that the more you win, the more you are put in brackets of other people who had won the day before.

[Optimus_Pig]

These 3am starts are killing me. I hope for the next time they run some sort of holiday challenge (Easter?) that they change the start time to accommodate people in North America for once.

[sheepybach]

It looks to me as if some get access to nodes with lots of Snowmen in and others with very few. When I got up not long ago there was still about an left to go and I had the max number of events to play and that is what I did and the total for the 4 events netted me 7 snowmen, 3 events had 1 snowman only the other 4.
way to go lol

[Optimus_Pig]

@paul13

Could be worse. I figured I’d get a head start on Day 4 by spamming two sets of recharges (30 gems total) after I finished my initial set of four events.

I just watched my flying pigs total going lower and lower in each successive event, smh.

[ValidAvailable]

Sheesh. First place in my group has 1400, second place has over 1000. Someone has either gotten very lucky or figured out a way to glitch the stage select.

[sheepybach]

/oo\ looking for flying anything, just done an event and I had the Grand Huge Big Massive Total of 0, ZERO I don’t know what to say any more I really don’t, I’ve not had a level without a flying pig until now.

[Optimus_Pig]

@validavailable

“Sheesh. First place in my group has 1400, second place has over 1000. Someone has either gotten very lucky or figured out a way to glitch the stage select.”

Or is spending several hundred gems a day for recharges.

[Optimus_Pig]

Miracle of miracles, just over three hours to go, and I’m still in first place.

But #s 2, 3, and 4 are making a late push. Let’s see what happens, lol.