Tips for Holiday Challenge

[Cynical Bird]

This seems like a good place to make a separate topic just for the Holiday Challenge. To those that have finished in first place, or even if you didn’t finish first. Did you play at the start of the challenge? I mean did you start when it says 23hrs 59min left in the challenge or have you found that it’s easier to get to first place or 2nd or 3rd if you wait to the last minute to start the challenge?

Who do you use for the challenge? I like Bludgeon.

What Energeticon do you use or seems best? I use Shieldor.

Topic

[PBJ]

So there’s a daily goal/limit in the competition to collect 680 tokens and it stops giving any bonus tokens after that. If I recall correctly, it also does not roll over anything over 680 to your total tokens once the event is completed. Therefore the only reason to exceed the 680 is I guess to be awarded high score and tokens that come for that prize. I’m guessing it’s to avoid an early buy out of Shockwave. Mind you, this is just my own finding after the first event. My only goal is to get the tokens for Shockwave.

I use Goldbite Grimlock L15 with photoblast or Goldbrick energonicon.

[PBJ]

Confirmation of being maxed out for day. My total stays at 2200 total tokens even if I play more. I can pile up more points, but they will only count towards the daily competition. They won’t roll over to tomorrow and I won’t get any more than shown upper right corner of the challenge startup page.

[Jason Young]

I got really lucky on the Holiday challenge #2 (popping the bundles of gifts)…
I usually only get between 5 and 14 tokens in one level, but for some reason I got 85 tokens in one level using Soundwave (on level 15)!!! Has this happened to anybody else?

[PBJ]

@jason-young
Yeah, the meadow run has an 85 gift box stack at the end. I encountered this at least three times during the second event. There is more discussion in the “is the competition recording progress?” thread.

[Optimus_Pig]

I’ve been spamming Goldbite Grimlock. His sweeeping ability is amazing, plus I’ve been feasting on the coins bonus multiplier. (If only we could always choose our TF, including on regular nodes.)

I noticed that there’s no longer a cooldown on his weapon. Does anyone know if the cooldown was removed entirely, or only when running the Holiday Challenge events?

I’ve been using goldbrick. With GG, his sweeping ability is so good that I don’t really have to worry about missing targets, so I don’t bother with a weapon-type energonicon. And at least if I do poorly on the daily challenge, I have the consolation of having been able to collect a massive amount of coins. By coin earnings over the last two days have been through the roof, and that’s with barely running any regular nodes at all.

As for optimal timing to start the new Challenge Day, I’m curious as well. I’m in the Eastern timezone, so if I start at or around 3am local, I’m mainly competing against Brits who are getting up in the morning, Continental Europeans who really should be working but are playing this instead, and hardcore North Americans should really be asleep but aren’t .

[YellowChuck]

Goldbrick (edit: I mean Goldbite) is an interesting choice. From my experience, I had thought that Soundwave was the obvious choice.

Even at only level 12 (where I’m at), Soundwave hardly even gets injured during these runs unless he gets hit by a falling monolith. And his weapon destroys everything that’s anywhere near where it hits, so I don’t miss any canes/presents/snowmen/whatever unless I don’t notice them until it’s too late (his weapon takes a second to recharge).

Also, using Soundwave every hour has helped me make some real progress towards that seemingly impossible “Destroy 1 Million Blocks As A Deceptihog” achievement. After a year of playing I was at 330,000 blocks destroyed, but after a few days of this event I’m at just over 400,000 blocks destroyed.

[ValidAvailable]

I’m more curious if there is some way to do level select, like if certain characters get certain maps or something. I’ve been running with Soundwave, and I’ve gotten the desert map 8 times in a row. Conversely, looking at the scores at the top of today’s leaderboard, someone has either done ~100 runs today, or figured out a way to intentionally load the farmlands map.

[Optimus_Pig]

@yellowchuck

Soundwave is amazing at taking down static structures, but he’s not quite as good against flying or balloon pigs, and is absolutely terrible at shooting down missiles due to his slow rate of fire.

Grimlock literally can’t miss whatever you shoot at. I just keep my finger on the screen throughout the entire run and slide it across back and forth.

[OgsUgpSith]

I either use energon Starscream (max) or energon Grimlock (max).

Energon Grimlock is extremely powerful and his weaponry allows you to just simply swipe the screen and easily destroy everything. He’s mostly recommended if you just want to destroy everything for money, because these levels give plenty of cash (if you’re really desperate for cash, goldbite Grimlock also works, and if you don’t have him yet, use greyslam Grimlock).

Energon Starscream’s fire rate is extremely fast, he doesn’t need to reload and he’s the fastest character in vehicle mode. I recommend him if you just want to complete the levels quickly while hitting the targets at the same time. (If you don’t have him, Thundercracker is the alternative)

[Optimus_Pig]

My hand eye coordination is terrible, so a fast mover like a Starscream / Thundercracker or a Bumblebee would definitely not work for me.

Slow and steady is definitely my gameplan, even if it takes me longer to complete each event run.

[Pampeans]

Interestingly, in the regular nodes Starscream/Thundercracker seem to draw swarms of pigs. However, they can easily handle them and walking mortar towers too (albeit one at a time). But, the best thing about them is you can set them to autopilot :-) and let photoblast do all the work, only stopping to hit enough energon targets to keep photoblast charged.

[jman]

The last 2 days I waited till I got home to start the competition with a little over 2 hours left. I spent 30 gems each time and came in first each time. I only use goldbite grimlock. I also don’t mind the gems spent since these levels pay extremely well and won’t do a gold dome for awhile now since coins are accumulating faster than ever.

[Drover’s Dog]

I think I may be very lucky because of time zones… comp finishes 7pm my time. I have been entering at around 7am and playing whilst on way to work, at lunch and on way home and if need be spending 10 to 30 gems to stay on top. So far 3x1st place and 1x2nd place. As I am now so close to getting Shockwave I have started early…. 4990 tokens,,, 45 minutes until recharge and at 576/800 glass/ice blocks for prize of 40

[YellowChuck]

I’m still using Soundwave, and have finished in first place three out of the four days of the challenge so far. Although I did spend 30 (10+20) gems for two full refreshes the first time, 70 (10+20+40) gems for three full refreshes the second time, and 10 gems for a full refresh the third time I finished in first place, in order to make it happen. And also, working from home and taking a three minute break once an hour to play ABT without having a boss breathing down my neck helps.

I’ve also noticed that the leader board doesn’t appear to become active until after you’ve done your first run for the new day. So I’ve been staying up late to finish the daily challenge, and not starting the next day’s challenge until I wake up the next morning.

I’m now at 4720 tokens and it looks like a sure thing that I’ll get Shockwave. I don’t think I’ll be spending any more gems.

[Optimus_Pig]

@yellowchuck

“I’ve also noticed that the leader board doesn’t appear to become active until after you’ve done your first run for the new day.”

That’s because the game waits until you’ve started that first Challenge Event of the day before it groups you with a cohort of other players who all started out at roughly the same time, to keep things relatively fair.

[MillForce2k]

I had been using L15 Soundwave with Goldbrick and decided to try L14 Goldbite Grimlock with Goldbrick. Soundwave was yielding just under 10K coins before doubling. After a few runs, Grimlock has been yielding about 15K before doubling. Last run, I had this after doubling.

[Optimus_Pig]

Today’s events are extremely variable. I’ve gone as high as 170 glass bricks in a single event, and as low as 27(!!).

[PBJ]

I noticed a little while ago that the video doubler is gone in the competition even though I hadn’t played for hours. All of coin trees were maxed out at 600. But no video options were available including the health restore. Hmmm.

[Optimus_Pig]

@aliaspbj

I’ve used both the video doubler and the health restore today.

[PBJ]

Must have been a glitch as its back now. Yay!

[Drover’s Dog]

It appears that you can only collect a prize on offer once… I just exchanged 1000 tokens for 100 gems and it now says I own that prize. Pity as I was hoping to go back repeatedly after acquiring Soundwave last evening. At least I got back the gems I used on the first day of the comp when checking out the costs involved

[Optimus_Pig]

@aliaspbj

I’m currently unable to use either the coin doubler video or the mission success increase video.

This started about half an hour ago.

No idea why, as my Wifi is working fine and I’m able to do Challenge Events (which I wouldn’t be able to do without an internet connection).

[Traveler]

I am finding the same thing. Neither the mission doubler nor the success video are available and my internet connection is working.

[Optimus_Pig]

It just randomly came back. I have absolutely no idea what’s going on with the videos today.

[PBJ]

You can see from my post esterday my videos came back as mysteriously as they vanished. But I see this is more pervasive now and looks like a game bug.