Where to Get Gifts?

[Anonymous]

@pilotxaq @proteus @sutekh137

But… But… 10 Feathers is an amazing prize! At least in the minds of Rovio. Of course when someone pays them 2$ they party like we would if one of us got a free car.

[pilotxaq]

@partshade You’re so right, it must be a great prize for it to be even available at that high level. Imagine, your birds need 1600 or more to level up, but your hard work gets you equal to or less than what a free chest or free arena daily gives you. Your effort and skill is worth squat

[Aeshna]

@furious – well spotted, I’d missed the floating stone.

But…. Surely Rovio play testers (hahahahaha) if such a thing exists, should have spotted this. That’s what they’re paid for! Or even the programmer. It does show how shoddy things are at Rovio right now.

And the statement that they aren’t going to delete the accounts of cheaters is just as bad, if not worse. That shows contempt to the players that spend money. Rovio are obtaining money under false pretences imho. You are paying for a service and not receiving a level playing field.

[DJLarryt]

Well if Rovio expects to charge players to advance in a game, they’d better make sure their game works. Who would sink money into a game knowing the odds are stacked against playing it honestly? We’ve come a long way from the crooked carnival games where they take your $2 and let you try to knock down bowling pins that are nailed to the shelf anyway.

@bankler Would you mind explaining to me how this person managed to get this status on their birds? Incomplete bird flock, only 5 star ranking, but diamond level everything and they whupped my azz in the Arena by an achievement of 8 million points? Really, we both know the answer.

View post on imgur.com

[Birdbrain]

I’ve got yet another corruption in the game. We pay and play to build birds to level 6/7 (level 8 for Rovio’s beloved hackers) I win a game, Rovio then gives my imaginary opponent a free bird, they score 600k off said bird, so I watch an advert, Rovio gives me ‘the duck’ (rhymes with it too) which is Multiplied by 1 points, I score 40k and lose the game. So I out skill a player, I win and get punished for being good at the game!!!

This is addressed to Rovio: Dear Rovio, if you want to pay me to test your games and find their flaws and ‘other things’ that are making your projects dive bomb in appeal, I’d be happy to, but I refuse to pay you to do it.

[MVNLA2]

@pilotxaq @proteus — Well a blizzard will cost you 20 gems, I think, if you should ever want to buy one. Makes a blizzard more reasonable than the 3 gems I got for leveling up.

[pilotxaq]

@furious You know, now that you mention it, I’ve never seen the opponent get a duck or blizzard, but I have gotten them from the video. When I got the blizzard, I wondered if that was a joke.

@djlarryt I think I saw that same player, looks so familiar, level 5, same birds, a few weeks ago, wish I had recorded it, but then his birds were level 6 and 7

@mvnla2 you’re kidding right? That is the pits of it right there. Rovio, really? That wouldn’t even make sense for moving from level 1 to 2. There needs to be some sensibility and gauging. All “gifts” or “rewards” can’t be included in every list, because some are not applicable in some places… smh

[Maiasatara]

@furious – you’ll have to get in line behind me because I’ve been asking to do this for a few years.

@mvnla2 – I’m going to try something informal this week. Here’s a copy of my first entry:
cc: @bankler – I’m serious about the testing. I’m a former Software Q/A Analyst who became an IT Project Manager. I have serious credentials and know how to write a decent test plan – but am disabled (rheumatoid arthritis) so I can’t do a 40 week in an office anymore. What I CAN do work from home. I’ll try to send you a private message with my personal email.

The Arena

One week keeping track of whether it’s possible to win the Arena tournament without paying. I will only use the number of gems I can earn in a day with the treasure chest and the 4 daily tasks. I don’t always get a friend gift every day, especially since the last update both severely limited availability of blue gifts and removed red gifts entirely. It’s going to look something like this and will have a screenshot of each end screen.

2/27/16

7:00pm – can’t access arena for 30 minutes after last week’s tournament ended.

7:30 – free entry: lost.
Several birds blew up on sling and twice a single pig survived 3 birds in an otherwise Strike. Video bird was no help because my opponent, though already winning, ALSO got a free bird and increased his lead to over 1M.

7:35 – no video for a second free entry.

7:36 – paid 12 gems for an entry and won 8 gems.

Tournament Status – first place with 8.
______________________

[Maiasatara]

*won 8 STARS.
Obviously anything written up will be spell/detail checked. : )

[ABeggerToo]

wrong location for post

[MVNLA2]

@maiasatara — Wow! I hope they hire you. You do expect to get money for this, right? You might want to take screen shots when your opponent gets close to using all their birds and as many as you can when they start getting free birds.
I don’t know who you worked for, but what I’ve been thinking for quite a while is that Rovio’s QA department is woefully understaffed, and could really use a top level QA person from the U.S. aerospace industry.

[ABeggerToo]

Bought 10 premium chests and received:

100 bomb feathers
2 duck spells
150 silver feathers
100 chuck feathers
100 blues feathers
2 duck spells
100 blues feathers
100 Terence feathers
100 blues feathers
100 Terence feathers

Unlike map chests, small treasures, or Arena awards, with premium gifts I have yet to receive feathers for a bird already at level 8

[James Peden]

You are just lucky. When I had gotten tired of waiting for my last 4 birds to get the last 200 or less feathers they needed to get to diamond level I bought a bunch of premium treasure chests that repeatedly gave me feathers for birds that were already diamond level.

[Aeshna]

Rovio made 110 staff redundant in 2014. In August 2015, they announced another 260 would lose their jobs. Not sure if the 260 have been made redundant yet.

That’s a large number from around 800 that work for them and I’d suggest we are seeing the results as end users of their products!

[Sutekh137]

@maiasatara

Can one win in the Arena without paying? Yeah. I just did. Not sure how (feel lucky), but I won in the Diamond League just today.

I never used a spell and I never bought a ticket. Here’s my average day:

— Play 2 rounds around 7 AM as I wake up and get ready for work.
— If I am lucky, I can jam in two more battles around 10 AM at work.
— Same at 1 PM, I can roll that in as part of my lunch break.
— Try again in the 4 PM hour (this one is hard, usually something going on at work).
— After dinner, kids are down, I have my baby strapped to my chest — can usually get in two more fights around 7:30.
— If I can manage to stay awake, I get two more in around 10:30 or 10:45 (the three-hour window does slip, after all).

So, that’s six times two = 12 battles a day. I gotta say I’ve been lucky (I win a lot). And with the latest update it is easier to win more than 5 stars at a time. So, I regularly get 12-15 stars for every double-shot every three hours. The extra card usually helps, though the whole “several cards for the opponent at the end” does happen to me, too.

When I say “regularly”, I mean I probably get about 50 stars a day or 300-350 for the week. Unless I got a Charles Bronson on my leaderboard, I can end up doing pretty well.

It’s a grind, though. I do have to say I appreciate the removal of teleporters, floaters, and golden eggs in the Arena. Too much talking during the routine.

Thanks,
sutekh137

[pilotxaq]

@abeggertoo @james-peden I want your secret to getting so many feathers of any sort from premium chests. Apparently I’m doing something wrong. I know its supposedly random, but I’ve been randomly getting lots of blizzards and ducks.

@sutekh137 I guess that’s what it takes to win, constant playing with lots of skill and a little luck thrown in. And as you said hoping you don’t run into people who are either cheating or paying tons of money or something to make over 600-800 stars in the week.

[ABeggerToo]

@pilotxaq I honestly don’t know why I have had the luck with the premium chests. As @james-peden surmises, I assume my luck will run out the next time I buy a premium chest.

I stopped using gems for extra plays in the Arena after I hit the Diamond league as I just couldn’t play enough to finish high. Now I just play to stay in the middle of the pack.

[Birdbrain]

@maiasatara not sure there’ll be a line for that job, but if there is a job (which I highly doubt they’ll pay someone to test when players are throwing money at them to do it and just complain in the process), I’m guessing that the fact I’m identifying many errors you guys have missed would help, plus now finally in Diamond League from Vanilla without spending a dime, shows some skill! Lol

Well Rovio? Did any of us get the job?

Just got an email from Rivio saying “From our end we think it’s perfect’ and ‘LOL’ written multiple times!!

[ger_ych]

@aeshna

Rovio had terrible 2015, with their hopes to “copy” Candy Crush and CoC cash-for-tips model in flames. Heck they didn’t even make it up the chart of the top grossing games.

Besides me, none of my friends and younger relatives play any Rovio game… I guess the public have moved on from Angry Birds…

[James Peden]

Speaking of being greedy pigs. Has anyone noticed that the price of most spells has greatly increased. I.E. hot chili from 30 to 40 gems. Pig inflated from 40 to 63 gems, also you must now buy a minimum of 3 spell cards at a time 120 gems for 3 hot chili, 160 for 3 pig inflater, and 300 gems for 3 mighty eagle’s. I guess that is there way of saying look how generous we are we give you 1 pig inflator worth 63 gems in your 80 gems premium treasure chest. I don’t know how much gold ducks or blizzards cost but I would guess 3 spells for 100 gems. No wonder it’s hack to play, as no one would spend the Hudgens amount of money needed to be competitive. Good luck and I’ll be looking forward to seeing rovio in bankruptcy court.

[MVNLA2]

@furious — I can’t believe Rovio would laugh at your complaints! Can you copy that email here. I will send a link to Peter Vesterbacka.

[MVNLA2]

@james-peden — Thanks for the report. I haven’t used up any of my spells recently, so didn’t realize the price increase had happened. I guess this is the response from Rovio we should come to expect when we complain about getting 1 20-gem spell from an 80-gem treasure chest. Instead of fixing the problem, they make it even worse.
Somehow AB2 seems to be run by a bunch of people who are much greedier than the rest of Rovio’s games. I also play Epic, Friends, and Pop, all of which reward you for having Facebook friends. In all these games, you can send gifts to your friends at least once per day. The number of gifts you can receive per day is limited in Epic, but unlimited in the others (at least in the case of Pop when the FB connection is working properly). You also have a decent chance of getting extra valuables every day, and of increasing your birds’ rank through hard work, or in the case of Friends, getting into a higher league. AB2 is the only Rovio game that is systematically making nearly impossible to get valuable or increase rank.

@bankler @clovos @roviohuzz

[Circlerev]

@mvnla2
I also think that AB 2 is getting worse with every update. Why Rovio removed red gifts completely?

@furious
Wow, that’s unbelievable! Is it true that Rovio said like that?

[MVNLA2]

@circlerev — Somewhere in this thread is a post from @bankler stating why the red gifts were removed completely. The “logic” is that basically they didn’t expect people to be able to level up their birds so quickly. Unfortunately they have now made it nearly impossible to get feathers without paying the “premium” treasure chest roulette at 80 gems per go, and just to add insult to injury, they made it nearly impossible to get gems from your friends.

[Birdbrain]

@MVNLA2 The laughing was me being sarcastic, fantasising about their perspective response to mine and the other ladies online CV applications for game tester lol

I thought it was obvious I wasn’t serious, my bad.