Where to Get Gifts?

[MVNLA2]

@mingkee27 — What do you mean by “Mine is hacked”? Do they show up in the first scene?

[MVNLA2]

Looking at statistics is brutal. You realize how predisposed you are to think the data supports your feelings about the probability of an event, good or bad.
Anyway for what it’s worth, level 13 seems to be doing better than 9 at the moment

[wrw01]

@mvnla2
Just started to play AB2 and came across this forum. Played Level 9 for 1,216 attempts/restarts. Never logged out of the game for a few days but did play in the Daily Tournaments a few times for each 24 hour period. The results are for first screen only in that if a box did not show up on the first screen I hit reset.

1,216 attempts

67 Red Boxes = 5.51%
46 Feathers = Black-9, Red Bird-8, Big Brother-7, Grey-6, Yellow-6, Blue-6, White-4
21 Spells = Blizzard-7, Pig Inflator-6, Golden Duck-6, Hot Chili-1, Mighty Eagle-1

59 Blue Boxes with are all Gifts to Face Book Friends = 4.85%
I have to set up a game related FB page but after reading a bit in that Forum and all the problems folks are having not sure about how to do it correctly. Wish I could have sent these 59 boxes to a bunch of folks. Anyone have a fool-proof, step by step, procedure for “Dummies” on how to set up a Game FB account and get it to work with AB2 please forward.

126 Red and Blue Boxes = 10.36% of the attempts

The “dry periods”, of 15 or more attempts, for zero boxes showing up on the first screen were: 78, 46, 42, 38, 27, 26(x2), 25(x2), 22, 20(x4), 19, 18(x2), 17(x2), 16, and 15(x2). Lesson to self-be patient and persistent.

There were five locations where the Red or Blue Boxes would appear on the first screen:
1. Lower right side above the white and red flower
2. Lower right side below the white and red flower between the stones
3. Far right side to the right of the right structure over the grass pad
4. Center screen to the left of the hanging bucket
5. Lower left side at the base rocks of the left structure

Another lesson I learned was to destroy the box first prior to getting any pigs or any structure for points. Almost missed one box by having one bird take everything out. A piece of debris did hit the box.

Hand wrote the results on paper (no electronic spread sheet) and tired to analyze the sequence of the awarding of boxes with their feathers, spells and gifts. About the only conclusion that can be loosely made from this data is that it appears the boxes are issued in groups some of the time during these 1,216 starts. For example a group of Feathers (2 to 5) would be awarded consecutively with some dry spells in between. The same for FB Gifts and Spells. I had strings of 5 Feather boxes on 2 occasions and at different times 5 Gift boxes issued on 3 occasions. The Spell boxes had a high run of 2 on numerous occasions.

Did have 13 runs where the boxes were issued back to back with no “Dry Spells” in-between:
5 runs of 1 Blue box then 1 Red box
3 runs of 1 Red Box then 1 Blue box
3 runs of 2 Red Boxes
1 run of 2 Blue boxes
1 run of 2 Red boxes and then 1 Blue box

My challenge for this level is to improve my score of 206,132 and get enough birds so they all can enter the Azure Level. I am still playing Level 9 but not recording any results.

[MVNLA2]

@wrw01 — Thanks for all the data. Your % is quite a bit lower than mine. What device and operating system are you playing on? I now have an iPad Air 2 running IOS 8.4.1.
Not sure how many runs I have in total, since I’ve tried to divide the data into before and after various updates, but found I couldn’t go back and figure out dividing point.
Anyway, it would be interesting if you continued keeping data on just frequency of red or blue presents in the first scene of level 9. It seems to me that the number of gifts in the first scene of level 1 has been decreasing with each update. Need to do more statistical analysis to figure out if perceived decrease is statistically significant.

[wrw01]

I have the same iPad as you are using.

Sometimes in statistics the larger sample sizes produce somewhat more reliable and accurate results. I tired to make that point with the boxes being awarded in groups. If some one plays 20-40 resets and hits one of these groups, then the % will be higher. It appears my results are similar to what dpage listed above. I have close to nine pages of data and when I review a page each one has a group of boxes awarded that have 5 or less “Dry Spells” between the awarding of the boxes.

I would like to keep recording the stats but I think Level 9 has quite a bit of data. I like playing Level 9 and it is easy to get the box, destroy the pigs in the two stages and reset it to play again. Takes less than 15 seconds when the level does not present a box in the first screen to reset.

Has anyone received a box on the second screen of Level 9?

Wanted to obtain a repeat of a pattern between the box issue, box color, number of dry spells between the boxes and the locations of the boxes but probably did not play enough levels, only 1216, for the programming logic to repeat.

[Triggerfish]

I’ve not been finding gifts in levels 8 or 9 recently. Sorry, not been keeping stats, but It seems to be since last update. Not been finding many gifts anywhere, actually. If they do appear, they’re in awkward place, eg under ledges.
On a happier note, a glitch has been giving me repeated gifts from a friend. I reckon I’ve had about 300 in the past week. Not complaining about that!

[MVNLA2]

@wrw01 — Larger sample sizes are always better when you’re talking statistics.
I have gotten boxes on the second scene of level 9. The frequency is less (~200 attempts), but still significant. I don’t think it is worth playing both levels unless you are trying to collect your stars for the daily reward. I tend to play both levels to collect the stars, because there have been some days when I just don’t find hardly any gifts.
I doubt there is a repeat pattern. I think the appearance of the boxes is purely statistical, although the probability for each level and each scene appears to be different. Seems like a lot of complexity to build into the game. I’m not farming levels with 3 or more scenes. I did collect some data on all of the 2 scene levels, but it is not significant.
I do have a fair amount of data on 11 and quite a lot on 13. Perhaps I just stopped too soon on the other 2-scene levels. However, I think perhaps there are no gifts in the first few levels.

@triggerfish — I have still been getting gifts in 9. the statistics on whether or not the rate is now lower are not significant. However, I do agree that the rate seems to have decreased. You might try level 13, where for me, with insignificant statistics, the rate has increased.
A programmer at Rovio is probably laughing at us.

[MVNLA2]

I’m sure the programmers at Rovio are laughing. Nonetheless I decided to go back and try some of the levels I’ve given up on.
Rates since 9/14/15 update

Level Tries rate
9     101   9%
11    164   6%
13    165  13%

[MG516]

@mvnla2 – I truly appreciate your efforts. You seem to be the AB2 guru. I decided to do some “farming” on level 9. Average crop production – 30 attempts yielded 1 red and 2 blue gifts. May have to join Facebook, add some friends and share those blue gifts so they don’t go to waste.
My arena for today has only me and two other people with zero scores. First time that has happened. I may get first place. LOL

[MVNLA2]

@mg516 — Thanks! I am a real sucker for keeping statistics. Helps me avoid basing conclusions on perceptions (sometimes).
There are a lot of comments about being on essentially empty arena boards today in the Arena thread. I am also on a board with 2 people who have not entered scores.

[MVNLA2]

@dallasreds @all — On level 9, for which I have the most statistics, it is fairly common to have strings of 25 attempts with no gifts in the first scene. @wrw01 had several runs of >25, even one run of 76! Overall, the probability is still ~10%. Haven’t combined data from @wrw01 and others.
I guess wrw01’s data helps to answer the question of how many attempts with no gifts are needed to conclude that there are “never” any gifts in that scene. At one time I thought it might be 40, but got a gift on the 40th attempt. Raised number to 50, and got one on 50 in a different level. Right now I’m up to 60 attempts on level 7 with no gifts in first scene. Guess I need to continue. : (

[MVNLA2]

I should mention that with the data I have, there is a >90% chance that the probability of receiving a gift in the first scene of level 9 has decreased since the 9/14/15 update.

[Orange Bubbles]

There is no doubt that the probability of getting gifts has decreased, and it’s even more random than before. I use level 9 and 13 and in some days I have more luck with one and other days with the other. I normally use level 9 to get the “daily stars”, because it’s very common to get gifts in the second section, and that way I have to play the whole level. Then I go to level 13 that loads much faster (due to the small size) and rarely has gifts in the second section.

But I’ve noticed a certain pattern in both levels. After getting a gift, it’s very common to get another in the next couple of tries (or even more in sequence). But if a gift appears and we restart the level or fail to get it… the probability of getting more will decrease drastically.

I’ve also noticed that, specially in level 13 (but also happens in 9), it’s more likely to get a gift in the first tries by playing it after completing another level on the game (not quitting).

But these are just guesses… I can be saying a total nonsense.

[MVNLA2]

@orangebubbles — Unfortunately, statistics are brutal, and it is very easy to fool oneself into thinking a truly random process is not. The statistics for getting a gift in AB2 are even more brutal than those for getting the first turn in the Epic arena, because the probability for getting a gift in the best levels appears to be <1/10, while the probability of getting the first turn in the arena is 1/2. Flip a coin 100 times (better yet several hundred) and keep track of heads or tails. You will find that there are stretches of many in a row that are all heads or all tails. For comparison, roll a dice a couple of hundred times and keep track of rolls giving a 6 compared to anything else. You will find even longer stretches of rolls with no 6’s.
See comments by me and @wrw01 above about the number of consecutive tries on the first scene with level 9 with no gifts.

[Orange Bubbles]

@mvnla2 yes, I really understand you. I had other theories before but I always end up realizing that they are wrong and the gifts are purely random. But it’s really hard to convince ourselves… probabilities are really tricky. If we ask someone to flip a coin and write down the results, it’s really easy to find if that person really flipped the coin or just made up the results, because of that you just said. But we want that gifts so badly that we always try to find a better strategy… but there is none, unfortunately. :P

[MVNLA2]

@wrw01 — Did you just update your post above? I just got an e-mail for it???

[kedik22]

Hi, no.
Sent you a FB message.
Hope to send gifts soon.

[wrw01]

@mvnla2
Just fixed a transposition error in the numbers

[dpage]

I don’t seem to be getting gifts from level 9 lately, while level 33 is still dropping but I haven’t been keeping the numbers. Looks like they tuned the drop rates, definitely for level 9 – to the point that you can actually feel it without keeping track of the sequences.

Especially for a percentage as low as 10% or even smaller, it’s not that rare to see streaks of 30+ without a gift. I got used to it when I was farming a while ago. This is compounded by the fact that short streaks pass by quickly, which makes a huge contrast to a long streak that seems to last forever. That was why I started to actually write down the numbers so I’ve an objective sense of everything.

[Orange Bubbles]

Apart from the fact that now the gifts are rarer, they only give me feathers for the same birds. After the update I started getting feathers only for Chuck and sometimes Terence, day after day. I can only get feathers for the other birds in the Arena and Chests. Because of that I only have Chuck in the Azure League (and counting), Terence almost there and the others at the beginning or middle of the Gold League. If this continues this way, Chuck will turn Emerald with the others still in Gold. :(

[MVNLA2]

@dpage — I haven’t tried level 9 for a few days, because I’m trying other levels. Will have to check 9 again. My current probability for 9 is 10% over 240 attempts.

@orangebubbles — Haven’t been keeping track of color of feathers in red gifts. All my birds EXCEPT Chuck are in the azure league and Chuck is almost there (155 feathers to go). I have finished all the levels on the map, so I do have all the feathers from the map.

[dmsral]

I’ve been getting a fairly even distribution of feathers, all are Azure league now.

[Orange Bubbles]

EDIT:
Yesterday I got blue feathers in a red gift… but today It’s happening again. I got 4 gifts with feathers for Terence and 3 gifts with feathers for Chuck. I’m doomed. :P

[MVNLA2]

@dpage, anyone else — Do you have an update on your data? I’m in the process of compiling all the data so far.

[dpage]

@mvnla2 Sorry, haven’t been collecting data lately since my birds are all diamond now. Trust me the game gets boring after that. :P

Now I’m mostly trying the levels to get a blue box to earn that 10 gems per day. And I’m doing that in level 33 since it seems to drop more often than level 9 now.