[David Martin]

The loss of Our Lady of Infinites would have been the thing that made me stop playing the game, if I hadn’t already called it quits a few months ago. It got to the point where, even with infinite spells at my disposal, it became impossible to keep up with the Arena from week to week. Even winning every single match I played, I simply didn’t have the time to play that many times throughout the day any more. When a game becomes that much of a time commitment just to stay remotely competitive (and we’re talking placing anything above 13th to avoid getting demoted here), it stops being fun for me. The winner at that point is basically the player with the most free time. I enjoy playing AB casually, and I can play obsessively when other life commitments are at a minimum, but I don’t ever want to feel like I have to do that in order to avoid losing progress I’ve already made.

I might still pop in and play new campaign levels as they’re released, I guess, but my ongoing daily participation in the game is done. I had to turn off push notifications just so the game wouldn’t keep guilt tripping me about how I haven’t played the Arena and my birds miss me and so forth. I hate that games do that nowadays, but I guess that’s the new normal.

[David Martin]

Chuck can get up there if you bounce off the leftmost trampoline first, meaning you come back up far enough away for the fans not to be an issue. That’s how I beat the DC today. It’s a tough shot to aim, but I hit the boss’s crown and that was apparently enough to knock him sideways. I used another bird to take out the tractor beam pig or whatever the heck it’s called first, to minimize distractions.

[David Martin]

I think you can take out this boss with 2 pigs if you’ve very lucky. Matilda’s the best bet for your first bird, but we’ve established that Terence and Chuck can pull it off if aimed just right to ricochet off of the upside-down structure above the boss. Silver has just enough room to swoop and hit the right side of the boss’s platform, but it’s almost impossible to time this right. (I saw this in a walkthrough video but have never pulled it off on my own). Silver and Terence may fall through with the boss and also take out the second platform if you’re really lucky. Then the Boss ends up in the box on the upper right, and any bird will do at that point; you just have to release the boulders and hope they hit him hard enough.

There’s just so much in this process that depends on total luck that it gets ridiculous. Hoping you get lucky doesn’t make for a fun game. Being able to analyze a level and come up with a workable strategy that you can repeat later on (improvising with different birds if necessary) is way more fun, which is why I enjoy the Boss battles in general. Just not this one and a few other luck-based ones.

[David Martin]

Yeah, the DC has one of my least favorite bosses from Gravity Grove, and unlike a lot of the recent DCs that have had a 4-room boss, this one has 5 rooms and they’re some of the rooms from GG that I tend to have the toughest time with. 3 birds per room is common for me here. I tried it once and got to the Boss with nothing left but Terence. I should note that you can angle Terence off of the rocks above the boss, but you have to do it just right so that he bounces off with enough momentum to escape the gravity well and hit the boss. Usually that will knock him off of his platform, and also clear the “bridge” below the portal that typically takes another bird to hit. I didn’t get so lucky this time. I don’t know if it’s worth the frustration to try again, since this is one of my most hated bosses in the entire game.

[David Martin]

@sam-spargo While the obstacles in that room are annoying, especially when they’re of the “hope you have the one right bird showing that can clear it” variety, I think most of the birds in the flock can handle that particular room in one, maybe two shots. Sometimes you have to go around the first obstacle rather than trying to clear it. The flowers should help you take care of most or all of it on the rebound.

[David Martin]

Daily Challenge and KPC both seemed easier to me after the update. The last level of the DC only had four rooms this time, which is a rarity. Not sure if it was the same for everyone today. But they definitely didn’t make them harder.

[David Martin]

Since the new update, thanks to the annoying promo for the AB balloon game that gives me a free spell, I can no longer choose my own spells at the beginning of a game level. Has this always been a problem with those promos? It’s only recently that I’ve resorted to using spells to passing some of the harder levels, so I haven’t noticed.

I like that the proper spell levels are back and that there’s now extra time to do the KPC. But come on, Rovio. Every time you guys fix one bug you introduce another.

[David Martin]

@hank – As this glitch has caused several Arena losses for me in situations where one might expect to reasonably catch up with the spells at their proper level, I think the best way to make reparations would be to give a “free gems” award as an apology, similar to when we had that massive Arena outage a while back. I figure I’ve had to pay to continue in order to keep a streak going at least 5 times since my spells got nerfed to level 1, compared to it hardly ever happening before that unless I [i]knew[/i] I had really tanked a match. Not sure how that stacks up against other players. But 300 gems seems like reasonable compensation.

And please, patch it to make the spells work as already described, not to introduce another new and unexplained set of rule changes. We can handle losing or not performing as well as I hoped because the game is challenging. We can’t handle constant and seemingly arbitrary rule changes that patch one problem but open up another set of glaring new problems for us to figure out hack-y ways to work around. If nothing else, PLEASE STOP SCREWING AROUND WITH THE BIRD LEVELS.

[David Martin]

But @angryplayer, it takes real effort to come up with all those punny nicknames on “Pig” and “Ham” whenever a new world is introduced! And to think of new and clever ways to make us lose Arena matches. Surely someone must be getting a paycheck for that…

[David Martin]

If some folks have level 20 spells despite not doing anything to knowingly earn the upgrade, or to intentionally hack the game, and the rest of us have level 1, then Rovio really fubar’d something in the last update. (Big surprise, I know.)

Unless of course they deliberately downgraded the folks who straight-up admitted to taking advantage of the exploits they left open for months and months. If so, then I suppose I deserved it.

[David Martin]

I’ve noticed that having the spells leveled back down to 1 actually makes it a bit easier to beat someone who used a few of them. They get to fire more shots but don’t make as many points on the spell shots. Of course, that’s assuming your opponent doesn’t have level 20 spells. Still haven’t figured out how that’s even possible.

[David Martin]

Hmmm, so it seems Rovio is still paying attention after all? I’ve only reported the infinite spell glitch like five times.

[David Martin]

I’ve been pretty upfront about whatever exploits I’ve found since a few of the Rovio staff seemed to be reading the forums regularly. I figured that showed a good faith effort to give them a chance to fix what others were clearly exploiting, and I agree that due to their apparent disregard for these exploits, we may as well all take advantage of them to sort of level the playing field.

I’d imagine the effort it took them to separate out the verbal abuse from the actually helpful feedback might have been why they stopped participating.

[David Martin]

@kedik22 – Try using every spell you have the next time you play the Arena. When you finish the match and return to the main Arena screen, DO NOT click to go back to the map. You can play several Arena rounds in succession and continue to deplete your spells, just never exit to the map. When you’re done with the Arena, force quit the AB2 app. (On an iPhone, double click the home button and swipe AB2 up off the screen; this may need to be done differently on other devices.) Then restart the app and you should have all the stars/feathers/etc. you earned from those last few Arena runs, but your spells will have reset back to the number you had before the first of those runs. (You’ll also lose any spells you won from treasure chests during those runs.)

You can also use this trick to get back spells you used to assist in a regular campaign level, the DC, or the KPC. In that case, you’d force quit after seeing the screen that shows you the three stars or the prizes you won for completing the DC/KPC. The key is to never let it go back to the map screen. That seems to be when it actually saves the changes to your spell count.

Be warned that if you complete an Arena run right when a tournament ends and you’re awarded a prize based on your placement, it DOES save your spell count then. (I had this happen to me last Saturday.) Also, if you get booted back to the map due to the Arena not loading, it will save your spell count then, so if you see the Matilda “connection error” screen, force quit the app immediately.

This works for me on an iPhone, but I’m not 100% sure it works on all devices. To be on the safe side, start by just using one of a spell where you have a few to spare, so that if it doesn’t work out you haven’t wasted anything important. Once you’ve acquired at least one of every spell, basically you can use every spell on every Arena run using this trick. If you were wondering how so many of your opponents had such a surplus of spells, well now you know.

[David Martin]

Loading time has really sucked for me ever since the Halloween update. It either takes an extremely long time to log in when the game first loads, or I can’t log in at all. It’s gotten to the point where I have to put my phone on airplane mode just so it won’t even try to connect to a game server that is obviously struggling, just so I can play the new campaign levels.

I don’t really see the point of revamping the scoring system, changing all our bird levels, and changing the spell score multipliers back to 1. Meanwhile the “infinite spell glitch” is still as exploitable as ever. Rovio clearly does not have their priorities straight.

[David Martin]

@penz – I already do that to save myself from repeating the first two levels of the DC (since the boss level is the only one that gives me trouble anyway). I’ve never been successful with this same trick in the KPC, but that might just be because I only ever fail the boss level there as well, and by the time I get there, my 10 minutes are up anyway.

[David Martin]

I didn’t think you could restart the KPC at all. My understanding was that you got one shot at it, and you got 10 minutes to start it from the time the screen popped up asking you to play (which, for me at least, is always immediately after returning to the map upon completing the DC).

What’s annoying about the KPC being a one-shot deal is that I can no longer pause in the middle of an AB2 level, turn my screen off or go to another app, and have AB2 remember my progress when I return to it. It always restarts the app and acts as though I had quit the previous attempt. This could be due to an iOS update or some other setting changing behind my back on my phone, I guess. But I used to be able to pause in the middle of the DC, KPC, or even an Arena run, and come back to it hours later with my progress unaffected. I don’t think this has anything to do with the time limit, as it even happens even if click the screen off and then turn it right back on again.

I’ve had to completely change my approach to the DC and KPC as a result of this. I used to play a level or two of either challenge when I had a few minutes of downtime at work, knowing I could pause at any moment and pick up wherever I left off later. Now, I can basically only do it when I have the time to commit to finishing the DC and KPC all in one go without restarting or switching apps. (Meaning I have to hope no one calls my phone in the middle of it.) That’s the equivalent of 8 normal AB2 levels in a row. (6 in practice, since the trick where I quit the app if I’m losing the third level of the DC, and can pick up from the beginning of the third level of the DC after restarting, still works.) That’s easily over half an hour of gameplay, and a longer break than I can usually afford to take during the work day. Meaning I don’t want to load up the app at all if my 8 hours to play the DC is going to run out before the end of the work day. Meaning I often have to make a choice between playing a few Arena runs in the morning before heading to work, or actually having time to finish the DC/KPC after I get off in the evening.

[David Martin]

My biggest issue with the Arena nowadays is that after an iOS upgrade last week, I can no longer pause and click my phone off, or go do something in another app, without AB2 needing to restart when I come back to it. This means if I’m interrupted in the middle of an Arena run, when I try to pick up where I left off, the app restarts and I’m treated as though I quit or lost the match.

This is an even bigger problem with King Pig challenge – you pretty much have to start it right after finishing the DC or you lose your one shot at it. I used to be able to start that, pause it, and pick it up later. Now, due to the app restarting, I pretty much always lose my one shot at it unless I have the time to finish the DC and King Pig all without getting interrupted – which is like playing eight individual levels of the main game straight through with no breaks.

This may well be Apple’s fault and not Rovio’s, but it’s always annoyed me that AB2 is such a memory hog that my phone seems to “forget” where I left off the minute I go off to take a call or do something else that is actually important.

[David Martin]

@captsternn – I haven’t had that same experience with the feathers. I have several birds at level 16 (which was the highest level before today’s update), and I was still receiving feathers for those birds from treasure chests and from the Arena. The main difference I’ve seen is that where the DC used to guarantee 100 feathers as the first reward for the bird named in the challenge title (e.g. “Blues’ Brawl”, “Terence’s Trial”), I now see a treasure chest as the first reward, meaning I get 2 treasure chests for completing a challenge. So far I’ve noticed that they almost always contain feathers, but I haven’t checked to see whether the feathers from the chest match the bird named in the challenge. Long story short, having a bird at the top level doesn’t seem to significantly reduce my likelihood of getting more feathers for that bird.

[David Martin]

Ah well, already facing Level 17 birds in they arena, they managed to level up mighty quick?

We seem to get that question each time a new bird level is introduced. You can continue to amass feathers for your birds once they’re at the highest level available. So if you had amassed more than 3,500 (which I think is the amount needed to level up from 16 to 17) after arriving at level 16, any bird with that many feathers would automatically level up as soon as you downloaded the update that included level 17. I’d imagine some folks have been collecting tons of feathers for quite some time due to always winning at the Arena, so they may have thousands of feathers on top of the highest bird level available by now, thus they always level up instantaneously when a new update is released.

[David Martin]

So, in this week’s Arena where I was hopelessly behind from the get-go, my top 3 opponents are named: Swoosh, Phoenix, and I kid you not, Swoosh Phoenix. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

[David Martin]

I’ve gone back and played through the early levels many times. I almost always blow my old scores out of the water, at least since they changed how the scoring worked. Obviously whenever you level up your birds, you’ll get better scores than before. Getting three stars has never been an issue since that change.

[David Martin]

If you perform in the lower ranks but don’t get demoted – say you finish somewhere around #10-12 – do we have any verifiable evidence that this affects the group of competitors you end up in the following week?

I was a bit late to get started on this week’s Arena – I was actually out having a social life on Saturday night and Sunday morning, so I can understand being roughly 70-100 stars behind my usual, but usually the bottom three to five in any group I’ve been part of aren’t that competitive. I typically finish somewhere around #7 or #8, so I could understand being with a tougher group if I was earning medals every week, but all things considered, my performance has been rather middling by Diamond League standards.

[David Martin]

Wow, looks like every single person in my league this week either saved up a ton of tickets from previous weeks, or else is using some sort of a hack. I’m playing at my normal rate and struggling to stay above the bottom three, despite that fact that I’ve earned 9-10 stars for pretty much every single match I’ve played. If playing once every 3 hours during normal waking hours of the day isn’t enough to be competitive, then shoot, just demote me already and maybe I’ll have some less obsessive people to compete with.

[David Martin]

The first two levels of the DC are usually a cakewalk for me, so I don’t bother with spells. When I used to think you actually had to finish all three level in a row or else start over from the first one, I would sometimes use spells when I had difficulty with the second level. Now I just force quit the app whenever I’m about to lose, so that I only have to start from whatever level I made it to. I waste a lot less time repeating the easy stuff that way.

I always thought the “no spells in a boss level” rule was dumb, as that’s the level that has the most rooms and it’s where they would be most useful. I get that they don’t want you wiping out the Boss with a Mighty Eagle or something (or, more likely, they didn’t program the bosses to respond properly to the Chili and Pig Inflater). At the very least they should let you use spells to clear the rooms leading up to the boss, and then if you have any let over, just trade those in for random bird cards.

To add insult to injury, I often see Golden Pigs in the first and second levels of the DC, but rarely the third, where they’d actually be most helpful.

The DC rewards are fixed, except for the chest. Whatever bird’s challenge it is that day, you’ll get 100 feathers for that bird, a chest, a Chili and Duck spell, and more recently 30 pearls. What’s in the chest appears to be random which is why people report it; I haven’t double-checked to see if it’s the same for me as it is for the person who reported finishing the challenge that day. If it’s the same for all of us, I have more incentive to finish a tough challenge (including paying 60 gems to finish off the boss) if the reward is feathers instead of another spell.