[furby69]

I don’t believe you were out of line, the truth is the state in which the forum is right now isn’t a pretty sight. I mean, let’s be serious, almost all threads are complaint threads and the majority of those aren’t even valid complaints, it’s just people fussing over stuff they know nothing about or don’t understand. I’ll be honest, if I was a dev working at Rovio I’d be bashing my head against the wall reading some of these posts.

That’s not to say that there’s nothing to complain about because oh boy there’s plenty. What started as an okay game quickly went downhill as we received changes after changes that we didn’t want or need. We would probably not be receiving any updates if it weren’t for ingame transactions but like @andalaybay said Rovio simply hasn’t found that golden balance yet and their experimenting is hurting customers.

If you’re getting so worked up over a game, it’s probably time for you to take a pause, uninstall and/or stop visiting these forums. There are plenty of other games out there and who knows maybe in a year you’ll come back to a game that has ironed out most of its issues.

[furby69]

@sutekh137
“What was the reward before when you finished fourth or below? 30 feathers?”
The amount you got depended on your league, iirc Emerald League gave you 60 or 80 feathers for placing below top 4 so yes the distribution was a lot better as the higher your league, the more feathers you needed to advance to the next one. With the current daily bonus it would take ages to upgrade your birds.

[furby69]

@sutekh137
Definitely, like I mentioned before the key to a high score is doing as much destruction as possible while also trying to strike a level. Focusing only on strikes won’t necessarily make your score higher but it’s still good to get as many strikes as you can, more levels = more potential destruction.

Also I like your idea, I don’t think it was suggested before. Even if strikes are not affected by the birds’ multiplier I think it should definitely be increased by a flat amount at least. It would give you more incentive to strike the level, that 25000 bonus as it is right now is as good as nothing.

[furby69]

@sutekh137
Of course in certain situations they do help, if you’re lucky enough to have the right cards at the right time but that’s just RNG, you shouldn’t forget about the disadvantages they bring either.

The way most levels are designed in the arena, you can clear them with a single bird unless you get a really bad hand. In later levels you might need more than a bird and that’s where spells would help you, but if you get them in your hand too soon then it increases the chances of not having the right birds to get strikes in the early levels.

[furby69]

@hooksfan
“If you think the Mighty Eagle barely does any damage then you don’t know how to use him correctly.”

The Mighty Eagle has 1 single purpose and that is not to deal massive amounts of damage. It’s best used on levels where pigs are spread out across the map that would need several birds to fully clear. The damage it deals is highly dependent on the layout of the level and is usually only effective against tall structures.

“After two screens their score was at 1.7 million while mine was just under 800,000. The first screen I had a single structure that I totally cleared.”

That is absolutely irrelevant and the only reason the score differs so much when playing against players with a full spell deck is because they use several cards at once and clear multiple levels in the process so that their number of cards matches the ones in your hand as has been explained many times before.

@sutekh137
Agreed that getting a spell in the arena as an award is very detrimental to your final score and that just serves as further proof that spell users don’t have any significant advantage compared to non-spell users.

@mvnla2
That was to be expected, the future of the arena doesn’t look very bright unless we receive some significant improvements soon. Once the hype completely dies down Rovio will realize that the new arena’s “success” was only short term.

[furby69]

@AndalayBay
I believe spell awards in the arena are being removed in the next update.

[furby69]

@hooksfan Your opponent was either more skilled than you, their key birds had higher levels or you just performed bad. It is theoretically impossible to obtain over 2 million points just from spells and I’ll explain why.

Let’s assume the 5 spells in the game are completely overpowered and destroy everything in a level including pigs. You can get a maximum of 100000 points per level and an additional 25000 bonus for getting a strike, that brings the total score up to 625000. That’s the equivalent of a 1 well thrown bird at level 6. But we all know spells don’t work that way, the ice spell is pretty much rubbish and does nothing, even the best spell in the game the Mighty Eagle, only pops pigs and barely does any damage to structures. You are NOT gaining any reasonable advantage by using spells, in fact you’re at a disadvantage for the reasons I’ve explained in my previous post, the only times they do come in handy is when you need to kill off 1 or more pigs after a failed throw and that’s ONLY if you’re lucky to have the right spell at the right time in your hand.

The most important thing that matters is the level of your own birds and how much damage you cause with them to structures, that’s where 90%+ of your final score comes from. Remember that your birds can have varying amount of levels and if you use the lower leveled birds more often than the rest then no matter how many strikes you get, your final score will be considerably lower (3 strikes at lv 4 is more or less the equivalent of 4 strikes at lv 3). There are plenty of problems with the arena but spell usage is not one of them.

[furby69]

@sutekh137
You’re right, the scores might be stored locally but they could still be gathering data for statistics so if they do have backups and depending on how much information is stored on your device (last time a level was played, the level of the birds etc) the scores could be more or less reverted.

@mvnla2
I’m going to disagree with you on that one. While in theory spells should be giving you an advantage, they are more of a curse. I have probably beaten more users playing with a full spell deck than people who don’t use spells at all. If you’re as skilled as your opponent then it basically comes down to who messes up first. You also have to keep in mind that just because you beat a level with a strike it doesn’t mean your opponent hasn’t caused more destruction thus achieving a higher score. You should focus on dealing as much damage as possible while also getting strikes or birdies.

Spells don’t really help with that as they are not affected by your birds’ level multiplier and more often than not, they just ruin the level for you causing you to get a lower score than you normally would have. Furthermore they clog up your hand and force you to use less effective birds when you would need others. There are certain situations where a spell does help when used at the right time (e.g. using a chili pepper or the mighty eagle to kill the last piggie so you don’t have to waste a bird on it) however most time they just increase the chance of you messing up.

[furby69]

@clovos

With this said, the new Arena is in a very early stage. We are working hard to make the overall experience with the Arena much better.
There’s a lot of cool features that will satisfy your suggestions. I can’t wait until we will release it to the live game.

Let’s hope those changes are for the best, until then I guess I’ll take a break from the arena.

So, the star rank is a very newly introduced feature that will give the player a easier way to monitor you own progress and it allow us to release content to the player based on their rank. Just like the Arena and the Tournament which is unlocked on level 5 & 8. This opens a window for future features to be introduced on a more natural way.

Didn’t think of that, in that case it may be worth keeping it. I just didn’t see the point of it in the current state of the game.

I agree personally that having the score multiplier in singleplayer might have been a mistake. Specially for all our score hunters in our community. And I’m sorry for that. But playing AB2 from the beginning from now on will give your birds levels a purpose. By leveling them up they will give you more score.

I still believe that it’s not too late to change it back, hopefully you have backups of the database with the old scores, as for the new levels you can simply divide the score by the average level of birds. We might need to redo some levels to get 3 stars but at least the game will once again be satisfying to play. Also bird levels would still have a purpose in the arena, the new scoring can be kept there. Please talk with your colleagues and think about reverting this change, maybe make a poll and ask players which system they like the best.

I agree, jumping between chapters is a pain. I’ve tried to come up with a good suggestion how to make it easier without making the UI taking over the screen. Please come with suggestions, I’m listening :-)

It should be quite easy, the basic functionality is already there, when you scroll far away you’re given the option to jump back to your bird. Just make 2 buttons on both sides of the screen that will jump to predefined levels, to the starting level of each world. Something like this: http://i.imgur.com/PurN8zl.png

Or a more intuitive idea that doesn’t clutter up the UI would be an “endless” scroll. Quick swipe left or right and the screen will keep scrolling and snap to the start of the next world.

The old statistics was replaced with Star rank and badges that you get from the Arena. I can suggest bringing back some old statistics but I’m not sure if they have purpose anymore.

Well it was just an idea but the main thing I miss was the number of stars you obtained from normal levels. This would help keep track of your progress and check if you still need to 3 star any level.

[furby69]

The old arena might have had its problems but the latest one is downright terrible. Sorry Rovio, despite you thinking it’s an actual improvement, it’s not. It might be an improvement to your wallet I guess but for how long? Once people stop playing and the paying customers realize that it’s completely pointless to compete in the arena, you will be left with a crippled player base.

There is no incentive in playing the arena. Only the top 3 players advance to the next league and to be in the top 3 you most certainly have to spend gems. And that’s alright because ultimately you need to generate some income from a free 2 play game however what reward do the top players get? A couple of gems (which probably translates to a negative amount since you need to spend much more than you get) and the privilege to do it all over again in an “upgraded” league that is identical to the previous one.

Alright I haven’t signed up to rant without giving any suggestions so here goes:

• Bring back the old arena..
  Why was the old arena better? Mainly because there was a reason to play it. You’d receive a decent amount of feathers every day and there was a reason to get in a higher league since you’d receive an increased amount of feathers based on your current league.
• No way, we’re not doing that!
  I know what you’re thinking, just let me explain. You don’t have to replace the current system, just improve on it. Currently a tournament lasts a week and the rewards are non-existent so I propose that each tournament should have 7 rounds. Each round lasts a day and would work in a similar fashion as the old arena. You get a point for beating an enemy and at the end of the day you receive a score based on how many enemies you’ve beaten that day, you could use the current star system or change it slightly (1st place – 15 points, 2nd place – 14 points and so on). At the end of the tournament the top 3 people advance to the next league, bottom 1-3 get demoted.
• Give feathers based on your daily score.
  The current way of gaining feathers is terrible. You don’t receive them automatically, you have to notice the tiny red sign which is easy to miss and there’s a 24 hour cooldown from the moment you got your last daily feathers which means that depending on when you play you might not even be able to get your “daily” free feathers at all. All this can be fixed by giving players feathers based on their position in the current round, similar to the way the old arena worked. Higher league means a larger amount of feathers.
• Get rid of the star level system.
  Correct me if I’m wrong but the only point of having a star level is to get bonus daily feathers (10 + Star Level). If you’re gonna implement the suggestion above then this system is unneeded. Oh and we get a chest every level up which frankly we can live without.
• Increase the cost of timer skip.
  Say it costs 10 gems to skip the timer, increase it by 5 gems with each skip and reset it daily. The game should be fair to everyone, what’s fun in competing against someone richer than you?
• Show score of enemy player on your current round
  This has been said before and you’re probably already working on a fix but I thought I’d mention it anyway. Evening the cards in the beginning does not make the ending more exciting. We want to know what the enemy’s score was when they finished the round we just cleared so we can compare how well we’re doing. Also show which cards and the number of cards they used to beat the level.

That’s about it in regards to the arena however I have a few more points to say about the game in general:

• The new scoring system ruined the game.
  Why, just why? Revert this as soon as possible before it’s not too late. While I do think the new scoring system is great in the arena, keep it there! The normal levels did not need this change. While getting 3 stars before was a challenge in itself, now you are basically guaranteed 3 stars as long as you finish the level, granted your birds are upgraded a couple levels. The old system rewarded skill and getting strikes and birdies was actually necessary as opposed to just destroying as many building as possible like it is now. And what’s the point of trying to get a high score if it’s gonna be obsolete once you level up a bird? Nope, not gonna redo all the levels. We never asked for this and we don’t need it.
• The chests on the map.
  The amount of feathers they give is insulting. I’d rather not want to collect these chests than to be disappointed each time I open one. There aren’t that many chests on the map, you could at least double the amount they give to 40-50 if you don’t want to give us 100, like a red gift would.
• Quick navigation.
  Whether you want to go and play the newest levels or jump back and 3 star a level that you might have missed, navigation is a pain. We should be able to jump between worlds in 1 touch.
• Bring back the statistics page.
  Or at least show how many stars we had obtained on the normal levels (e.g. 1259/1260). We used to be able to see our total number of stars and pigs popped but that page was removed in an update.
• Spice up the game.
  Give us something to collect. Red has a crown, why not let us customize our other birds? You could give random headwear for doing tasks, 3 star-ing worlds, reaching a new league, hidden in levels, you name it.

I might sound very displeased and I think many others share the same feeling but I hope that at least some of my suggestions will help in improving the game. Sorry for the tl;dr wall of text.

[furby69]

Has anyone else found a chest within a level? Haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere. I’m not talking about read gifts but one of those chest you can buy for 80 gems floating inside a level. I picked one up but sadly didn’t manage to finish the level to see what’s in it.