[mm]

Yeah, I saw that too. Fortunately for me, I’ve acquired 1200 or so of each of the power-ups (except the targeting one) so I don’t anticipate running out anytime soon. And honestly the game has lost a little luster for me anyway, so I suspect I’ll drop off the rolls before I run out of PUs too.
Best of luck and happy flinging!
–mm

[mm]

Check this out from Rovio’s site. Not 100% but sheds some light on the points…
https://support.rovio.com/hc/en-us/articles/204242956-What-are-the-Leagues-and-how-do-they-work-
Here’s a (poorly formatted) list of some of the points. They’re league specific (e.g. 5th place in Gold is different than 5th in Wood).

Rank Glass Wood Stone Bronze Silver Gold Diamond
1 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
3 100 100 100 75 50 40 25
5 100 100 100 40 30 20 5
10 100 100 50 15 15 10 0
20 100 10 10 5 5 0 0
30 10 10 10 0 -10 -20 -18
40 10 10 10 -20 -40 -60 -100

[mm]

Incidentally, the guy with those crazy scores is no longer on the League board in my league. I don’t know if he somehow zapped himself or was zapped or moved by Rovio.

[mm]

Over 200k in level 1 and over 133k in level 2? Any chance you’d be willing to share how you got there? I’ve destroyed every object in level one and even if I used zero birds (assuming a birdquake destroyed everything in one pop) and I still think I’d be at about 195k.
These scores are considerably (20k or so) better than the best scores posted here on the leaderboard and the total score is still about 80k better than the best combined score on here.

[mm]

For what it’s worth, I agree totally. Right now, first place in level 1 (week of 2/23) in my diamond league is over 200k and the same guy has 132k on level 2. Unless he got on and took advantage of some screwed up points, I don’t know how he could have landed those points.

[mm]

I think purely for clarification, it makes sense to use different terminology for power-up options than for cheats (like Leethax and others, which I don’t fully understand but allow for score manipulation outside of normal gameplay).
The revenue stream is from the purchasing of coins and/or add-ons like the golden sling. When regularly using power-ups, the daily coin awards are not enough to maintain a stable of power-ups sufficient for use on a weekly basis. Rovio offers the option of purchasing coins in bulk to allow you to in turn purchase additional power-ups. This is the revenue stream to which @jkhab69 refers. It makes sense that Rovio would be hesitant to encourage any kind of gameplay that discourages the use of power-ups and the purchasing of the coins needed for their regular utilization. Perhaps their ad revenue is such a bigger portion of their total that a “purist” realm of play would encourage enough new players (or the continuation of play by enough already playing) that it would be beneficial to create such a delineation, but if that’s the case, I’m surprised they haven’t already gone down that path.

[mm]

@dseufert,
Do you know if Birds Reborn Leaderboard has also been replaced? I did some searches on FB, but couldn’t find it. Also, I’ve got a kind of a side question, do you (or really anyone) have a feel for where the cheaters land in the ABF Tournaments online? What I mean is this… There’s always going to be a group of people who cheat and I assume they’re able to obtain scores that the rest of us cannot (I still don’t know what kind of cheats are out there, so I don’t know exactly what advantage they have over us). If that’s the case, I assume the upper echelons of ABF are going to be populated largely, if not solely, by cheaters. Originally I made it to Bronze before getting better acquainted with ABF and losing my account. I stared over in Glass and worked my way up through the ranks, getting first place in Glass, Wood, Stone, and just this past week, Bronze. Now I’m in Silver and even on the first day, I’ve noticed that the league leading scores are greater than the best scores reported on our leaderboard here. So I’m wondering, have I hit the level where cheaters are starting to blend in with the rest of the group? The fact that the top 5 in my tournament are all above the highest score on our leaderboard makes me wonder if they’re not using some performance enhancing electrons. So, with all apologies for the lengthy post, are there folks on here who have played in the gold and diamond leagues and if so, how pervasive do you think cheating is? How unattainable do you think the scores are in each of the leagues after Bronze? Right now I’d say it’s maybe possible to get to the highest scores I’m seeing in Silver, but I’d wager the top-5 to top-10 scores had some “help”.
Finally, I’ll end with a wish that we could eliminate all the cheats from the game and have a completely level playing field, but absent that, I hope to find a group where I can join in the fun competing against others who are on the up and up.
Thanks
–mm

[mm]

John, I agree and I wouldn’t be using PUs myself if it weren’t for ABF giving me multiple “Daily Rewards” but I understand getting on a larger list of friends can also allow for a lot of free gifts that can also allow one to amass a large stockpile of PUs.
As for playing with friends, I don’t think it matters whether you use PUs or not as to which tournament group you wind up in. Rovio doesn’t put friends together, though, I don’t think so that is probably why you don’t see your friend in your tournament group. Instead, I think Rovio assigns you randomly to a tournament group within your skill set (so if you cruise through glass, wood, and stone leagues but get stuck in copper, they place you with others who performed similarly). In reality, it is probably very unlikely that you’ll see your friend in the same tournament group. That’s my understanding, anyway, others here may correct me.
All the best and good luck!
–mm

[mm]

I don’t think he means the leaderboards segregate scores by power ups and no power ups. Instead, he means you can see people with both scores. The walkthroughs also show scores for both and when people comment on the walkthroughs, they usually specify whether they’re using PUs or not.
On a side note, I don’t think Rovio will ever do anything to discourage PUs since it’s a significant source of income for them with this game. Just my $.02.

[mm]

I use my Android phone and PC (not Mac) to play via Facebook and it keeps my coins, power ups, scores and pretty much everything else in sync. As long as you have a FB profile and use it on both devices, you should be OK, but I can only speak for myself. I do have to log in to my PC to get my daily reward, though. But that could just be a glitch with my profile; I have other issues with coins.

[mm]

Not having this issue, but daily coins are kind of screwed up for me too. On day one, it gives me the four coins initially, but then if I leave the main screen and come back, it gives me six coins (on the same day) and I can repeat this process as much as I want, earning six coins each time. Then on day 2, I get 10 coins each time I arrive at the main tournament screen. Same on day three getting sixteen coins each time I hit the main screen. Finally on day four, I get fifty coins, but only one time (day four works like day five should). Not that I’m complaining, I can rack up a lot of coins this way, but my point is the daily coin deal seems a little flaky across the board.

[mm]

Thanks Elle! Yeah not easy to find so I’m glad you pointed me to it. It sounds like ABF will still work through FB as a FB app on PC, just that standalone versions of the AB games won’t be available for PC (and I share the pessimism about Mac as well). I don’t know how many people this will impact but I understand the frustration of the folks who played exclusively on PC and now won’t see future updates.
Thanks again for the info!
–mm

[mm]

Vic, I agree that I don’t think many people are cheating. Honestly, I’d wager most, if not all, “cheats” are scams. That being said, unless a cheat allows you to create your own score or maybe allows you to build some sort of super destructive bird, people are still going to have to be good at the game. I’ve built up a couple hundred wingmen, quakes, potions, and super-slings. I’ve also bought the gold sling and the jungle sling so someone with infinite power ups doesn’t really have much of an advantage over me, I don’t think (other than getting those PUs for free). I assume no matter what the cheat, you’re still going to be limited to the birds you start with (if someone can sub in a bomb bird for a red bird, that would be a pretty big advantage to the cheat), no cheat will give unlimited birds (even if it gives unlimited PUs), and you’ll still be able to only use three PUs on a given level. I can imagine cheats that would allow you to blow up blocks on a touch screen by just touching them or would provide unlimited extra birds so you never use the birds you start with or that cause a constant quake or something weird like that, but I think you’d have to break Rovio’s server for that kind of stuff. Then again, I’m not well-versed on web apps so maybe not. Anyway, I agree the scores I’m aware of seem within the realm of possibility for fair players. I may not be getting them but occasionally I do (last week on the rock stack for instance, I think I got a pretty high score that I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t gotten it myself).
Elle,
Where did you hear ABF will no longer be available on PC? Do you mean outside of FB or in general it just won’t be able to be played on a PC?
Thanks Nesters, this is a cool place and I’m still learning my way around (as evidenced by my stupid post about weekly scores, sorry about that), but everyone is so cool and nice.

[mm]

You’re welcome and I’m sorry this soured you on ABF, but I understand that frustration of starting over. The only reason I was good with it myself was that I didn’t know what I was doing with power ups and all the first couple of weeks I played. I figured that with a better understanding and some experience, I should be able to make top three in the first two or three leagues this time around and indeed, mostly because I had the golden sling I think, I did get 1st in the glass league and I’m currently first in wood by a good amount. I discovered the leaderboards after posting the topic about keeping scores here and feel kind of stupid for not knowing that and creating a thread because I didn’t know, but I’m in the top 50 of scorers this week there and that’ll probably be enough to keep me in 1st this week. Still, I had to start over and I can appreciate not wanting to go through that, especially when you had a screw up with buying something on top of everything.
Enjoy Rio and anything else you jump into. If you ever get back into ABF and need a FB friend to compete with, let me know and I’ll send you a FB friend request from my ABF FB account.
All the best!
–mm

[mm]

Got it, I didn’t know the leaderboard covered this, but makes sense. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

[mm]

@birdbob, I had a similar experience but I retained my gold sling. I had only been playing on mobile and never had logged into FB for ABF. I was coincidentally also in copper when I decided to log into FB on my phone’s ABF and when I did I was back in glass league with no points (but with my sling). When I logged off FB from inside ABF, I showed back up in copper, but with zero points. I don’t know why this happened but I think if you link your mobile account to FB after playing for a while on mobile it resets your mobile account or at least the scores. Since I didn’t lose my sling, I just started playing in glass and working my way back up. Good luck with Rovio. I’ve heard they’re good about making things right with ABF screw ups.

[mm]

@vic-the-hun, I don’t know if there is a way to cheat on tablet or mobile, but it sounds like you can pay for an extension to Firefox to be able to cheat with that browser. I don’t know the details, if it lets you just pick a high-score, if it gives you unlimited coins, infinity power-ups or what, but there’s some info on the boards here. I’ve hit kind of a glitch with my mobile device, though. Sometimes when I collect my daily coin reward, it gives it to me multiple times. Unfortunately for me, it’s only worked on the smaller coin amounts so while I’ve been able to stash enough coins for a Jingle Sling and a hundred or so power ups for potions, quakes, and power slings (and Wingman), I’ve definitely gotten fewer coins than the $80 bundle and I can’t figure out why sometimes it does this and sometimes it doesn’t. But as for straight up cheating, I don’t know what is out there and what is “legit” versus just a virus or adware or whatnot. I don’t want to take that chance even if I wanted to cheat. Besides, if you can just plug in your own score without playing, what’s the point? Maybe I’m not much better than a cheater by taking multiple daily rewards, but with ABF giving them to me without me having to jailbreak the application or whatever, I feel less guilty. ;-)
I also have no idea if there is a benefit to jumping into the tourney early versus late. But then I’m in wood league now (I had been in copper but kind of screwed that up) so I’m about 50k ahead of second place (something like 1,025,000 to 975,000). I jumped in early Monday morning.
Anyway, best of luck. I’m still relatively new to ABF, but love the game and the Nest is super cool.
–mm

[mm]

I kind of feel bad here. I meet a lot of Makin’s criteria for a cheater. I’m new here, haven’t posted a lot, don’t have an icon next to my name (I’ll try to change that here momentarily), didn’t even understand the green and red arrows in ABF until a couple days ago and have never posted a screen-shot or video (honestly, I’m probably not savvy enough yet to do this, but I’ll probably learn).
That all being said, I am not a cheater, just kind of a noob. I did benefit from a glitch on my mobile device yesterday where I kept earning coins every time I went to the main page. Aside from that, I’m pretty clean. I definitely have no interest in a Leethax program. Whether it costs money or not, even if I wanted the advantages, I’d just be scared it’d infect my computer with something I don’t want.
Seriously, though, the group has been great to me so far and I’m not looking for much beyond good conversation, the occasional advice on gameplay, and maybe eventually some folks to friend on FB to join up with.
Until then, glad to be a part of the Nest.
All the best,
–mm

[mm]

By the way, you guys are awesome. I’m at 1,125,940 and can’t seem to find those other points. I’m not going to stress since it’s enough to move me up to Wood league next week and has me at #1 in the league, but I’m sincerely impressed with the scores you guys are able to put up! Rock on!
–mm

[mm]

@scottrogoff, I wondered about the rebalancing as well. Like I said I had to start back in glass league and I can’t be sure, but it seemed like the league I got dumped in all had scores under 1M but when I get on level three, it seemed like a bunch of league total scores were over 1M. I wondered if since I posted good scores on the first two levels, they moved me into a league with spots available where people had higher scores. Again, I could have just not been paying attention too closely, but I did wonder as it was going on if I got pushed into another group. I wonder too what happen to those folks in your league. It’s interesting that you started out with an odd number like 37 and then settled on something like 25. Maybe they do rebalance as more people jump in. If so, I wonder what the routine is for doing that. I haven’t ever really noticed it before, though. In the first four weeks of me playing, I was battling the same top few people for the #1 spot so if they did rebalance, they either added folks down the ladder to my league or they took folks away who were down the list a bit.
Thanks for posting!
–mm

[mm]

@tomason33, I wondered about the markers to help you aim. I’ve found spots in the backgrounds that seem to be there to help get better scores, but I always wondered if it was just coincidence. Either way, once I find something that works pretty good I use background stuff to help me aim. Of course, when I use the power up sling, it screws everything up for me. ;-)
Thanks again for providing the info. I’m excited about getting going with my account that I can use with my PC and with my phone. I’m kind of bummed all that time on the zombpigs levels were for nothing, but I’ve got more power ups with this login and some extra coins due to the glitch yesterday.
Off to play some now. Only one more day left…
–mm

[mm]

Thanks, @tomason33. Yeah, I didn’t mean do sound like I was saying the guys at the top of the league were not legit, I just didn’t know. Since I posted, I’ve been able to use some power-ups and get up to 1,127,000 or so (and I’m in the glass league where it’s enough for #1, at least so far). Mostly, I was able to pick up a lot with the big wooden structure to the right on the first level (I think) and I was able to pickup a bunch of points on the one with the hanging bird above the TNT over the stone car using the Wingman. I just wanted to ask if those types of scores are possible legitimately and I’m glad to hear they are.
I didn’t lose anything when they booted me in Copper other than my score. I think I’m just going to play on the other ID anyway. The good news is, when I started this new ID, it preserved my golden sling.
I was also only half-serious about the cheating. I took advantage of the glitch and if it happens again, I’m definitely going to rack up as much coinage as I can.

[mm]

@tomason33 I’m glad they’re getting rid of known cheaters and I assume they have ways to find them, but I also have to wonder about some of those high scores I’m seeing in my copper league and if they’ll get zapped too.
Let me posit a theory about the person #1 in your league though and while I could be totally off on this, it just happened to me so who knows. I had been playing ABF solely on my mobile phone. I was in 5th place or so in Copper league. I wanted to start playing on my PC too, so I created a new FB account (I don’t want people getting invites from my normal FB account to play ABF, I’ll lose a bunch of friends if that happens). I got on my laptop and played some ABF but since I was new to the game on that account, I am in glass league. When I logged into FB on my mobile phone, I expected it to transfer my phone scores to my FB account, but it went the opposite way and transferred my PC scores to my mobile. So now in both places I’m in glass league. I logged out of FB on my phone and restarted my ABF on my phone and boom, I’m back in copper, but my scores are all gone. It’s like I’ve never played in copper on my phone and my 5th place spot is now 30th (or whatever). I don’t know if this could have happened to your league’s #1 (I think it’s much more likely someone somehow complained about them or they were found on some monitor and zapped), but in my league, the #5 player (me) disappeared too.
On a completely separate note, on my mobile once I logged into FB in glass league, every time I went to the league overview screen, ABF gave me another 6 coins. I abused this glitch and got another 700 or so coins (I have to admit I wish I was on 50 coins), but that’s the extent of my “cheating”.
Finally, (sorry for the long post), what seems like an outrageous score this week in total? I’ve got some folks who were in my copper league with about 1,160,000 points. Seems like the top three are all around there and then there’s a big dropoff to around 1,104,000 which was about where I was. I’m either missing 50k somewhere or it seems like those scores are somehow inflated. Figured it’d be a good place to ask here.
Great to be a part of the community here!
–mm

[mm]

@tomason33, thanks for pointing out the green arrows, that makes sense, but in Copper league, on the top two have green arrows next to their name. Maybe you have to be higher up on the list as you move up, so top two for copper but in glass it was the top 20. I’ve seen some red arrows near the bottom of copper as well, so I guess those guys go back to stone? I didn’t know what those meant, but I’m kind of a noob to ABF.
I guess I’d need to keep playing at Copper to move up after a few weeks, but honestly, some of those high scores are pretty far ahead of where I’m at.

[mm]

Thanks @dseufert! I am new to this. Honestly, I have liked AB for a while but only played the static games (AB, Seasons, Space, Star Wars, etc.) and then I stumbled onto ABF maybe a month ago after getting an ad on my phone in-between levels on another AB game. I tried AB Go and one of the other games tangent to the main play and didn’t like them but I figured I’d give this a shot. Honestly, I didn’t even know there was a FB version initially. So I played Glass league and came in first out of the league (I guess the leagues are groups of about 30 on the mobile version anyway) and then again in Wood league. I hadn’t even figured out to use power-ups to any good effect at this point, I don’t think. I got to Stone league and managed second place (I was using my PUs better at this point) right up until about an hour before the end of the week and then someone jumped in front of me and I wound up in 3rd place. Like everyone else, I’m on the Pingolin level this week and I’m in the Bronze league. Either the boards got a lot harder or I’ve started hitting people with a bunch of power-ups or hacks. It could just be that people are spending big $s on their AB account, but I’m not going to get into that (I admit I did pony up $5 for the gold sling). I don’t want to throw around unfounded accusations but the top three scores are forty or fifty k above the next ten. Maybe that’s just natural (I know last week, board 1 could cough up 30k extra using a couple of PUs, so this could all be on the up and up). Anyway, apologies to ramble here. I really just wanted to say thanks for the kind words and thanks to the community for advice on playing. I’m looking forward to getting more info and becoming competitive at the higher levels of the game.
Again, Much Appreciated!
–mm