New Arena: problems and suggestions for fixing

[MVNLA2]

@Clovos @bankler — Some data you might be interested in. The calculations use my birds for the base birds. I have 1 rank 7 and 6 rank 6.
My conclusions are
1) You need to do something about the free spells to avoid the current contradiction of spells being undesirable if they are free, but good if they aren’t. The easiest fix would be to have free spells add a card to your hand, just as selecting to use one of yours does.
2) You should look at the total multiplier with spells when assigning opponents, and it might be a good idea to narrow the range of opponent’s multipliers you fight. This would be particularly important for players with lower ranked birds, since adding spells with have a larger effect on their total multiplier.

Effect of free spells that you get while playing on the multiplier for your score:

	        Birds	    Total Multiplier
Base Birds	1X7 + 6X6	43
1 free spell	6 + spell	38
2 free spells	5 + 2 spells	33
3 free spells	4 + 3 spells	28
4 free spells	3 + 4 spells	22

Opponents I’ve met recently in the Emerald league:

                        Total Multiplier
Birds	        Spells	 without   with 
                         spells   spells
1x1+1x2+2x4+3x8	  4	   35	    39
1x7 + 6x6	  0	   43	    43
1x7 + 5x6 + 1x5	  1	   42	    43
2x7 + 5x6	  0	   44	    44
1x5 + 3x6 +3x7	  5	   44	    49

I did have 2 more with the same stats as I had.

[MVNLA2]

@clovos — I don’t think you answered the question about whether you are tossing old opponents’ battles and recording new ones every day. If you do (discard old battles), the number of spells used by opponents should decrease over time. The number of spells used by the opponents I listed above isn’t outrageous, but then I haven’t been keeping track very long.

[MVNLA2]

@all — It would be really interesting if someone with low-ranked birds kept data on the opponents they meet in the arena similar to what I did above. It would be interesting to see what the spread of total multipliers including spells was for opponents with weaker birds.

[Aeshna]

Something I haven’t seen mention is the number of times you face to same opponent. Three times yesterday I was matched in the arena with Lesley (4levels up on me and five extra cards every time and she was in my league last week but was promoted). And today I’ve had the same opponents twice. Surely you should never play the same people again and again?

I’m only playing now when the timer allows, no more gems spent on extra go’s. It seems others are spending/buying gems as I’m fourth from bottom! Current leader has spent around £40 to get there!

[MVNLA2]

@aeshna @clovos — Why should someone be playing an opponent who was promoted out of their league?
It wouldn’t be that hard for Rovio to make sure you don’t play the same opponent twice. It’s not that uncommon in the AB Epic Arena to see the same opponents over and over again, but then it is easy to reject them.
As for your experience, you might just have encountered a really bad spell of luck. You didn’t say what league you’re in or what levels your birds are.
Last week I had the same opponent twice in a row, and they had exactly the same score sequence. What is worse is that they were clearly cheating (score of >9,000,000 after first bird). I’ve also fought the same players more than once on other occasions, but not recently. Also, sometimes even if I had the same opponent, they were fighting a different battle.

[MVNLA2]

@Clovos @all — I now have now kept track of stats for 16 opponents. Here are my statistically insignificant observations:
* I compared the total multiplier including spells selected by the opponent (I don’t use spells in the arena). My multiplier is 43, and 7 out of 16 opponents had a multiplier of 43. The lowest was 39 and the highest 47. My impression is that with enough data, the distribution would be near Gaussian, but I sure hope they have a hard cutoff on the upper end.
* Ten of the 16 opponents used no spells, and only 1 used 5. This is a lot more reasonable than the opponents encountered even last week (or at least my impression of how many used 5 spells).

[MVNLA2]

@Clovos @Bankler — Please note: Players enjoy winning. Sure a tough battle makes it interesting, but losing all the time is no fun at all. Rovio needs to do something to make the AB 2 arena more fun for people who are not going to spend tons of money buying spells.
The two items highest on my list for salvaging the AB 2 arena are the following:
1) Add back a decent number of feathers as awards for at least the top 8 or 10 players (similar to the was it was previously).
2) Include opponent battles where the opponent lost (not to you, but to whomever they were playing when you recorded).
I played the AB Epic arena for quite a while, because I could usually complete all my objectives and fairly easily get promoted to the next higher league.
I played the previous AB 2 arena, because I could get high enough on the leaderboard to get a decent number of feathers. Not getting any feathers for playing the arena is really a bummer.
In the current arena, I am losing more than half the time, and I don’t think it is any fun at all. The only reason I continue playing is to collect data. Yes, I am kinda weird that way.
You didn’t say whether the opponent games that you record and use were all battles where they won. I suspect they are, and I think this is what gives them a better chance of winning even if they are exactly matched to you. You have said that the battle and series of rooms are identical, although the sequence of birds is random. The main reasons I lose against an equally matched opponent are the following:
* I end up with a sequence of birds that is very poorly matched to clearing a specific room, and can spend 3 or even (horrors) 4 birds getting through. This pretty much guarantees a loss.
* I make a mistake, e.g., pick the wrong bird for the job, fling a bird I did not intend to fling, aim or activate poorly.
* I have really lousy luck, e.g. a pig stays alive in a nearly inaccessibly corner.
If you only use opponent battles where they won (which is what I suspect), then they probably did not have any of the problems listed above, which gives them a great advantage.

[Green Whacker]

@clovos @bankler

I think I found a shocking bug… I was in a round when I used up all my birds and there was a column of debris about to fall over (it was still in motion) and it would have fallen on top of the last pig and score me more points to earn me back a bird but game ended right there! I feel I got robbed out of a win when it was not really over counting up scores.

[AndalayBay]

That happens fairly often, both in the arena and in regular play. I’ve lost many levels because it calls the game over before the debris has finished falling.

[Green Whacker]

Another annoying thing just happened to me…

I tossed Bomb toward a stone structure and it landed in the middle of it so when it exploded, it destoryed everything BUT a single tiny pig laughing at me.

I was like WHAT THE F%#$!!

Naturally it caused me to lose the Arena match.
I find this impossible and clearly a bug.

[Rovio_Bankler]

@mvnla2 That’s an excellent point about getting spells as extra cards in the arena doesn’t make sense (at least not when your birds are leveled up). I’ll change it so that you always get birds back instead (you’ll still have a 10% chance of getting a spell in the non-arena-levels). Thanks for the input!

[bigbadaboom]

@mvnla2 I’ve been collecting some data as well and on average my opponents are 1-2 levels higher than the birds I have. I assume this is because Rovio wants me to buy spells to even out the odds. I also believe the opponent selection is biased towards opponents using spells, but of course I have no way of proving that.

[MVNLA2]

@bigbadaboom — What league are you in? I’m still in Emerald, and I stopped collecting data. The players I’ve been facing recently are a lot more reasonable than earlier. Their birds are not that much higher a level, and a lot of them don’t use spells.Nonetheless, I don’t see the point in playing the arena, since the awards are pathetic.

[tinostar11]

My Suggestion would be this:
Right now , It costs you 12 Gems to play a Battle.
Each battle after that , the Gem Cost for the Battle Doubles:
2nd Time: 24 Gems
3rd Time: 48 Gems
4th Time: 96 Gems
5th and all times after that: 192 Gems
After the 5th time , all Arena Battles would cost you 192 Gems until that week of the Arena is over.

[MVNLA2]

@tinostar11 @clovos — Tinostar11’s idea seems like a good one (assuming he meant in now costs you 12 gems to play an extra battle). It certainly should be doable, since Rovio changes the cost of extra birds in regular levels so they increase after the first set.

[bigbadaboom]

@mvnla2 Emerald league, although I don’t think that makes a difference for bird levels (though spell usage might be higher i higher leagues). These are my 10 last opponent levels relative to mine (level including spells in parenthesis):

+2 (+7)
+1
0
-3
+2
0 (+5)
+2 (+3)
+2 (+3)
+1 (+2)
-3 (+1)

So 2 equal, 2 below and 6 above, not counting spells.

I still win most of my battles so I don’t worry much about it, I just like to figure out how stuff is implemented.

[MVNLA2]

@bigbadaboom — Interesting — I assume the +7 spells is a typo??? Your opponents have been using more spells than my recent ones, and I am still in Emerald league. Somewhere @Closov said that opponents were chosen by the total number of feathers. I haven’t tried to figure this out yet.

[bigbadaboom]

Not a typo, that opponent had +2 levels on birds and was using 5 spells on top of that.

Spell usage was unusually high in my sample, on average I think 3 or 4 out of 10 of my opponents are using spells and it seems that number is going down as people run out of stock.

[MVNLA2]

@clovos — You said in another forum:

Regarding opponent matching the only variable that matters right now is feathers. You match with recordings where the opponent have the same or close to your total feather amount.

https://www.angrybirdsnest.com/forums/topic/arena-sent-me-back-to-vanilla-league/

Matching opponents based on total number of feathers makes absolutely no sense to me, since it is not the total amount of feathers that impact your score, but the rank of your birds and the number of extra cards you get by choosing to use spells (as opposed to being given them for free). In addition, it is impossible (unless they are on your leaderboard) to tell how many feathers any of your opponents birds have since you don’t see their feather bars.
When you say the total feather count is close, how close?

[Aeshna]

Not sure what’s going on anymore in the arena! except that there is a drop off of players this week. There are seven players still on zero points. One of these was in my league last week and did play. It will be interesting to see if others are finding a higher level of inactivity. Last week only one player finished the week still with zero. Think it’s going to be higher this week.

Players giving up on the arena, now I can believe that.

[dlad]

I give up………

I can’t win with 7 birds…. Out of 10 battles I can hardly manage to win 1 battel..
Cos most of the opponents have ridiculous score 5mil+….. This is nonsense…

[MVNLA2]

@dlad — What league are you in? I don’t think I’ve seen any 5 M + scores. You should send details directly to Rovio support.

@Clovos @bankler

[Maiasatara]

I had to stop reading after my “spitting fire” rant last week but have a few more things to say. I’ve been collecting data like many other players though mine has to do with the inequity of scores awarded per room in the Arena. After throwing the first bird I’m throwing a Strike 99% of the time with about a 99% destruction rate. HOWEVER my score after doing this is between 1/4 and 1/2 of my opponent’s score 99% of the time. This is IMPOSSIBLE. There is no way that two players attacking the same room with one bird and total destruction can have a point difference of 500,000 points! But then when one goes to the Leaderboards for AB2 here at The Nest there are VAST differences in scores that are specific to individual players (which happened after the last update.) I went back to play old levels and where my first place score was 350,000 I’m now getting 1,200,000. Thinking everyone must have downloaded the same scoring algorithm, I get to the leader board and see 2 other players scored over 2,500,000. DOUBLE my new ridiculous score. Now, if a variety of people were scoring the high I’d think, ok, fight harder. But no – THE SAME SINGLE PLAYER HOLDS EVERY FIRST PLACE IN EACH EPISODE. Then the same exact player holds almost every SECOND PLACE in an episode. My score ratio is the same and right now I’m the 7th – 8th place person. So tell me, how is it I’m ALWAYS getting paired with people who DOUBLE my score in arena battles? Same room, one bird, total destruction should mean a nearly equal score; NOT one person getting double or triple. I have dozens of screen shots clogging up memory and imagine no one cares. As for the spells, I’ve WON every time I’m up against people USING THEM when I have none. The Sardine Can, the one that costs 100 gems? AWARDS ALMOST NO DEBRIS POINTS!!!! It counts the pig points with a negligible addition of only a few thousand even when monstrous multiple stone structures bite the dust. If I had blown them with a bomb I would earn hundreds of thousands but lost several arena battles counting on those debris points in a final room before I figured out there’s an obvious bug. I’m a damned good player. I’ve had first place scores here, Iv’e earned puppies, I’ve come in first place in my Diamond League in Friends and I FIGHT for decent scores. There is NO WAY that my high loss ratio in Thr Arena is representative of my actual playing ability. Either put the original play structure back or actually let real people within the same league/rank ACTUALLY PLAY LIVE AGAINST EACH OTHER. And for the love of god, fix the scoring algorithm so that ever player earns the same amount for destruction. I’m ready to delete all from my phone.

[Rovio_Bankler]

@maiasatara Thanks for your feedback. Regarding the spells, we decided to exclude them from the level score multiplier factor that the birds utilize. The reasoning behind this was that we wanted spells to give you an edge in the Arena, without giving you an automatic win. This, as everything else, may be subject to change in the future if we feel that it doesn’t work.

Regarding the scoring, I realize that the implementation of level score multipliers was controversial. The idea behind it is to make leveling your birds up feel more meaningful than before. It’s clear that this change had an obvious impact on the Nest leaderboards, which I’m sorry for.

It doesn’t seem right that you meet players who score double your score in the first room. Please note though that sometimes your opponent will play more than one card after you have played your first card (and hence, may be in the second room already), so it may appear that he has played better than you, while he really hasn’t. This will happen if your opponent has more throws left than you have. We have gotten feedback before that some players would prefer seeing the score “room-by-room” instead, and we are looking into this as a possible change. In any case, we are aware that we have some problems with the matchmaking, that make people compete against overly difficult players. This is a problem in itself, and we know that we need to make that work much better.

[Sutekh137]

@mvnla2

I haven’t read every post, but this confused me from one of yours:

“…they were clearly cheating (score of >9,000,000 after first bird).”

How can a computer-generated battle involve the opponent “cheating”? I realize the opponents we face are real teams, but what could another player be doing to make the score increase when Rovio decides to use their team as an opponent?

Am I missing something in regards to how the Arena battles are assigned and played?

(I have never faced anyone with a ending score that looked out of line. Sometimes their score seems on the high end, but over 9 million? Not that. How do we expect other players are doing that, or is it just a bug?)

Thanks,
sutekh137