New Arena

[Doom Baby]

Just tried it again and it gave me a board with pigs completely out of reach for a guaranteed loss of 20points when I was only gonna “win” 17 in the first place.

 

No apples

No tickets

No extra bird

No spells

No chance to win

No bueno.

 

And 45 days to wait to “win” each round? What on earth were they thinking at Rovio when they came up with this formula? How could they ever think any of this was a good idea?

[dtmt]

And all the sudden “people” with flock power hundreds below me gather 10+ million points more than me today where as before it was just matter of playing to get the win.

[Kochschwein]

To be honest, I don’t understand the pairing of opponents and the scoring system yet. All my opponents don’t have a MEBC frame. Why?

[guava564]

They do have a frame it just doesn’t show when they come up as an opponent I.e. it’s a bug.

they have also broken the bit where it shows what clan players are in. We’ve kicked quite a few players from our clan but it still says there are in our clan and some come up as leaders of the clan.

The pairing of opponent is done by how many points you both have. So you’re always paired up with someone with roughly the same amount of points. I think it is always against someone with slightly more than you but anyway similar points. So not skilled based at all which they claimed it would be.

this arena is geared to help higher fp players and to get lower fp players to pay to compete but it won’t work. They should’ve targeted those who already spend lots of money on the game as they are stupid enough to do it.

[Kochschwein]

Okay, @guava564, I understand the pairings based on arena points, but I don’t understand why my opponent’s birdpower always is far below mine. So it’s very easy to beat them all.

[guava564]

Do you have quite a high fp? If you do then the odds are stacked in your favour as given you are paired with players on a similar number of points it is effectively pairing you up with someone totally random fp wise so you are much more likely to get put against someone with a lower fp if that makes sense.

[Kochschwein]

Oh very strange! My FP is 1004.

[bill]

I haven’t play the old arena for over a year, & I don’t intend to play the new POS arena ever again.
more rovio scamming! And trying to stay relavent in an online gaming world.

[guava564]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Yeah I’d class that as much more than the average player’s fp on there so yeah you will most of the time get someone with lower fp. If my league is anything to go by then the really high fp guys are racking up huge point scores on the arena so unless you are playing it non stop like they are you are pretty unlikely to match up against someone with high fp as they all have massive “skill” points.

</p>
this targeting of lower fp players to try to get them to spend money surely won’t work as most of them are casual players. It just smacks of desperation to me which will fail anyway.

[Lone Wolf]

And the crazy thing too is that thus update is also alienating the players that do spend money like myself

[guava564]

I’ve got nothing against spending some money on games and have done in the past but just as I wouldn’t bet money on an event that I know is rigged I can’t bring myself to spend money on a game that is rigged and AB2 is totally rigged.

[Noname]

I hate the new arena. The old version was frustrating but if you were patient and saved up tickets and spells then every few weeks you could use them and the  spells to get up to the Legendary league.  Now it’s clearly designed to force people to use their gems and try to get them so hooked that they’ll spend money and buy more.  Losing more than you earn is stupid. That to me is more of a reason not to play.  Some of the ads they used to show had games proudly announcing ‘only 1% can solve this’ and all I thought was why would I want to play a game where I’m almost guaranteed to lose?  It looks like Rovio thinks that’s what we want.

[JezzaH99]

Whilst the old Arena was always ultimately stacked against you eventually, at least it was understandable. The new version is completely baffling and has no logic. Apart from no free tickets and no extra bird, I can’t quite understand that if each game/round is more equal how is it virtually impossible to win from round 3 onwards?   And how did I get relegated after losing two games on the trot? Not that I’m bothered but how can I be relegated mid week yet still be in the same 30 players league for the week?

The whole thing makes no sense. Interestingly, because the game was paused for 4 days I quite liked not playing and now I’ve come back to this incomprehensible league I don’t feel the need to play regularly because I’m not sure what the point is.

Happy for people to explain it to me!

[Lilamezz]

I totally agree with you.

I totally dislike the new arena .

What is the point of spells if they can’t be used anywhere. This is the only place I use them.

Definitely won’t be playing it anymore with the new feature of losing more points than you win. No incentive whatsoever to play this.

[Noname]

I admit I don’t get the scoring in the new arena.  I’m currently in the diamond league but I can’t get higher to top level in diamond league because when I reach 3 stars in the diamond league (around level 13) it pushes me up to the legendary league and I end up going  back and forth between the two leagues depending on games lost or won.  I can’t just stay in diamond and try to reach the top there.

[guava564]

I am currently only playing the arena each day to get the streak then I can’t be bothered with it. I’ve heard people saying the opponents are bots but I didn’t believe it but now I do because today in every single arena match I played over various levels I saw that my opponent used exactly the same birds in exactly the same order regardless of level. I only noticed because they always started with blues even if that would not be the best bird to use. Yes even against stone structures. So even though I hated the new arena already I now realise it is against bots. What a complete waste of time.

[Shuckle]

How can you win so easily? It needs 5 straight wins. Yes, the opponent is much lower level but they get very high points. I win about half and that does not make it possible to win the whole streak.

Starting again with paying does not much help I guess as Iplayed as well as I could. I have not tried it though.

[Kochschwein]

@guava564, it doesn’t have to be bots. It is well known that you don’t play live against a person, but against a video. Rovio has always said that the bird order that is displayed does not correspond to the real opponent’s gameplay.

[guava564]

I always get put against players with a much lower fp. I have lost a few but hardly any. As my skill points go up I can see I’m gradually being put against higher fp players but they are still way lower than me so I win most of the time at the moment.

well the birds matched up on the old arena where for example they’d use the same bird  I was using quite a bit and you could see when they’d used a mighty eagle or whatever going by how their score went up. Now you can’t tell coz they are always in exactly the same order.

another way I can tell it’s bots is because my opponent birds pretty much have all the same fp. So if they have blues at 100 fp all their birds have 100 or 99 or 101 for example including Leonard or any those extra ones. Take a look at anyone’s flock and the vast majority of those extra birds have a lower fp than the rest. They may have built one up but not 2. Not one of my opponents have had a difference of more than 1 in their individual bird fps. Not one. Very suspicious.

[Saphira]

I have two of my extra birds at the same card level as the rest of my flock, although without hats they have 11 less flockpower. It seems like most of the opponents I have had in the arena have extra birds with a lot less flockpower than their other birds.

It seems like different people are having very different experiences with the new arena. I like it overall, but at first I won all matches easily and now I’m not. I have been able to get through the streak each day, but now it takes several attempts and I refuse to pay 60 gems to redo matches.

[Omelet]

The new arena stinks & I won’t be playing it anymore. I won two in a row, it

crashed, then I was set back to zero. No way am I paying to replay. Every time I’ve tried to play since it has also crashed. Pretty sure I am not playing against a human. Just feels fake, IMHO. This game is so buggy that I wonder what the programmers are  smoking over there at Rovio in Tempere

[Lone Wolf]

I don’t use Facebook but for those that are on the AB2 Facebook page, apparently Rovio posted a message about the changes……it essentially said that we all need to deal with it

[Shuckle]

Thanks for letting us know. I am not in facebook.

[guava564]

The only way they’ll change it back if it makes less money than the old arena. That just shows the disdain they have for the players. Everyone should stick together and not play the arena but they won’t unfortunately. I never pay on there anyway and I certainly won’t be starting after this update. Lots of people are obviously still playing it though going by my league but I just can’t be bothered with it anymore. It’s just boring and regardless of whether or not you are playing bots it feels like it’s bots and that’s the important thing. I don’t know whether it’ll make them more money or not but they won’t from me.

[Kochschwein]

Thanks for the tip, @lando-calrissian.

Here is the text:

 

Hello everyone!

We’re very excited for you all to finally experience the new Arena. We have worked very hard on this one and so far we have over 1 million players competing. It’s truly amazing!

As with everything new, it always comes with some growing pains. You have a lot of feedback and concerns about the latest Destructometer changes and I would like to explain why we decided to make them.

Angry Birds 2 has always been a game of skill, mixed in with some smaller random elements to make it more interesting. Random in this context can be which pigs are awake/asleep, how the physics can cause chain reactions, which towers spawn (depending on the area), etc. We believe that spells, when given by the Destructometer are too random. For example, your score can change greatly if given a Mighty Eagle Spell vs. a Blizzard Spell. Spells are also very random in how differently they activate. We have all experienced the Chili spell always picking the worst out of 2 remaining pigs. Randomness can be fun. Randomness can be frustrating. We felt that spells from the Destructometer, unfortunately, fell under frustrating. Especially, when it comes to trying to beat your highest score.

We know that it’s not perfect, because nothing ever is. We are heavily monitoring how the Destructometer change is affecting the different parts of the game and will make adjustments accordingly. There have already been adjustments made to Adventures, Clan Events, and Clan Battles and more will come soon. Our next focus is on Daily Challenge, King Pig Panic, and the Map levels.

Spells will always have a place in Angry Birds 2 and we are looking into finding the right place to use them in a more fun way for everyone to enjoy.

Some questions we’ve seen over the last few days:

Q: Why give us spells when we can’t use them as much?

A: We have lowered the drop rates for spells in chests. After the current event is over, restart your game to get the latest changes.

Q: Why not make the Destructometer change only for the new Arena?

A: A lot of players already have a hard time understanding the Destructometer (it is very complex, even for us). Making it behave differently depending on the area would cause even more confusion. We hope that making it consistent everywhere will make for a better experience for all players, old and new.

Q: I feel like I have a harder time competing in Mighty Eagle’s Bootcamp and Clan Battles. Is this correct?

A: The whole idea about the changes was to make it more consistent and more intuitive, not the other way around. We do know that some players were able to play on the old version of the game and therefore could potentially get higher scores. This has been fixed and all players should now follow the same rules. We want to apologize for this ever happening and we’re looking into making future updates faster and smoother.

Q: Why did you remove Apples from the Winning Streak?

A: We understand that the new Arena is more competitive than the last one. We wanted to make the rewards better to reflect this change. Therefore we decided to distribute the Apples between DC & KPP. After listening to your feedback we’ve decided to add additional Apples to the chests. You should start seeing this change tomorrow.

Q: Why did you make the Hat Adventures harder?

A: We’re checking the past Adventures so that we can make changes in the future Adventures to lower the difficulty on the harder levels.

Q: Why am I getting unfair matches in the new Arena?

A: Since the new Arena is using a completely new system, the distribution of players will become better and better over time. Matchmaking will improve when more players have been able to join in on the action!

Q: I can’t reach as far in MEB because of the Destructometer change and get fewer MEB-coins. Will this be fixed?

A: We are noticing that some people have a harder time clearing as many rooms as before the update. Because of this, we are re-distributing the coins in Mighty Eagle’s Bootcamp to reflect this change. You should all have the new values starting tomorrow.

Q: Why are there so many Clan Battles? We want to relax!

A: Not everyone follows the same schedule. Not everyone plays the same. By having Clan Battles more frequently, we allow clans to make their own decision on when they want to participate. With that said, we will be looking into making these decisions easier for clan leaders in the future.

2020 is coming to an end and we are very excited about next year. We have a lot in store for you; our fans and players. We hope you join us on this journey for years to come.

Never stop sending us constructive criticisms! We read as much as possible and always take it to heart. After all, we are making this game for you.

Take care and stay safe!

PS. While we don’t agree that Hal is as bad as everyone says, we’re still looking into improving him in a future update. Stay tuned!

 

/ William – Designer on AB2 (672 FP, Legendary League Division 1)