The AB2 Bad Luck (and Good Luck) topic

[RedYoshi45]

@david-martin
What would happen if an umbrella pig was to hit a trampoline? Same that happens if a balloon pig with an inflated balloon hits a trampoline (they do appear in Pigsyland). The balloon pig is flung around WITH the balloon. I giggle when I see that and I always hope they do that. Because once a trampoline gets them, they’re usually done for. :P

@captsternn
Congrats! That’s a massive win indeed – and a really rare one for me, I usually end up with 5-7 stars right now. My last 10-star win was a few days ago.

Here’s my closest win ever, by the way…

…and my farthest win ever!

Both were about a month ago. Probably never to be topped by myself.

[CaptSternn]

I have an image in the thread that stays at the top of the page where my opponent scored exactly zero points, David. I still don’t know how he managed to do that.

I have started accepting matches with a couple of level 7 birds here and there, three is just too many. My birds have generally moved up symmetrically in the past but now they are starting to get more lopsided because of the number of feathers it takes and winning or losing the daily challenges and what the chest gives.

[David Martin]

The most hilarious thing I’ve seen involving a balloon pig was when one flew too close to a portal, his balloon went through but he didn’t, the balloon reappeared from the other portal right below him, flew up and killed him. It’s so immensely satisfying when one of those little runts gets hoist by his own petard.

[RedYoshi45]

@captsternn
I remember seeing that picture. O.o

I face nothing but all 5’s right now, with me only having 3 birds at level 5. So I try anyway – and lose by maybe 100,000 points or I win really closely.

@david-martin
Hah, yup! Been seeing that a few times myself. Another hilarious Balloon Pig moment!

[CaptSternn]

Ermahgerd Yoshi. There is something satisfying about winning one so close, then so frustrating when losing one so close.

I just had to go and open my mouth about those immortal micro-pigs and this just happened …

Thankfully matilda was there to save the day. I actually just barely missed, but she rolled back and squashed that little oinker and I went on to win the round and level up to 65 stars. Makes me think of the movie 300 about immortals. So even when bad luck happens sometimes it is shared with good luck.

[Anonymous]

Got 2 more Micro Pig screenies for the batch:

I zoomed in very closely on this one just so you guys can see how this pig ignores all possible logic. :P

[David Martin]

I’m convinced that the actual pig object, in terms of how it interacts with other objects in the game, is not actually defined as having a round shape. The “skin” is round to give that appearance to the player, but it’s clear from the way these things refuse to roll sometimes that they’re some sort of a polygon closely resembling a circle. (Except for the micropigs. They’re probably just square.)

[CaptSternn]

I apologize for this, David, but I must do it anyway.

[David Martin]

Silly Quentin. That’s a rectangle.

[Anonymous]

This makes sense since it’s Umbrella Pig:

But then I destroy the umbrella and… I don’t know anymore. :P

Had to restart because of that guy. Next time:

I just can’t win. xD

[CaptSternn]

LOL David. By the way, I mentioned leveling up to 65 stars, but I didn’t say that I got two ducks for doing so. Not a chili and I still have not a single blizzard.

I love this place for the humor and shared frustration. This thread, your idea and Yoshi’s creation, is the best. I post about politics on other sites, but this is an escape. No politics other than the immortals. And I won’t say what I think the politics of the immortals are. :)

[David Martin]

So now’s probably a bad time to speculate about the immortal pigs’ position on universal health care.

[RedYoshi45]

@partshade
Keep going! One day you’ll pay them all back for what they do to you. :D

@david-martin @captsternn
Politics? Universal health care?
What the immortal piglets do is PURE anarchy. No laws, no rules, no influence, and they make their own health care. :P

[CaptSternn]

Why would they need health care if they are immortal?

Ok, I am laughing to hard on that one, David. Got four minutes to try again in the arena. Please no immortals. And please don’t make me laugh like that or I will lose my focus.

Edit: Yoshi, please stop, I need to win and now I can’t stop laughing.

Edit 2: Got it, but y’all are too much. This thread is the best. And I got the “health care” for those pigs. Fling birds at them and kill them off. Would that be a “death panel”?

Ok, I am out on that one. Check back tomorrow. Y’all have a good evening and night.

[DJLarryt]

Here’s my micropig BS for the day- he managed to get blown off his tower, buried by a pile of junk, and on an angle so the catapult cannot reach him.. he can’t even be shown in the periscope!!!

View post on imgur.com

How about Matilda landing on and rolling off an already inflated pig without any damage:

View post on imgur.com

And here’s something good! That damn parachute pig wedged himself into the crook right where I could nail him!!!

View post on imgur.com

[David Martin]

@captsternn – You got where I was going with that. Good job. I’ll stop there before we drag this discussion down into politics as well – the zingers come all too easily when you put pigs and politicians together, and that whole subject is a powderkeg that, unlike when I need it to in the game, will explode with even the slightest amount of provocation.

[Rovio_Bankler]

Thanks a lot for this thread. It’s good and very visual feedback on some of the frustrating situations (and in some cases, bugs) that sometimes appear in the game. I really appreciate the positive attitude, despite the frustration.

@david-martin

I’m convinced that the actual pig object, in terms of how it interacts with other objects in the game, is not actually defined as having a round shape. The “skin” is round to give that appearance to the player, but it’s clear from the way these things refuse to roll sometimes that they’re some sort of a polygon closely resembling a circle. (Except for the micropigs. They’re probably just square.)

I can shed some light on this one. The pig colliders are perfectly circular (except the boss ones obviously). What makes them able to not roll over is that they actually do try to balance. As long as they are somewhat upright already (up to 10 degrees, before giving up), they actively apply torque upon themselves to stay upright. In most cases this is good. Having pigs rolling around everywhere would look silly (in early development this was the case). In one of the screenshots the auto balancing makes the pig balance on a ledge that just barely touches. The pig’s friction combined with the auto balance torque makes it stay upright. I think it’s an edge case (no pun intended..) but I admit it doesn’t look good! Sorry for that one. :)

[RedYoshi45]

Hi @bankler, thanks for the feedback!
However it’s weird how it’s only the smallest pigs that behave like this – all the bigger ones do roll around like you’d expect it!
Also take real life. If you put a ball on a 1 degree slope, it would still roll down. Why? Because it’s not 100% upright and gravitation makes all bodies strive towards getting down to the ground.
Pigs have no arms and no legs in AB2 so how would they keep themselves up?
One thing I could imagine is pigs try to push their (probably wobbly) bodies towards the platform they’re standing on. But that wouldn’t make them circle anymore.

[CaptSternn]

Yes, Mr. Bankler, thanks for participating in this forum and listening to us and giving us feedback and some explanations, There are a lot of complaints and people announcing they are quitting, but even with the frustration I still like the game. I also like the arena now more than the previous arena, that probably has a lot to do with knowing how to avoid the hacks and get decent opponents. Please don’t change that feature.

[David Martin]

@bankler, I appreciate the explanation. I agree that pigs rolling around everywhere would make the levels unchallenging, but I think you may have overcompensated. The sheer frequency with which we all complain about this indicates that you might need to scale back the friction just a tad. If a pig is visually hanging over the edge of a structure, and especially if it already rolled to the edge of that structure and just suddenly stopped, then the visually intuitive thing needs to happen – that pig needs to fall. Players plan their strategies based on the ability to predict that if I make a pig fall a certain distance, it will die. I can’t really plan for the likelihood that it will fall and yet not die. That’s just bad luck, and while there is an intentional element of luck to how the levels generate, which birds and spells appear, etc., I don’t think you want your game to be that dependent on blind luck. There are just far too many baffling scenarios in which the pigs don’t die and the reasons why are not apparent. Random flukes will still happen even with the most careful attention taken to detail – but there’s no way they should occur this frequently.

[Rovio_Bankler]

@smwforever45
That’s a really good point. Most likely it’s because the small pigs’ mass is so much lower than the larger ones, yet the torque they generate to stay upright is the same, making the small ones much less likely to roll. I will take a look at this and see if we can tweak it a little for a future update. Thanks a lot for the feedback.

[Rovio_Bankler]

Our designer got some inspiration and started looking on this one right away. As visible in the image, the small pig is indeed hard to rock. We’ll take care of this asap, tweaking the torque so that they are roughly equally hard to get rolling.

[angrynerds2]

Yep. It’s Balloon Pig, Magician Pig, Rocket Pig, Construction Pig and Angry Pig all in one wave. Just to be clear, it was hard

They forgot the umbrella pig. The picture is from the amusement park “Coward Country”

[RedYoshi45]

That’s lovely @bankler, thanks for caring and I can’t wait for the tweak (I’m sure others can’t either) :D

[RedYoshi45]

Ahhhhh… Feels like a nice cold shower after a long hot summer day. After such a long streak of constantly losing or only barely winning I got a really good run again.