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@jaspertm-l

Thanks for the reply.  Someone actually reads these! Lol

So you’ve been playing since the beginning…  where do you stand in MEBC?  MEBC does not have leagues like the arena.  It shows how you stack up against the big guns – all players who play the aspect.  I can only assume you are one of those we all see on the MEBC leader board.  Congrats! For you this game remains interesting but not for the rest of us.  Would that MEBC did have a league structure…  that might help.

The Arena has leagues…  but there the matching algorithm consistently pits my account against higher flock power accounts even at level 1.  The difference can be anywhere from 30 to 100 higher at level 1!  So you are forced to use cards which you eventually run out of, needing to buy more because you are so close to winning.  Then we get back to the chests and rewards algorithms which are obviously weighted in favor of the house so to speak.

I do get the purpose of the game in the way you put it but I disagree.  It is to make Rovio more and more money because people get tired of the inexorably slow progress when trying to move forward so they spend money.  I have spent some on it myself but the return on that investment was negligible.  When the game becomes a less than pleasurable experience for the player, and Rovio begins to lose daily players, as they are about to do with me and I am sure others in my clan, perhaps they may wake up and actually listen.  But not while they continue to meet earnings expectations by tweaking the internal game play to favor a cash inflow over player enjoyment.

[milepost1]

New players to the game do not have a chance to compete at higher levels.  The game design is flawed unless taking into account Rovio’s business model which is get more $$$.  Take MEBC as an example.  The same players getting 200-300 mil points per day.  It is impossible for the newer player to increase bird power in a visible, timely fashion without spending huge amounts of cash to get to where they can compete.  The visible progress a player can make is so slow as to warrant the loss of interest.  I can only deduce that Rovio has all the players it wants at the higher levels and isn’t really looking to generate new interest.  My grandson who is 4 loves this game, but has no cash to spend.  Serious gamers, new to the game, will find nothing but frustration unless spending huge amounts of cash.  We’re talking thousands of dollars.  Rovio’s comment about this aspect is “we have a number dedicated players who have been playing the game a long time”.  Well I have been playing daily for years also and have acquired some skill but there is no way I will ever catch up.  The design of the game is inherently flawed in this respect.

Another example is the TOF or the daily chests.  I have documented proof that they will give pigs or lowest possible rewards not based upon random choice but rather whatever card you select will be the pig/lowest reward.  They can do this by setting the cards after your choice is made, a very simple programming exercise, as if to say here’s a pig but look what you could have won.  In my book, that’s cheating.  Rovio’s comment to me about this “behavior” of the cards was that I must be incredibly unlucky.  Great support that.

Other games by other company’s (SuperCell being a notable example) give the players a way to catch up to the big boys in game.  Sure you can spend $$$ to speed up this effort but this feature is inherent in the design of the game.  Nothing about AB2 as it is designed today will allow players to progress quickly enough before interest is lost.

If Rovio were smart instead of just being in it for the cash (which is cheating me out of hard earned $$$) they would recognize this and change the game so that players remain interested.

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RealGrafter! Is there any way we could get a copy of your math behind the graph.  Or a copy of the spreadsheet?  I’ve been working on something similar but have been unable to figure out how to do the normalization and weighting.

Thanks

[milepost1]

That chart is awesome and something we are looking to do for our clan.  How do you calculate what is displayed in the chart?  Can you send me an example?