Arena Scoring Shenanigans

Question

For those of you who have not updated to V11.1.1 yet (as I haven't to avoid the forced level 1 plants bug and the removal of the ability to dig up plants pre-match in Arena) you may have noticed that you're not able to score as highly as some of the people you see on-line. There's a reason for this, and you won't like it.

The tourney definition files for V11.0.1 are NOT the same as the tourney definition files for V11.1.1 (at least for all the tournaments in Ice-shroom season). The effect of this is that you are going to score significantly lower using V11.0.1 using the same strategy as someone using V11.1.1.

For example, my best score in Arena (in ~30 attempts) prior to discovering this was 4.4M, with most of my scores not even hitting the 4M threshold.

I copied the V11.1.1 tourney definition file into my V11.0.1 installation and my very first attempt got me a 6M score.

I hope this is just an oversight by Popcap and not a sneaky way of encouraging people to upgrade.

eieio_31310 · Accepted Answer

Thank you for bringing this scoring bug up as I too have noticed this low scoring behavior as I play on multiple devices and purposely keep some (older iPhones) with earlier 11.0.1 updates.

@Rackman70 wrote:
...
... I hope this is just an oversight by Popcap and not a sneaky way of encouraging people to upgrade.

Personal guess this bug is a result of an oversight but if it serves as an encouragement for players to update, then it will be seen as a bonus. 👿

FYI, with the same tournament, after a long winning streak (100+ games) on my old iphone running 11.0.1 release, last night I encountered a forced lost pairing with a recording that is NOT from the current game. I took screen shots half way into the game and realising I have no chance of wining.

I share my images below for our members entertainment....