iOS - Request Nudging levels for iOS/mobile

Hi fellow iOS users,
I decided to try to do something useful with my 400th post on this forum. This may have been done already, but in light of a recent discussion I had in another thread, I would like to discuss the possibility of nudge levels on iOS and mobile in general. The situation now is that iOS has just one level of nudging and that is "hard". This produces 3 issues:
1. tilting is a very serious risk on tilt-sensitive tables (T2 for example)
2. nudging on less tilt-sensitive tables doesn't give a lot of subtle control because you can only nudge "hard"
3. comparing scores on general leaderboards suffers somewhat because the PC and console crowd has more nudge control over their tables. This may be only one issue in physics being somewhat different between platforms, but it seems like the most important difference to me in terms of difficulty level of a table.

On the one hand I don't like my tables too easy, this spoils the challenge and makes for exhausting marathon games. Also, nudging is not easy IRL too. On the other hand, you can nudge on different levels IRL and I don't like to be at an disadvantage when competing with the PC and console crowd. It may be hard therefore to find the best middle ground, if adjusting nudging is at all possible for our platform.

I can think of different solutions but don't have the technical know-how to judge what is and is not possible. My preferred option would be that "time pressed" would be coded for weaker (short press) and stronger (long press) nudges. One forum member ( [MENTION=1304]haj[/MENTION] ) proposed a different version of this in which "area pressed" would be the variable measured. A hard nudge corresponding with a "harder" press resulting in more contact area between finger and screen. Another option would be that different parts of the screen could be used for lighter and stronger nudges. This would take away the need of registering the time that the screen is touched. Just as I am not overly fond of controllers with 10 buttons for 10 different actions on console/PC, this would not be my preference though.

All in all, I think I would like an adjustment to nudging, but within limits, a two-stage (soft/hard) nudge based on time pressed on screen would maybe be the ideal solution. I really would like to hear if this could be feasible on iOS and/or mobile in general.

+10!!

If not possible, at the worst, I hope current nudge scheme be changed so that it has different level of nudge (in addition to current /horizontal/vertical/diagonal OR, instead of them if adding would be too cluttering. Personally I feel strength is more important than direction with current nudge).

This applies as much to Android as it does to iOS. Maybe want to make [MENTION=4573]Scumble373[/MENTION] aware of this thread because he's pretty good at (at least) paying attention to new ideas.

Slam23 said:

On the one hand I don't like my tables too easy, this spoils the challenge and makes for exhausting marathon games. Also, nudging is not easy IRL too. On the other hand, you can nudge on different levels IRL and I don't like to be at an disadvantage when competing with the PC and console crowd. It may be hard therefore to find the best middle ground, if adjusting nudging is at all possible for our platform.

Click to expand...

Yes, on PC you can do smaller nudges all day long (which really aren't "small" since the ball still moves a lot more than it should), and this really takes away the thrill of avoiding tilts and does make the marathons last even longer, so be careful what you wish for. I really wish they would do something about the tilt sensitivity or better yet decrease the nudge strength overall, but I've brought this up a lot in the past and they don't seem to want to do anything about it, which sucks because the game would be much better if they did, IMO. As it is now, I barely play it.

Jeff Strong said:

Yes, on PC you can do smaller nudges all day long (which really aren't "small" since the ball still moves a lot more than it should), and this really takes away the thrill of avoiding tilts and does make the marathons last even longer, so be careful what you wish for. I really wish they would do something about the tilt sensitivity or better yet decrease the nudge strength overall, but I've brought this up a lot in the past and they don't seem to want to do anything about it, which sucks because the game would be much better if they did, IMO. As it is now, I barely play it.

Click to expand...

I agree here. My issue is that tables like TAF you can hit the nudge 3 or 4 times consecutively and not tilt, but in Big Shot, among others, once and that is it. This is a problem as I sometimes/often accidently hit the nudge box again, which ends the ball. Having a less intense nudge that may not move the ball as much would be great, and might give me an extra nudge leeway so I don't tilt.

pinballchris said:

I agree here. My issue is that tables like TAF you can hit the nudge 3 or 4 times consecutively and not tilt, but in Big Shot, among others, once and that is it. This is a problem as I sometimes/often accidently hit the nudge box again, which ends the ball. Having a less intense nudge that may not move the ball as much would be great, and might give me an extra nudge leeway so I don't tilt.

Click to expand...

I hear ya man. Check out this nudge video I made on PC awhile back, it's pretty ridiculous:

http://www.mediafire.com/watch/t62a6y181611nmg/nudge.mp4

pinballchris said:

I agree here. My issue is that tables like TAF you can hit the nudge 3 or 4 times consecutively and not tilt, but in Big Shot, among others, once and that is it. This is a problem as I sometimes/often accidently hit the nudge box again, which ends the ball. Having a less intense nudge that may not move the ball as much would be great, and might give me an extra nudge leeway so I don't tilt.

Click to expand...

Different sensitivity issue is my problem as well. I have problem with Haunted Hause, El Dorado and some.. Those are the tables need nudge really..

I think allot of people are probably not going to agree with me, but I love the Pro Pinball nudging. I find that I can react allot quicker but just swiping my thumb on the current place I already am to flip the flippers to activate a nudge than to move my whole hand to a new place to nudge halfway up the screen.

But, if FS could possibly take ideas from members, i think this will be a great one:

They should give us a calibration option where you are allowed to place "circles" on the screen where the nudging area should be and also where the flipper areas should be. And also whether nudging should be activated by swipe,press or screen shake. The screen shake nudging the iPad currently has seems very unresponsive to me...maybe I'm wrong

I'm all for anything that improves nudging. I'd also love to see them implement a tablet nudging scheme with a nudging area at the bottom center of the screen so we can just use our thumbs to nudge while playing.

When I watch the farsight twitch when they are releasing a new table - badger seems to be micro- nudging incessantly. I thought that might be a good technique coming from a developer - but when I tried it on iOS it tilted almost immediately... I like the quick tap/ longer press solution.

The PS3 seems to have analog nudging (left stick) but when you combine two nudges (move stick up diagonally 45 degrees) it is usually an instant tilt.

sorry to **** on a timed tap but how on earth do you even expect that to work unless you know the ball path by heart?

Yeah I'd go crazy over "longer time press" for harder nudge. Sorry, but it just sounds stupid, I don't want nudge to be lagging, I want the nudge to be instant.

Well we won't know unless we try! Sensitivity slider to measure the tap in ms (physical computing is all about the milliseconds yo!) super quick tap = light nudge / regular tap = normal nudge / press and hold = hard nudge.

I believe it could work

DA5ID said:

When I watch the farsight twitch when they are releasing a new table - badger seems to be micro- nudging incessantly. I thought that might be a good technique coming from a developer - but when I tried it on iOS it tilted almost immediately... I like the quick tap/ longer press solution.

The PS3 seems to have analog nudging (left stick) but when you combine two nudges (move stick up diagonally 45 degrees) it is usually an instant tilt.

Click to expand...

Yeah, with practice you can micro-nudge forever with a controller. The problem is that the amount that the ball moves with those micro-nudges would be equivalent to a pretty hard slam in real life, so it's pretty cheesy to be honest. That's why I sincerely wish they'd just tone down the nudge strength across the board. It's really my main gripe with the game overall and it would really help in regards to bringing the simulation back down to earth a bit.

driveway cheese!