Experiences with free tables so far on Pinball FX early access.

[Zaphod77]

In the order i've played them.

Creature. this is actually well done. You just know you can hit the shots, but you choke often enough to cause trouble. clean ramp shots work, and the bumper feed is very kind except when it just happens to shoot out fast. Very fair, but you still have to work at it. much better than the fx3 version's classic physics. Even when it gives you a curveball off of the bumpers, you can deal with it. Maybe a bit too easy, but feels very fair, and better playing than most real life ones. The creature is kinda distracting, because it's on the field but doesn't interact with the ball.

Safecracker. O M G! I've been able to get tokens some of the time, but dear gods, that front entrance. it's completely impossible to hit with any degree of consistency at all, and i spent a lot of time trying. I suspect this is intentional, but dear gods, it's frustrating. On the plus side, the getaway kicker lands the ball in the roof fairly often, which is nice. Not like TPA at all, which was much more playable.

Circus Voltaire. I'm not sure if the insta catching works in real life, but it works pretty well here. shots are doable. Skill shot is a pain though. The stupid ringmaster/sideshow kickout can drain after some bounces, but that's 100% true to the real table, which does the exact same thing, and it annoys me there too. I didn't get to put enough time into it. the pick a neon feature is nice. Does NOT show the DMD when zoomed in on tha guy on the left during bonus. this should be fixed, with it moving to the right size.

Theater of Magic. I did alot better on fx3 on this table. The instacatch after a ramp shot is not as much of an exploit as it seems, because the combo times out. with combo extender powerup on arcade mode, it could become VERY unbalanced. need to make absolutely SURE that the combo extender powerup does not ever get long enough to catch and combo. Even so, i've gotten combo to 18 million off of the center ramp before choking. AS i understand, there's NO limit to how high this goes, and thus it will dwarf everything else in the game! If you ever get 2x combo from the skillshot, it's even more silly. Trunk Magic (basement award) zooms in on the trunk when you hit it, and STAYS ZOOMED IN when it drops the ball. i was lucky to not lose it! Midnight madness behaves properly. haven't made grand finale yet. You CAN get 100M multiball jackpots, but it's not easy. The center ramp should be an easy shot from a trap, but not so easy to loop. Trunk is dead simple to shoot from a trap on either flipper when the hole is open. captive ball and the loops are harder to hit than expected, even from a trap. On real machines, the left loop all day strategy works better than it does here, while on here center ramp all day is pretty good if you don't choke.

 

[vfpcoder]

Zaphod77,

Thanks for the insights!
Were you playing in Cabinet Mode?

 

[Zaphod77]

just normal free table of the day. pretty sure cabinet mode wouldn't do the silly zooming.

 

[Zaphod77]

Finally got grand finale. choked it as usual, but got a lot of points getting there.

dead bouncing is your friend.

you can dead bounce basement kickouts and always catch it on the left flipper. perfect for shooting the trunk again (Hat Magic?) If you time it just as the mode ends, you get a secret ball lock too. This can be planned on with some effort.

Dead bouncing balls dropped by the trunk gest them to the right flipper for another shot at the trunk (Midnight Madness, anyone?)

Dead bouncing a left inner loop shot gets the ball to the left flipper.

Dead bouncing outer orbit shots works pretty darn well too.

sadly i can't try again and go for the record, because new free tables. neither of them are williams this time.

I have no doubt 10 billion is within reach on theater of magic without powerups. i almost got to grand finale TWICE. With powerups? dear gods.

 

[Zaphod77]

More tables tried.

Whitewater. lower flippers work well. had a lot of trouble with the upper flipper. it just felt really off. does not aim at all like i think it should. I didn't get to play much, though. the default angle was not very good unless it was zooming in.

Getaway. again, the upper flipper does not act anything close to correct. you should be a able to do ultra fast loops with it, and i was unable to get this to work. maybe 1/3rd of all flips with it were reasonably aimed. flipping and putting the ball down the outlane is not something i generally do on the real table, and it happened a good three times here! The zoom in on the supercharger conceals the DMD, so it should cause it to move to a suitable spot.

Medieval Madness. Plays pretty well. Flippers have plenty of strength to make shots. dead bounces and loop passes work very well. Seems masterable. feed from castle moat can be hold trapped and dead bounced, as i recall. feed from bumpers is also very kind and easy to handle.

Attack From Mars. This is amazingly well tuned. USUALLY it's safe to cradle the stroke of luck kickout, but not ALWAYS. it always reaches the left flipper. dead bouncing the stroke of luck is incredibly risky. This alone gives the game quite the evil factor. flippers aim well. you can even backhand the left ramp from a trap (BARELY). but it's easy to mess up and choke. even more so than creature. But dear gods, why no ball saver for first saucer? There's like no harm having it on then, and nearly every real attack from mars gives ballsaver on the first saucer's force field. It only helps noobs anyway. PLEASE change this setting, Zen! Other than this, i'd say it's nearly perfect.

 

[Zaphod77]

Funhouse. This table is very dear to me, and, well, itt's a mixed bag.

1) The lower flippers are way too juiced. TPA actually had the lower flippers correct. That said i've played ONE that did have them this juiced, but that's the exception. The lack of power on the flippers makes the ramp harder to get it around with a bad shot. On the real thing you need a reasonably clean shot.
2) dear gods, that upper flipper. a flip at the middle of it shouldn't hit the superdog targets or even go BELOW them. this upper flipper is stupid. you have to flip as soon as humanely possible just to hit Rudy! The sweet spot on both rudy and the trapdoor should not be that stupidly narrow. TPA was better in general with upper flippers, and much better with this one.
3) the mirror kickout is also stupidly juiced. Dead bounce and trap is safest way to handle it, but even that can betray you, and you may have to panic flip to stop it rolling off the end.
4) you should not be able to both backhand AND insta-catch the left ramp. I did NOT earn my number 1 score. You CANNOT do this insta-catch on any real funhouse i've played. The backhand does not work on any but the most juiced Funhouse games ever made. most do NOT have the flipper power to do that. You should not be able to relight multiball by catch and backhand on the ramp. you are supposed to ramp to hidden hallway to trapdoor to hold trap on lower right (works on most decently tuned real life Funhouse games) to ramp to hidden hallway to... Or whack Rudy (pretty easy shot in real life from the hidden hallway kickout) to relight the mirror, pray you get the ball back, and shoot the mirror before doing ramp to hallway to Rudy again.
5) you will USUALLY get the ball back off of Rudy, but once in a while it will outlane drain, usually on the right. This is fine.
6) you will ALWAYS get the ball back if it doesn't make it all the way up the ramp. this is not realistic, and there should be a risk of SDTM for failed attempts at backhanding that ramp
7) you shouldn't be able to plunge the open trapdoor for a free frenzy after a ball lock.

Space Station. actually pretty good. right outlane is EVIL! EVIL i tell you! But it's honestly the only way to actually make the game hard. Has the proper evil factor a Williams recreations should. You never feel that you have it down, but shots are doable. I got #1 after many tried, and got top score. no one's rolled it yet! Multiball, MUltiball, multiball. shoot standups during multiball when you have balls locked. a locked ball in mulitball is essentially an extra ball, so once you've got the rescue jackpot, park one, then try to go for shuttle and station values with the other. when you drain relight the locks with that easily hit central lock shot. Extra Ball is your friend. Stop N Score is big points too, so if you've got the multiplier high for it, consider going for it a lot if you can get the ball back off that ramp blocking drop target.

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Ironically enough, on TPA, you can backhand the ramp on FunHouse.

 

[Zaphod77]

but can you insta catch it after?

being able to backhand the ramp from a trap barely is okay. being able to catch it after and repeat till the cows come home is NOT. Hello top score by grinding it out in multiball 250k at a time. NO.

Dr. Dude. This actually captures the pure EVIL of the real table. The shots are always makeable, but the sweet spot varies like a real game tends to. like a real game that's freshly waxed. Meaning if you guess wrong you hit the damn post. Since there's no upper flipper, it plays great. But the game should NEVER pan down to the plunger. This hides the skill shot lights from you! And reflex has a very distracting animation. The heart of rock and roll is just as evil as it is in real life, and magnetic personality is perhaps a bit more difficult than it should be? And LOL multiball magnetic personality. any ball outside of the design should NOT get pulled.

 

[Zaphod77]

Hurricane. pure evil. guessing wrong in your game of guess the sweet spot can be very deadly, and it has flipper hop! A properly functioning game should NEVER have flipper hop! That said, i suspect that this was very much intentional, as without it the game would probably be too easy.

Monster Bash. The scoop kickout is MEAN, and there is no simple safe way to handle it. dead bounce and trap on right is safest, but far from a guarantee to work (this was darn near 100% on fx3 zen mode). Hard table because of this. As a maker i approve. as a player, i hate it. It's at least as evil as the stroke of luck on Attack From Mars.

Got to play creature again. got 9 billion, so yeah it's a bit too easy. In real life snackbar from right flipper is a much harder shot. because if it's even a millimeter off it hits that rubber post and drains right down the darn middle. Missing the snackbar for a jackpot or super or relight and having it scream right between your flippers is the stuff of nightmares on the real table. From the left flipper you can safely miss a bit RIGHT, because the metal guides it in, but missing left is fatal. From the right flipper you don't have that safety net.

 

[Zaphod77]

Got to try cirqus Voltaire again. High wire ramp is too easy. Instacatch and shoot from center of flipper. Party multiball. Get one on each flipper. Pound ramp until you get number 1 on leaderboards. It really is that easy. It’s Batman center ramp levels of easy to shoot. Most other shots are easy if you don’t choke but this one is particularly simple. Shoot for strike an arc and use the second ball to beat on the ringmaster. When it drains, shoot another 15 high wires to get back into strike an arc if the ringmaster is up. Funny enough you usually won’t drain off wow. Bricking orbits can rudely surprise you though you can get away with it as well. If I actually paid I would have second place, and I only have myself to blame for choking after 150 or so ramps in party multiball.

 

[Zaphod77]

Theater Of Magic revisited.

The insta-catch has been FIXED, and the center ramp is harder (but still not impossible) to loop. still dead simple from a trap, but that's fine. the plunger cam shows the DMD. Most of what else i said still holds. Still made grand finale. can reliably get the 100M quick jackpot by dead bouncing the first ball kicked out, trapping, it and quickly shooting the trunk. This should probably not work. you are supposed to only be able to get it by flailing the first ball in off the kickout. BUT i don't have a real game to test this on. if someone does, and says this works in real life, i'll bow to their expertise. Drains feel like they are from choking and taking risks, as it should be.

 

[Zaphod77]

Black rose. center shot over and over for the win. you can ALWAYS hold trap it out of that return, and always shoot it back in. really grindable.

 

[Zaphod77]

got back to funhouse, and cracked 100 million. in theory it's infinitable. in practice all it takes is ONE mistake and the table can and will kick you to the curb FAST. Drains off rudy are rare but DO happen enough to mess with you. Drains after trying to backhand the ramp are rare, buu CAN happen. you really need to focus to beat this table. But i shouldn't be able to trap and backhand the ramp 10 times in a row to relight lock. The trap can fail, but you can recover from it if you realize it is about to fail. You CAN live catch the kickout, and CAN trap it on left with a very well timed flip and hold. if i hadn't figured out the latter trick, the table would be beating me down HARD. Also another trick. shoot right orbit and hold flipper for a free trapdoor. works very well in midnight multiball. backhand ramp. trap. shoot orbit, hold both flippers wait for ball to go into trapdoor and return to lower left flipper. backhand the ramp, trap, shoot right orbit...

Lock is dead simple from a trap on left. Mirror is dead simple from a trap on the right. These are shots you will probably never miss once you find them. Ramp is shootable from a trap on either flipper, though not as easy as the other two shots.

Mirror can be shot on the fly from either flipper (and is worth it for the temporary mirror lights), but messing the shot up can have very bad results.

Note that a 200 million score is not unheard of on a real funhouse if you have really learned it well and the trapdoor shot flows okay and you don't drain off the gangway shots.

Space Station is just as evil as it was before. But i still broke 6 million, and really felt i earned it.

 

[Zaphod77]

Dr. Dude.: Still evil, still won't show skillshot display when panned to the plunger so you can't time your shot.