Bug Nudging does not work correctly

[Ben Thebear]

I cannot get nudging to work properly or at all most of the time. This is my #1 complaint with the game! Shake nudging does absolutely nothing on my iOS 5 device. Touch nudging *occasionally* works but very rarely can I get it to work when I need it to save a ball. Since this is an absolutely essential part of pinball I believe it needs to be fixed asap! Or preferably changed to a new system where swiping left or right or up on any part of the screen nudges in the appropriate direction.

 

[Patrick McBride]

Same here, touch nudging is so inconsistent that I don't even bother with it. The area you need to tap must be very specific, plus you need to move your hands off the flippers.

I like your idea about swiping... perfect solution! Screen taps will register as flippers buttons and directional swipes (of, say, half an inch or so) could register as a nudge. Intuitive plus you don't even need to move your fingers from their flipper positions

I hope Farsight is reading!

 

[Gord Lacey]

I'd like a swipe-nudge as well.

 

[Jeff Strong]

+1 for swipe nudging.

 

[Nik Barbour]

Sounds like a good solution!

 

[superballs]

I find that playing in portrait the nudge works ok but you have to really jerk the phone to the side.

Playing in landscape there's no motion nudge whatsoever...boo
I'll be ok i guess

 

[Brian Clark]

I don't like the idea of touch for flippers and swipe for nudge. I think it would make it too easy to do the wrong thing by mistake. I like the idea of transparent buttons for iPad, a more responsive nudge, and the option to adjust the filpper and nudge areas. I don't mind the touch nudge too much, but the problem is that it doesn't seem to respond when it should. I think swipe is ok if it's in the upper area and not done with the same fingers for flippers. Also, there needs to be a way to do a forward nudge. Even with shake nudge, it's not possible. The shake nudge isn't responsive enough for left to right either.

 

[Karlos]

I would like to see different sensitivity options added, as you guys have said its no where near sensitive enough yet when using the shake method

 

[Gord Lacey]

To expand on Brian's post...

The other day I was using an eReading app on the iPad, and it has tap zones that can be configured by the user. If FarSight created zones like this in Pinball Arcade, I think it would work well. Maybe a total of 15 zones (3 across, 5 high, in both orientations) which the user could configure to do different things. This would allow someone that holds the device differently than another person to configure it best for them, and would also give FarSight options for things like the troll bombs, which can't currently be used because there's no spot for it.

I press on the flippers about an inch from the bottom, so I could use the bottom row for nudging (left, right, center nudging), with the next row being the left and right flippers, and maybe the "start" button in the middle for things like the Troll bombs.

 

[Fungi]

This is what I've found. Holding iPad2 portrait wise, shaking the ipad side ways successfully nudges the table, but shaking it up and down does not affect the table, but instead, flips the image upside down. Even if I hold the ipad vertically, shaking flips the image.

Now holding the ipad landscape wise, shaking it up and down successfully nudges the table with no image flipping, but shaking it side to side produces no nudging whatsoever.

There's definitely something wrong with the portrait y-axis/ landscape x-axis.

So, is this what's to be expected? Everytime Farsight releases a "fix", they break something else? I fear for the condition of this app by the time we have forty tables.

 

[Brian Clark]

So, is this what's to be expected? Everytime Farsight releases a "fix", they break something else? I fear for the condition of this app by the time we have forty tables.

I just hope Farsight gets another company, pinball veterans like Steve Ritchie, or more staff to help (or all three). Their games have a history of being buggy.

 

[Shaneus]

Yeah, I actually did a little test today on BoP while holding a ball. In landscape on the 4S, either each side's tilt zone moved or disappeared completely each time I managed one successfully ie. touching in one area once would not necessarily mean it would tilt there again. Very, very odd.

 

[Karlos]

Noted on BOP on the iPad3 version, if holding in portrait mode whilst playing and then turn it 90 degress so its now in landscape mode the game keeps constanly tilting all the time, i dont think far sight have actually programed it so its a shake that activates a tilt it seems that just rotating the device registers a tilt which is all wrong if this is the case

 

[cplr]

I just posted this to the Facebook page, but I thought it would be good to post it here, too to see what people's thoughts are.

This is somewhat lengthy but I hope your team reads it. Regarding nudging on touch devices: users shouldn't have to think about where to place a finger to do the swipe nudging. I should be able to swipe nudge in the same spot that I tap to trigger the flipper. Or anywhere on the screen.

But that's just me, and might not be the best solution.. so, let's go over some different interface designs and their problems:

- Current implementation: When I start a game, I start tapping everywhere on the screen, moving my finger from the bottom to the top to see where the flippers stop being triggered. I try to remember where this line is in case I need to nudge. This act alone shows bad user interface design. I am sure I am not the only one that does this. Users shouldn't have to tap everywhere to "discover" where to perform an action. Having static invisible touch zones makes no sense to our brains. I am seriously tempted to put some tape on my iPad to mark where this magical line is. Not to mention that in the world of Pinball, we players might only have 200 milliseconds to do a swipe in order to save the ball. That 200 milliseconds cannot be wasted trying to place our thumb to just the right position. *shakes fist*

- Allowing swiping anywhere on the screen: this would be the most ideal solution (and on iOS would be quite easy to implement with UIGestureRecognizer), but I guess there are people out there who think this would be bad because for some reason they swipe when they want to trigger the flippers. Now just because I think this is ridiculously stupid and these people should learn how to tap when they mean to tap and swipe when they mean to swipe, we can't just ignore these users. We need something that works for everyone.

This is my conclusion and I deeply hope that you read this and take it seriously:
- Dynamically move the swipe area based on where the user has been tapping to trigger the flippers. Ding ding ding! We are using a touch screen with no haptic feedback, so all we have going for us is muscle memory. A user should really be able to tap wherever they want to trigger the flippers, so why not let them? Monitor and keep track of where they are tapping, and then respond to swipe nudging by some variable amount of pixels/points above (or even below if that's what the user wants) where they have been tapping. So all it takes is for the user to quickly move their thumb up higher, perform the swipe, and get back to the game. They wouldn't need to know where the swipe area is because it's constantly changing based on the position of their thumbs for normal gameplay. And they also wouldn't have to worry about swiping when they meant to tap and not triggering the flipper. Everyone's happy.

 

[bavelb]

In other thread I reported about this consistent problem that we still ahven't had an answer for from FS. I'd like this clarified by someone from farsight:

Nudging by tapping only works on 1 side of the screen at a time, and when you do so, the side swaps. So if I nudge left, I can NOT nudge on that side anymore untill I nudge right, and vice versa. I can see NO reason why nudging shouldnt just work on either side of the screen at the time. This is seriously hampering my enjoyment of the game on the IOS, and considering your history of replying and taking our feedback on other issues, I would like to see the same treatment for this issue.

 

[Heretic]

Swipe nudging doesnt seem to work or i just dont get it.

Shake controls could be perfect if they we could set sensitivity, as im having to flail around like a mad man which pretty much puts me off the ball(least thats my excuse!)

Touch needs to have some kinda fade in overly as hitting blinding seems hit or miss but using blutrol and an icade it works pretty well.

 

[baronkohinar]

Nudging by tapping only works on 1 side of the screen at a time, and when you do so, the side swaps. So if I nudge left, I can NOT nudge on that side anymore untill I nudge right, and vice versa. I can see NO reason why nudging shouldnt just work on either side of the screen at the time. This is seriously hampering my enjoyment of the game on the IOS, and considering your history of replying and taking our feedback on other issues, I would like to see the same treatment for this issue.

This is the exact same problem that I'm experiencing. Hopefully something can be to resolve this, because I'd really rather play the iPad version, but this makes it difficult at times...

 

[baronkohinar]

N/M, this seems to have been fixed in the latest update. That'll teach me to post before trying it out - even if it isn't mentioned in the release notes!

 

[bavelb]

Hey, you;re correct, this completely solved the issue. Works great on the iCade now.

 

[starck]

For me, nudging HASN'T been fixed and is actually worse now. Now it is much too sensitive and accidentally will take the input from my flipper taps as me trying to nudge the table. This leads to tilt-lock and me losing the ball most of the time.

The game is pretty much unplayable for me right now on iOS, iPhone 4, latest software, because it will tilt lock too easily. I'm not even TRYING to nudge the table! Just hit the flipper!