Version 1.01 changes and bug fixes

[brakel]

Ok, last week I sent an email to FarSight asking them to clarify a few things including the patch that was reported as coming for the PS4 but we never got. I didn't get a response but this week we get a patch. Do you suppose that Sony forgot about it and FarSight didn't realize that the patch never posted? Seems implausible.

 

[The Great Cornholio]

Leaderboards cannot be accessed from the PS4 now. Pure incompetence!

Totally agree! To be honest I fear every patch because they have proved their ability to work in new bugs when trying to fix old bugs more than once in the past.

 

[PinballLizard (Mark Wyda)]

Leaderboards cannot be accessed from the PS4 now. Pure incompetence!

Yep. Made a thread about it.

I really am at my wits end. They shipped the most shoddy, unpolished game they could. Being that this was the big next gen release, it should have been polished amazing. Instead it's got wierd, silly glitches (creature from the black lagoon ball... Now seriously how was that missed? Or the powerball in Twilight Zone?), ancient glitches (funhouse Display bug (probably in bride too) ) art issues galore (blown out lights, and some of the back boxes are laughably low res, look for a thread on that soon. Tables that haven't been tweaked or updated since 2012 (theatre of magic and monster bash DESERVE An honest physics tweak.. Rubbers too bouncy, slings too sensitive, theatre and Ripleys need animated DMD,s).

Black Knight Playfield issue from ps3 was never addressed. Still has that huge black splatch. And as far as I can tell, the textures are not improved over ps3. If they are I'm not seeing it. Some of the Playfields like Attack from Mars do indeed look like higher res scans, but then you don't have to look far for pixelated, low res textures, just look at the score card, and the back boxes especially, Scared Stiff being one of the worst, but they're all very bad. That's an insult to the artists IMO that made these and back boxes are one the the most special parts of a pinball artistically.

It's been out for 5 months and knowing Farsight they will never take the time to give it the fixes and level of polish it needs. Reviewers should stop giving them such high marks and adress some of these issues. I don't see other games even indie stuff that scores as high as pinball arcade get away with such blatant corner cutting and obvious issues.

And the thing about it all is this. None of this stuff is hard to fix at all! It's VERY simple stuff. Like, they keep giving us all these features nobody cares about, and ignoring the glitches and art issues, and what we really want, like Rom emulation. That was promised close to 2 years ago!

Like I said, NONE of these fixes are hard to implement! It's just a matter or Farsight giving a **** (they don't) and taking the time. But they won't. They'd rather port it to yet another platform instead, than take care of their already paid customers. That or implent features no of cares about, and ignoring things we do care about (the aforementioned!). It's total BS and its high time Farsight gets the message:bug Fixes, art fixes, rom emu, backbox texture fixes, missing lights (like Elvira and AFM strobe) it's not hard, it's easy stuff, yet they waste time on hard to implement stuff that nobody cares about (tournaments etc)! /rant.

 

[PinballLizard (Mark Wyda)]

TLDR; if pinball arcade, as it is right now, were a retail game, it'd be a buggy beta build, with a laundry list of bug and art mistakes that need fixed. Instead it goes ignored, because they already have our cash /rant

 

[DaPinballWizard]

There is always Zen pinball. I will stick with TPA.

 

[PinballLizard (Mark Wyda)]

There is always Zen pinball. I will stick with TPA.

I personally find zen to be too easy, way boring, and uninspired design wise. I'll stick with pinball arcade, even when it's broken, there's really no alternative for me.

 

[rehtroboi40]

Yep. Made a thread about it.

I really am at my wits end. They shipped the most shoddy, unpolished game they could. Being that this was the big next gen release, it should have been polished amazing. Instead it's got wierd, silly glitches (creature from the black lagoon ball... Now seriously how was that missed? Or the powerball in Twilight Zone?), ancient glitches (funhouse Display bug (probably in bride too) ) art issues galore (blown out lights, and some of the back boxes are laughably low res, look for a thread on that soon. Tables that haven't been tweaked or updated since 2012 (theatre of magic and monster bash DESERVE An honest physics tweak.. Rubbers too bouncy, slings too sensitive, theatre and Ripleys need animated DMD,s).

Black Knight Playfield issue from ps3 was never addressed. Still has that huge black splatch. And as far as I can tell, the textures are not improved over ps3. If they are I'm not seeing it. Some of the Playfields like Attack from Mars do indeed look like higher res scans, but then you don't have to look far for pixelated, low res textures, just look at the score card, and the back boxes especially, Scared Stiff being one of the worst, but they're all very bad. That's an insult to the artists IMO that made these and back boxes are one the the most special parts of a pinball artistically.

It's been out for 5 months and knowing Farsight they will never take the time to give it the fixes and level of polish it needs. Reviewers should stop giving them such high marks and adress some of these issues. I don't see other games even indie stuff that scores as high as pinball arcade get away with such blatant corner cutting and obvious issues.

And the thing about it all is this. None of this stuff is hard to fix at all! It's VERY simple stuff. Like, they keep giving us all these features nobody cares about, and ignoring the glitches and art issues, and what we really want, like Rom emulation. That was promised close to 2 years ago!

Like I said, NONE of these fixes are hard to implement! It's just a matter or Farsight giving a **** (they don't) and taking the time. But they won't. They'd rather port it to yet another platform instead, than take care of their already paid customers. That or implent features no of cares about, and ignoring things we do care about (the aforementioned!). It's total BS and its high time Farsight gets the message:bug Fixes, art fixes, rom emu, backbox texture fixes, missing lights (like Elvira and AFM strobe) it's not hard, it's easy stuff, yet they waste time on hard to implement stuff that nobody cares about (tournaments etc)! /rant.

Well summed up. Not to mention that this 135MB update file did....um.....nothing for it.

 

[smbhax]

According to FS's FB guy, the leaderboards were intentionally disabled:

"This was done intentionally, at sony's request, while we modify our leaderboards to conform to their network guidelines, sorry for the confusion. They will be back in a future patch."

 

[Oldskool1969]

There is always Zen pinball. I will stick with TPA.

Me too!

 

[ER777]

If someone can reproduce the bug following those steps, we should report it to FS--I don't think they have any idea of how to find the bug.

I posted a suggestion in the bugs thread that it was linked to high score entry on an emulated table but I guess I can go reiterate that.

According to FS's FB guy, the leaderboards were intentionally disabled:

"This was done intentionally, at sony's request, while we modify our leaderboards to conform to their network guidelines, sorry for the confusion. They will be back in a future patch."

Gee, how about a little heads up for the players?

 

[Dumpstar]

"This was done intentionally, at sony's request, while we modify our leaderboards to conform to their network guidelines, sorry for the confusion. They will be back in a future patch."

Hopefully this makes us able to sort by platform.

 

[PinballLizard (Mark Wyda)]

According to FS's FB guy, the leaderboards were intentionally disabled:

"This was done intentionally, at sony's request, while we modify our leaderboards to conform to their network guidelines, sorry for the confusion. They will be back in a future patch."

The bad: I had today off, wanted to make a run for top 10 MM, couldn't.

The good: I'll be "#1" on AFM, on ps4, when the patch comes.

 

[Patty]

What a huge dissapointment. When I realised, TPA getting updated yesterday, I was full of high hopes (sound fix, higher res textures, new leaderboards, maybe new tables...).
But what have we got? After more than 4 month waiting for the patch....absolutely nothing! A big hoax, in my opinion. Even the leaderboards are out of function. Waiting for a new patch? How long do we have to wait, now? Two weeks, a month, two months, once again 4 months? Not just the technical side of TPA is inferior, also the information policy of FS is a desaster.

What do I expect?
1. A response from FS, that they are aware of our wishes and complaints.
2. A statement, what is getting fixed in the next patch.
3. Giving us the release date of the patch and when we have to expect the new tables.
4. A few days before the patch is getting released, the community´s got to get the exact patch-notes.....
That´s a fine information-policy. But the way FS is handling the issues, reminds me of an secret-service-agency.

This is sad to say, ´cause I love TPA.

Well, I won´t leave TPA, but I´m very dissapoint and angry. Why focussing on such useless features like 3D, porting on every platform, otherwise ignoring the hard needed fixing-issues?

 

[Kemetman72]

Maybe trophies are reserved for S2? My D/L lasted maybe 3 seconds so it wasn't much. Criticize Zen all you want, but you know you couldn't do any better, eh? Pinball is Pinball to me. Yes I prefer the Arcade ones. I miss tthe sound of dropping quarters in Addams Family. That's initially what drew it to me. Hopefully someday.

 

[rehtroboi40]

What a huge dissapointment. When I realised, TPA getting updated yesterday, I was full of high hopes (sound fix, higher res textures, new leaderboards, maybe new tables...).
But what have we got? After more than 4 month waiting for the patch....absolutely nothing! A big hoax, in my opinion. Even the leaderboards are out of function. Waiting for a new patch? How long do we have to wait, now? Two weeks, a month, two months, once again 4 months? Not just the technical side of TPA is inferior, also the information policy of FS is a desaster.

What do I expect?
1. A response from FS, that they are aware of our wishes and complaints.
2. A statement, what is getting fixed in the next patch.
3. Giving us the release date of the patch and when we have to expect the new tables.
4. A few days before the patch is getting released, the community´s got to get the exact patch-notes.....
That´s a fine information-policy. But the way FS is handling the issues, reminds me of an secret-service-agency.

This is sad to say, ´cause I love TPA.

Well, I won´t leave TPA, but I´m very dissapoint and angry. Why focussing on such useless features like 3D, porting on every platform, otherwise ignoring the hard needed fixing-issues?

Having been through the Xbox 360 wringer-I bought a PS4 thinking its' version of TPA would be the best, also after what Sony executives claimed about being friendly to "indie" developers. You are definitely "preaching to the choir" about the long waits and lack of information.

Also, +1 for those remarks about focusing on new features instead of fixing existing ones.

 

[Rafie]

Maybe trophies are reserved for S2? My D/L lasted maybe 3 seconds so it wasn't much. Criticize Zen all you want, but you know you couldn't do any better, eh? Pinball is Pinball to me. Yes I prefer the Arcade ones. I miss tthe sound of dropping quarters in Addams Family. That's initially what drew it to me. Hopefully someday.

Thank you. Zen is great in their own right. Oh and uninspiring is the last thing I would call Zen. They make their own tables, DMD's, music, etc all from scratch. That takes a lot of skill and creativity on one's part. Give them some credit guys/gals.

Anyway, does that parity clause also stop FarSight from releasing patches to other platforms before Xbox? Maybe that's the hold up. Idk. I'm patient though. I just hope that we get all of the fixes and things in the next patch. I never got to compare scores to any of my friends since I got TPA on PS4. I want motivation to do better in my scoring. I know ER777 scores always blows everyone else's out the water. LOL

 

[TimRex]

According to FS's FB guy, the leaderboards were intentionally disabled:

"This was done intentionally, at sony's request, while we modify our leaderboards to conform to their network guidelines, sorry for the confusion. They will be back in a future patch."

Intentionally at Sony's request, and yet it still took 4 months to get through the pipeline? How is it that something that fails to meet sony network guidelines is allowed to remain unpatched for so long?

More interestingly, what guideline does it not meet? (Possibly there is a blanket guideline of being 'moderately functional' ?)

 

[TimRex]

For anyone interested, the update history listed for this patch is below, in all its glory.

"Various fixes."

That's two words more than even I expected.
When sony provided the specification for patch releases, you would think they might have intended the developer to utilise the update history for something a little more detailed, wouldn't you?

 

[brakel]

Intentionally at Sony's request, and yet it still took 4 months to get through the pipeline? How is it that something that fails to meet sony network guidelines is allowed to remain unpatched for so long?

More interestingly, what guideline does it not meet? (Possibly there is a blanket guideline of being 'moderately functional' ?)

It was moderately functional on the PS3 side, wasn't it? I assume it was something that Sony just recently became aware of since they just disabled it on the PS4 and PS3.

 

[Kevlar]

Shaking my head here, it's like FS have returned to their earlier form where it was one F up after another. My ps4 continues to gather dust....