(An attempt at) The top 40 TPA players from leaderboard scores

[EldarOfSuburbia]

That game took me a week playing for hours everyday after work ...

This is exactly why my #20-#30 scores will remain there. Maybe in 15 years' time when both my kids have packed off to college?!?!

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

[MENTION=5136]Tarek Oberdieck[/MENTION] , nice to see you post, I think it livens up the forums and the competition if you get to know the people a bit behind the names. I recently talked to Adrian Barritt of the Pro Pinball Series, and he remembered your exploits on Timeshock and as a beta tester, I promised him to say hi to you if I got the chance. So hi from Adrian!

Thanks for Greetings from Ade.
I´m sure we will get in touch again when the Timeshock Ultra Edition PC Version is in final state...

Hey Tarek, thanks for posting! I KNOW you could get that TZ number one spot back anytime you decided to


That game took me a week playing for hours everyday after work ...

I have managed the Job in two long Days until late at Night. Not to speak from a Headache at the third Day.
Congrats to you. I have not planned a new attempt in the near Future. Maybe Christmas.

This is exactly why my #20-#30 scores will remain there. Maybe in 15 years' time when both my kids have packed off to college?!?!

Good Statement. Suitable for every Occasion.

 

[Gus]

Hi Tarek! Nice to see you post here. You have some amazing scores!! 58M on Cyclone during the first day(?) - that is some sharp shooting

I was fortunate to catch the streams when Vikingerik played the challenges. Very well played, and also really helpful and informative about the tables and the scoring strategies.

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

Hi Tarek! Nice to see you post here. You have some amazing scores!! 58M on Cyclone during the first day(?) - that is some sharp shooting

I was fortunate to catch the streams when Vikingerik played the challenges. Very well played, and also really helpful and informative about the tables and the scoring strategies.

It was the second Day.
Yes, vikingerik always post good scoring strategies. At the moment I have no time for extensive strategy guides but feel free to ask me questions.

 

[vikingerik]

Hi Tarek! Glad to see you here. And yes we also will meet again when Timeshock Ultra is finished for PC as well.

 

[Gus]

It was the second Day.
Yes, vikingerik always post good scoring strategies. At the moment I have no time for extensive strategy guides but feel free to ask me questions.

What's the secret on Cyclone? The ramps are pretty tight and every missed shot is a drain risk to me. The Ferris wheel and Spook house feel like the least risky to shoot for, but those are only minor points (and the initial extra ball...). Lighting the Cyclone ramp and the extra ball is really risky, although very rewarding. Lighting Comet is easier, but that requires 6 shots in a row to collect the million, which is doable but again risky. I do like the way that table is tuned! Any advice is appreciated!

 

[fromduc]

My respects Tarek

Now we got almost all the top 20 pposting on this thread, only Sir M, Eoner and JTG are missing... didnt see Anton neither for a while.

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Thankfully, I'm still in the Top 20

Would really love to get in the Top 10.

 

[JPelter]

My respects Tarek

Now we got almost all the top 20 pposting on this thread, only Sir M, Eoner and JTG are missing... didnt see Anton neither for a while.

More than that missing. I don't think anyone knows who vpforums is, and is probably a cheater anyway judging by his bk2k and sttng scores. Also touge_killer is an old banned user so likely won't be posting here.

e: I'm definitely going to get back in the game now that DX11 is (almost) out. I doubt I'll ever catch the top spots, but I'll at least try to scrabble to retain my current spot. Having some competition makes playing so much more fun.

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

It was the second Day.
Yes, vikingerik always post good scoring strategies. At the moment I have no time for extensive strategy guides but feel free to ask me questions.

Also, good to see you on the forum! I don't have the stamina to overtake you, but at the very least, I'm doing fairly decent

 

[fromduc]

More than that missing. I don't think anyone knows who vpforums is, and is probably a cheater anyway judging by his bk2k and sttng scores. Also touge_killer is an old banned user so likely won't be posting here.

e: I'm definitely going to get back in the game now that DX11 is (almost) out. I doubt I'll ever catch the top spots, but I'll at least try to scrabble to retain my current spot. Having some competition makes playing so much more fun.

Was refering to invitro's leaderboards links, u're right... not that bad anyway to have so many leaders here.

And btw, as this threads turns into a asking the stars, any clue on how u did ur score on JY? Among all your monster scores, this one is maybe the most incredible for me, no infinity EBs here, if it wasnt u i wouldnt believe it (i have big doubts about the Dutch leader)... Did u find something special?

 

[JPelter]

Was refering to invitro's leaderboards links, u're right... not that bad anyway to have so many leaders here.

And btw, as this threads turns into a asking the stars, any clue on how u did ur score on JY? Among all your monster scores, this one is maybe the most incredible for me, no infinity EBs here, if it wasnt u i wouldnt believe it (i have big doubts about the Dutch leader)... Did u find something special?

The main thing is it's really hard to drain on that table if you avoid taking certain shots. It's not exactly infinityable or anything, but you can grind it out longer than I have the patience for at least if you pick what you go for carefully. The #1 score is a little bit fishy, but not really bad enough that I'd immediately call it a cheaty score or anything. With enough work you could get there. The reason it is suspicious is that the dude seems to be pretty absent from any other table leaderboards. But hey maybe he just really really loves junkyard.

I may have to take it as a challenge and see if I can top the score at some point. I'm a bit iffy in breaking the 10 billion barrier though since you never know where the overflow stops getting counted till you try it out. Would require a several day game regardless, and I've yet to pause for longer periods while playing anything. I guess you kind of have to to get top scores on some of the tables.

Oh yeah I noticed something else. [MENTION=446]invitro[/MENTION] If I understood right the filter scores box on the site filters out obviously hacked scores as determined by farsight, right? A lot of those scores are included in your toplist calculations. I don't know if there's any easy way for you to determine if a score is filtered from the datadump you get or not, but I thought I'd let you know.

 

[fromduc]

Ok ok... well i'll try it a quiet w-e, so not that soon i think ^^ Last question off-topic: an idea about the time it took to you?

 

[invitro]

The reason it is suspicious is that the dude seems to be pretty absent from any other table leaderboards. But hey maybe he just really really loves junkyard.

His next highest score is #150 on WWater, then nine other top-1000 scores.

Oh yeah I noticed something else. @invitro If I understood right the filter scores box on the site filters out obviously hacked scores as determined by farsight, right? A lot of those scores are included in your toplist calculations. I don't know if there's any easy way for you to determine if a score is filtered from the datadump you get or not, but I thought I'd let you know.

I haven't captured this data yet, but it'll be the next thing I do. I'm eager to see the entire list of (top-1000, anyway) scores they've filtered out.

 

[JPelter]

Ok ok... well i'll try it a quiet w-e, so not that soon i think ^^ Last question off-topic: an idea about the time it took to you?

I honestly can't really remember that well, it's been a while. If I had to guess probably around 7 hours.

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

Hi Tarek! Glad to see you here. And yes we also will meet again when Timeshock Ultra is finished for PC as well.

Hi Erik, yes, good conditions - EBs are limited.

What's the secret on Cyclone? The ramps are pretty tight and every missed shot is a drain risk to me. The Ferris wheel and Spook house feel like the least risky to shoot for, but those are only minor points (and the initial extra ball...). Lighting the Cyclone ramp and the extra ball is really risky, although very rewarding. Lighting Comet is easier, but that requires 6 shots in a row to collect the million, which is doable but again risky. I do like the way that table is tuned! Any advice is appreciated!

The main "secret" on Cyclone is the repeatable EB for scoring after the 10M rollover (12M, 22M...).
If you´re able to reach for example 10 Comet Millions per ball you can play the game
for ever, same like HS (your #1) and other S11 tables.

It´s not easy, but possible. In my 58M game I had 4 balls with scores 10M and above.
I also changed my initial strategy and tried to lit both outlanes for EB before starting regulary
playing, when not successful restart a new game.

I would say the comboshot Cyclone-Ferris Wheel can be managed safe most of the time.
The Comet is also safe, needs some training for sure.

Here the complete strategie in short words:

- Get the initial 1,5M jackpot with playing the combo Ferris Wheel-Cyclone
- Complete the Duck targets as long as needed to lit EB on both outlanes.
- Don´t forget that every bank of Ducks will relite the Cyclone - get the jackpot every time at 0,5M with the first step.
- When the first ball is still in play after these preconditions the game is worth to try for a good score.
- I go now for the first Comet Million and then only play the Ferris Wheel-Cyclone combo, nothing else.
- Missing the Ferris Wheel shot spots in many situations the Cat targets and relights the Comet with low risk.
- The Comet is now the main goal, try to get every Million when the Comet is lit.
- Double Score and Bonus X will result in good scores, but I never aim for these risky shots, both happens from time to time in normal gameplay.
- The Spook House award an EB only once, (I´m not sure about this) after that it´s uninteresting.
- When you collect one of the outlane EBs try to relite both outlanes with the next ball.

 

[Flipperdeflip]

I'd like to have access to the csv files too, where can i get those?

 

[Gus]

Thanks Tarek I have to say I have problems completing the Duck bank enough to light even one extra ball more than once per game. Doing it six times in one ball is really hard! I usually start off with going for the Spook house a few times as that's a guaranteed extra ball, but since it's only possible to stack 2 ebs it is not always worth it. The strategy looks solid otherwise. I'm getting better at shooting the Comet (I love that shot!), so hopefully I can shoot 30M+ soon

 

[invitro]

I just sent the following email to support@pinballarcade.com:

Dear Farsight,

I am user 'invitro'. Today I noticed that a few scores have recently
appeared on the leaderboards that I did not actually make. These
scores are:

The Addams Family, 8,105,335,040, #12
Black Hole, 34,567,890, #16
Big Shot, 617,840, #32
Black Knight, 34,567,890, #39

Please note the extremely improbable pattern of "34567890", which
occurs twice.

You added these scores in the last five days; sometime between
2015-04-17 and 2014-04-21.

I post the Top 100 TPA Players list at www.digitalpinballfans.com,
and I have been particularly active recently in identifying hacked
scores. Perhaps someone is trying to get me in trouble.

Also in April, someone posted several scores under the username
'lnvitro' to these same four tables.

I am requesting that you find out how someone could post scores
under someone else's username. And, how someone could post false
scores at all.

If you need more information, please let me know. Also please let
me know if there's anything I can do to help.

Regards, invitro

 

[fromduc]

Yep, this seems directly against you... Maybe an old banned user of this forum?