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

[Mark Miwurdz]

I can't imagine that this way is faster than the super jackpot strategy. And it's very boring...

As you know well, high scoring is being all about attrition. It's well boring. There are a few of us who have skill to dominate tables. You just happen to be the one who puts more time in.

 

[krazysteve1958]

Agreed. There's skill and then there's skill along with stamina, initiative, and the desire to grind through hours of boredom. For me anyway, when playing pinball loses its entertainment value it no longer becomes fun to play. I can never bring myself to launch into those multi-ball strategies of losing a ball on purpose so as to make the play field more manageable for higher scoring. You know, trap, pass, shoot, and repeat until eyes glaze over. I don't ever remember doing that on a real machine simply because it was neither practical or was impossible to replicate the convoluted TPA strategy in real life. Either that or playing a single game over the course of multiple days (weeks?). You ever watch those PAPA finals? I've seen more entertaining games of chess, too bad they can't seem to come up with a competition that's a little more compelling. Just sayin'

 

[invitro]

Either that or playing a single game over the course of multiple days (weeks?).

There are a few tables that require that much time for a top ten score, but there are many where you can get in the top ten in a few hours. I just got #5 on Party Zone in around two hours. (And recorded it, which I may try to upload to youtube if I get enough tuits.)

 

[relaxation]

There's one I'm working on that you play for a couple hours so you can take advantage of the machines bad math during bonus calculation.. it's in the strategy thread for TAF, but you also cant score too much or the game wont recognize the rollover

 

[relaxation]

Jeez, 7th on TAF but I'm happy at least one of 3 or 4 10bn rollovers stuck, I felt like a fish out of water trying to juggle bonus values in my mind thinking what 'isn't too big for the rollover'.

it not showing you the billionth place value unless you're in some kind of multiball doesn't help either.

 

[invitro]

So, it's time for another list, or was yesterday or last Friday. My computer has a problem: Perl is seg-faulting on me:

[~/pinball]$ ./rank-tpa-players -h
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

This is probably because I installed a cygwin package a week ago that prompted cygwin's setup program to reinstall everything I have. I have faith that I can fix my problem (which happens in the statement "my $h = $sth->fetchrow_hashref;" and so is Mysql or DBI related, which isn't a surprise), but it will take some effort and probably time.

If I can't fix it quickly, I think I will probably just wait until next month to run a list. I think it may be time to start doing these bimonthly anyway. I'll admit that my interest in competitive TPA has moved somewhat from these rankings to the tournaments.

 

[relaxation]

I keep a personal scorecard, that's based on the master data provided by Farsight, I don't know if there would there be any interest in that or continuing your work.. I could probably cook something up, list-wise, but it wouldn't be nearly as informative and I wouldn't plan on researching user backgrounds.

I don't participate in the tournaments yet but I see the allure, not everyone wants to grind those scores, just get a good run going for a little while.

 

[Tann]

Hey InVitro, when you divide the number of tables/scores per 2, do you round to the superior or inferior value? (ex: 65 tables played => 32 or 33 scores taken in account?)

Thanks!

 

[invitro]

Hey InVitro, when you divide the number of tables/scores per 2, do you round to the superior or inferior value? (ex: 65 tables played => 32 or 33 scores taken in account?)

The higher, aka 65 -> 33.

my $NUM_TABLES_TO_SCORE = int(($NUM_TABLES + 1) / 2);

 

[invitro]

Jumping ahead just a bit, should we count both El Dorado: City of Gold and the new El Dorado EM?

 

[Slam23]

So, it's time for another list, or was yesterday or last Friday. My computer has a problem: Perl is seg-faulting on me:

[~/pinball]$ ./rank-tpa-players -h
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

This is probably because I installed a cygwin package a week ago that prompted cygwin's setup program to reinstall everything I have. I have faith that I can fix my problem (which happens in the statement "my $h = $sth->fetchrow_hashref;" and so is Mysql or DBI related, which isn't a surprise), but it will take some effort and probably time.

If I can't fix it quickly, I think I will probably just wait until next month to run a list. I think it may be time to start doing these bimonthly anyway. I'll admit that my interest in competitive TPA has moved somewhat from these rankings to the tournaments.

This goes way over my non-IT head, but the part I do understand is that bi-monthly idea. I very much like my monthly scoreboard fix, so if you are taking votes, and I hope you do, please write me up for a yes-monthly I'm not into tournaments because I like to decide if and when I want to play (in part because of real life pressures), and this thread is still the go-to place for trustworthy cross-platform ranking information. Pretty please?

 

[Slam23]

Jumping ahead just a bit, should we count both El Dorado: City of Gold and the new El Dorado EM?

I think so. They may well play differently. At least physics will differ because I don't think the EM is updated to 3.0?

 

[Gorgar]

I think so. They may well play differently. At least physics will differ because I don't think the EM is updated to 3.0?

Also, I believe there is no bonus on the em. Since scoring on EDCOG is unbalanced by the fact that the bonus is worth so much, the EM version will have much smaller scores. And I am sure the physics will be different as well.

 

[relaxation]

Why would the physics be different? Big Shot has physics 3.0 flippers. Playing both tables [ElD EM/Fireball] via random selection in the beta you can (live/drop)catch too.

 

[Gorgar]

Why would the physics be different? Big Shot has physics 3.0 flippers. Playing both tables [ElD EM/Fireball] via random selection in the beta you can (live/drop)catch too.

Why do Pinbot and Jackbot have different physics? They have the exact same play field design.

Farsight individually tunes the physics of each table to play like the machine that they have in the office. Plus they have gotten better at table physics since EDCOG, and I don't really expect them to set the physics as the same.

Also, someone (I think Shutyertrap) said something along the lines (about the beta) of these two new tables are tuned to play more like EMS than their previous efforts.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

It also depends on platform, I think. Not all platforms have the new physics on all tables.

 

[relaxation]

Why do Pinbot and Jackbot have different physics? They have the exact same play field design.

Technically Jack*bot recommended 6 1/2 degrees while Pin*bot was set to 6 degrees, pitch of the playfield.

 

[vikingerik]

Also the flippers are different, or at least should be. Pin*bot's flipper should be just barely strong enough to make the ramp on a perfectly clean shot. Jack*bot uses newer stronger WPC-era flippers that give much more margin for error.

Although it's not clear Farsight paid any attention to that, and seems to have just put the same overly violent flippers on Pinbot as with every older recreation.

 

[Tann]

It also depends on platform, I think. Not all platforms have the new physics on all tables.

Yes.

- So far, only PC version has physics 3.0 on all tables.

- PS3 (my playing device) has physics 3.0 on tables starting from Cyclone (so only 8 tables: Cyclone, J*B, Xenon, SC, RS, HS2, F14, MSF).
I'm not even sure that the physics will be implemented on the 56 remaining tables, as console versions have a very poor support (FS just releases the new tables each 3 or 4 months, and that's all folks).

- So far as I know (reading the forum), PS4 version has physics 3.0 on 7 tables (Xenon, SC, RS, HS2, F14, MSF and... Big Shot) and the same for iOS (but not on Big Shot).

Note: yep, unlike PS4 and iOS, PS3 version has physics 3.0 on Cyclone and Jack*Bot, because these tables have been released at the same time than Xenon on this device.

 

[Gorgar]

I think iOS had an update a few months ago to add physics 3.0 to Monster Bash and some other random table as well. I would guess that what holding up the iOS update is the fact that users would have to redownload every table. On PC and PS4 (so hopefully that happens soon) it happens automatically.