Android 1.8.0: Feedback & Discussion

[Jeff Strong]

1.80 is out. Discuss it here.

If you want to report a specific bug, please use this other thread and follow the guidelines in the first post.

 

[netizen]

Thx Jeff.

I didn't know the exact wording, but knew the excellent Mods would be on the Job


I got my Nexus 10 delivered late today managed to kill the ~50% charge it shipped with on installing some apps, namely TPA, and running some benchmarks.

One thing that really stood out to me, not sure if i'm just being overly hype due to new device and how much it over performs my other one(s), but has anyone noticed how much easier some tables, notably SS and TZ, are in landscape compared to portrait? In Landscape playing SS the Crate is almost a magnet for the ball, whereas in portrait you actually have to aim for it. I don't know if it's a matter of the view being locked, and the table being foreshortened, or like I mentioned I was just hyped and on a roll. :-/

I'll have to try some play on my 7" Galaxy and see if I notice the same sort of behaviour.

 

[jaredmorgs]

Wow, some major updates to the TZ assets!

Pure white Powerball (looks a little bigger than the other balls, but is definitely more distinctive than the beta ball maps) and they have squashed the ball lag on my TF300T that was present in v1.7.2.

We'll done Ryan!

 

[Bonzo]

http://digitalpinballfans.com/showt...rsion-1-2-1-Bugs?p=41958&viewfull=1#post41958

Nafkert may have found the reason for the table exploration problems: If you use locked view while playing, scrolling up/down seems to be impossible when having a closer look at the table via pro menu.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

Several of the other tables re-downloaded: Big Shot, TotAN and Black Hole, at the very least. Any observations about what might have changed apart from Twilight Zone?

Two things I noticed:
1. The HUD for Big Shot is now much smaller, to the point that it doesn't obscure important parts of the table in landscape on my phone. Good job! (It's that much harder for my aging eyes to read, but seeing the left drop targets is much more important.)
2. I could be imagining things, but it appears to me that the two-line alphanumeric displays on Funhouse, EatPM and Taxi have improved somewhat (the table assets didn't re-download, so it'd have to be a code change). The bug in which one of the two lines disappears seems to happen less often than it used to, though it's not gone entirely.

 

[allshookup]

1.80 is out

Link please. I can't get it via Play Store.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

Hmm, it seems as if there's been some major work done on Medieval Madness. I'm not enough on an expert on that table to notice everything that's changed, though.

 

[jaredmorgs]

Hmm, it seems as if there's been some major work done on Medieval Madness. I'm not enough on an expert on that table to notice everything that's changed, though.

The flashers on the back of the Castle now flash each time you destroy the castle.

Also the right ramp exit has been improved to prevent the ball exiting like there was no end on the rail.

I can't remember what else has been fixed, but I know the flipper gap is still a known issue.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

I can't remember what else has been fixed, but I know the flipper gap is still a known issue.

There's definitely been a change to the physics: the ball used to nearly always bounce unrealistically high off a held flipper, with the risk of outlane drains, and it doesn't do that any more.

 

[PiN WiZ]

@FarSight...I love the idea of tournaments, but they should be about who the best player in the world is and not who can accumulate the most extra balls and tilt their way to the top. Some of my suggestions for tournament mode are as follows:

*Disable nudging
*Disable extra balls and replays
*Disable ball saver

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

*Disable tilt

Hmm? You meant tighten up the tilt, I hope?

 

[Matt McIrvin]

Hmm? You meant tighten up the tilt, I hope?

I've noticed that in discussions of pinball, there's always a language ambiguity coming from the fact that some people use the word "tilt" to mean nudging, and some people use it to mean tilt detection. So "disable tilt" can have two almost-opposite meanings!

 

[PiN WiZ]

Hmm? You meant tighten up the tilt, I hope?

I actually meant disable nudging completely for tournament mode since it makes playing The Pinball Arcade versions of real world tables much too easy. Sorry, my mistake.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

I actually meant disable nudging completely for tournament mode since it makes playing The Pinball Arcade versions of real world tables much too easy. Sorry, my mistake.

Nah, pinball without nudging isn't really pinball! Maybe tighten up the tilt sensitivity and make the nudges half as effective they currently are (so that they're nudges instead of shoves)?

 

[PiN WiZ]

Nah, pinball without nudging isn't really pinball! Maybe tighten up the tilt sensitivity and make the nudges half as effective they currently are (so that they're nudges instead of shoves)?

I'm currently #17 in the tournament beta without nudging and have let extra balls and ball savers drain as I'm trying to see how high I can get with all three of these features disabled. Still feels like pinball to me and I'm inching my way closer to the top all the while enjoying the extra challenge disabling these features would bring.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Hmm...maybe I've been exposed to too much real pinball, but nudging is half the game for me. (Not that I nudge all that well on real tables...I'm still learning!) When you're facing a machine with extra balls disabled, no ball save, outlanes wide open and settings on hard or extra hard, nudging is not a luxury, it's a basic survival tool. I'd have to think long and hard if I'd want to bother with a tournament where nudging was completely disallowed. Seems like it introduces too much of a luck element as to whether you get a bad break on your first few shots (that would have been recoverable with a nudge) or not.

Definitely yes to disabling extra balls and ball savers in tournament play, though.

 

[PiN WiZ]

Hmm...maybe I've been exposed to too much real pinball, but nudging is half the game for me. (Not that I nudge all that well on real tables...I'm still learning!) When you're facing a machine with extra balls disabled, no ball save, outlanes wide open and settings on hard or extra hard, nudging is not a luxury, it's a basic survival tool. I'd have to think long and hard if I'd want to bother with a tournament where nudging was completely disallowed. Seems like it introduces too much of a luck element as to whether you get a bad break on your first few shots (that would have been recoverable with a nudge) or not.

Definitely yes to disabling extra balls and ball savers in tournament play, though.

The point is to have the player put more thought and accuracy into the shots they make or attempt. To me, this is what a tournament should be focused on. FarSight could always run separate tournaments of varying difficulty.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

So if I (for example) have learned that hitting the right side of the machine in Monster Bash with the right amount of force causes a ball coming down from the pops to miss Dracula's foot and land in a controlled fashion on the right flipper, you're saying I should not be able to use that skill in a tournament setting? Not all nudging is done to compensate for poor shooting; I do a lot of nudging for general control and to avoid getting into bad situations in the first place.

I guess I come from the "tournaments should play like real tournaments as much as possible or sensible", and real tournaments allow nudging, however limited by conservatively-set tilt bobs.

 

[PiN WiZ]

So if I (for example) have learned that hitting the right side of the machine in Monster Bash with the right amount of force causes a ball coming down from the pops to miss Dracula's foot and land in a controlled fashion on the right flipper, you're saying I should not be able to use that skill in a tournament setting? Not all nudging is done to compensate for poor shooting; I do a lot of nudging for general control and to avoid getting into bad situations in the first place.

I guess I come from the "tournaments should play like real tournaments as much as possible or sensible", and real tournaments allow nudging, however limited by conservatively-set tilt bobs.

Good point...I see where you're coming from now.

 

[SpiffyRob]

Nah, pinball without nudging isn't really pinball! Maybe tighten up the tilt sensitivity and make the nudges half as effective they currently are (so that they're nudges instead of shoves)?

This, I think, is the key.

Nudging is an incredibly important part of pinball, but the effect of nudging is way, way too pronounced in TPA. This, coupled with the fact that the tilt is too loose, makes it way too easy to prolong games with lots of nudging. The amount that the ball moves after a single nudge would surely trigger a warning/danger/double danger on all but the loosest real world machines, and yet on TPA, you can perform two consecutive nudges without getting any warning, making most errant shots recoverable.

So I think you guys are both right. It would be nice to see this adjusted for tournament mode (if not overall, though I understand that could cut down on the mass appeal) but ain't no pinball without nudging.