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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shutyertrap" data-source="post: 153699" data-attributes="member: 134">Unlike a video game, pinball by its very nature can't have in game difficulty adjustment. Video games today have AI that can adjust to your playing level, on top of having patterns you can recognize and exploit. On a real machine, the only adjustment a table could make would be to have a ball save. Patterns of ball movement, unlike in TPA, are subject to real world physics that simply don't lend themselves to repeatable patterns. Any changes made to the physical play field to increase or decrease difficulty affects ALL players, not just the one currently playing.This is what I love about pinball. You have the exact same chances of what the ball is going to do as the next guy. There is no handicapping, no 'rubber banding' like in some racing game, and no AI to exploit. It's you, the ball, the flippers, and your nudging know how. Sure there are exploitable shots and jackpots, but knowing is only half the battle. I've played with amazing pinball players where we both knew the shots. I've seen them get extremely frustrated when for some reason the ball won't go their way, while I seem to put together an improbable run and beat them. More often I see them school me on why they are the player they are, but that's beside the point!I think there are a couple of factors that make pinball intimidating to a beginner. 1) is the short play time, 2) is it has it's own language to scoring, where things stack and jackpots have hurry ups, 3) your eyes cannot take in everything that is happening at the same time, and 4) it is its own genre and can't be 100% translated to the digital realm, and it is a genre unlike any other by a country mile.Interestingly enough, I have a theory as to why pinball IS connecting with the younger generation today. For kids growing up in the 2000's, arcades by and large have been dominated by redemption games. These are mostly mechanical games with physically moving parts. There is a high degree of luck involved, but skill does play a factor. As these kids grow up, the pinball machine isn't this odd item completely foreign to a video game, but very much having attributes of these redemption games. So I believe it may be striking a nostalgia tick of a different kind, only a game of pinball lasts MUCH longer than any play on a redemption game (which is over usually within 5-10 seconds of dropping a token).Anyway, that's my theory.</blockquote>

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