Any hope some high (hacker's) scores will be erased?

[soundwave106]

I am not saying those scores are not impossible. I am saying more reasoning, evidence, proof is needed to claim that they are the result of hacks, rather than of farsight or table bugs. And for some scores, it has been given, which is great! I'm sorry for any misunderstanding.

Occam's razor. It's a guess, but for many games, hacking leaderboards is not that difficult to do (if you are experienced in software at a decently low level). Bugs tend to affect scores negatively rather than positively in my experience.

I have no insight on Farsight's code, but sometimes really strong protection against leaderboard hacking isn't as much of a design priority as say copy protection (for obvious reasons, one affects bottom line, one doesn't) or actually fixing bugs and releasing new DLC. Indie studios only have limited resources to spend on these sorts of things.

 

[DanielP]

Doesn't bode well for Farsight and Pinball Arcade

I'm just thinking about what this implies. At the end of the day, pinball games are all about the score - there's nothing beyond getting a higher score to keep you coming back once you see all a table has to offer. This means that the high score leaderboards must have integrity for the sake of the future of the product. A leaderboard is not an afterthought with pinball - for many, its the whole purpose. I say this as someone who hasn't looked at the leaderboard because I'm on steam and my scores don't seem to register. But I can understand why people do.

If the leaderboard is so open to hacking, and the scrutiny of the entries in the table are so weak, then this is going to cost the developers heavily in the long-run. If you can't trust the scores then you can't trust the game, and there are plenty of alternative options when it comes to playing virtual pinball. The fact is, virtual pinball is largely free, these days - Farsight are working in a field where they cannot compete on price, only on service and quality. I can think of at least two excellent virtual pinball emulations with more tables that don't cost a penny to play. If Farsight are not bothering to get even the basics right (keeping the leaderboards table 'clean') then why should anyone pay for their product? This isn't a whine (I don't care for leaderboards myself), its a legitimate point. As a customer, what exactly are you getting from Pinball Arcade that you can't get elsewhere for a lot less?

Now, I know some of you will take umbrage at this. For many pinball fans, Pinball Arcade holds huge potential - legal licenses, a professional product, constant updates on steam etc. What's not to like?

Well, take your head out of the clouds and consider the facts - you guys have a lot of free options when it comes to virtual pinball. Sure, there's a legal grey area due to licensing etc., but virtual pinball developers have always managed to get great products out there for the price of a free download, very often because they're doing it for their own satisfaction, not money. Anyone trying to make money out of this genre (such as Farsight) has to really, really produce something above and beyond the free alternatives, and an online leaderboard is one of the few tricks up the sleeve of Farsight. That, and customer support, is about the only ace-in-the-hole they have to offer. Now, we know they're offering second-rate customer support (Xbox 360 users getting screwed, PC users having an inferior product to PS4 users, dodgy texture errors and a overall slapdash approach to PC development are just a few examples), but to have a corrupt, easily-hacked leaderboard pretty much cuts away any reason to buy their product. If you can find these tables out there for free, why pay for Pinball Arcade?

Don't get me wrong, I've got all three seasons on Steam and I hope they can turn it around and offer a world-class product. But the operative word there is 'hope.' I don't expect them to, because everything they've done up until now smacks of making-it-up-as-they-go unprofessionalism. Perhaps they'll get their act together, but until then, they have to hope that people don't lose patience and vote with their wallet. Because when your competition is offering their products for free, that would be the kiss of death for Farsight.

In short, so far I'd say Farsight are not very farsighted ...

 

[Deathtank]

Well I agree with you DanielP. but as long FS has a following crowd, willing to lend them a hand, not only with their money, but telling them what to fix, and more importantly, offering with advice what to get better, what to add to improve to the expierence, I think there's hope.
Yes, they have it rough, since as you guys pointed, theres a lot of score hacking but then again, something I want to add. MOO is a gold top 10 in the mobile tournamet FS just organised ,so we should give him the benefit of the doubt, don't we?

I was wondering, what are the chances for someone like MOO to upload their gameplays on youtube?

PD:excuse any errors in my spelling, english is not my primary language.

 

[invitro]

This means that the high score leaderboards must have integrity for the sake of the future of the product. A leaderboard is not an afterthought with pinball - for many, its the whole purpose.

I agree.

If the leaderboard is so open to hacking, and the scrutiny of the entries in the table are so weak,

So thankfully, it isn't.

 

[soundwave106]

If the leaderboard is so open to hacking, and the scrutiny of the entries in the table are so weak, then this is going to cost the developers heavily in the long-run.

Leaderboard hacking is not *that* prominent in TPA, so my guess is that the protection is not "weak".

There are *far* worse examples of games with leaderboard hacking out there. It's a rather common phenom. Games as prominent as Angry Birds have hacked leaderboards (actually the entire Apple iOS Game Center platform was pretty notorious for score hackers from what I understand).

 

[Naildriver74]

Well I agree with you DanielP. but as long FS has a following crowd, willing to lend them a hand, not only with their money, but telling them what to fix, and more importantly, offering with advice what to get better, what to add to improve to the expierence, I think there's hope.
Yes, they have it rough, since as you guys pointed, theres a lot of score hacking but then again, something I want to add. MOO is a gold top 10 in the mobile tournamet FS just organised ,so we should give him the benefit of the doubt, don't we?

I was wondering, what are the chances for someone like MOO to upload their gameplays on youtube?

PD:excuse any errors in my spelling, english is not my primary language.

No need for apologies, you do as good as some that English is there primary language.

 

[JPelter]

I'm just going to keep banging this drum because it's related to the thread and it's really astounding it isn't in yet considering there's a section in the ingame leaderboards for it: Give us friends leaderboards so we can choose our competition. I'm absolutely not interested in comparing scores against people on other platforms, since there are a load of differences between them.

 

[invitro]

I'm just going to keep banging this drum because it's related to the thread and it's really astounding it isn't in yet considering there's a section in the ingame leaderboards for it: Give us friends leaderboards so we can choose our competition. I'm absolutely not interested in comparing scores against people on other platforms, since there are a load of differences between them.

I don't mind a single leaderboard too much, but I would definitely support splitting it by platform. I might even favor that change to a friends leaderboard. I think the chances of either happening within six months are very low. And there are a few changes I would prefer to either (fixing the disappearing-ball bug, using decent playfield art, fixing the MB Creature lane lights and related items).

 

[JPelter]

I don't mind a single leaderboard too much, but I would definitely support splitting it by platform. I might even favor that change to a friends leaderboard. I think the chances of either happening within six months are very low. And there are a few changes I would prefer to either (fixing the disappearing-ball bug, using decent playfield art, fixing the MB Creature lane lights and related items).

I really hope you're wrong. It definitely should not take a lot of effort to integrate steam friends to the leaderboards, and at least personally for me I have very little interest in playing at all unless I can get friends leaderboards in. I mean I'll play if there's a tournament and a little bit whenever a new table is released, but the real reason I really loved playing the PS3 version when it was released was to compete against people in my friends list.

 

[Buzz1126]

I don't look at the leaderboards and don't intend to. No matter what the game or platform, someone will find a way to rig the system. To me, the purpose of the game is to play it, not crow about the top score. There's no prize for being #1. No special parking place, you don't get a better table at the restaurant by telling them you're the high scorer on Gorgar. I'll give you the kudos when you say you're number one, but you'll never hear me say it.

 

[JPelter]

I don't look at the leaderboards and don't intend to. No matter what the game or platform, someone will find a way to rig the system. To me, the purpose of the game is to play it, not crow about the top score. There's no prize for being #1. No special parking place, you don't get a better table at the restaurant by telling them you're the high scorer on Gorgar. I'll give you the kudos when you say you're number one, but you'll never hear me say it.

Some people want the competitive aspect, some don't. I just think it's something that should be relatively simple to add and a lot of people would like to have it judging by the amount of us that have been asking for it.

 

[Buzz1126]

I understand the competitive end of it, it's cool to have braggin' rights on a table. But, when I hear that someone has scored a ga-jillion points on a PC/console game, I shake my head. They may have actually scored those points, but unless it can be backed up by someone that observed the event, I think it's tainted.

 

[foxystyle]

Maybe they just stretch the truth.

 

[sixmillion]

Unlike most console games this day and age where kill streaks are the norm, pinball machine scores as well as the classic video games top scores are like "badges of honor

 

[JPelter]

Unlike most console games this day and age where kill streaks are the norm, pinball machine scores as well as the classic video games top scores are like "badges of honor

I don't really consider it that way. I just think competing against people in your friends list is fun and gives some extra motivation at least for me personally. Competing against everyone in the entire world in every platform isn't quite as satisfying, in particular when you see clearly glitched scores on the list which wouldn't happen if you could sort by friends.

Well I mean it still theoretically could, but I put at least a bit more trust into people I add than the population at large.

 

[Abraxas]

It would be nice if we could get some sort of tourney/league going that could be verified by video capture, like with fraps or overwolf or something.

Not to question people's honesty, but to protect it.

I wonder how much interest this would gain? My friend and I are up for it. We were very excited about the leaderboards and stuff before we found these hacking threads.

 

[invitro]

Competing against everyone in the entire world in every platform isn't quite as satisfying,

For me it's much, much more satisfying than competing against just a handful of people.

 

[invitro]

A quick look through the boards for hacked #1 spots that are clearly impossible shows:

Central Park - Redflame2013 - 99,999
Class of 1812 - mastaLOS - 7,900,126,000
El Dorado - melloone - 175,268,240
TotAN - KingNeptune - 4,308,271,022,354
Gorgar - Rob - 1,010,101,010

There are a few other fairly clear cases like the over ten million on big shot,

As a quick update... the top five are gone now. The only scores that look impossible to me now are:

Big Shot - Tomakin - 10,030,250
Central Park - beavis - 7,503,900

I suppose I might be more concerned if there was like ten impossible scores on a single table, but of course that is not remotely close to being true.

 

[JPelter]

For me it's much, much more satisfying than competing against just a handful of people.

The problem is different platforms don't play the same. And as much as I'd like to believe it isn't so the obviously hacked scores clearly are not the only dubious ones out there. If they can input any score they want as was clearly the case with the gorgar score you quoted, they can easily put in plausible scores as well.

 

[Bowflex]

The problem is different platforms don't play the same. And as much as I'd like to believe it isn't so the obviously hacked scores clearly are not the only dubious ones out there. If they can input any score they want as was clearly the case with the gorgar score you quoted, they can easily put in plausible scores as well.

In past tournaments, the PSN and mobile each had their own unique tournanments. In the ST:TNG and TZ single table tournaments, the PSN scores were significantly higher. If I remember correctly, the PSN top 4 were higher than number 1 on the mobile devices and some participants played both tourneys with lower scores on mobile. So this is very true that consoles seem to be easier to put up higher scores.