Are the flippers and ball physics limited by the engine?

[Carl Spiby]

I can't help but think the the 'constant speed flippers' and lack of any spin on the pinball are actual engine limitations.

The constant speed flippers ruin any chance of good ball control (live catch, cradle separation) and lacking spin on the ball removes the randomness you get in real life tables.

If these adjustments could be implemented I'm sure it would take things to the next level.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

The engine could have realistically implemented ball spin and still add no randomness to the game, if the spin from a scoop kickout is itself the same every time. With a deterministic physics engine, identical starting conditions and identical user actions (say, kickout onto a held flipper) yield identical results.

Whether it's spin or not, I think there needs to be some sort of jitter built into the initial conditions from kickouts and such. The game already does this in some situations: when the Ringmaster in Cirqus Voltaire tosses the ball, if anything it's more random than on the real table.

 

[shutyertrap]

Whether it's spin or not, I think there needs to be some sort of jitter built into the initial conditions from kickouts and such. The game already does this in some situations: when the Ringmaster in Cirqus Voltaire tosses the ball, if anything it's more random than on the real table.

Good point. And it seems completely random in CV where that ball gets tossed.

 

[Dumahim]

The engine could have realistically implemented ball spin and still add no randomness to the game, if the spin from a scoop kickout is itself the same every time. With a deterministic physics engine, identical starting conditions and identical user actions (say, kickout onto a held flipper) yield identical results.

Whether it's spin or not, I think there needs to be some sort of jitter built into the initial conditions from kickouts and such. The game already does this in some situations: when the Ringmaster in Cirqus Voltaire tosses the ball, if anything it's more random than on the real table.

I think they need to add a bit of randomness to how the balls get kicked out. Like on Funhouse, I can let the ball roll off the right flipper onto the left one and launch it up into the same spot pretty damn consistently. And it's not like it takes a different path, it's always the same.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

I think they need to add a bit of randomness to how the balls get kicked out. Like on Funhouse, I can let the ball roll off the right flipper onto the left one and launch it up into the same spot pretty damn consistently. And it's not like it takes a different path, it's always the same.

Yeah, and that's definitely not true on a real Funhouse. I spent some time playing a real one last Friday, and my expectation that the kickout onto the right flipper would behave like the TPA simulation kept tripping me up! I had similar problems with Creature from the Black Lagoon; while the latest patch made it no longer possible to trivially trap a ball coming down either inlane, it's still a lot easier to get ball control than on the real machine, because of the predictability of the simulated bounces.

 

[brakel]

I can't help but think the the 'constant speed flippers' and lack of any spin on the pinball are actual engine limitations.

The constant speed flippers ruin any chance of good ball control (live catch, cradle separation) and lacking spin on the ball removes the randomness you get in real life tables.

If these adjustments could be implemented I'm sure it would take things to the next level.

I don't think it matters if its limited by the engine. Its Farsight's engine so they can make changes to the engine just the same as they make changes to the core game. In Farsight's coding they might not even make a real distinction between the engine and the core game. Its all just code to them.

 

[Mark W**a]

I think they need to add a bit of randomness to how the balls get kicked out. Like on Funhouse, I can let the ball roll off the right flipper onto the left one and launch it up into the same spot pretty damn consistently. And it's not like it takes a different path, it's always the same.

Yes! Also on MM, you get a perfect ball kick out on the left side each and every time, making high scoring MUCH easier than in real life.

Pay attention to Funhouse in multiball. The kickout is actually randomized! Why it's randomized in multiball but not one ball play is strange, and easily solvable in an update.

As for the OP's suggestion, I agree that the physics can always be better. As they stand, they are still by far the best in any simulation so far. Is it an engine limitation? That's something only farsight can answer. As they stand, they are IMO fine for current gen systems, but if we ever see an updated "Xbox 3 / PS4" version, or for the PC version, I hope they update the physics again. But again that's a bullet point on another, future collection. For right now I just want them to fix the table glitches.

While on topic of engine limitations, I'm wondering if the same holds true for the collision detection on tables like Cirqus Voiltaire. It's the only table where I can literally send the ball through solid objects, including the table itself lol (I think everyone has seen this happen by now, and it happens on CV quite a lot... at least once per game for me). Reason I think it's an engine limitation and why it happens so often on CV is because CV is especially heavy on the lighting effects, and maybe even on geometry. It just seems like it's a much more demanding game on the hardware (only table I've noticed with slowdown when zoomed in on the bottom as well. Talking about 360 version here, not the PS3 version which had REALLY bad slowdown, not as bad on 360 but still noticable from the low camera angles).