Difficulty on TZ and star trek

[Jeff Strong]

That's why I say, you need to balance realism and simulation with fun factor. I always bring up Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport. Close enough to the real thing to please enthusiasts, casual enough to still be fun for the novice.

Yes, and the reason both GT and Forza appeal to both crowds is because both games have a nice variety of difficulty options and settings, which is why TPA could certainly benefit from that as well.

 

[Mark W**a]

Keep in mind, Star Trek and Twilight Zone came out at the absolute height of pinball popularity in the early 90's. A time when designing a table to maximize operators income was very important to sales. These tables are more difficult by design for this very reason. Tables like Scared Stiff are much easier in real life as they came from a different era.

However Farsight needs to take into consideration that this isn't the 1990's and their product isn't about sucking quarters out of people, it's about making a pinball game that competes in the 2013 digital market. If stuff like Pinball FX/Zen didn't exist, I'd say just go for the hardest core sim possible. But it does and as a result, making the games too difficult will simply scare customers away and towards the competition. Striking a balance between fun and realism is the right way to do it. IMO they've always done that, Star Trek being the first table to stray from that philosophy. Whether Star Trek is a test or simply an anomaly, we can really only speculate on at this time.

Yes, and the reason both GT and Forza appeal to both crowds is because both games have a nice variety of difficulty options and settings, which is why TPA could certainly benefit from that as well.

A good compromise. But is Farsight willing to spend the extra cash and resources to make this a reality? Is it within budget? Is the demand great enough?

 

[Worf]

It's always hard, because the pin's sole purpose in life is to suck quarters. So TPA already starts at a disadvantage because the game designers built it to make money first, fun second (because if a player has too much ball time, the operator loses money).

Pinball FX, Zen, etc - they don't have to worry about quarters, so the whole table is designed for fun. Make the slingshots bounce balls away from the outlanes? Sure, of course, but on a real table, having them bounce into outlanes is part of the goal (something which separates the skilled from the amateurs who don't know how to nudge properly).

It's hard - at best, they can have a slider between "Non-realistic, but fun" and "Just like the real table". But it's hard since it's a per-table thing and involves changing ever-so-slightly things like posts and what-not.

And then they have to send the table through approvals (Williams/Stern/Universal/etc), which takes forever.

 

[pezpunk]

changing difficulty in that manner is not feasible. coming up with multiple physics models for even one table would be a huge, expensive, and buggy undertaking. my advice is enjoy the tables as they are -- some are hard, some are easy, and (aside from TZ and imo funhouse) they are reasonably close in difficulty to their real-life counterparts.

 

[superballs]

The main point is that this is a simulation. It aims to be a simulation. If a popular table is hard then the simulated table should be hard. Maybe if FS could model two versions of each table with hard and easy post settings (easy not being eligible for leaderboards).

The problem is that if you set a table too easy...then you end up with too many marathon games. The thing with pinball is that there really are only a few with extremely deep rules that make you play a while before you've seen everything. A marathon run on Funhouse stops being fun so the balance of fun is actually making it challenging enough to prevent the marathon runs. That way, when you are having an exemplary game it's exciting in an of itself.

 

[esp2000]

It really does become a catch 22. Let me tell you how it is in our house. I love pinball, and this is pretty much the main game that I play. I don't mind the difficult tables, in fact it frustrates me to a level where I end up playing longer than I would otherwise.

My wife on the other hand has been growing for a fondness of the game to a degree. She love some of the tables, mainly Scared Stiff because she can actually sit down and play that for a while at a time. She has gotten to where she feels she understands the table and therefore enjoys it. I gave her Twilight Zone, she played it for 5 minutes said it was too hard and refuses to play the table any more, and likewise enjoys Star Trek even less.

In this case it is not a huge deal because I have already purchased the tables and I play the heck out of them. If it was not for me though and she was playing the free version to try the table, she would never purchase the table. I know that she is not the only person out there who is like this because I see this on others who I try to share my love of the game with.

Don't take my words the wrong way and make it out that I am trying to make every table super easy for everyone becuase that is not the way it should be, but if you go and make a table that is already difficult for 75-80% of the people out there and make it even harder before they have a chance to learn to like it, you are really hurting your chances for those people to buy.

I do think that if the choice is made to remove the bumpers from TZ, then there should be two versions of that table. One with the bumper and one without. This would give the people who are not die-hard pinball fans a chance to enjoy a nice table and let it grow on them. Once they are hooked and feel comfortable on the table, then maybe they would move to the more difficult table. I would much rather see something like this than have people try it without the bumper, get frustrated and then never play the table again, or even worse not look at purchasing the table as well.

 

[MadScience2006]

I do think that if the choice is made to remove the bumpers from TZ, then there should be two versions of that table.

Which bumper(s) exactly are the ones mentioned? I tried searching around for an answer but came up with nothing...

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

It really does become a catch 22. Let me tell you how it is in our house. I love pinball, and this is pretty much the main game that I play. I don't mind the difficult tables, in fact it frustrates me to a level where I end up playing longer than I would otherwise.

My wife on the other hand has been growing for a fondness of the game to a degree. She love some of the tables, mainly Scared Stiff because she can actually sit down and play that for a while at a time. She has gotten to where she feels she understands the table and therefore enjoys it. I gave her Twilight Zone, she played it for 5 minutes said it was too hard and refuses to play the table any more, and likewise enjoys Star Trek even less.

In this case it is not a huge deal because I have already purchased the tables and I play the heck out of them. If it was not for me though and she was playing the free version to try the table, she would never purchase the table. I know that she is not the only person out there who is like this because I see this on others who I try to share my love of the game with.

Don't take my words the wrong way and make it out that I am trying to make every table super easy for everyone becuase that is not the way it should be, but if you go and make a table that is already difficult for 75-80% of the people out there and make it even harder before they have a chance to learn to like it, you are really hurting your chances for those people to buy.

Having cursed at the physical X-Men table many times because I didn't understand what was going on and what I needed to do, I understand where your wife is coming from. On the other hand, pinball tables, like the old-school arcade games, were meant to be very challenging.

This is one of the reasons I rated each table's difficulty (in Recommended TPA Tables for Beginners and Beyond and More Recommended TPA Tables for Beginners and Beyond (DLC Packs 5-7)), because TPA doesn't give the casual player who is unfamiliar with the tables any indication of how hard or easy a particular table is. And so they play Medieval Madness or ST:TNG because it looks the coolest and promptly get their arse handed to them by the table without warning. Or they play Big Shot because it looks the simplest (how hard can two banks of drop targets be?) and are frustrated when their game lasts 2 minutes, because they don't realize EMs are very drainy.

If there were some rating system so that new players could see "oh, this is a hard table, I should be prepared for a short game" (or choose a different table), I think it would cut down on the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Which bumper(s) exactly are the ones mentioned? I tried searching around for an answer but came up with nothing...

Not the bumpers themselves, but the white barrier in between the two left bumpers that blocks balls from heading from the bumpers straight down the left outlane. Most real TZs do not have that barrier installed.

 

[MadScience2006]

Not the bumpers themselves, but the white barrier in between the two left bumpers that blocks balls from heading from the bumpers straight down the left outlane. Most real TZs do not have that barrier installed.

Thanks Sean. I think I've found a pic of the barrier...

The white, two-post, two rubber band bumper/barrier between the red and orange pop bumpers, correct?

 

[Mattc]

It really does become a catch 22. Let me tell you how it is in our house. I love pinball, and this is pretty much the main game that I play. I don't mind the difficult tables, in fact it frustrates me to a level where I end up playing longer than I would otherwise.

My wife on the other hand has been growing for a fondness of the game to a degree. She love some of the tables, mainly Scared Stiff because she can actually sit down and play that for a while at a time. She has gotten to where she feels she understands the table and therefore enjoys it. I gave her Twilight Zone, she played it for 5 minutes said it was too hard and refuses to play the table any more, and likewise enjoys Star Trek even less.

In this case it is not a huge deal because I have already purchased the tables and I play the heck out of them. If it was not for me though and she was playing the free version to try the table, she would never purchase the table. I know that she is not the only person out there who is like this because I see this on others who I try to share my love of the game with.

Don't take my words the wrong way and make it out that I am trying to make every table super easy for everyone becuase that is not the way it should be, but if you go and make a table that is already difficult for 75-80% of the people out there and make it even harder before they have a chance to learn to like it, you are really hurting your chances for those people to buy.

I do think that if the choice is made to remove the bumpers from TZ, then there should be two versions of that table. One with the bumper and one without. This would give the people who are not die-hard pinball fans a chance to enjoy a nice table and let it grow on them. Once they are hooked and feel comfortable on the table, then maybe they would move to the more difficult table. I would much rather see something like this than have people try it without the bumper, get frustrated and then never play the table again, or even worse not look at purchasing the table as well.

Great post and totally agree about the purchase of tables. Before TZ and Star Trek additions, it took me 2 plays of the previous new tables before buying them.
With TZ especially, it took over a week to buy that table - and then i was in 2 minds.
Truth be told, every time i play it now i end up frustrated and move to another table.

Star Trek was a similar week wait buy and only really paid for it because of the neat features on it.

Having been playing Visual Pinball with the same tables on PC, you can download all sorts of mods.
Maybe farsight could offer these as a paid addition?
Things like a 'bung' between the flippers to stop the ball draining in the center would be great for some people (me included).

It would keep the hardcore gamer happy with the standard table, people like me happy from not being too frustrated (and actually see more features of the tables) and of course FS happy as they'd have more income.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Thanks Sean. I think I've found a pic of the barrier...the white, two-post, two rubber band bumper/barrier between the red and orange pop bumpers, correct?

Yep, that's the barrier.

 

[Sumez]

So... not being experienced with TZ at all, including the ruleset or TPA version (still holding out for X360)... Would removing that barrier actually result in a more challenging table (good), or just a table with more random drains (bad) in order to result in shorter games?
Ie. can you play safely to consistently avoid drains from the bumpers? Like on RBION, a ball in the bumpers will occasionally mean an outlane drain you can't do much to avoid, but a smart player only (intentionally) shoots the ball that way during a multiball.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

Ie. can you play safely to consistently avoid drains from the bumpers? Like on RBION, a ball in the bumpers will occasionally mean an outlane drain you can't do much to avoid, but a smart player only (intentionally) shoots the ball that way during a multiball.

I think the main idea is just to avoid the bumpers entirely, if you possibly can. Hard-plunge to opt out of the skill shot once you've gotten the door panel, don't go for the Hitchhiker, and try hard to make your shots.

 

[Mattc]

Having played more on STNG tonight, i'm convinced getting a high score is based purely on luck due to the drains

 

[pezpunk]

Having played more on STNG tonight, i'm convinced getting a high score is based purely on luck due to the drains

nah, there's plenty of strategy to be had. the trick is to keep control of the ball. i wish someone would make a tips and strategies thread.

this is the wrong place for this, but here's my first and best tip: i find it most advantageous to start with the "Warp 4" launch shot instead of going for "start mission". starting with Warp 4 puts you within striking distance of 3 different extra balls -- there is one EB lit for hitting warp 8, one for completing the rollovers several times (the Warp 4 launch, unlike the others, sends the ball bouncing around the rollovers and you usually get between 1 and 3 sets complete right off the bat), and finally, hitting the warps (and rollovers) is also good for a big chunk of points towards the extra ball at 600 million. i often find that a half-decent first ball can get all three of those extra balls, and provide a huge buffer for the ensuing quest for the final frontier.

 

[Sumez]

Getting extra balls allows you to play longer, but doesn't change supposedly random gameplay.

I'd say the way to avoid "random" drains is to stick to the safer shots, and aim better when making the risky ones? That's how it usually works.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

nah, there's plenty of strategy to be had. the trick is to keep control of the ball. i wish someone would make a tips and strategies thread.

Normally I would have by this point, but ST:TNG is kicking my arse relatively speaking. Normally my TPA scores are 10 times my scores on the corresponding real tables; on ST:TNG I just recently matched my real high score after significant effort.

I may still start a strategy thread, but it'll be more of a "theoretical" guide rather than one from experience like my other eight.

 

[Chk1975]

Different strokes for different folks, I love the more challenging play of st:tng.
And it is still easier than a normal machine I scored 32 billion 2 days ago.
If I remember correctly when I had the machine at home for 2 years my highscore was around 15 billion and that took me far more tries than on tpa.

 

[PWolverine]

I personally think ST:TNG pinball is too hard when played on the iPhone. I don't mind the random drains, but the left post on the beta quadrant ramp is a killer. Nearly any hit there is a direct line to a left-drain. Played a real machine today which I found much easier then the table on Pinball Arcade - hitting that left post on the ramp was really much more random in direction. The ball seemed slower in real life even when flying around the table, and less 'slippery' then the digital version as the TPA version seems to have things flying around super fast and when it is at a good speed will just slide right off the flippers.

With the difficulty of this table I find myself playing it less and less. Its less enjoyable with the increased speed of the ball and the constant draining. Personally if the difficulty of this table has been set up harder then other tables on the Pinball Arcade i'd rather that they default to the easier settings, and make an optional harder setting when you finish all the Wizard Goals. At least this way it gives less experienced players a better run on the table and possibly more sales for the developer, whilst also allowing more experienced players to rack up the wizard goals and unlock a optional harder version of the table (physics etc.)

 

[haj]

Personally if the difficulty of this table has been set up harder then other tables on the Pinball Arcade i'd rather that they default to the easier settings, and make an optional harder setting when you finish all the Wizard Goals. At least this way it gives less experienced players a better run on the table and possibly more sales for the developer, whilst also allowing more experienced players to rack up the wizard goals and unlock a optional harder version of the table (physics etc.)

I'm all for this.