"First" impressions

[Dumahim]

IIRC, there is a ball save, but only if you miss the skill shot and the ball comes down on the right and misses everything.

 

[Kaibun]

Those outlanes are killing me, is the table like this in real life?

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Those outlanes are killing me, is the table like this in real life?

Very much so x 10.

 

[David T. Melnick]

Very much so x 10.

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That's why I learned (the hard way) to let Thing "only" shoot it. I still have a hard time hitting the ball in the upper right. I love the challenge eh.

 

[xNiCeGuYx]

Those outlanes are killing me, is the table like this in real life?

No, it's easier in TPA.

 

[TomL]

No, it's easier in TPA.

True that. Add in the fact that there is no ballsaver if you scored any points.

After several super short games in a row, you'll get to hate the sight of the Thing wagon match animation.

 

[Dumahim]

I remember the real table being much more balanced between the sides and going SDTM. TPA seems to be almost all drains down the right side and almost never on the left.

 

[kinggo]

and not just that. What's more annoying is that 90% of those drains are bounces from the left slingshot. And that happens so fast that there's nothing one can do.

 

[JPelter]

After a little playing on both gold and standard all I have to say is I really hope they seriously crank up the difficulty on the tournament settings whenever those come out, because the table is a total joke, like pretty much every kickstarter table so far. I guess T2 is sort of halfway ok difficulty wise.

e: Sorry if this is a bit negative I'm just kind of honestly really disappointed.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

After a little playing on both gold and standard all I have to say is I really hope they seriously crank up the difficulty on the tournament settings whenever those come out, because the table is a total joke, like pretty much every kickstarter table so far. I guess T2 is sort of halfway ok difficulty wise.

e: Sorry if this is a bit negative I'm just kind of honestly really disappointed.

Try playing it on mobile sometime - it's a whole different (pin)ballgame. I've yet to crack a billion on mobile, but do so with regularity on PC. My best real score IRL is around 500M, and my mobile scores come out in that ballpark. It's swings and roundabouts. Is the Vault easier to hit? Yes. Is The Power more vicious? Absolutely. Most of the time the Vault is open, The Power is also active....

Don't forget this is video pinball, and video pinball is just inherently easier than real pinball. There's nothing you or Farsight or anyone can do about that, except tune the tables to be really hard out of the box, at which point you alienate casual players for whom even getting to one TTM is a pipe dream.

Are you part of the target audience for TPA? Sure, without a doubt. But are you in the hump of the bell curve when it comes to ability? I'd say not; your scores suggest you're going to be more than 3 standard deviations from the mean, which puts you in "freak results" territory.

 

[JPelter]

Try playing it on mobile sometime - it's a whole different (pin)ballgame. I've yet to crack a billion on mobile, but do so with regularity on PC. My best real score IRL is around 500M, and my mobile scores come out in that ballpark. It's swings and roundabouts. Is the Vault easier to hit? Yes. Is The Power more vicious? Absolutely. Most of the time the Vault is open, The Power is also active....

Don't forget this is video pinball, and video pinball is just inherently easier than real pinball. There's nothing you or Farsight or anyone can do about that, except tune the tables to be really hard out of the box, at which point you alienate casual players for whom even getting to one TTM is a pipe dream.

Are you part of the target audience for TPA? Sure, without a doubt. But are you in the hump of the bell curve when it comes to ability? I'd say not; your scores suggest you're going to be more than 3 standard deviations from the mean, which puts you in "freak results" territory.

Yeah that's mainly why I noted the tournament settings. I know trying to hit realistic difficulty levels is hard and would probably result in weird stuff since they can't actually emulate reality, not to mention most people will want it a bit easier. I just needed to vent a bit since I was kind of looking forward to it and I already ate my cake so to speak.

 

[vikingerik]

After a little playing on both gold and standard all I have to say is I really hope they seriously crank up the difficulty on the tournament settings whenever those come out, because the table is a total joke, like pretty much every kickstarter table so far. I guess T2 is sort of halfway ok difficulty wise.

T2 is badly screwed up difficulty wise too, thanks to the easy center standup shot to complete all 3 by a railroaded rebound. Cycling the escape route for EBs is supposed to be tough and risky, not automatic whenever you want.

But STTNG of the kickstarter tables seems pretty accurate on difficulty. Folks complain about it being outlane drainy, which is perfectly true to the real table.

 

[xNiCeGuYx]

Farsight could make the kickouts more random. They could tune the nudging/tilt sensitivity. People are complaining for years but nothing changed.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

The funny thing is, the last few tables of Season 4, the kickouts have been variable - both Party Zone (the DJ saucer) and Starship Troopers (Arm Nuke and Planet/Recon kickout) have been reasonably random.

Tilt sensitivity is tricky - you have to take into consideration many different platforms and input devices (keyboard, mouse, tap, shake, controller...). I imagine it's very difficult to tune.

 

[Epsilon]

The funny thing is, the last few tables of Season 4, the kickouts have been variable - both Party Zone (the DJ saucer) and Starship Troopers (Arm Nuke and Planet/Recon kickout) have been reasonably random.

Tilt sensitivity is tricky - you have to take into consideration many different platforms and input devices (keyboard, mouse, tap, shake, controller...). I imagine it's very difficult to tune.

Agreed on this. I'd also say that while there's not a whole lot of randomness to the TAF kickouts, they don't appear to be completely static either. I've noticed in particular that when I let the chair kickout just hit the left flipper and bounce to the right, sometimes it ends up scooting partway under the slingshot and others it doesn't; same with the swamp kickout, in that sometimes it's much easier to trap with the right flipper than others. This may just be a slight velocity difference but it does indicate at least something going differently.

 

[Epsilon]

and not just that. What's more annoying is that 90% of those drains are bounces from the left slingshot. And that happens so fast that there's nothing one can do.

Yeah, I think what I've found is that the more I've played of the table the more I can kind of predict what kinds of situations will result in the ball possibly ending up on that left slingshot and pre-emptively nudge to counter it. So much of pinball is not just making shots, but being able to recognize what needs to be done when you miss shots to safely retain control. Especially since TPA's tilt sensitivity is very forgiving. I've found that if you wait until danger to nudge, it's probably too late. You need to learn to recognize in advance when something dangerous is probably going to happen soon and nudge to prevent it from even getting there in the first place.

 

[JPelter]

T2 is badly screwed up difficulty wise too, thanks to the easy center standup shot to complete all 3 by a railroaded rebound. Cycling the escape route for EBs is supposed to be tough and risky, not automatic whenever you want.

But STTNG of the kickstarter tables seems pretty accurate on difficulty. Folks complain about it being outlane drainy, which is perfectly true to the real table.

You're right I was actually thinking of TNG, thanks. Late night brainfart.

 

[Zaphod77]

preemptive nudging is how you deal with outlanes in real life. a nudge as the ball hits the slingshot will get it to fly higher and miss the outlane.

the left outlane is set extra easy on TPA's TAF, which makes left outlane drains rare. if the post were moved up some there would be more of them. the right one is ALSO set easy, but that doesn't seem to help much if you don't nudge.

actually most of my troubles are power drains down the right outlane out of the bumpers. the bear kick ramp is on the kind side of bear kick rejects. many real games will guide failed ramp shots straight down the middle.

Real TAF is much more vicious, though the power is actually kinder on most then TPA. everything but the power or the bumpers is your own darn fault, though. TAF is very fair in real life when working right.

as for railroad bounces off standups, i've suggested many times that rebounds off of standups get a slight amount of randomization of angle. perfect pool shot rebounds off of a standup is NOT realistic. they deform after the shot and rebound a lil differently next time. it IS more realistic off of a drop atrget, but drop targets rebounds are more sensitive to velocity.

 

[DanBradford]

so what stacks best with what?

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

so what stacks best with what?

Stacking Mamushka or Hit Cousin It with a Multiball often makes the mode go for far longer than usual. Because the timer stops whenever a ball enters a scoop, a well controlled Multiball with one of these modes active could allow you to score a huge Bonus.