Getting tired of all the buggy tables

[Xanija]

Ignoring the fan base is not one of their problems. Implementation of ideas, delays, fixing of bugs, certainly. FarSight's biggest issue has more to do the 'eyes being bigger than the stomach', if you know what I mean.

I have to quote this just to emphasize it. This is what I would say is the biggest problem of all. And this is the difference between having a very good product with a lot of unfixed issues and an outstanding product.

 

[Tripredacus]

It definately seems like they are spending most of the time and energy into making the new tables for each release they make. I really had no idea there were bugs on the Pinball Arcade tables going back years now that were not fixed. Also this is likely due to me not playing TPA until just recently.

 

[shutyertrap]

It definately seems like they are spending most of the time and energy into making the new tables for each release they make. I really had no idea there were bugs on the Pinball Arcade tables going back years now that were not fixed. Also this is likely due to me not playing TPA until just recently.

The gameplan FarSight used to use to build tables is much different than how they approach them now. That is why the newer tables are far less buggy. The problem with fixing the older tables is that since tables are built differently now, new fixes might make things even worse. It'd almost be better to do a rebuild and start fresh than reverse engineer fixes. Unfortunately the likelihood of that happening is slim.

 

[Tripredacus]

Sounds like they need to hire more programmers

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Sounds like they need to hire more programmers

I'm sure they'd love to; but it takes a certain mentality to want to live up a mountain an hour and a half's drive from the nearest major city (when it's not been snowing).

 

[AnvilCloud]

Have you read any of the responses on the Play Store? It's literally copy and paste. I

I haven't been on this site when TPA was first introduced so I cannot speak to that. But there is quite a pushback on this new UI. If the new UI was merely aesthetically unpleasing, I probably would still be 'OK' with it. But it's a giant Godzilla sized step back.

Consider this, the old UI would take maybe 3 clicks to get playing a table with a scroll in between.

Now it takes 3 clicks just to get to the table menu. And another 2 just to get started. That is bad design from the start.

Now considering that TPA keeps producing tables, eventually that 3 table icon width design for the android interface in particular will still amount to lots of scrolling. So I stick with my recommendation of implementing a simple seek bar on the side. Your could go from A to Z, or anywhere in between, as fast as you can swipe. That's literally week 2 or 3 android programming design principals.

And yeah, perhaps they need to hire mire programmers, but definitely need more competent designers. In the programming world, these are usually two different areas.

Edit: sorry this was a reply to shutyertrap, forget to quote. I've described several bugs to TPA and they never implied that they will work on fixes for any of them.

 

[AnvilCloud]

I'm sure they'd love to; but it takes a certain mentality to want to live up a mountain an hour and a half's drive from the nearest major city (when it's not been snowing).

What is this I've been hearing about some mountain? I'm rather new to this site in particular... Is this a small group of people who live in an isolated area?

 

[Naildriver74]

Big Bear Lake CA.
Their parents were part of Timothy Leary human be-in from 1967

 

[Xanija]

https://www.google.de/maps/@34.2411...oB23ZAXn1uWQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1?hl=de

 

[wolfson]

I'm sure they'd love to; but it takes a certain mentality to want to live up a mountain an hour and a half's drive from the nearest major city (when it's not been snowing).

Eldar ,had a little chuckle to myself.first Big Bear Lake looks fantastic !!! now to my little chuckle,my place is at Tweed Heads right next to the Gold Coast,our hinterland is right behind us,Binna Burra is about 90 km,that`s roughly the distance Big Bear Lake is from the nearest city.to most Aussies that`s a hop skip and a jump to go somewhere that`s fantastic,then I remembered your from England,that`s when I had my little chuckle !!!!

 

[invitro]

I'm sure they'd love to; but it takes a certain mentality to want to live up a mountain an hour and a half's drive from the nearest major city (when it's not been snowing).

I'd consider that a fairly large plus, but I'm weird that way, or maybe just old. The town looks pretty on Goggle Maps. I wonder what they pay their new programmers. It'd take a ton of money to offset the cost of living in California. I faintly remember reading that even their top programmers live with roommates?

 

[invitro]

What is this I've been hearing about some mountain? I'm rather new to this site in particular... Is this a small group of people who live in an isolated area?

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bear_Lake,_California :

Big Bear Lake is a small city in San Bernardino County, California, located in the San Bernardino Mountains along the south shore of Big Bear Lake, and surrounded by the San Bernardino National Forest. The city is located about 25 miles (40 km) northeast of the city of San Bernardino, and immediately west of the unincorporated town of Big Bear City. The population was approximately 5,019 at the 2010 census, down from 5,438 at the 2000 census. Being a popular year-round resort destination however, the actual number of people staying in or visiting the greater Big Bear Valley area regularly surges to over 100,000 during many weekends of the year.
...
In contrast to most of southern California, the Big Bear Lake region normally receives significant winter snow because of its high elevation. Snowfall, as measured at lake level, averages 72 in (180 cm) per season; upwards of 100 in (250 cm) can accumulate on the forested ridges bordering the lake, at elevations above 8,000 ft (2,400 m). In February 1990, 59.5 in (151 cm) of snow were recorded. The most snow in 24 hours was 27.0 in (69 cm) on March 27, 1991. The greatest snow depth was 58 in (150 cm) on February 3, 1979. Snow has fallen in every month except July and August. There are normally 18 days each year with measurable snow of 0.1 in (0.25 cm) or more.

 

[DanBradford]

TPA is like Tapatalk - we use it but wish it was as good as it used to be before they started messing with it.

 

[shutyertrap]

I'd consider that a fairly large plus, but I'm weird that way, or maybe just old. The town looks pretty on Goggle Maps. I wonder what they pay their new programmers. It'd take a ton of money to offset the cost of living in California. I faintly remember reading that even their top programmers live with roommates?

The problem with Big Bear is it is a half hour drive up the mountain with good road conditions. During winter when you need tire chains, different story altogether. On top of that, traffic from vacationers can be brutal at times. I remember one time having it take 2 hours to get down the mountain when I was a kid. Even with best of circumstances, if you chose to live off the mountain your cities to choose from are not exactly popular destinations. San Bernadino and Riverside are more or less desert towns. That's not to say they are small, but more to do with the type of people and mind set of living in such a place. In other words, not necessarily appealing to a tech savvy individual.

Choosing to live on the mountain, well now you pay mountain living prices. Groceries and such are a little more expensive, variety a little less. If you are paying rent, you have to deal with seasonal spikes as Big Bear is the main skiing source in SoCal. While it's not as expensive as the sister mountain to the west, Arrowhead, it does carry a cost of living factor that in combination with all the other aspects makes recruitment undoubtedly tricky.

 

[Wasarasormi]

Latest misery update from the land of buggy tables: Played Theatre of Magic for what felt like forever and after I got to 52 billion I quit cause I thought that's enough for top spot on 360 leaderboards.. Well what do you know, my final score says 32 billion. It's the same thing that happened many times with Creature from the Black Lagoon. Real score 200 something billion, final score according to game 78 billion. But to be fair I think this has to do with the original roms. Is this rollover detection bug Bally tables only? Other manufacturers have similar type of problems as well. I know Fish Tales from Williams has a bug where the score doesn't do over 10 billion and Ripley's from Stern somehow loses all previous score after extra balls run out unless the bonus is tilted. I guess these games weren't meant to be played like this and nobody really looked too much onto these type of problems when making the original programs.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Latest misery update from the land of buggy tables: Played Theatre of Magic for what felt like forever and after I got to 52 billion I quit cause I thought that's enough for top spot on 360 leaderboards.. Well what do you know, my final score says 32 billion. It's the same thing that happened many times with Creature from the Black Lagoon. Real score 200 something billion, final score according to game 78 billion. But to be fair I think this has to do with the original roms. Is this rollover detection bug Bally tables only? Other manufacturers have similar type of problems as well. I know Fish Tales from Williams has a bug where the score doesn't do over 10 billion and Ripley's from Stern somehow loses all previous score after extra balls run out unless the bonus is tilted. I guess these games weren't meant to be played like this and nobody really looked too much onto these type of problems when making the original programs.

Several tables where the ROM rolls over at 10B have this issue.

You have to very carefully manage the rollover from <10B to >10B otherwise TPA won't register it properly.

Usually this happens with a single very large score triggering the rollover, such as a multiplied Super Jackpot in CftBL or (I presume) a bonus in ToM.

The key is to micro-manage your score when it hits 9B.

The general consensus is that this only happens if your score goes from <9B to >10B with a single large score. Example: you have 8.9B on CftBL, and hit a 1.2B Super Jackpot. Your score rolls the ROM and shows as 100M on the DMD. TPA won't have registered the rollover though and will actually think your score is 100M if you end the game there and then.

Farsight are probably aware of this (though typically they've never acknowledged it) but due to the way they interact with the ROM and determine what your score is, it may be more difficult to fix than folks think.

I've been burned on CftBL - my highest score shows as 18B, but I know it's really 38B.

 

[invitro]

Latest misery update from the land of buggy tables: Played Theatre of Magic for what felt like forever and after I got to 52 billion I quit cause I thought that's enough for top spot on 360 leaderboards.. Well what do you know, my final score says 32 billion.

Did you look in the ToM forum? Maybe you should. There's a thread there called "10 Billion Point Rollover".

Many tables have ROMs that stop adding rollovers at some point. Farsight has added code to many of them to try to detect such a rollover, and add it to your score. This code is imperfect on many tables, but I hope we can agree that it's better than nothing.

The RBIoN high-bonus bug is a Farsight bug. Their code had identified a certain sound as signifying end of game, but that sound plays in some bonus counts. Or something like that... I'm sure there's a thread for this issue as well.

If you think you're good enough to hit the max score for a table and roll it over, it's a good idea to look in that table's forum to see if there are issues with rollovers. Every table is different, and some posters have done terrific research and written tips on how to best get credit for rollovers for that table.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

I'm pretty sure the RBIoN bonus bug has been fixed, at least on PC and Android - my recollection is that it's the "Believe It Or Not!" quote during the bonus count down that triggered the game to end, and I've had that at least once recently and the game went on okay.

Consoles of course are another matter entirely, what with their long waits between updates. (I'm beginning to wonder if FS have missed something in their dealings with Sony and M$, when it comes to patching - or if those two really do have small studios over a barrel as far as fees are concerned and would rather only work with the EAs and Ubisofts of this world.)

 

[Wasarasormi]

Several tables where the ROM rolls over at 10B have this issue.

You have to very carefully manage the rollover from <10B to >10B otherwise TPA won't register it properly.

Usually this happens with a single very large score triggering the rollover, such as a multiplied Super Jackpot in CftBL or (I presume) a bonus in ToM.

The key is to micro-manage your score when it hits 9B.

The general consensus is that this only happens if your score goes from <9B to >10B with a single large score. Example: you have 8.9B on CftBL, and hit a 1.2B Super Jackpot. Your score rolls the ROM and shows as 100M on the DMD. TPA won't have registered the rollover though and will actually think your score is 100M if you end the game there and then.

Farsight are probably aware of this (though typically they've never acknowledged it) but due to the way they interact with the ROM and determine what your score is, it may be more difficult to fix than folks think.

I've been burned on CftBL - my highest score shows as 18B, but I know it's really 38B.

I wasn't aware of this on Theatre of Magic. It's not something I have played much and this was my first game to go for a high enough score on that. Before when I ran into this on Creature from the Black Lagoon I looked at the problem and found some advice on this forum. Didn't help though. I took a test game and went to 22billion with rolling over from I think 9 to 12 and 18 to 22 or 24 something and both registered fine. Later I tried even safer style and went with only regular jackpots every time and tried to get to 0 or 1 digit. Still it discarded most of the rollovers. So I don't know if there's something more in it or what's going on with the rollovers.

I think the Theatre score had similar thing as my bonus was between 3-4 billion for the last 5 or 6 balls. Basically then to save time I only got the 8x bonus with each ball and activated next 2 multiball locks ready before I drained for the next so nearly all my endgame scoring was from the end of ball bonuses. I think those rollovers were too much to register. I wish they'd fix this but I understand it's not that easy with the original rom having the problem.

 

[Rich Lehmann]

I love when the handful of easily annoyed forum trolls think THEY are the fanbase.