how high will these scores get?

[Advalle]

Just last week or the week before that, the highest score was 9 billion which was unthinkable for me. Now the highest score is 22 Billion, how high will these things get??? I have noticed some similarities with Rbion and I was able to achieve a decent score, took around 2 hrs, but the way this can go, I see some people rolleyes: <-----me) eventually cracking the 40 billion or 50 billion scores in a while.

 

[Heretic]

when it becomes a test of edurance over skill(not that it doesnt take skill play) i get bored very quickly

i i believe sean doncarols said it took him four hours to get 12 so the higest around 8 hours

*snores*

while marathon sessions can be impressive they never have appealed to me

 

[Kolchak357]

My best is around 3.5 Bil with 2 trips to LITZ and I was starting to lose interest. For me the solution would be simple, no extra balls at all. My game would have been over much quicker without all of the extra balls. I'm sure this wont help the player that scored 22 Bil. He/She can probably play for a very long time on 3 balls, but it would be a start.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

when it becomes a test of edurance over skill(not that it doesnt take skill play) i get bored very quickly

i i believe sean doncarlos said it took him four hours to get 12 so the higest around 8 hours

*snores*

while marathon sessions can be impressive they never have appealed to me

That game was probably about 3-1/2 hours in actual playing time. Toward the end, I was pausing every 5 minutes because my hands were seizing up from holding the controller that long.

At least in 360-land, I'm fairly consistent in terms of the ratio of my score to the top players, usually around one-third. Given that the PC plays like the 360 and that I have 13.2 billion on PC, I'd say 40 billion is probably approaching the limit of plausibility. (The fact that I'm saying a 40B score on TZ still qualifies as plausible is making me die a little inside.)

I've started playing TZ mostly on Extra Hard with extra balls turned off. That seems to do a pretty good job of keeping the games under 1 hour.

 

[pezpunk]

the thing is, it gives out so many extra balls, that once you learn and get good at the safe shots, there's no reason a person couldn't go on basically indefinitely. unlike Funhouse's mirror, you can repeat the LITZ buildup multiple times on a single ball and keep your stack of extras maxed out just by playing safely. it's not even THAT much of an endurance test -- the thing has a puase button, you know.

 

[Heretic]

the thing is, it gives out so many extra balls, that once you learn and get good at the safe shots, there's no reason a person couldn't go on basically indefinitely. unlike Funhouse's mirror, you can repeat the LITZ buildup multiple times on a single ball and keep your stack of extras maxed out just by playing safely. it's not even THAT much of an endurance test -- the thing has a puase button, you know.

with ios such agressive mm its impossible to puasue and do anything else without it being driven out of memory my max is 45-60 , i guess its why i like hard tables a bad game can take seconds!

 

[pezpunk]

with ios such agressive mm its impossible to puasue and do anything else without it being driven out of memory my max is 45-60 , i guess its why i like hard tables a bad game can take seconds!

yeah if you pause and switch apps you are likely hosed, but i just meant pause and go take a walk or have a meal or something

 

[Carl Spiby]

You know how Pro Pinball gives you a difficulty option, well surely its as simple as that?

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

You know how Pro Pinball gives you a difficulty option, well surely its as simple as that?

See here for why turning TZ's ROM up to Extra Hard settings doesn't really change much once you've learned the table.

 

[Sumez]

I feel like I'm repeating myself, but as I'm reading it, what you guys are asking for is more realistic physics that better mimics the unpredictability of a real pinball table. And pulling that off in a proper way, is difficult, very difficult. Physics is already one of the most difficult things to program in a video game, and TPA already has some of the best pinball physics I've ever seen in a video game (I can only think of Zen Pinball that might be able to match it).

I can't speak for FarSight, but I can only imagine that they are doing what they can. I can't imagine that they would cater so much to the casual audience that they would intentionally botch up their tables. After all, the table is modeled exactly after the real one, is it? Can you point out a "feature" that they added which feels like it's intentionally made to decrease the difficulty of the table? If so, at least address that directly instead of just saying "the table is too easy". It would make your argument a lot more valid, and I'm sure it would be a lot more helpful to FarSight, too.

 

[Carl Spiby]

I feel like I'm repeating myself, but as I'm reading it, what you guys are asking for is more realistic physics that better mimics the unpredictability of a real pinball table. And pulling that off in a proper way, is difficult, very difficult. Physics is already one of the most difficult things to program in a video game, and TPA already has some of the best pinball physics I've ever seen in a video game (I can only think of Zen Pinball that might be able to match it).

I can't speak for FarSight, but I can only imagine that they are doing what they can. I can't imagine that they would cater so much to the casual audience that they would intentionally botch up their tables. After all, the table is modeled exactly after the real one, is it? Can you point out a "feature" that they added which feels like it's intentionally made to decrease the difficulty of the table? If so, at least address that directly instead of just saying "the table is too easy". It would make your argument a lot more valid, and I'm sure it would be a lot more helpful to FarSight, too.

Whilst your points are valid, try TZ in Visual Pinball, I guarantee you won't be hitting LITZ anywhere near as easily (if at all) as you are able to in TPA.

 

[Carl Spiby]

See here for why turning TZ's ROM up to Extra Hard settings doesn't really change much once you've learned the table.

I didn't really mean just feature changes, I should have made myself more clear

 

[Sumez]

I tried that Visual Pinball thing, and it's impossible for me to make any games remotely playable :S It's pretty weird.
Still curious about exactly what you wish to have changed, though.

 

[Carl Spiby]

I tried that Visual Pinball thing, and it's impossible for me to make any games remotely playable :S It's pretty weird.
Still curious about exactly what you wish to have changed, though.

It's hard to say, but it's about 10x easier to make any shot on the table, almost like the flippers are only set up in such a way that there is a large margin for error when attempting a ramp shot.

 

[immortalmindz]

Whilst your points are valid, try TZ in Visual Pinball, I guarantee you won't be hitting LITZ anywhere near as easily (if at all) as you are able to in TPA.

Agree 100%, i still havent reached litz on the vp version and personally i think controlling the ball is alot easier in vp, the shots on the other hand seem alot harder to make, especially the gum ball shot, in tpa i can make this shot at will but in vp its a struggle. On a sidenote i have managed 43 billion on AFM on vp which makes me a tad concerned for scoring when the tpa version gets released lol.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

On a sidenote i have managed 43 billion on AFM on vp which makes me a tad concerned for scoring when the tpa version gets released lol.

Don't worry, the ROM on Attack from Mars can handle scores up to 1 trillion. (Although the display only goes up to 100B.)

 

[immortalmindz]

Don't worry, the ROM on Attack from Mars can handle scores up to 1 trillion. (Although the display only goes up to 100B.)

Cool so 43 billion may jusy scrape it into the top 500 lol

 

[brakel]

I feel like I'm repeating myself, but as I'm reading it, what you guys are asking for is more realistic physics that better mimics the unpredictability of a real pinball table. And pulling that off in a proper way, is difficult, very difficult. Physics is already one of the most difficult things to program in a video game, and TPA already has some of the best pinball physics I've ever seen in a video game (I can only think of Zen Pinball that might be able to match it).

I can't speak for FarSight, but I can only imagine that they are doing what they can. I can't imagine that they would cater so much to the casual audience that they would intentionally botch up their tables. After all, the table is modeled exactly after the real one, is it? Can you point out a "feature" that they added which feels like it's intentionally made to decrease the difficulty of the table? If so, at least address that directly instead of just saying "the table is too easy". It would make your argument a lot more valid, and I'm sure it would be a lot more helpful to FarSight, too.

After they make the collision meshes for a table they then tweak them to make them easier. They make the ramps easier to hit by making the mesh surrounding them with a larger opening. They make the mesh for targets a little bigger. On a real table your shots have to be spot on. A shot that is just a bit off misses and often goes SDTM.

 

[iguanarama]

I feel like I'm repeating myself, but as I'm reading it, what you guys are asking for is more realistic physics that better mimics the unpredictability of a real pinball table. And pulling that off in a proper way, is difficult, very difficult. Physics is already one of the most difficult things to program in a video game, and TPA already has some of the best pinball physics I've ever seen in a video game (I can only think of Zen Pinball that might be able to match it).

I agree that TPA has great pinball physics. I disagree that it's difficult to make it more realistic. Tightening up the ramps to be as unforgiving as the real table, adding randomness in angle and speed to the slot machine kick out, and making that kick out faster in any case: three easy changes that would make it more realistic. I don't think you go as far as mimicking the frequent kick outs from the extra ball shot, but there are many 'realistic' things that are easy to do.

 

[Sumez]

Keep in mind that I've never tried a real TZ

If it's true that FS indeed did intentionally modify the ramp's collision mesh to make it easier to hit, that's a perfectly valid piece of criticism! I think requesting that FS make that more like the real table is much more constructive, and there's a far bigger chance that they would listen to that than "¤)%(## GMAE IS TOO EAZY PIECEOF****!"#"

All I heard, from FS themselves, though, is that they try to model the objects on the table to be exactly (or as much as possible) like the real thing, so if they are not only failing at that, but doing it intentionally, I'd like to at least hear them defend that choice, because I don't think it flows well with their mission of "recreating and preserving the tables for future generations".