Is the Williams license in better hands now? Would a wide variety of tables by TPA be

[pinfan7]

The differences in those 2 screenshots are minimal and what you see there is the infamous -for many years- lacking of proper Anti-aliasing (no MSAA or SSAA iirc) in the Unreal Engine 4. You can enforce more sharpness and colour warmth through your GPU control panel if you want it to look like that in FX3.
Notice also the lack of reflection on the table sides. In fact it's pretty dissapointing what I see there, I would expect way more fidelity, detail, HDR lighting, including a different playing environment for FX but we see here the same lounge, so it is pretty obvious again that the only reason they 've gone to Timmy's Store was to get the dosh upfront and milk existing customers, while playing Timmy's exclusivity game of cannibalizing the market rather than competing. The minor differences and same version ported in another engine is one more reason not to get it on the Timmy's Store. Not that I would do anyway, I'm done with Zen, these days I only support Zaccaria/Magic Pixel and I play Williams/Bally exclusively in VPX.

 

[timxtr]

What pinfan7 said!

 

[Pete]

...but, but, but... the speckles man!!! those gorgeous speckles on the stairs!!! did you see those friggin' bad boys!?? hahahahahha
I promise you the lighting will be much cooler looking with real ray tracing and stuff... once any of us can even afford a damn gpu with ray tracing in this crazy shortage... which should take about as long as the exclusivity contract maybe. Though i think nvidia is just getting our hopes up by saying the shortage will end later this year... it could go on for years for all we know. anywho... remember when farsight was like "just buy all the will/bal tables before the month is over before they go away, we will make more tables we promise, you havnt seen the last of us, more tables will happen we swear, bla bla friggity bla frigg" and then nothing... NOTHING!!!! i defended those guys here for like a year saying stuff like they will probably surprise us with something awesome and yada yada... they chumped me. made me look like a fool. All those ignored early sterns they could have put out. ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! ahhhhhh!!!!! im in helll!!!! HELLLLL!!!!!!!!!

 

[gameaddict4life]

I just play Zaccaria now. TPA is too slow and Zen is too fast, like the ball is on a ping pong table. Zaccaria seems to have the perfect balance between the two and the leaderboards are fun when they're working. I can actually place in the top ten on some tables. Playing on the Xbox Series S. Really nice experience.

If Zen gets rid of the all the censorship stuff I might consider getting the new FX. Still not crazy about their physics though.

 

[pinballmonster]

I just play Zaccaria now. TPA is too slow and Zen is too fast, like the ball is on a ping pong table. Zaccaria seems to have the perfect balance between the two and the leaderboards are fun when they're working. I can actually place in the top ten on some tables. Playing on the Xbox Series S. Really nice experience.

If Zen gets rid of the all the censorship stuff I might consider getting the new FX. Still not crazy about their physics though.

No doubt. I have to, but hate to, agree. The zen tables are so beautifully and faithfully rendered, it's a joy to see such painstakingly recreated tables.

Playing the game is completely different. The "arcade" version doesn't seem faithful to the real world physics of actual tables. There's no weight to the ball, so it travels at improbably fast speeds. Everything about the physics is exaggerated: the spin, the speed, the bouncing, it's just kind of ridiculous.

As beautiful as the tables are to look at, they're not actually fun to play. Oddly, the zen physics makes game play too easy, so its pretty much impossible to find a middle ground.

 

[Scared Stiff]

No doubt. I have to, but hate to, agree. The zen tables are so beautifully and faithfully rendered, it's a joy to see such painstakingly recreated tables.

Playing the game is completely different. The "arcade" version doesn't seem faithful to the real world physics of actual tables. There's no weight to the ball, so it travels at improbably fast speeds. Everything about the physics is exaggerated: the spin, the speed, the bouncing, it's just kind of ridiculous.

As beautiful as the tables are to look at, they're not actually fun to play. Oddly, the zen physics makes game play too easy, so its pretty much impossible to find a middle ground.

I have fun playing them. To each’s own I guess.

 

[Cloda]

No doubt. I have to, but hate to, agree. The zen tables are so beautifully and faithfully rendered, it's a joy to see such painstakingly recreated tables.

Playing the game is completely different. The "arcade" version doesn't seem faithful to the real world physics of actual tables. There's no weight to the ball, so it travels at improbably fast speeds. Everything about the physics is exaggerated: the spin, the speed, the bouncing, it's just kind of ridiculous.

As beautiful as the tables are to look at, they're not actually fun to play. Oddly, the zen physics makes game play too easy, so its pretty much impossible to find a middle ground.

Zen's Williams Classic Arcade/Pro physics is a mixed bag at the moment. For the first three Volumes they were still refining the physics so the ball was flying across the screen with no weight, flipper tricks don't work that well, especially e.g. tip-passes. In Volume 4 they already improved it a lot, but since Universal Monsters the physics is quite decent and plays realistic. My favourite tables out of the released bunch are Road Show, Space Station, Monster Bash and No Good Gophers. On the Arcade 1UP cabinet, they updated the Vol 1 - 3 tables to have similar physics to the Universal Monsters tables and later. Let's see what they do in Pinball FX, but it will certainly play much better and more realistic than FX3's Volumes 1 - 3.

P.S. Zen did say that they will update FX3's Volumes 1 - 3, but that hasn't happened yet, unfortunately.

 

[pinfan7]

I did misjudge TPA's physics in the past mostly because what I've tried from TPA were free monthly Stern tables and I also fell victim of the hype for FX3, but when I *truly* played some I found out that they had many tables with the ball being not *that* slow as I previously believed with my misjudgement, compared to Zen's speedy-gonzales equivalent. After owning some tables and trying more stuff for real I found out that TPA's physics were actually much better, the ball had a true "hard" metal mass which you could actually "feel" by the way it was interacting with the table objects and your flippers, and almost all flipper tricks like tip-passes, alley passes, post-passes, basic stuff like drop/live catches -a sensible back-hand- were already there and done better. It always felt amazing to pull them off in any table, in contrast to Zen's which turned out to have overrated and overhyped physics. Marble-physics video has shown it and while it got a bit better it still suffers from that and the flipper control is still horrendous. For example Taxi is a reasonably fast table, where you can lose the ball from your eyes, but the ball never behaves in such erratic (i.e. broken) way like it does in Zen's tables. CftBL, while the ball is heavy af in FX3, if you give it some speed and it hits some corners it will behave exactly like in The Party Zone (see marble-video). Playing a Pinbot game or Space Shuttle, or... anything in TPA does not compare to anything sparse and trendy Zen offers, and it still holds fine in the visual department with DX11. Not to speak about its superior cameras. I never understood why FX2/3 needed to have so many crap cameras in quantity and angle.

 

[Iga_Biva]

Not to speak about its superior cameras. I never understood why FX2/3 needed to have so many crap cameras in quantity and angle.

This one of my biggest issues with Zen tables - I don't like any of their cameras, none of them suits my preferences. Ideally, they should implement free camera mode so that everyone can setup cameras as they like - similar like Visual Pinball has.

Additionally, force feedback on PS4/PS5 controller is far superior on TPA. While it barely works in FX3, I can really feel the ball in TPA. Not having implemented all functionalities of PS5 controller in next version would be big disappointment to me.

 

[shogun00]

Additionally, force feedback on PS4/PS5 controller is far superior on TPA. While it barely works in FX3, I can really feel the ball in TPA.

TPA is actually very unrealistic in that aspect. Everytime the ball hits a rubber the controller rumbles. It annoyed me so much that I had to turn the rumble off.

When playing a real pinball machine, do you ever feel the ball rolling? I haven't! The only vibrations I feel are from the solenoids popping and the shake motor (when available).

Zen has the force feedback a little more accurate than TPA. If they just add the solenoid feedback from the flipper coils, then we'll be all set.

 

[Iga_Biva]

Well, allow me to disagree

For me is force feedback very important for whole experience, even if this is not 100% realistic.

When I play some game which fully utilizes PS5 controller and later switch to XBOX to play something else, it is really day and night experience.

 

[yespage]

For the console, force feedback to me is a gimmick. On a standing digital pinball table, definitely completes the experience.

 

[pinfan7]

The differences in those 2 screenshots are minimal and what you see there is the infamous -for many years- lacking of proper Anti-aliasing (no MSAA or SSAA iirc) in the Unreal Engine 4. You can enforce more sharpness and colour warmth through your GPU control panel if you want it to look like that in FX3.
Notice also the lack of reflection on the table sides. In fact it's pretty dissapointing what I see there, I would expect way more fidelity, detail, HDR lighting, including a different playing environment for FX but we see here the same lounge, so it is pretty obvious again that the only reason they 've gone to Timmy's Store was to get the dosh upfront and milk existing customers, while playing Timmy's exclusivity game of cannibalizing the market rather than competing. The minor differences and same version ported in another engine is one more reason not to get it on the Timmy's Store. Not that I would do anyway, I'm done with Zen, these days I only support Zaccaria/Magic Pixel and I play Williams/Bally exclusively in VPX.

Well, a new video is out showing the table and just proving all the above https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q5AqZTkUxQ

Looks also like they put the whole work into porting over the tables instead on working on physics, which look the same "****ty & stiff" ones to me.

VPX >>>>> this, anytime.

 

[gameaddict4life]

For the console, force feedback to me is a gimmick. On a standing digital pinball table, definitely completes the experience.

Yeah. I've started turning off controller vibration in games. Sometimes it distracts from the experience or worsens your gameplay, twitchy online shooters for example. Plus it drains your controller's battery faster.