Is TPA alone enough for you, or are you also buying into Zen’s Williams app?

[meanpinball]

My opinion on TPA changes depending on the table I play. On some tables, play is just far too easy and the ball too floaty. Ripley's Believe It or Not is both. It's almost frustrating since the ball almost never drains and you can rack up whatever score you want with a modest level of skill. The challenge is lost. Gameplay can go on almost indefinitely. The same is true for Banzai Run and Indy 500: all critical shots are too easy to make. Both Elvira tables are also far too easy.

Other tables are far more difficult, such as STTNG. TPA has done an admirable job with this table, providing a lot of entertainment value and a relatively high level of difficulty, although again, there are certain shots that behave in all too predictable ways. Addam's Family is satisfying challenging. This may be their best simulation of them all. I rank FunHouse highly among TPA tables as well.

What's frustrating is that even a recent release like Star Trek not only has the same problems with physics, it is even more pronounced. For example, the warp ramp shot is far too easy to make, and once the ball rounds the corner, it will continue on it's way upward, regardless of how slowly the ball is traveling.

I've tried to be as lenient as possible in my appraisal of TPA, but their design philosophy seems to be to make most tables as easy as possible to play, which severely detracts from their realism.

 

[shutyertrap]

The philosophy of FarSight was to make the game enjoyable to the average-below average player. If you weren’t getting your butt handed to you each and every time, you’d probably be more likely to buy more tables. To that end, all the ROM settings were set to the most generous settings available. That’s why Ripleys spits out extra balls like candy. We pleaded with them from year one to add a difficulty setting, the closest they got was offering Pro versions that allowed you to configure operator settings yourself.

 

[meanpinball]

Are people satisfied with the rate of release by FX3? I suppose the higher quality of graphics and physics requires more development time.

 

[shutyertrap]

This is a longer gap than usual, but in the past when there’s been unusually long gaps it’s almost always because they had something big brewing. FarSight was a slave to release schedules to the detriment of the game, Zen knows that once a pack is released all is forgiven, so take the time needed to make sure you get it right.

In the podcast, Mel said one of the things they are working on is applying a Williams physics option to all existing Zen tables. That is a monumental task, one that will pay dividends down the road. Said they are also preparing field next gen consoles. Both those things tell me they are getting things set to make sure they are future proof and thinking long term. I always joked that despite their name, FarSight could barely foresee a month down the line.

 

[WesReviews]

Still not on board with Zen until they start releasing tables that haven't been released before.

So TPA is enough for me for now.