My impressions as a TZ machine owner

[3waycombo]

About 99% of my pinball playing takes place on the Twilight Zone in my basement. I've taken every single part off the playfield at one time or another for cleaning or repairs, and I'm very sensitive to subtle changes in the way the game is playing, which can be the result of many factors such as cleanliness of the playfield and rubber parts, the condition and alignment of mechanical components, outlane post adjustments, software settings and of course the slope and tilt of the table. Plus the duration of gameplay will have a noticeable effect as the machne heats up. Even the temperature and humidity of the air have an effect.

At one point last year I had the machine running as smoothly as I've ever seen it. I was able to score over 2 billion regularly with a few over 5 billion and high score of 6 billion and change. As the machine sits in my basement right now, I have to really work hard to get a billion. One important difference is that I moved the outlane bumpers to the most difficult position, but I'm fairly good at avoiding the outlanes through my strategy, so that alone can't account for the several billion points that have been slashed from my high scores.

As it turns out there is only one thing that needs to be changed to make TZ ten times harder... a crazy, erratic slot machine kicker. In short, we did some repairs on the slot scoop and solenoid bracket, that allow the machine to play but force you to react to a variety of speeds and locations that it delivers the ball. Considering how often the ball is delivered to the flippers from the slot machine, it is, in my humble opinion the most determinate factor in how difficult a particular TZ plays. If you can count on it to deliver the ball at a constant speed to the center of the flipper, you can own that machine. If it's pitching the ball like a drunken Nolan Ryan, you're going to be fighting for survival, with balls bouncing every which way off the slingshots and jet bumpers and other unintended targets. This one single factor makes all the difference.

I tell my story is in response to discussions I've read about TPA being too easy and people playing for 8 hours to achieve incredible high scores. For one, by nature a computer game is based on a set of rules written in a code that can be mastered and beaten. This does not apply to a real physical machine that is constantly changing in a constantly changing environment. A high score in pinball generally only applies to that particular machine. Even on a single machine, the high scores should be reset after a number of games, because it's not quite the same game that it was 500 games ago.

I'd like to think that Pinball Arcade is fine tuning these games based on customer feedback, so if that's the case, every so often the high scores should be reset, with only the Grand Champion Score being saved. I think it would be great if high scores for these games were in the same ballpark as their real life counterparts. I think it's a good barometer for how realistic the game actually is.

There are a couple things about TPA that annoy me thus far, like the responsiveness of the upper flippers and lack of touch on the plunger but overall I think they did an amazing job on all the tables I've played. They have already laid a great foundation and I have a feeling that it will only take a few subtle changes to make it truly feel like the real thing. Farsight appears to be quite dedicated to this project, so I have all the confidence in them, but I think the true game changer would be if they put some more editing power in the hands of the players to tweak our own tables like a true pinball owner would.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Great first post.

 

[3waycombo]

Thank you Jeff

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

FarSight has indicated that adjustments like slingshot sensitivity, outlane post position, and playfield pitch may be coming to the Pro versions of the tables at some point. I don't know if kickout randomization could be added or not.

And yes, a predictable slot return makes TZ much more manageable, although it's not everything. My Twilight Zone is fairly consistent with its slot kickouts, with just the occasional variation. I like it that way better than one that's totally on the nose or totally out of whack.

 

[grashopper]

To get the quickest response off a top flipper when I know the ball will be up there I hold the controller button half way down to hold up the bottom flipper then wait for the top shot to line up and squeeze the rest of the way. Seems to help me a lot on timing once it's gotten used to.

 

[SKILL_SHOT]

the slot machine kickout has some randomness but only during multiball

 

[3waycombo]

Good tip grasshopper! I shall try the L2 and R2 buttons for this technique. I suppose I can't entirely blame my feeble upper flipper skills on the software either. I'm just so used to being able to move my eyeballs to get a better view of the feed which I can't do on the video game.

Sean, that's good news if they are adding more adjustment features. Sign me up. It would be funny if you could add grime to the playfield or crappy components to really amp up the realism.

I agree that the slot kickout isn't the only thing that affects the difficulty or quality of gameplay on TZ. It's just such a frequent event that it makes a big difference. It's one of those things that I'd pay special attention to as a software engineer, and get some very accurate data on it from more than one TZ machine. I have to agree that I like some variation too as long as it doesn't throw it right down the middle or off the slingshot. Other than that I tend to enjoy the challenge. It reminds me of playing baseball.

A couple more biggies that would apply to other machines would be table slope, flipper alignment (which there doesn't seem to be a true standard, just those alignment holes for reference. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) and the color of the flipper rubbers. I'd like to say flipper strength but that really shouldn't vary too much except I know that mine get weaker after an hour or so.

 

[TomL]

To the owners of real world TZ tables, do your machines occassionaly catch and hold a ball on the underside of the upper right flipper? I've only played on one physical table and it did this. Glad to see this happens in the TPA version too.

 

[3waycombo]

For sure! Pretty common on my machine, whether intended or not. I love all the little nuances. It's also kind of neat that the Pinball Arcade has it's own nuances, like I just had a ball go screaming below the upper right flipper, off the rocket, straight up the auto plunger ramp into the spiral. That was so cool to me because I don't think I've ever seen it happen before.

BTW.....
I have to take back my comments about the plunger lacking touch and the upper flippers not being responsive. This was true at the time, but it wasn't the game's fault. It was because of my bootleg PS3 controller. Now that I'm using an actual Dualshock it's way better.

 

[TomL]

I can't be completely sure, as it's hard to test out accurately, but my experience with real flippers is that they won't launch two balls with as much force as they would with just one ball. For instance, a table where you can cradle and shoot a ramp, a ramp so steep that if you don't hit it perfectly and send the ball up with enough speed, the ball will come rolling back down. Now if you tried to cradle two balls on that flipper and shoot for the ramp, you'll never make the shot. The force of the flipper is split between the two balls.

I don't think TPA models this situation accurately. Cradling two balls on a flipper then shooting, feels identical in terms of power with cradling one ball and shooting.

It's hard to explain. I just know from RL experience that some flipper ramp shots just can't be achieved if the flipper is weighted down with two balls. And I haven't seen that nuance in TPA yet.

Tom

Tom

 

[Clawhammer]

I agree that the slot machine kickout is probably the most important factor in difficulty on a TZ. If your shot making is good and the dead bounce or live catch from the slot is consistent, you can play through the game basically without taking any risky shots, with the exception of a failed battle the power.

 

[Carl Spiby]

Kickout randomisation could be so very simple, simply work the randomisation from a timecode.

 

[xNiCeGuYx]

Yes, FS should randomize the kickouts! I don't get it why they haven't yet.

 

[3waycombo]

If your shot making is good and the dead bounce or live catch from the slot is consistent, you can play through the game basically without taking any risky shots, with the exception of a failed battle the power.

yup, you said it. 3 way combos all day, and keep a multiball a couple shots away to capitalize on outlanes or some stacked multiball friendly modes like clock, town
square and spiral. If the dead bounce is reliable, I can get Lost in the Zone one handed. Gotta watch out for those hitchhikers though, because battling the power with one hand = death about half the time. I think you're exactly right about battling the power being the one wildcard that prevents basically playing forever if you're tuned in on the ramps and piano. I got the ramps down pretty well on Pinball Arcade but still don't have the piano measured yet.

I'm all about Monster Bash right now though. That game makes me so frustrated! Such a different dynamic than TZ. The tension keeps building and building until I have all my monsters just about captured and then.... I blow it. Dammit I love that game even though it ticks me off every time I play it.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

That's the reason I prefer a kickout with occasional variation. It keeps the rest of the game in play by giving you the knowledge that the slot machine may screw you at any time, so you better take that multiball while you still can.

My TZ's a nightmare, though, with extra-bouncy flipper rubbers so that dead bouncing is not very safe. I'm using it to practice my quick decision-making. I tend to panic and flail the ball away stupidly when faced with a ball coming in at speed; I'm trying to cure myself of that.

 

[pezpunk]

I agree that the slot machine kickout is probably the most important factor in difficulty on a TZ. If your shot making is good and the dead bounce or live catch from the slot is consistent, you can play through the game basically without taking any risky shots, with the exception of a failed battle the power.

this is exactly right. TZ in TPA can be reduced to a very small number of extremely low-risk shots, primarily due to the predictability of the slot machine kickout.

Yes, FS should randomize the kickouts! I don't get it why they haven't yet.

they have! some machines DO have a semi-randomized kickout (CFTBL recently got it, as did a few others). but even then, it seems to be simply two different possibilities that it toggles between. it's weird that they can't program it to pick values within a short RANGE of known possible angles and velocities for it to be ejected at -- it seems like that would much more closely resemble real life.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

it's weird that they can't program it to pick values within a short RANGE of known possible angles and velocities for it to be ejected at -- it seems like that would much more closely resemble real life.

It's not hard at all...just a few lines will do it.

using namespace System;
double baseSpeed, finalSpeed, baseAngle, finalAngle;
Random ^ rng = gcnew Random;

...

finalSpeed = baseSpeed * (0.9 + (rng->NextDouble() * 0.2)); // final speed is random value between 90% and 110% of base speed
finalAngle = baseAngle - 5 + (rng->NextDouble() * 10); // final angle (in degrees) is random value within 5 degrees of base angle

...

Or if you wanted to get fancy and plan ahead for a user-adjustable "Kickout Variation" option in the future:

using namespace System;
double baseSpeed, finalSpeed, baseAngle, finalAngle;
double kickoutVariation = 0.1; // value from 0.0 to 1.0 from a user-adjustable slider somewhere that controls how "random" kickouts should be, default = 0.1
Random ^ rng = gcnew Random;

...

finalSpeed = baseSpeed * (1 - kickoutVariation + (rng->NextDouble() * 2 * kickoutVariation)); // final speed is base speed times a random value between (1 - userVariation) and (1 + userVariation)
finalAngle = baseAngle - (50 * kickoutVariation) + (rng->NextDouble() * 100 * kickoutVariation); // final angle (in degrees) is random value within (50 * userVariation) degrees of base angle

...

Or for extra realism, since most physical machines are not completely random but generally have a "typical" kickout that happens most of the time, and only sometimes do they vary and surprise the player:

using namespace System;
double baseSpeed, finalSpeed, baseAngle, finalAngle;
double kickoutVariation = 0.1; // value from 0.0 to 1.0 from a user-adjustable slider somewhere that controls both the chance and the magnitude of a "random" kickout, default = 0.1
Random ^ rng = gcnew Random;

...

if (rng->NextDouble() < kickoutVariation) // as kickoutVariation increases, random adjustments to the kickout both happen more often and are larger in magnitude
{
    finalSpeed = baseSpeed * (1 - kickoutVariation + (rng->NextDouble() * 2 * kickoutVariation)); // final speed is base speed times a random value between (1 - userVariation) and (1 + userVariation)
    finalAngle = baseAngle - (50 * kickoutVariation) + (rng->NextDouble() * 100 * kickoutVariation); // final angle (in degrees) is random value within (50 * userVariation) degrees of base angle
}
else
{
    finalSpeed = baseSpeed;
    finalAngle = baseAngle;
}

...

And so on and so forth...

 

[pezpunk]

exactly.

 

[pinballchris]

I can think of a few other things they should fix before worrying about random kickouts (HD3rd game ender, ST:TNG FF camera) but I digress, I hate TZ anyways.

 

[Zaphod77]

Actually one thing that affects kickouts in real life is they tend to impart a randomized side spin to the ball depending on how it happens to scrape the insides.

This randomized spin makes dead bounces out of them unpredictable. if it spins the wrong way it will go screaming towards the center instead of bouncing over.

In my opinion dead bouncing should be more reliable than trying to trap those kickouts.