Need more strategy from the pros.

[EccentricFlower]

Not gonna necropost on the "first impressions" thread, but I note there that some people seem to think this is a boringly easy table and others think it's one of the nastiest in TPA. You can put me down for the latter. If I had encountered this table in an arcade when I was sixteen, it would have quickly been one of the ones I didn't play any more because "it just eats your money."

Seriously, y'all, I know I'm a duffer but I have managed to have ONE good game on this thing in I don't know how many months since I got it. And "good game" means 2.5 M. You wouldn't believe the number of games I play on this where I don't break a million. Either every ball goes SDTM, or it goes into the right drain, or it bounces around the inner table without my being able to hit any of the good stuff until the inevitable drain. I have never had a table so frustrating. I realize I play by luck a lot - I never claimed to be any good at this obsession - but normally I can get maybe one good game of ten on any other table in TPA. Not this one.

Let's have some advice from all you wizards for the klutzes. Can this table be saved?

 

[DrainoBraino]

When I'm going for a high score on this one, I avoid the center drop targets, so no stunt scene. Just keep shooting for cards and try to hit the jackpot during multi ball.

This is a good table to practice your nudge skills. If u think for one second that ball is going sdtm , NUDGE! Rookie mistake is too wait way too long to nudge, u gotta nudge when the ball is high away from the flipper, not when it's almost drained.

 

[fromduc]

With that u can go infinite, i'm not #1 anymore, it was 6 months ago, but its just a question of time.

I just took the #1 spot on this one, well if u take the Invitro leaderboard which doesnt take the actual #1 score of 2.2B, probably a glitch, even if that score is not tyotally impossible in my mind: it took me 3 hours to make this 200M but i'm a slow player, and i just let go my last 3 EBs as i had to stop somewhere. In real, the 9th digit doesnt appear on the score when u play, and being the 1st PS3 player to got this 9th digit i tried to finish at 199M to be sure to not have played for nothing, and i just failed but tx god the hundre of millions is taken on the leader board ^^

Couple of advices here, in addition to Zaphod's post:

-Golden rule: dont do anything else than the poker hand orbit if u dont have a fresh kickback. By "fresh", i mean that if u just completed a poker hand and had the mistery animation, go back there one time, or your kickback will stop 3 seconds after. The table is already tricky enough to not play it without this solid insurance.

-Learn to control all the kickout returns:
*from bumpers kickout (100%) just dead pass to right flip.
*from poker kickout (99%) do 1 or 2 little left nudge before deadpass, to make the ball hit the end of left flipper, this willl make the RFlip control easyer. In 5% of the case the kickout is so strong that u'll need another left or up nudge when the ball rollback on the Rflip to keep control.
*from million kickout (90%), it's more tricky, but for me the best way is to do a little right nudge just when the ball will hit the left slingshot, ball will go to right slingshot then left up flip and jackpot target. If all jackpot targts are up it will go to one of ur flip for either a direct control or a dead pass. If one or 2 targets are down it goes sometimes to the right targets, and here there's too much target up/down possibility to tell u what to do, u got to learn, but with a bit of practice, u should be able to not lose ur ball 99% of the time. Just nudge soft but often.

-Knowing that if u want to score high u've got to be disciplined, and that means poker orbit again and again (deadpass on the kickout, posttrasfert to the leftflip, poker orbit....). U can give a shot to the ramp sometimes (with a full kickback timer of course, if u miss ur shoot just go poker a couple time before tryin again), but if u are strict u shouldnt: if bumpers are pushing ur ball strongly on the right exit, it's a direct left outlane 50% of the time and the kickback is usually out of time, the most brutal ball killer of this table for me. And as Zaphod says, u cant win the gunfight at a certain point (on PS3 at least u can only win 3 gunfight by ball).

-Stunt scene: a killer, just play it at the beginnig of a game, when u try to build a good game by winning a max of EBs. If it's for only the million reward or if u're already in a good game, let's just time out. I try to launch it by the left target only if it's the last scene to have the bonus game in the poker orbit, and even here i'm not sure it's profitable... and if i do, i also let it time out after have launched it.

-Jacpot: i dont go for it on purpose (except when it's the last scene), it's growing up among the game so no hurry, and the targets can be tricky when one or 2 of them are down. If it's started, i always play it, it's pretty safe, specially by the Lflip.

-Countdown bonus: good reward that u cant ignore, but tricky shoot, so learn it, specially to recover from a miss, with good reflexes it IS possible. I like to try it after a total controle on the Rflip. I never try it more than 2 times, less than 1.5 million is not a good risk/reward ratio.

-Million: in regular play AND in multiball, it's the most rewarding shoot, so u ABSOLUTELY need to be relatively consistent. Here are the 4 options, in my favourite order:
1-From the right flip after a ball control. I'm sure u already tried the ramp, missed it to late, kicked the right town standuup and go to the million by accident. Well, learn to repeat this accident on purpose ^^ I can do it 2 out of 3 times i'd say, by far my most consistent way to the million. If u miss it's usually coz u're too early, so u'll do the ramp or have a come back on the UpLFlip for a classic try to the million (in my case i usually dont try it, as i dont like this methode). On normal play, u'll have an other benefit by turning on this town stand up target, or even the second one if u miss late (but hard recover in this case). On multiball play it's a must do, as u can keep the second ball on the left flipper and u dont need the upleft one to take ur million. Regain control of this second ball with the 2 left flips up is another story, which can make the difference between good and huge games in my opinion, i dont have a solide methode for that but was pretty god at the end.
2- From a left flip control, be a bit early on a poker orbite shoot and u'll touch the corner of the right jacpot target to finish in the million hole. I also Learned this one by recurring miss at the poker orbit. I can do it 30% of the time, so as that doesnt have any advantage in any situation compared to the previous option, i dont use it.
3-Left orbit to UpLFlip, only available 50% of the time, undoable on multiball if u want to keep the second ball safe (or u need to do a quick posttransfert), hard to do consistently, and when u miss a hard recovery to come...
4-Same than 3 but with a red left target before, here u cant keep the 2nd ball in controle at all, the shoot from the left up flip is insane as the speed of the ball is very different each time, and in bonus shooting this red target is so risky ===> FORGET IT.

-Bonus: at the end of a long game, this is definitely the best reward u got. At the end of mine, i had more than 80 pokerhands completed, X30.000 = 2.4M poker bonus. The town standups are not that easy, but on a non-1st ball where u got 3 or 4 EBs stacked and a couple of standups lit by accident, u should go for it. Knowing that u dont want to tilt, and not even to have this tilt warning which turn ur ball on survival mode, so nudge a lot (u dont have choice on this table), but for God sick SOFT. I had the 10x bonus only one time in the midle of my game, and i took 12M just like that. Think about it

Well i think that's all folks