Patch 1.20 NA and 1.21 EU

[Tom Devaney]

So... It seems weird to do this post as the patch I put out had some bugs that I still need to address. But it seems I accidentally deployed this patch instead of 1.19. I went home yesterday and checked out the update history, and it listed it as 1.20 and with Pistol Poker, so I realized my mistake right away. 1.20 I was getting ready for a release along with Pistol Poker in a few weeks, and I forgot it was already approved and everything, so when I seen the most recent patch available to publish, I published it. So that's why people are able to play Pistol Poker. If there are any bugs with it, it's because we were unaware of it, not because it is unfinished. If anyone can solidly reproduce any of these, tell me, and I'll look into it. Sorry for the confusion. Luckily, this little mistake I did doesn't harm anything.

So I'm going to post the changelog and go into it here, but know that today I'll be spending it looking into the all the big bugs: trial mode, tokens, and highscores.

Patch 1.20

Table Added:
-Pistol Poker

Features Added:
-Added friends leaderboard
-Added "You beat friend" HUD
-Added new goal completion HUD
-Added goal completion sound
-Triggers skip through owned tables faster
-Separated PS4 tournament from PS3/Vita tournament
-Changed tournament all time rank logo
-Changed tournament logo

Bugs Fixed:
-Fixed bug where if player wasn't signed in when they launched the game that even if they signed in later they couldn't access online features
-Fixed bad frame in goal completion animation
-Fixed high scores menu where you go from newest table to first table, and you skip over Gorgar
-Fixed horizontal line showing up in middle of playfield for Addams Family, Cactus Canyon, Dracula, Earthshaker, High Roller Casino, Lights Camera Action, Phantom of the Opera, and Starship Troopers
-Fixed bug where going into table exploration prevents fly by camera
-Scrolling through leaderboards now works better
-Fixed custom ball 8 ball texture being stretched
-Fixed stretchy, low-res Pinball Arcade logos on menus
-Fixed X button showing up in upper left corner of menus on load
-Upper left bumper in Dracula now stays lit

So this is a pretty decent update feature wise. QA mentioned how they thought a friends leaderboard was in the PS4 version, but it wasn't. So I added that to the game. But I thought it'd also be cool that if you beat your friend's score while you were playing the table, a little HUD pop up would happen. I had seen how the new GUI had something cool when a goal was completed, so I took this and adapted it for PS4. Now the goal completes happen on here, and if you beat your friend's score, it shows their name and the score you beat.

Now in regards to any bugs in regards to the friends leaderboards, I need more details because I didn't expect any issues at all with the friends leaderboards. I tested it on my dev account, and it worked fine. Then QA tested it on another account, and it worked there. Anyone completely positive that they have friends who play Pinball Arcade, have played that table, and they don't show up?

Quick side note about scrolling through leaderboards: I didn't like how it took forever to go through them. So I tried to make it faster last update, but it was a bit off/buggy. The way it is now is much better though. You hold the left or right button to scroll and once you let go that leaderboard has to load. You cannot interrupt that. Once it's done, you can start the holding process again. This was just a usability thing that bugged me whenever I was looking through the leaderboards. This along with the triggers skipping through tables are two things usability wise that hopefully help people get through menus faster.

Another big thing this update does is separate PS3 and Vita from PS4 in the tournaments. The way I did this was completely copy the old PSN leaderboards, and then made that the start of the PS4 one. So if you are on PS3/Vita and want to switch to PS4, you will have left off where you were. And vice versa if you still want to play tournaments on PS3 and Vita. Or if you want to play both. The benefit of this switch allows us to do season 7 tables in the PS4 tournament now.

Sorry there are bugs, I always feel like I'm putting out a completely solid patch, but something always slips through the cracks. So to help me fix these bugs, alert them to me here. Try not to post them in 1.19 if you think it's a bug caused by this specific patch.

 

[Byte]

Wow! It seems like I'm in an alternate universe! Thank you!

Just for clarification re the tournament split:
- will everyone on PS4 start at the Bronze level, or is the ranking copied as well?
- was the Web team informed of this? http://pinballarcade.com/Tournaments/ needs to be split in PS4 and PS3/VITA
- playing both PS4 and PS3 will not confuse the leaderboards (since they'll share at least some tables)? We've had issues in the past where people were dropped down to Bronze for no reason...

And another question: will the Leaderboards be split too, or will that remain as "PSN" ?

Thanks again for all your hard work and letting us know about it, that is very much appreciated.

 

[starck]

Thank you for all of your hard work. I like how detailed and thoughtful you are as well - it shows in your write-up.
Much appreciation from the PS4 peeps!

 

[PiN WiZ]

Bulb brightness value range is too short. 0% looks almost the same as 100% with very little change in brightness. The bulb brightness value should range from 0% (bulbs completely off or just barely on) to 100% (bulbs very bright or almost blown out). Also, the room lighting value is not saved per table when you close the game...it reverts back to 50%.

Thanks for your hard work and dedication Tom.

 

[Captain Caveman]

Now in regards to any bugs in regards to the friends leaderboards, I need more details because I didn't expect any issues at all with the friends leaderboards. I tested it on my dev account, and it worked fine. Then QA tested it on another account, and it worked there. Anyone completely positive that they have friends who play Pinball Arcade, have played that table, and they don't show up?

My Friend owns every table available on the PS3 but his score doesn't show on the PS4... If I load up my PS3 our scores are shown properly on the PS3 including scores I got from tables that I only own on the PS4 (Season 5 and 6).


Another bug I just found was that the instructions on the goals for world champion soccer don't work.

 

[Tom Devaney]

@Captain_Caveman

Thanks for checking that for me. I didn't think of testing the friends leaderboard with PS3 friends scores. I mean, it would make sense that PS3 friends would also show up in the list given the way I handled it, but this is something I need to look into.

Can anyone verify that they have a friend on PS4 who has a table and has a leaderboard posting on that table, but their score doesn't show up on PS4?

Also, given the issues with the highscores and tokens (I'm thinking we have a saving/loading issue), I don't want to put out the EU patch till these issues are fixed. Luckily, the submission process shouldn't be too long once I actually fix the bugs.

 

[gameaddict4life]

Bulb brightness value range is too short. 0% looks almost the same as 100% with very little change in brightness. The bulb brightness value should range from 0% (bulbs completely off or just barely on) to 100% (bulbs very bright or almost blown out). Also, the room lighting value is not saved per table when you close the game...it reverts back to 50%.

Thanks for your hard work and dedication Tom.

Actually it reverts back to a random percentage for both the room and bulb brightness.

 

[Captain Caveman]

@Captain_Caveman

Thanks for checking that for me. I didn't think of testing the friends leaderboard with PS3 friends scores. I mean, it would make sense that PS3 friends would also show up in the list given the way I handled it, but this is something I need to look into.

Can anyone verify that they have a friend on PS4 who has a table and has a leaderboard posting on that table, but their score doesn't show up on PS4?

I just created a secondary account on the PS4, friended myself, played tales and then checked friends and it doesn't show my main accounts score..so it isn't working.

 

[Tom Devaney]

[MENTION=1509]Byte[/MENTION]

The ranks should transfer. I'd have to double check though to give you a more definitive answer though.
The leaderboards are shared between pretty much every platform, so no need to worry about anything leaderboard related.

[MENTION=31]PiN WiZ[/MENTION]

Good catch. It does actually change it, but it is super subtle. I will make it work better.

@Captain_caveman

That stinks. I will look into this problem, but it's just really weird because it shows up perfectly fine here on our dev and test kits.

Everyone:

Don't delete your save data. The save data has all your highscores. Something in the code was just ignoring the highscores in your save data. I've fixed that.

 

[Captain Caveman]

A suggestion..

You should also be testing this on a non-dev console to exactly see what were playing after each release.

It would make it easier for yourself as well I'm sure.

 

[gameaddict4life]

I found three bugs.

First, on TOTAN, and I'm assuming all Pro tables but I can't test, if you select to turn off Tilt it will warn you about disabling leaderboards but there is no button icon on screen to either let you accept or back out of the menu. No button press does anything so you are stuck unless you force quit the game.

Second, there is no Upper Flipper Control ON/OFF option in the menus, even on tables that have upper flippers. On the PS3 version there is an option in the main menu options and on the table options themselves.

Third, at a certain point, maybe 30 seconds, the table music of Swords of Fury plays on top of itself resulting in very annoying and strange music. This seems to happen at a set time but it might be related to menu operation.

 

[cga220501]

Scared Stiff (Pro):

I've read the help instructions, however only the refresh button appears to work when opening the coin door. I can't otherwise access the menu features to turn off Family Mode.

 

[HiHat]

I'm so disgusted that FS can't seem to put out an update that isn't riddled by bugs. I have only played the new tables -- plus the ones already cited as having problems, notably Firefly and Elvira -- but the lighting problem alone, which was supposed to be fixed, seems worse than ever, now that the program doesn't remember your preferred settings from one play session to the next. Am I feeling guilty about paying only $5 for Season 7? Not at all, given that FS seems to continue using the PS community as Beta testers. This is really deplorable...

 

[Byte]

Price seems to be fixed, it now shows up as $39.99 in the Canadian PSN store. $53.49 for the Pro version.

 

[PiN WiZ]

I'm so disgusted that FS can't seem to put out an update that isn't riddled by bugs. I have only played the new tables -- plus the ones already cited as having problems, notably Firefly and Elvira -- but the lighting problem alone, which was supposed to be fixed, seems worse than ever, now that the program doesn't remember your preferred settings from one play session to the next. Am I feeling guilty about paying only $5 for Season 7? Not at all, given that FS seems to continue using the PS community as Beta testers. This is really deplorable...

There is no doubt that the PS community are frustrated over the numerous issues with the PS4 version and having to wait almost a year for an update. However, Tom has taken the reigns and is hoping to make the PS4 version the absolute best it can be by putting out more frequent updates that will address issues and keep the PS4 more up-to-date with table releases.

That said, Tom has to clean up the mess left behind by the previous programmer and he's going to stumble here and there no doubt, but he has every intention to give the PS community the game they deserve. He's being extremely open with us and is asking for our help, so how about we give the guy a chance.

 

[Tom Devaney]

[MENTION=1227]HiHat[/MENTION]

I really wanted to ignore this, and this might seem petty, but I wanted to get this out there. When Pinball Arcade PS4 came into my hands, it was 6-7 months behind. It's taken me about 4 months to try to catch it up while working on bugs on PS4, PS3, and Vita all the while actually learning everything about the engine and submission process. I felt a large amount of pressure from the fans and my coworkers to catch up the PS4, and I have finally managed to. It's unfortunate that there are bugs, but this is what happens when I was trying to get the product out as fast as possible. Now that I'm caught up, it'll be much easier to start fixing a lot of the existing bugs and any bugs that I might've accidentally introduced. And don't act like you wouldn't be mad if I delayed it another month or two to fix bugs. If you have bugs that you want me to fix, list them here, but complaining won't improve the product.

In general though, lighting seems like it isn't too consistent based on everyone's reactions. Instead of the solution where I tried to fix every table's lighting with one solution, I will be going to every single table and adjusting the min and max values for the lighting. I will mainly be focusing on bulb brightness, but if ambient sticks out, I will also tune that. In addition to this, I will make sure the bulb brightness slider range is much better than it was, so if you prefer a table to be a bit brighter or darker, you can choose so. The range on the tables I've already adjusted has been small. The new range on the tables should pretty much be what PiN-WiZ suggested: 0 is pretty much turned off and 100 is close to blown out.

 

[Heretic]

Do t take to heart dude some people just like to use the forum to vent, dont burnout! Nice to see such workon the apprently neglcted console stuff

 

[Rage]

There is no doubt that the PS community are frustrated over the numerous issues with the PS4 version and having to wait almost a year for an update. However, Tom has taken the reigns and is hoping to make the PS4 version the absolute best it can be by putting out more frequent updates that will address issues and keep the PS4 more up-to-date with table releases.

That said, Tom has to clean up the mess left behind by the previous programmer and he's going to stumble here and there no doubt, but he has every intention to give the PS community the game they deserve. He's being extremely open with us and is asking for our help, so how about we give the guy a chance.

Well said! I appreciate Tom coming to the forum and it takes time to get a all the bugs worked out of the mess that was there.

 

[Captain Caveman]

Tom please know that the majority of us appreciate the extra time your taking to post here and the goal is to help make the PS4 version as best as possible.

 

[shuttlelaunch]

I have been playing pinball arcade since the xbox360 debacle so Tom being so open with the community is a breath of fresh air and it's exciting how much ground has been gained in the ps4 version already now that he has been working on it. Farsight having hired someone like him gives me a small spark of hope that maybe they are mending their ways. Bugs aren't really a problem any piece of software will have some bugs on release were the problem laid was in having no hope of them ever being fixed so we shall see long term how this goes but so far I think it's a good start.