PC tournament starting on June 29

[invitro]

I just mailed the following to support@pinballarcade.com:

Subject: please look into the scores of user "Montana_Frank"

Hi, I'm enjoying the PC tournament a lot! However, a score of user "Montana_Frank" seems problematic. He has 24 million on Haunted House, which doesn't seem possible, especially in 20 minutes.

This user is also known to have hacked a score (78,654,430) on Xenon which you have deleted from your score database, and has at least one other score (374,265,516,670), on Road Show, which seems sketchy.

Also, this user is known to not be the "Montana Frank" of the pinballarcadefans forum; he is an impostor.

Thanks for your fine work, especially lately!

 

[JPelter]

I don't understand this claim. There are always certain shots you take to lite/collect EBs in any strategy. These shots and related strategy disappear when EBs are disabled. This is a massive change in strategy for most tables, any table where getting an EB is important and non-trivial. It does limit your mistakes, but it does much more than that.

I'm not (here) commenting on the goodness of the two things (that's another discussion which I'm also very interested in ), just saying that disabling extra balls changes optimal gameplay at least as much as the 20-minute limit does. (At least it sure seems that way... I don't want to state this as a fact.)

We have a difference of perspective problem here, where I consider no extra balls to be the default state of the game. I guess I should have been more clear about that. I could also go on to note that 20 minutes is completely abritrary and affects different tables in different ways. It just seems really counter to the design of pinball in general.

edit: Also to the point of huge scores without timer. I would assume that Farsight would release tournament modes for the tables before removing the timer. Secondly, I don't see any difference in time required to get to the top spots. If every top 100 player or whatever in TPA decided they cared enough to aim for the #1 spot in a 20 minute tournament, it would easily take as much or more time to reach that than in a no timer tournament. Just because the single games take less time doesn't make it any less grindy or silly.

There are only a handful of tables where the optimal scoring path isn't incredibly obvious after a few tries. In those you could argue that the 20 minute timer is pretty cool because you can actually find a way to beat the others by finding a weird new trick for a high score. Every other table however would just become a crazy grind for the most amounts of shot X and/or Y you can cram into 20 minutes, which seems pretty mind-numbing to me. The only reason it hasn't is that I don't think most people care that much about actually placing other than being above the silver cutline in the tournament. Or maybe I'm just being grumpy.

 

[shutyertrap]

All I can really say Jay, is there's a reason I set up the BlahCade TotM the way I did (and this tourney is bringing it all back to me in spades)

 

[invitro]

There are only a handful of tables where the optimal scoring path isn't incredibly obvious after a few tries.

Do you mean incredibly obvious to everyone, or to the top 100 players, or some other group?

But I'm interesting in finding out if this is true or not. I wish I could do an experiment and ask you and several other players to give the optimal scoring path (in this 20-minute tourney) for CC, Co1812, HH, TO, and TZ (after playing a few games of each), and see if they vary. Do any of you guys want to try? (I actually don't have an answer for these five.)

Your point on total time spent to reach #1 being the same is interesting.

I think no extra balls is counter to the design of pinball.

 

[JPelter]

Actually I guess I'm just being overly grumpy and in the danger of seeming like a giant knob. Apologies to all, and I'll just try to keep my terrible opinions to myself.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Fwiw it looks like the Montana_frank scores are being ignored; the game just doesn't have the filter facilities of the website.

 

[Tann]

Here's how the rest of the tourney runs...

- There is a maximum of 800 points available.
- 100 points goes to top score, 90 to 2nd, and 85 (I think) to 3rd. After that, points work in fractions based on total number of unique players.
- This first tourney there is only bronze level. Top 10% of all scores in overall standings will earn silver rank for next tournament.
- Same will apply next tourney for silver level, where top 10% will earn gold status. Lowest 10% will drop back to bronze.
- You only compete against those in your same bronze/silver/gold level

To add some advantages to be in a higher tier:

- Win a Gold tourney gives 300 pts in the All-Time Ranking.
- Win a Silver tourney gives 200 pts in the All-Time Ranking.
- Win a Bronze tourney gives 100 pts in the All-Time Ranking.

I don't remember how much points it gives to finish second or third in a tier, but All-Time Ranking works the same way than a tourney ranking (after 2nd and 3rd, points work in fractions based on total number of unique players)

For example, finish 1st in Silver gives 200 pts, but finish about 15th-20th in Gold (with about 100 unique players) gives also 200 pts in All-Time Ranking.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Okay, so what are the best scoring strategies for each table?

Haunted House: keep the ball alive along as you can; get it to the top playfield as often as possible and make sure the ball goes down to the bottom playfield.
Victory: keep making those checkpoints. Going for F-I-N-I-S-H targets slows you down, only aim for the last one or two.
Cactus Canyon: keep 1 ball going for 20 minutes, get to Marshall, there's only time for one High Noon, drain Showdown and Stampede, otherwise keep starting Gold Mine multiball to feed the bonus x rollovers and bumpers. After playing High Noon, drain with less than a minute to go and collect a huge bonus.
Ripley's: Continent tours, 2x scoring. Really not much else.
Space Shuttle: Multiball, spam Stop-n-Score, max the spinner, play for the full 20 minutes.
Tee'd Off: Abuse the mode whose name escapes me but scores your bonus multiple times. You can ramp the bonus up with the captive ball. If you're brave try SKINS I guess.
TZ: Multiball and LITZ. Ignore Powerball Mania, save the Powerball for Multiball and double jackpots.

 

[Gus]

I don't play the PC tournament, but I'll chime in anyway as I think scoring strategies within the time limit are interesting. I don't know what kind of scores you guys are shooting, but I have a hard time seeing how going for F-I-N-I-S-H on Victory will slow you down. Advance F-I-N-I-S-H to 8x as first prio, then do checkpoints only to keep the score rolling while shooting spinners, ramps and kickouts. ~100M in 20 minutes. The others sounds pretty much like what I'd try as well. On Ripley's I think building up points early on the continents themselves should pay off in the end. I didn't know about that mode on Tee'd Off. I never play that table, I'll try it again when it comes around for totw

 

[Gus]

To add some advantages to be in a higher tier:

- Win a Gold tourney gives 300 pts in the All-Time Ranking.
- Win a Silver tourney gives 200 pts in the All-Time Ranking.
- Win a Bronze tourney gives 100 pts in the All-Time Ranking.

I don't remember how much points it gives to finish second or third in a tier, but All-Time Ranking works the same way than a tourney ranking (after 2nd and 3rd, points work in fractions based on total number of unique players)

For example, finish 1st in Silver gives 200 pts, but finish about 15th-20th in Gold (with about 100 unique players) gives also 200 pts in All-Time Ranking.

Cool, I had no idea how that worked, but it reflects my all-time rank score exactly.

 

[invitro]

TZ: Multiball and LITZ. Ignore Powerball Mania, save the Powerball for Multiball and double jackpots.

Thanks for this, I just did it and got 2X jackpots of 180M, 220M, 260M, and one or two more. I finished a LITZ in the last ten seconds, and ended with 2279M, which is #3 behind JPelter and a hacker. I wouldn't have thought of this strategy.

 

[JPelter]

Interestingly enough I didn't do that. I guess TZ does have multiple paths to roughly the same score after all so my thesis sucks. I'll still stick with CC being a really goddamn terrible tournament game because of the nature of the random awards though.

That actually reminds me that Farsight managed to derandomize bazaar for TotAN and remove extra balls from black hole for the first tournament on PSN way back when. I wonder why they stopped doing stuff like that. Maybe it's too much work over time to make individual adjustments for every tournament I guess. Still, it's a shame.

Also I'd love to know how that #1 score on Space Shuttle happened. I looked at the guy and offhand he doesn't seem like a hacker, so there's probably some really lucrative honey hole on that table I'm totally missing. Might have to go back and look at it more closely.

 

[invitro]

Something worth noting: The total points you find in the overall view are not equal to the 8 tables points as it has been pointed out already by someone else in another tournament.

I've almost gotten this figured out. The points shown on the individual table screens are calculated using the number of players for that particular table. But if I use the number of players in the tourney to get the fraction of points, I sum up to get almost exactly the points shown in the overall screen. For the top 10 as I write this, my sum for Dizzer is 0.60 too low, pbw45b is 0.30 too high, SmokinR is 0.30 too high, and the other seven are equal.

This is probably (certainly?) a bug by Farsight, as the lowest score on a table doesn't get 1 point, but much more, around 40 points I think for Victory, which has 124 players, while the tourney has 280 players.

 

[invitro]

Fwiw it looks like the Montana_frank scores are being ignored; the game just doesn't have the filter facilities of the website.

Hey Eldar, I don't understand what you mean here. I wanted to wait to figure out the scoring method before posting, but he seems to be treated the same as everyone else. His score calculated with what I just posted above adds up to the same number that is shown in the game.

 

[suffocater]

Hey Eldar, I don't understand what you mean here. I wanted to wait to figure out the scoring method before posting, but he seems to be treated the same as everyone else. His score calculated with what I just posted above adds up to the same number that is shown in the game.

The Score highly in question is the 24M on HH. Seems absolutely impossible.

 

[JPelter]

The Score highly in question is the 24M on HH. Seems absolutely impossible.

Yeah it absolutely is impossible. Invitro was just asking for clarification on what Eldar meant with the scores being ignored. I'm not Eldar, but I'm going to guess that he meant that the Montana_frank score isn't going to the general leaderboards. The thing is though that tournament scores never do. If Eldar meant something else instead he can clarify.

 

[shutyertrap]

Yesterday I was doing everything in my power to bump Montana_Frank and PAF SUX off from #1 and 2 on RBION. So tough. You pretty much need 3 continent tours, all of them 2x multiplied, with some of the modes done while having 2x running too. The really tricky part is not activating Atlantis in the process, as it takes up way too much time for such little reward unless you just drain out and lose all the balls. I was sooooo close 2 times. The first I missed the final 2x and the ball went in and activated the continent tour, the other I was on my last ball with 2 minutes left when Atlantis started, so I couldn't even just drain out.

I'm not even bothering with improving my other scores, I just wanna take those two out!

 

[Tann]

This is probably (certainly?) a bug by Farsight, as the lowest score on a table doesn't get 1 point, but much more, around 40 points I think for Victory, which has 124 players, while the tourney has 280 players.

It's not a bug, it's intended. We had a (big) discussion about this a few mobile tournaments ago: starting here

I also found a bug in the tournament.

I deliberately scored the lowest scores on all 8 tables by tilting and got 1 point on each one, but my total score at the moment is 480 points which places me 40th.

I did this in the bronze tournament on iOS.

edit: I tried the same on Android using another login and got almost the same score.

There are 701 participants, the lowest score is 45.65.

The Overall Tournament Score (in points) is not the addition of all the table scores. It's an "average" score calculated from the score of the others players. Even if you are last on all the tables, you rank before the people who don't play all the tables.

For example: you have only 1 point on High Speed, that gives you rank 141. But it means you're before 660 players (who didn't play on High Speed), as there is a total of 701 players in the tourney.

If all the 701 players would have played on all the 8 tables, you will be indeed 701th on the global ranking.

Yeah but he was 40th! Not 401st. 40/701 by scoring last on all 8 tables?

He scores last on all tables but he has a score on all tables.

The 140 players before him on High Speed are not necessarly the same 140 players before him on Cue Ball Wizard. And all the players before him on all the tables doesn't mean that all these same players have played on all tables.

An example:

Let's take a player called Tommy, who plays only on High Speed and take the first rank. It gives him 100 points on the Table Ranking (but a lot less on the Overall Ranking). Tommy doesn't play on the other 7 tables (because he doesn't own them or whatever).

Even if he's before Flipperdeflip on High Speed, Flipperdeflip is before him on the other 7 tables (even with his weak scores), as Tommy hasn't scored on them.

And so, Flipperdeflip is also before Tommy on the overall ranking. It makes sense to favorite people who play on all the tables. Because it wouldn't be normal that a player who scores only on one table (even greatly) to be ranked before a player that scores on all the tables (even poorly).

And given the screenshots, we can see that not a lot of people have played on all the tables (barely 2 hundreds players in average per table). That's why Flipperdeflip is 40th about 701 participants.


EDIT:

An other example:

The Table Points (100pts for the 1st, 90 for the 2nd... 1.0 for the last) is just an indication on how you perform compared to the best score on a particular table, not on how you perform in the overall tournament.

For a given table, behind Flipperdeflip, there are all the players who have 0 point on this table, but they are not listed.

That's not logical at all. Why give a player a certain score on a table and then don't use that score in the overall scoring list? I should have 8 points, not 480.

Because a guy who scores greatly only on one table (and doesn't post a score on the others tables) could beat a guy who scores poorly, but on all tables. Not logical at all.

As I said, the Table points are just an indication on how you perform on a table, compared to the best score on this table. It is not used to calculate your overall ranking, for the reason stated above.

Your overall ranking is extrapolated from your ranking on each table and the ranking of all the others players (even those who didn't play on a table). And given your screenshots, on each table, you're better ranked than an average of 600 players (because they didn't play on these tables, they have no scores, so they have 0 points).

 

[invitro]

It's not a bug, it's intended. We had a (big) discussion about this a few mobile tournaments ago: starting here

Wow! What a recap. Ok, I got it now, and I even agree with the system: a score of 1 beats a score of 0. And I suppose it would make buying any missing tables more attractive... if the tournament rules were displayed somewhere so people would know they'd get 40 more points instantly for buying Victory %|.

But I do think the individual tables should display the real number of points. What's the advantage of having an "indication" of your points for a table, when it's equally easy to display your actual points?

BTW: I cannot play Space Shuttle or Cactus Canyon.

 

[Tann]

And I suppose it would make buying any missing tables more attractive... if the tournament rules were displayed somewhere so people would know they'd get 40 more points instantly for buying Victory %|.

Indeed.

But I do think the individual tables should display the real number of points. What's the advantage of having an "indication" of your points for a table, when it's equally easy to display your actual points?

I think that's how FS programmed the tournament ranking system in first place. They were "optimistic" that all the players entering a tourney will play on all the 8 tables (and buy all the tables in the same process lol).

Because if each unique player plays on all 8 tables: sum of individual table points = overall ranking points.

The fact there's a lot of 0 points (not showed) make the ranking system counter-intuitive (but finally logical).