Request Proper extra ball limits in all games.

[Zaphod77]

Some games have a max extra balls per game setting. These ones, like Whirlwind, place a cap on the total number of extra balls. This game can't be forevered.

Other, like Funhouse, have two settings one for maximum stacked extra balls, and one for max extra balls per ball in play. by defaukt the latter is often unlimited. We see what results this causes.

I believe in this case, both max extra balls per ball in play, and max stacked extra balls should be set (it's normally impossible to NOT set max stacked setting to something).

For Funhouse, it's possible to get FIVE extra balls before your first drain. Score, special, steps, mirror, and gangway. The firs three are one time extra balls, and the last two can be reset after a drain.

I think both settings should be set to THREE. this places a hard limit of 12 balls played. To make things extra hard, set max extra balls stacked t ONE, and max per ball in play to one.

This sort of thinking should be used to prevent tables form being played forever.

We have to balance being robbed of one time extra balls, with being able to collect too many repeatable ones. Settign max per ball in play to 2 would limit Funhouse to the same number of extra balls as whirlwind. But one time extra balls, such as from score, the special or the steps, are likely to be lost. So I think max of three is a reasonable compromise, since it's difficult to keep collecting both of the reusable ones.

 

[danivempire]

nope, don't like it!
I'm already bad at pinball and general and TPA as well.
^^

let me my extra balls god dammit ^^

 

[Squid]

All marathons have a set distance to them.

I like the idea.

 

[Zaphod77]

nope, don't like it!
I'm already bad at pinball and general and TPA as well.
^^

let me my extra balls god dammit ^^

as a bad player you will never hit the limit.

 

[kinggo]

I'm against touching the rules of original games. Some games are intentionally made with some features and that should stay that way.
Funhouse has 5 different settings and the options to change some things inside those general settings. I'm not sure what is default in TPA but that can make a difference.

 

[DanBradford]

nope, don't like it!
I'm already bad at pinball and general and TPA as well.
^^

let me my extra balls god dammit ^^

+1

most of us enjoy extra balls because we don't get them all the time. they are a treat, a reward. on some tables they are expected, but not many of us have to worry about having *too many* balls: doh! again? when will these damn balls stop coming? gah! another one! etc etc

if elite players don't like the way it's set, it's easy for them to just plunge any balls they don't want to play.

i'm all for representing the games the way they were made. if TPA makes any easier than that, then sure, cut them.
but otherwise - FFS, it's like Roger Federer coming on here and telling us that tennis is too easy, so from now on he wants a rule that players have to close one eye.

 

[Zaphod77]

These options i am talking about are set in the operator settings of the game.

If a Funhouse was being ran on location, and people were touring the mirror every ball, and playing for 6 hours, they would definitely set this max ball per ball in play adjustment to 1, if not disable extra balls completely. The only reason this option is set to disabled on factory setting is because of the brutality of the game in real life not letting people abuse it. Many game already set this on defaults anyway.

Since this is very doable, and tends to cause stability issues when people DO do it, the operator of the game (in this case, TPA) should change the operator settings to make it less of an issue.

And, as I said, this change only affects players who are good enough to tour the mirror every ball. Your everyday player is not inconvenienced at all by this. If they are having a very good game, they will collect three on one ball, and get to play them all.

Even without touring the mirror 20 times in one game, getting over 100 million is very possible. it's been done on real machines.

 

[invitro]

"This sort of thinking should be used to prevent tables form being played forever."

Why? There might be a good reason, but you don't offer one. What's wrong with a situation where a few players can play a table for a very long time?

Can you please say something rather than "forever"? Be accurate. No one can literally play a game forever. Do you mean 12 hrs, 3 hrs, 1 hr? There's no way to know from your post. How can you expect someone to agree or not with your statement if they don't know what you mean?

I would support limits to EBs that made 3 hrs the maximum. I like 3 hr games. But I can understand not wanting to play >3 hr in order to get a top 10 score... from someone that is good enough to do that, anyway. But that is a change that would affect maybe 50 people out of the some 50,000 total.

"And, as I said, this change only affects players who are good enough to tour the mirror every ball."

Similar to above, there is no one that can complete the mirror on every ball. There are some that can do it on at least 50% of balls. Why not say something true rather than false?

"Even without touring the mirror 20 times in one game, getting over 100 million is very possible. it's been done on real machines."

I have gotten 100M on a real FH many times... that's not that high of a score. I find an actual FH (in good condition) to actually be easier than the TPA one, because its trapdoor shot is easier.

"If a Funhouse was being ran on location, and people were touring the mirror every ball, and playing for 6 hours, they would definitely set this max ball per ball in play adjustment to 1, if not disable extra balls completely."

If one person did this, I do not think they would. If 50 out of 50,000 people did it, they definitely would not. I doubt if they would anyway, as I have actually never seen an operator make an adjustment in a machine based on strong performances.

I may regret it later, if I become capable of 12-hr games, but I favor the status quo.

 

[kinggo]

These options i am talking about are set in the operator settings of the game.

If a Funhouse was being ran on location, and people were touring the mirror every ball, and playing for 6 hours, they would definitely set this max ball per ball in play adjustment to 1, if not disable extra balls completely. The only reason this option is set to disabled on factory setting is because of the brutality of the game in real life not letting people abuse it. Many game already set this on defaults anyway.

Since this is very doable, and tends to cause stability issues when people DO do it, the operator of the game (in this case, TPA) should change the operator settings to make it less of an issue.

And, as I said, this change only affects players who are good enough to tour the mirror every ball. Your everyday player is not inconvenienced at all by this. If they are having a very good game, they will collect three on one ball, and get to play them all.

Even without touring the mirror 20 times in one game, getting over 100 million is very possible. it's been done on real machines.

that scenario is very unlikely. If you have a real table somewhere, gather some random folks and see how are they not doing all that. And FH in TPA is a lot harder then IRL. I never managed to get more than 6 balls and not to mention that 4 way combo and 3 mill trap door is SF in TPA.
Sure, there are players that could do that but percentage of those is very very very small. When I was a kid, a bar nearby had pool tables and one day they brought Party Animal and I became so good on that table that no one else wasn't even close to my scores. Eventually he got two more machines because there were always so many people watching me play but they couldn't get to play because of me. But that made people hooked for pinball so the other two machines were also always in use and the ovner got two more. Bottom line, because of my "eternal" games he had 5 machines that were making money 7 days a week and I was there only during the weekends. And I was playing for free.

 

[Kemetman72]

I need my extra balls! There is nothing like it though hearing Raul Julia saying "EXTRA BALL!!!!". Man I miss that table. I prefer it to any table we have so far. "Dirty Pool old man? I like it. SHOWTIME!!!" "TRIPLE JACKPOT!!"

 

[yuriijos]

Leave a good thing alone. If you don't like it hopefully you have the pro version and you can change them manually yourself.

 

[Dumpstar]

This just gets back to the easy, standard and pro difficulty levels.

Make easy with extra balls unlimited, standard limited with replays not giving extra balls. Pro limited and setup as pro pinball would be.


Have seperate high score tables for each (with hopefully added encryption to stop hacking)

 

[vikingerik]

Funhouse doesn't require the mirror EB on every ball. The Gangway extra ball is also repeatable. So as long as you get both the mirror and the Gangway done every two balls, you still go infinite.

I agree with preferring limits on EBs, so that top scores actually reflect skill beyond the minimum threshold to go infinite, rather than just willingness to play the same game for 12+ hours. But I think splitting the leaderboards for a limited EB version would be the worse evil. I really like the single unified leaderboard per table (aside from Microsoft platform constraints) - the more fragmented a leaderboard becomes, the less any particular spot on it means.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Leave a good thing alone. If you don't like it hopefully you have the pro version and you can change them manually yourself.

The problem is the two worst tables in regard to too many extra balls don't have pro versions (Funhouse and Bride).

 

[Buzz1126]

If you have the versions that allow you to change everything about the tables, then go ahead. Change whatever you want. But, if you're saying "change the base settings of the game", I'm against that. If you're good enough (I'm not...) to stack five extra balls, that's great. If you're good enough (again, I'm not...) to have twelve hour games, all I can say is WOW! The scores on the leaderboards should reflect the skill of the player. Like it or not, getting those extra balls does require some skill.
TPA reflects the Real Life tables, and are pretty close. If you go about changing everything, you aren't playing pinball anymore, you're playing a video game. And to paraphrase a song lyric, "video games killed the pinball star."

 

[vikingerik]

If you're good enough (again, I'm not...) to have twelve hour games, all I can say is WOW! The scores on the leaderboards should reflect the skill of the player.

But they don't. Beyond the threshold of going infinite, skill doesn't matter. Roughly the top hundred players are good enough to play Bride of Pinbot indefinitely. The top hundred scores then have nothing to do with skill among those players, but merely whoever decides they're willing and able to sink 12+ hours into one game.

That's why I'd prefer to see EB limits, so that skill always means something when there is a finite set of resources to work with.

 

[invitro]

But they don't. Beyond the threshold of going infinite, skill doesn't matter. Roughly the top hundred players are good enough to play Bride of Pinbot indefinitely. The top hundred scores then have nothing to do with skill among those players, but merely whoever decides they're willing and able to sink 12+ hours into one game.

Something seems a little off here. I think I am a top hundred player (if not, I don't mind being told why ). I can play BoP a long time, 2 or 3 hours, but I cannot play it 12+ hours. I've tried. I'm just not sure that there are 100 players who can play it for 12+ hours. Maybe 10 or 20? (I can play BH longer than BoP, if I can stand the extreme repetition, and maybe TZ.)

To get to the point, I think that the reason I can get to 3 hrs on BoP, but not 12+ hrs, is due to lack of skill, rather than time or will. (I'm not making this claim about anyone else of course.)

 

[soundwave106]

The top hundred scores then have nothing to do with skill among those players, but merely whoever decides they're willing and able to sink 12+ hours into one game.

I'm looking at the top weekly scores in Funhouse, am I missing something? Only 5 scores above 100 million and none above 200 million.

If the top 100 players really were able to have 12 hour games Funhouse games, this number would be quite a bit higher. A 100 million game is a long game but not a 12 hour one.

There are games that are easier for beginners in TPA and there are games that aren't. If you actually get bored with Funhouse, go try and have a 12 hour game of Firepower or Champions Pub.

 

[infernogott]

Just give us a Tournament Mode for all the tables, that means no extra balls with a separate leaderboard. Sometimes I just want to have a quick game not a marathon session...

 

[invitro]

Just give us a Tournament Mode for all the tables, that means no extra balls with a separate leaderboard. Sometimes I just want to have a quick game not a marathon session...

I would pay extra for this. The separate leaderboard is of course a must.

I would also pay extra for tournaments on PC.