Random Tales of Glory...and Woe

[Jeff Strong]

I thought it would be fun to have a thread to share stories from our various TPA battles and adventures. Maybe you had a spectacular game and would like to boast a bit...or you had a would-be glorious game go down in flames and you need to vent a little. Whatever the case may be, here's a place to share your random TPA tales of glory or woe.

 

[bavelb]

So many tales of would-be-awesomeness. Especially on Totan.

The worst was a 100+ million ball one, before a princess save (but a high spun lightning x 3 lamp that I was able to transfer into a multiball), followed by 3 sub 10 million drains. I tried to play another game after that but my morale was just totally broken (for reference: I've been trying to beat my 265ish million record on ps3 for 2 months now on 360, and 3 times I reached a score in the 250 millions, which I just seem to be my ceiling at the moment).

 

[Jeff Strong]

Last night, I decided to end the night with some TPA. I hadn't really had a chance to play table pack #3 on 360 for more than just a few minutes, so I decided to give Gorgar a run. I always enjoyed it before (I'm a sucker for old tables), but it's so much better in TPA. The mobile version is nice, but the console version is gorgeous....

Anyway, I was going to get just a couple quick games in....but I forgot how grueling this table could be...plus it always takes me a few games to get warmed up, and I didn't want to settle for a lousy score to break into the leaderboards.

An hour later, I got up to a little over 700k, but didn't really want to stop there...so I kept diving back in...looking at the clock and thinking, "ok, just ONE more!"...

After two hours (or so), weariness was setting in, and I just couldn't seem to surpass my highscore....but I wanted to end on a high note, so I kept getting pulled back in to the evil pit to battle onward....In my state of intoxication and sleepiness, I imagined the drop targets were insidious enemies, blocking my way to the path of sleep and tranquility...Out of my way, you wretched scoundrels!.....ummmm....sorry, got a bit carried away there...

I journeyed on till about the three hour mark, but still couldn't seem to better my score, yet my bloodshot eyes were just about ready to throw in the towel and call it a night...when finally, I had one of those balls where every bounce seemed to have gone my way. Had the 3X, all bumpers lit, etc., and I was quickly closing in on 700k.....around the 650k mark though, things took a rough turn and the ball was making a bee line for the right outlane....but a couple quick nudges and I was back in business (that almost never happens to me when I really need it!). I went on to rack up a few more thousand before finally draining.....but after a 3 and 1/2 hour Gorgar spree, I could finally rest easily knowing I ended on a victory.

 

[Crush3d_Turtle]

My biggest tale of woe is losing a top 20 highscore game on Funhouse due to a bug. Right now my best score on the leaderboards is around 160 Million which puts me at 29th on the leaderboard (that is my tale of glory ), and I was having a fantastic game where I just kept hitting the Million + jackpots during the multiballs. My score had just rolled over 250 Million on ball 1 with a few eb stacked after about 2.5 hours of play and I was hitting Rudy to advance through the Mystery Mirror awards when that little bugger opened up his mouth to speak. Instead of getting the Rudy Gulp bonus, I was treated to the ball completely disappearing and the attendant doing nothing about the issue. It was incredibly demoralizing to see a fantastic game with potential to maybe even get into the top 10 scores get completely nullified by a glitch. I just let it sit there on the unresponsive table hoping that the ball would magically decide to come back, but alas it was gone forever. This was just about a week ago and I haven't really been able to play the game since, due to the fact that any ambition to put effort into high scores is gone.

Thanks for having this topic, it was nice to get that rant out of my system.

 

[farmerjohn]

I can feel your pain...
My story of glory and woe was also induced by a glitch in the programming/the original table....
CftBL, it's the first table i really sank my teeth in, figuring out all the rules and the best strategy
to really get some big, BIG scores

So there I am, carefully building up the Jackpot value through jet shots and then finally going in for the kill: Completing FILM, starting the movie, completing C-R-E-A-T-U-R-E, finding that damn creature, rescuing the girl, Jackpot, and finally Super Jackpot, all nice and clear.
And once more, and once more...

It was really awesome, i can't even remember how many times I completed the Super Jackpot.
But then I realized in horror that after reaching more than 10 Billion points the damn counter rolled back to Zero....

So there I was with "only" 3 Billion points instead of 13.... I was still on my first ball, but all I could think of was: "Perhaps it will show up correctly after the game". I was so anxious to find out, that I drained my remaining balls on purpose, only to realize that this was totally in vain: My local and the Farsight Leaderboards only showed the 3 Billion point score :-(

Since then I haven't touched that table again.......

 

[BonzoGonzo]

still havent been able to get past my own 2.9 bil score on monster bash

when i made that score the first day i played it, it seemed such an easy table... then i waited 2 weeks for the leaderboards to be put up, checked out the instructions and now i regulary make only 1.3-1.5 bil scores... well i guess i could just trap the balls in multiball and left nudge like a maniac, lol

and almost the same thing with bride of pinbot... oh, that table is so one dimensional i said to myself after cheking the videos and reading about it here... just ramp it up the left ramp, and eventually through the center for billionares club... yeah, 'just' that... and when the time comes, those darn balls somehow refuse to cooperate

 

[laughing_lunatic]

Just played the game of my life in ToTAN. Got all the extra balls, Tiger Loops, score, after 4 jewels and twice on the outlane drains after rescuing the Princess. Got to my previous high score of 111m after draining the second ball, and tacked on 41M just on my third ball which I was expecting to lose horribly at any time, because that's usually the way it goes. But that third ball had the protective wrapping of the Pinball Gods around it. I pulled off at least half a dozen miracle saves, seemed to keep all 3 balls in the Genie Multiball in play for longer than I ever have before. It was real heart-thumping stuff. The lady on the voiceover kept saying "you're amazing". Today, she was right !! Man, it felt good, to just be "on".

 

[Richard B]

I got 5 Super Jackpots and was approaching my personal best on RBION when the "ball vanishing" bug occurred, and I had to scrap the whole game.

 

[laughing_lunatic]

ouch

 

[Jeff Strong]

Came back to Gorgar last night again and scored over 500,000 on my first ball(!), so I thought, "alright, now this is more like it!"....except I went on to blow my next two and ended up with less than 700k .

A few games later, I ended up improving my high score by about 20k....only to find out that I wasn't connected to Xbox Live! The Xbox wireless adaptor is a bit flakey sometimes (has to be unplugged and plugged back in to get it working again). I still can't believe Microsoft charged $100 for that thing....ugh!

I gave up after that, but I'll be back... I'm still scratching my head over the fact that I scored over a million on the iOS version with the less-than-stellar nudging controls...

 

[BonzoGonzo]

so i bested my mm score today, but just couldnt get the barnyard multiball up and running (also 1 castle too short for battle of the kingdom)... needed only the last item to catapult, but failed in more/less 4 consecutive tries... oh well, better skill next time ;D

 

[SilverBallAddict]

My tale of woe comes not from a bad ball but a pub activity! Being a pure novice at pinball I was on a great first ball yesterday on RBION. Every flip, bounce & roll was going my way. My previous record of 111 mill seemed destined to be broken. At around 40 mill the missus reminded me that my bus to the pub to compete in the local darts league was leavin in 10 mins. Dilemma! Do I continue and threaten my place in the team or drain n leave? (an overnight pause would not go down well with the boss/missus). Taking the latter, I watch the 2 remaining balls plus the 3 extras I'd gained drain n leave for bus only to be back in house 5 mins later as bus leaves before I get there! Gutted!

 

[BonzoGonzo]

so i played some mm today and got barnyard multiball...

have to say i actually laughed out loud when it began, and giggled randomely till it finished

that being said, got some 45mil out of it too

 

[Jazza]

Just played the game of my life in ToTAN. Got all the extra balls, Tiger Loops, score, after 4 jewels and twice on the outlane drains after rescuing the Princess. Got to my previous high score of 111m after draining the second ball, and tacked on 41M just on my third ball which I was expecting to lose horribly at any time, because that's usually the way it goes. But that third ball had the protective wrapping of the Pinball Gods around it. I pulled off at least half a dozen miracle saves, seemed to keep all 3 balls in the Genie Multiball in play for longer than I ever have before. It was real heart-thumping stuff. The lady on the voiceover kept saying "you're amazing". Today, she was right !! Man, it felt good, to just be "on".

haha congrats! And nicely told. Yeah that positive affirmation is a whole lot better than the chick on TOM saying "you must concentrate". Ahh I swear that gets me into a drainage situation every time..heh

So went after my pb of 6.3m on BK today. Had a cracker 1st ball of 4.5m with one EB. Sadly 4 balls later it was all over at 5.9m Back to the drawing board...

 

[Crush3d_Turtle]

Finally put up a 9 Billion score on BoP and was still on ball 1 with about 3 extra balls still saved up. I really could have kept going for a long time, but I couldn't due to the roll-over problem on the Vita where your score goes back to 0. Feels great to finally get that one last personal goal out of the way. Sadly it is only good enough for 40th on the leaderboard since on the mobile devices you can go to 10+ billion without the glitch.

Let's try to get some more tales of glory and break out of the negative mood the forum seems to have been in lately.

 

[xNiCeGuYx]

Managed to complete wizard mode on TOTAN !!!TWICE!!! with ball one just to loose all the other ones within 3 minutes.

 

[rehtroboi40]

I thought it would be fun to have a thread to share stories from our various TPA battles and adventures. Maybe you had a spectacular game and would like to boast a bit...or you had a would-be glorious game go down in flames and you need to vent a little. Whatever the case may be, here's a place to share your random TPA tales of glory or woe.

I rarely have enough troll bombs to make winning the BFTK possible. The one time I did and actually made it to BFTK, I missed winning only by the last deciding hit.

 

[rehtroboi40]

I rarely have enough troll bombs to make winning the BFTK possible. The one time I did and actually made it to BFTK, I missed winning only by the last deciding hit.

For a very long time I was having trouble getting either Frog Multiball or Atlantis in RBION. Got both goals in the same game-one where I lost count of how many EB's I earned. Or the time I had multiball started in ToM and immediately started the Grand Finale, turning it into a cakewalk.

 

[Mark W**a]

I first discovered the game back in early August. Was blown away by the fact that 1, someone was actually digitally recreating real tables and 2, the extremely high quality. I became a fan overnight. Anyways, got the game and played for a while, got what I considered decent scores, then checked my friends leaderboards. I think around 3 of my friends had the game at the time, and this one dude had astronomically high scores, like 10X my best scores easily. Suffice to say I thought I'd never even get close to him.

Slowly but surely I built up my skills, and playing Medieval Madness for hours on end, I got good. Really good. I started creeping up on his scores until finally, I did it. Scored something like 500 million on Medieval and overtook him! I was pumped as hell! I finally beat this dudes insane score with one of my own insane scores.

Then I did it again on Bride. I was going to message him to be funny but I thought nah, he probably doesn't play or care, and besides, I don't want him blowing up my score. I'm the king of the hill, I want to keep my thrown. So about a week later I get two messages from him. "Hey might wanna check your medieval madness score, bro". Then the second. "and bride, whoops". He basically blew my scores up in both games. Now it was on.

We started score chasing and we went back and forth on Medieval. He took it to 600 mil I took it to 700. He took it to 880, so I took it to 890. This went on for about 3 weeks this score chasing. In the meantime I started blowing up Arabian and Funhouse as well.

He sent me a message "admitting defeat" on Arabian. Said he gave up, my score was too strong he said. So I basically told him my complete strategy for the game, and a week later he overtook my score.

I basically stopped playing for a month or so. He sent me a message about a week ago saying he finally took me down in Medieval. And take me down he did, he's over a billion.

I still got him in Bride. He matched my 6 bils, but couldn't match my "gravy" score. And that's some hard fought gravy, let me tell ya! Bride is funny like that.

Haven't had that much fun score chasing on Xbox in any game, and when the new tables come out I look forward to doing this all over again. I still have pictures of when I was the champion of Bride, Medieval, Tales, and Funhouse. God I'm a dork.

 

[Jim O'Brien]

Was scores racing with a guy on PS3 and he has beaten some of my all time high scores, I'm waiting for a flipper lag patch just because our TV doesn't have a game mode and I've told him countless times that a lot of people experience lag form TPA on PS3. He does not come to these forums so he has no idea what I'm talking about guess his TV runs TPA perfect, but I doubt that.