Should tournaments use BEST score or LAST score?

[jbejarano]

When playing in tournaments on The Pinball Arcade, presently your BEST score is used on each table. If you want to try to improve your score, there is no harm in trying as many times as you want. Do you prefer this, or would you like to see a tournament use a player's LAST score instead, whereby if you want to try to improve your score, there's a risk that your standing on the table will go down. Using LAST score also discourages rage-quitting. What do you think?

 

[TomL]

Great idea, LAST score would be awesome for tournament play.

 

[Kolchak357]

I think this was discussed somewhere before and I love the idea of last score.

 

[Dedpop]

FS should try it once.

 

[kinggo]

I'm not sure. Tournaments pushed me to play some tables that I didn't like that much but in my endless tries to achive better score I figured them out and now I like them more. While I do understand the logic behind this maybe this would turn down some players and some other would be more sustaind because of possible flop and at the end we would see same old faces even more.
Personaly, I would play them any way. There's no entry fee, there's nothing to loose but in a way that it is now, tourneys make me a better player and I learn more about tables that I don't play much so I see this as a good thing. On the other hand, winner also gets nothing except the bragging rights. Dylan (who else???) won last one but I also feel like a winner, I finally figured out White Water.
Maybe we should try this system and see where it goes.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Well, one day there will be a Steam tournament, and I'll have an actual opinion.

But if you want to get an idea of how risk-based this is, look no further than the Challenges! They use Last Score, and not only that, you only have 3 credits per table. Whilst I don't play through the challenges very often, it's a bit nerve-wracking, especially on a table where you know your best score is way higher than what you just posted. Use your last credit because you know you can get 2B+ on ToM, and your last game was "only" 500M? Go on then. For a table later on in the challenge, where messing up kills the whole deal, the risk just gets greater and greater.

So in theory I'm all for it.

 

[Fungi]

Best last score. Isn't that what a lot of pinball is about, risk and reward?

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

I still want the PAPA qualifying style scoring.

(For those unfamiliar: In PAPA qualifying style, you play each machine in a set once. After the end of the set, you can then accept or reject your scores, but you have to do it all or nothing - you can't pick and choose. You can repeat this process as many times as you like, but always replacing all your scores at the end of a set or replacing none of them.

The objective of this style is to reward consistently good play across a variety of machines, while eliminating the possibility of grinding table A until a good score is achieved, then table B and so on. It also emphasizes skill over amount of free time, as it is nearly impossible for a lesser-skilled player to string together enough consecutive above-average games necessary to "punch above his weight" no matter how much he grinds.)

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

I still want the PAPA qualifying style scoring.

(For those unfamiliar: In PAPA qualifying style, you play each machine in a set once. After the end of the set, you can then accept or reject your scores, but you have to do it all or nothing - you can't pick and choose. You can repeat this process as many times as you like, but always replacing all your scores at the end of a set or replacing none of them.

The objective of this style is to reward consistently good play across a variety of machines, while eliminating the possibility of grinding table A until a good score is achieved, then table B and so on. It also emphasizes skill over amount of free time, as it is nearly impossible for a lesser-skilled player to string together enough consecutive above-average games necessary to "punch above his weight" no matter how much he grinds.)

Welcome back Sean!

 

[jbejarano]

I should note that if FarSight wanted to implement a "LAST score" tournament, there'd be a bit of engineering work ahead of them. They'd have to either A) post to their servers as soon as you hit the START button indicating that your old score was no longer valid, or B) post to their servers if you pause and then quit out of a game indicating that your new score is either zero or whatever your score was when you quit. If they did neither of these things, then the validity of a "LAST score" tournament could easily be undermined. So while I would like to see at least some tournaments like this, the engineering cost for FarSight to implement this is not zero.

EDIT: On further reflection, it would probably have to be option A, because if you really wanted to cheat at this tournament by not having it post a new, bad score you'd just pause the game, and quit the app at the OS level. Yes, to truly be fair, they'd have to post as soon as you hit START. That is also a lot of extra traffic to their servers.

 

[Kratos3]

Best last score. Isn't that what a lot of pinball is about, risk and reward?

+1

 

[Tann]

Last score.

With the current tournaments, it seems everybody acts the same way:

- Wait for the last two days.
- "Blitzkrieg" or "Armageddon" on each table until you put a very good score.

(that's why I do to save my place in the Gold Tier each time )

With a "last score" rule, it would change the dynamic of a tourney a lot. No more rush on the last days: you have to put a great score the earliest you can in order to secure a good rank, because nobody would take the risk to get a better rank a few hours before the tourney ends.

Last score would involve a lot more strategy.

 

[switch3flip]

I think a much more important change would be to disable extra balls for tournament play.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Welcome back Sean!

Thanks, I guess, but I didn't go anywhere! Just been super crazy busy at work last month; finally starting to calm down a bit.

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

Thanks, I guess, but I didn't go anywhere! Just been super crazy busy at work last month; finally starting to calm down a bit.

OK

Not to make you angry, but you have some master issue lists to work on:

- Junkyard
- Lights Camera Action
- High Roller Casino
- Diner

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

OK

Not to make you angry, but you have some master issue lists to work on:

- Junkyard
- Lights Camera Action
- High Roller Casino
- Diner

Yeah, those are hopelessly behind. I bit off a bit more than I could chew with them. Hopefully I'll be able to find some time to get the lists updated soon.

 

[JefferyD]

Wait. What?

I thought you could play each table only once in a tournament. You can play again and again and again? We'll, that's a bit of information I missed out on. Never occurred to me to try playing again.

I had my all-time worst performance on Centaur in a tournament a while back and didn't do too well on the next table either because I could hardly see through the tears.

 

[The Night Flier]

Definitely Last.

 

[Dedpop]

Wait. What?

I thought you could play each table only once in a tournament. You can play again and again and again? We'll, that's a bit of information I missed out on. Never occurred to me to try playing again.

I had my all-time worst performance on Centaur in a tournament a while back and didn't do too well on the next table either because I could hardly see through the tears.

Are you serious ???

 

[JefferyD]

Serious. Someone give me the pointed hat and directions to the corner of the room. Also, give me directions to the rules to the tournament, which I can read while I sit in the corner.