Request Suggestion for the Table Difficulty Issues

[xNiCeGuYx]

But there are still extra balls, at least RBION has.

 

[Carl Spiby]

Tournament mode is rubbish, there's no difference in rules and EB's are still everywhere!

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

If you read my posts you'd see that I acknowledged that several times.

Sean: personally I don't think PA can train u to be better at a real table. I think it makes me worse, actually. It makes no sense, i know, i mean you'd think it would be good training but it's really not. I can't explain why this is.

The best PA helps is learning rules, and I've heard pro players buy it just for the detailed rule sheets.

Anyways I understand where you guys are coming from its just I'm siding with Roger Sharpe and the guys at Farsight. When I pop in PA on my iPhone I'm looking for a good fun session, not this brutal hard tournament training which wouldn't train u anyway just make u worse. Now on console they don't need to nerf the tables any more than they already are, the difficulty imo is just right (so far).

Also without extra balls if u can still reach lost in the zone on extra hard on Ios then I truly commend you Sean but you are in the top <1% then of digital players. I consider myself pretty good but I'd probably be hard pressed to pull that off on iOS even with this nerfed difficulty.

The reason you think TPA is making your real game worse is that TPA will let you get away with murder and (usually) not be punished for it. At any rate, if you don't want/need increased difficulty, then don't turn the hard mode on, and leave those of us who do want harder/faster games to our masochism.

And thanks for the compliment, but I think at least the top quarter and probably closer to the top half of players could eventually LITZ with no extra balls on extra hard if they put forth the effort.

Speaking of console tables, I mean when you really stop and think about it, has anyone complained about them being too easy? I mean honestly, and before Bobby King or whomever it was came out and said they made them easier, was this on anyone's mind? Sure some people thought so but if anything there were many more voices saying they were too hard in fact, like Cirqus Voiltaire still gets brought up for being too hard, or Medieval Madness because of the flipper gap.

Yet the Xbox tables are, in fact, much much MUCH easier than the real thing. You honestly think I could approach a billion points on a real Medieval Madness? Maybe if I owned on and practiced every day. On 5 balls. And super easy setting. And some performance enhancing drugs. On a full moon. MAYBE.

My main reason I stayed away from iOS versions for so long is cause I couldn't stand them. It's too frustrating losing balls that would have been simple saves on Xbox. I still won't touch Arabian on here even though I own it. Yet scared stiff and TZ I can actually enjoy. You need the help to counter balance the inherent handicap of the platform.

So I'm leaving the discussion at that. I will say this final thing, if console TZ is notably easier than past console tables ill be right here with you Sean arguing on your side.

Cirqus Voltaire is overly difficult on mobile devices because the particular kind of nudging needed to escape the outlanes is difficult-to-impossible to do with the current nudging controls. Medieval Madness's flipper gap I'm not convinced ever noticeably affected my gameplay, especially once I learned that the collision mesh for the flipper extended past the visible blade and you could hit balls off of thin air.

And yes, the Xbox tables are "much much MUCH easier" than the real thing. That's why I want an increased difficulty option in the first place, so that I don't have to spend 2+ hours chasing my own 8.5B score in TOM or my 4B score in MB. I don't need them to be as hard as the real tables necessarily, I just want them to be hard enough that if I start a game at 9:30 I still have a chance of going to bed at a reasonable hour, without my hands cramped up from maintaining a deathgrip on the controller (or iPad) for hours.

If the console TZ plays like the PC beta, then scoring for top players will be in the tens of billions. I've managed 13.2 billion so far...but again, the thought of playing TZ for 4 hours for the sole purpose of chasing that score is just not appealing to me. I'm assuming someone like Roy Wils or ParallaxScroll could put up 25B to 30B+ on the 360, based on how their scores compare to mine on the other tables.

 

[151120]

And yes, the Xbox tables are "much much MUCH easier" than the real thing. That's why I want an increased difficulty option in the first place, so that I don't have to spend 2+ hours chasing my own 8.5B score in TOM or my 4B score in MB. I don't need them to be as hard as the real tables necessarily, I just want them to be hard enough that if I start a game at 9:30 I still have a chance of going to bed at a reasonable hour, without my hands cramped up from maintaining a deathgrip on the controller (or iPad) for hours.

I agree, playing super long sessions to beat your score can get tiring. TotAN used to be one of my favorite tables, until I learned of the scoring anomaly. Now getting over 350m by not winning the wizard mode (and not losing) doesn't sound fun. I'm not good enough yet to stack it with Harem Multiball though. Other tables can get tiring as well. BoP and BH are basically never ending as long as you get those extra balls. I do like the satisfaction of getting to 1000 HoF points on the iOS leader board, but it's quite a time commitment on most of the tables.

 

[Jeff Strong]

If you read my posts you'd see that I acknowledged that several times.

Well, then in that case, your point about alienating players makes even less sense. Options will never alienate anyone, but they make any game more enjoyable for a wider audience.

 

[Mark W**a]

Right and we just got tournament mode that we've been asking for. How about we let them get that right first (it needs to be 3 ball, extra hard with no extra ball) before we go asking them again for an even harder mode.

Suggesting a hard mode would make the game more appealing to a wider audience is a weak argument. Most super hardcore real life pinball players don't take digital seriously, I doubt you're going to reach them this way. You can't, it's like asking professional race car drivers to compete on Gran Turismo instead.

I've beaten this discussion into the ground, but if you want to hear what I feel is a better idea that would satisfy those who want hard mode while also providing a worthwhile and much needed extra value proposition for pro mode, read my posts about a debug mode in the TZ forum section.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Right and we just got tournament mode that we've been asking for. How about we let them get that right first (it needs to be 3 ball, extra hard with no extra ball) before we go asking them again for an even harder mode.

Suggesting a hard mode would make the game more appealing to a wider audience is a weak argument. Most super hardcore real life pinball players don't take digital seriously, I doubt you're going to reach them this way. You can't, it's like asking professional race car drivers to compete on Gran Turismo instead.

I've beaten this discussion into the ground, but if you want to hear what I feel is a better idea that would satisfy those who want hard mode while also providing a worthwhile and much needed extra value proposition for pro mode, read my posts about a debug mode in the TZ forum section.

I'm not talking about hardcore pro players. I'm just talking about average pinball players like myself who want a challenge similar to real pinball. It's the same when I play Madden. I don't want to just roll over the AI. I want to actually fight for my wins. I'm not alone in this, and yet there are others who want to feel like superman and roll over the CPU, and that's perfectly fine, which is why almost every other video game under the sun has difficulty options. Some want a casual experience, some want more of a challenge (look at how popular "hardcore" modes have become in FPS games such as COD and BF, for example). The more people you can cater to the better, especially since most player's skills will improve the more they play, so they're going to get bored when the challenge level starts to diminish. In other games, you can simply turn up the difficulty when that happens, but not so in TPA. I hope someday that will be an option.

 

[Mark W**a]

There is a difficulty setting in pro mode.

There is a tournament mode as well soon to be released.

Why isn't that enough? Youre honestly telling me that's still not hard enough and that you'll be breezing past multiple wizard modes without extra balls and with extra hard factory settings? Some of you could use a reality check the game isn't THAT easy sheesh.

Lets just let them get this tournament mode finished and see how it goes before we go jumping the gun and asking for even more stuff.

 

[Jeff Strong]

There is a difficulty setting in pro mode.

There is a tournament mode as well soon to be released.

Why isn't that enough? Youre honestly telling me that's still not hard enough and that you'll be breezing past multiple wizard modes without extra balls and with extra hard factory settings? Some of you could use a reality check the game isn't THAT easy sheesh.

Lets just let them get this tournament mode finished and see how it goes before we go jumping the gun and asking for even more stuff.

Well, Pro Mode as it is now isn't the best solution because, to repeat yet again, there aren't leaderboards for Pro Mode, and that's a big problem for a lot of people. Plus there's THIS.

Tournament mode is definitely a step in the right direction. Hopefully they can build and expand upon that.

And we aren't demanding it now. We're just throwing it out there for a future suggestion, and there's nothing wrong with that. Also, cool your jets with your "reality check" mumbo-jumbo, eh? It's not all about making the wizard modes harder. One reason I and others want this option is to shorten the games times as well. We don't always have an hour or two to burn every time we start a game.

 

[Mark W**a]

Yea I admit I came off a bit strong with that comment. Sorry. Poor wording, but I do stand by that, as I do feel the game will be plenty tough at those settings. I've had 30 minute or longer balls but still those settings are no walk in the park.

Still I'd say tournament mode will keep you under an hour, for the most part. Long balls are possible on arcade, but they are also possible on real life tables. I just hope tournament mode is done right. I really hope they aren't planning to keep it factory settings, right? I mean there would be no point to it.

 

[Mark W**a]

Btw all this arguing has seriously cursed me, I'm getting house balls and center drains like crazy now in Twilight Zone! Stop telling me this is too easy! I hate you right now Jeff lol.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Ha, I do what I can

You can try tournament mode already on iOS.