Table of the Week Club...Week 19: EL DORADO CITY OF GOLD

[shutyertrap]

And now what I'm sure is a table many have been chomping at the bit for, it's El Dorado City of Gold! Discuss strategies, tips, and whatever else you'd like below.

Thanks again to everyone who played in the May TotM. I realize we are one table ahead and that is causing confusion for what we are playing. Fear not, as we will be taking a week off either at the end of June or beginning of July. Depends on FarSight's release schedule and the U.S. of A's national holiday.

 

[Fungi]

My personal tip for this table. Turn down the volume. Seriously.

 

[Gus]

Cool, I like this table. Too much slingshot action for my taste, but sniping drop targets is fun.

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

Yeah! Drop targets!

Hate the sound but this table was a lot more fun than I expected. Top priority is getting the top drops completed to light Hold Bonus, which is overpowered because of how huge the bonus can get on this game. Second priority is shooting the right drops to advance the bonus multiplier. Not much else to it, just a fun, straightforward game for any new pinball player.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Get the wizard goals and never play it again.

 

[Kratos3]

I actually like this table. It takes a lot of heat, but I don't think its nearly as bad as most people seem to think. Sure the sound isn't great and the playfield is a blurry mess, but there's something to be said about its simplicity.

 

[shutyertrap]

I went into options and turned off the music. Much better now! This table is practically brand new for me as I've rarely played it. It is a blurry mess, but at least DX11 is helping make it look a little better.

 

[Fungi]

I went into options and turned off the music. Much better now! This table is practically brand new for me as I've rarely played it. It is a blurry mess, but at least DX11 is helping make it look a little better.

I keep forgetting that option exists now. Thanks.

 

[Reagan Dow]

Damn! I wish I had a PC right now!

 

[Xanija]

This left outlane is killing me. I haven't yet found a good way of nudging, when the ball comes down in the left lane to avoid it's getting pulled into the outlane by some strong magnet....... grrr..

 

[shutyertrap]

This left outlane is killing me. I haven't yet found a good way of nudging, when the ball comes down in the left lane to avoid it's getting pulled into the outlane by some strong magnet....... grrr..

I was just coming on here to complain about that left outlane too! I know a lot of people might like this table because it is 'pure' pinball, but man am I hating it. I really hate tables that are "knock down all of this, and then do it again, followed by doing it again and again and again". On top of that, it is nothing but frustration for me to get down to one last drop target only to lose the ball and then have to start all over. I don't mind if that happens on one aspect of a game, but when that is all there is too the game? I can safely say, once I get the wizard goals, I'll be washing my hands of this thing.

Still need:
3 extra balls
3 specials
score 2 million

For some reason it awarded me the score 1 mil with one ball despite only having 500K, but I don't care. Ef this table.

 

[Johni3w6]

For me the right outlane seems to have a magnet at times. It's an alright table for me once I play it few times but not a favorite.

 

[MontanaFrank]

My personal tip for this table. Turn down the volume. Seriously.

The sounds on this table are unpleasant and it's better to listen to something you want to listen to than the annoying sounds of this table, IMHO. I never play TPA with any volume. I am always listen to something else. All the newer pinball machines that these TPA emulate are deaf friendly. Just watch the flashing lights or read the DMD.

S-Y-T and all other players who find this table boring, stayed bored with it,. I might have a chance to score better in next months tournament.

I am going to practice this month. I want to post a very high score on a tournament table sometime and show the nice person who likes to enter a very high score for me that I can do it on my own.

 

[vikingerik]

There are tables where sound cues matter. Anything with a verbal countdown timer, like continent modes on Ripley's or the cashier countdown on Jack*Bot or the end of Lost in the Zone. Sometimes a countdown cue is in the music, like Lightning Lamp on TOTAN. Jackpot voiceovers can also help on some tables when you're focused on the flippers during multiballs and not looking up the field. Sound does matter. (But not this table, yeah.)

For all the people who say they want EMs, why aren't you playing El Dorado? It's the simple shooting action you say you want in an EM, is it not?

Scoring 1 million with one ball is just about impossible. Even I haven't done it legitimately. Bonus maxes at 570K, so you need 430K of other points. The highest score value anywhere is 5k for a lit target so you need almost 100 of those on one ball. The wizard goal is bugged, it looks like it counts bonus across multiple extra balls to add up to 1M.

 

[shutyertrap]

Good god, this table is giving me Genie flashbacks. So all I care about right now is collecting the wizards. I need the 3 specials and the 2 million point game now. If I don't light the hold bonus on ball one, I don't even bother with the other balls. I just start over, since that is essentially what you are doing on ball 2. I can't tell you how many times I've had 9 of the 10 targets dropped, only to lose the ball.

I take a lot of audio clues from tables. Some times it even helps my timing with flipping, where it just becomes automatic muscle memory based on certain sound cues. There have been times when turning off the volume has helped, because let's face it, hurry up music is intended to rattle your nerves!

 

[shutyertrap]

Oh good, I'm done with the wizards! Took me less than a half hour of playing this morning, as opposed to the 2 hours of getting nowhere last night.

So here's a question come tourney time...what's the best strategy for getting points since you can't use the extra balls ad infinitum to keep collecting the bonus (which is where all the points are)? Is this just going to be a grind fest for as long as you can keep the ball in play? When even [MENTION=3745]vikingerik[/MENTION] says scoring a million on one ball is torture, I think that says something! What kind of scores can we expect on the day I wonder?

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Oh good, I'm done with the wizards! Took me less than a half hour of playing this morning, as opposed to the 2 hours of getting nowhere last night.

So here's a question come tourney time...what's the best strategy for getting points since you can't use the extra balls ad infinitum to keep collecting the bonus (which is where all the points are)? Is this just going to be a grind fest for as long as you can keep the ball in play? When even [MENTION=3745]vikingerik[/MENTION] says scoring a million on one ball is torture, I think that says something! What kind of scores can we expect on the day I wonder?

What's probably best is to keep knocking down the drop targets and keep scoring wherever possible.

 

[vikingerik]

A tournament with no extra balls would be all about maxing the bonus on each ball at 570K. This isn't trivial to do, I manage it on maybe a bit over half my balls on this table. There's enough room for skill testing in that. Beyond 570K on all three balls, then yes any further scoring is only about keeping the ball in play to hit targets for 1k or 5k at a time.

 

[Gus]

It'll be like when we played Black Hole. Noone will collect max on every ball Or maybe someone will, we'll see. One thing that will be quite different from regular play is that once you've cleared the top targets once (bonus hold), hopefully on ball 1, it's just the side targets that matter to get to 3x bonus.

I'm looking at the HOF 1k limit, and it's 15 Million. That is pretty sick. Pretty much requires to collect ~30 extra balls.

 

[Gus]

or wait! Collecting the extra ball actually matters a lot, since you get to plunge it and will get 190k in bonus