Table of the Week Club...Week 22: BIG SHOT

[Captain B. Zarre]

Same here. I never thought I would get into EM's, but Big Shot changed that. Great table! Dare I suggest we allow extra balls for this table? It's the only table on the timed mobile tournament that doesn't get a timer. Noone can last for 20 minutes anyway
[MENTION=2355]Captain B. Zarre[/MENTION]: I think your appreciation for this table will skyrocket when you start grabbing those specials

Yeah, I made a mistake... haven't played this table for a while.

Also, man is this table luck based. Once I plunged the ball, it went right to the right slingshot, and bounced into the left outlane. Wow. Even Haunted House, one of the most unforgiving tables in the game, wouldn't do that.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

..and now, with the PC tournament having launched, nobody's playing Big Shot this week.

I like playing this on my tablet. Same as all the older tables (El Dorado works far better on a tablet than on PC, for instance).

 

[shutyertrap]

Right? Or is it just that the table is soul crushing? The minute I get my last 2 wizards (250,000 and the bonus) is the minute this table collects dust again for me.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Right? Or is it just that the table is soul crushing? The minute I get my last 2 wizards (250,000 and the bonus) is the minute this table collects dust again for me.

I didn't play it for ages after I got the 250k the first time.

I picked it up again later and boosted by best score into the 300k+ range.

I guess I like it better on tablet for the same reason I like Zacc - games are quicker, and I tend to play games on my tablet when I'm watching TV. Great for casual gaming.

Did have an epic game of Ripley's on a 'plane trip a couple of days ago, mind, but I was a captive audience and there were no movies I wanted to watch.

 

[JefferyD]

This is probably the table I've played the most. Totally obsessed with it for a long time. I haven't played in a while tho. First try was about 60k, then I hit 245k and, moments ago, 264,900! Uh oh. Hope I don't obsess again. I might set it down and walk away. I only play 3-ball because it's frustrating being stuck on that 1,000 bonus until ball four; I can play for a long time and not score very well if I get hot early and choke on 4&5. And sucky games are over quick.

I managed two of those live-catch things during those three games, but fumbled them both down the middle. Totally not used to that.

 

[Slam23]

This is what drives me crazy about this table: my first game in a long time give me 320K out of nowhere. I think to myself: "these new physics are going to help me best my GC" (which is around 350K I believe). Then the next 20-30 games: nowhere near the 200K......It took another piece of me, and I knew it would..... [MENTION=2597]JefferyD[/MENTION] : watch out man, this table is evil and it sure sounds it got it's hooks into you....
[MENTION=446]invitro[/MENTION] : I get your arguments but I still think that there is something to Big Shot that can get people into EMs, and that's because it's a very simple but hard table. It's about basic flipper skills and direct results from you playing the table. Anyway, about the tuning: I play some EM's'at our clubhouse and know they are far less reactive and fast than TPA's Big Shot. But how did they play "new out of the box"? Even with extensive restoration, you still deal with a very old table, lot's of wear and tear. I played a real Gorgar just recently and it was weak in flipper power and slingshots. It was hard work to get the ball anywhere near the top of the table. No contest that TPA's version is overpowered, but did the real Gorgar show it's age, or was that also how it played when it came out?

 

[invitro]

@invitro : I get your arguments but I still think that there is something to Big Shot that can get people into EMs,

But it hasn't gotten people into buying EMs in TPA... apparently the reason that there have been no EMs since Central Park is the lackluster sales of it and Big Shot. Or my understanding may be wrong. Either way, my argument is that choosing another table, perhaps Fireball or one of the other classics, would've been a much better EM choice than Big Shot. Big Shot may've gotten some people into EMs, but I think it turned off many more people, and a better table would've gotten more people into EMs.

 

[shutyertrap]

But it hasn't gotten people into buying EMs in TPA... apparently the reason that there have been no EMs since Central Park is the lackluster sales of it and Big Shot. Or my understanding may be wrong. Either way, my argument is that choosing another table, perhaps Fireball or one of the other classics, would've been a much better EM choice than Big Shot. Big Shot may've gotten some people into EMs, but I think it turned off many more people, and a better table would've gotten more people into EMs.

Agreed. There are only a handful of EMs that people actually know by name. Fireball is such a no brainer, or Captain Fantastic, even Nip It. They also have more than one trick to them and rules that are common sense to modern players. People can argue all they want that Big Shot is pure pinball, just you and your flippers and drop targets. I think it's full of cheap drains and has nothing else to offer other than drop targets.

I'm not saying EMs don't have there place in TPA, they do. You just can't throw any EM at us and expect us to be content. It'd be like saying you like old movies and someone just grabbing any black and white film off the shelf and saying, "here, enjoy!"

There are quite a few EMs in my pinball league. Every single one I have played, plays completely different from Big Shot and Central Park. The flippers are no where near as powerful, and they are also slower on the flipping motion. If you look at many, the big points are all at the top, and the challenge is either keeping the ball up there via nudging, or figuring out how to flip and bounce off a sling to get the ball back up top. The slings are all much much softer too. Even so, they are also typically drain monsters worse than any modern era pin. I'm talking very wide outlanes, no rubber on metal posts for the ball to bounce off, and huge flipper gaps.

What FarSight has presented us with is old layouts with new mechanics, and the two don't work together in a manner that makes an EM appealing. Even on tables like Firepower, Xenon, Flight 2000, those early 80's tables, they're too fast and they don't use the same flipper mechanism as the late 80's and beyond. I recently played a fully restored, pristine Firepower with a brand new CPR playfield. This thing was a shining jewel, had been reworked completely, and played much slower than TPA. And guess what? Still challenging, kicked my butt completely. Shooting the left spinner lane to the ball lock up top, there was no guarantee the ball would make it all the way there. Until EMs can be tuned to behave like real EMs, they will be at a severe disadvantage, and until FarSight picks EMs that actually have name recognition, they'll never sell well.

 

[vikingerik]

What FarSight has presented us with is old layouts with new mechanics, and the two don't work together in a manner that makes an EM appealing. ... Until EMs can be tuned to behave like real EMs, they will be at a severe disadvantage, and until FarSight picks EMs that actually have name recognition, they'll never sell well.

Great post. Thing is, I think Farsight already knows and understands this and just does it anyway and intentionally. It's pretty much impossible by now that they haven't heard our complaints about overviolence on the older tables. So it's deliberate. I think they're aiming for a casual player audience who just wants to whack a ball around for some shiny lights and points. The audience who thinks slingshots blasting a ball at high speed is cool, not drain-dangerous. They don't really worry about hurting the experience for us diehards, since we're going to buy anyway. They justifiably care more about making sure the games don't feel slow and boring for the casual attention-deficient mass market.

And name recognition matters more for the mass market, yes indeed. Nip-It, Captain Fantastic, and Bally Wizard are the ones that might actually have some awareness. Maybe Fireball as well, but that's probably about it.

Everybody wants some EM, but everybody wants a different EM and there's no particular title that would satisfy everyone enough to sell enough. That's why we're not getting any.

 

[shutyertrap]

Everybody wants some EM, but everybody wants a different EM and there's no particular title that would satisfy everyone enough to sell enough. That's why we're not getting any.

Exactly. There is no Addams Family of the EM world that everybody would agree on being the ambassador of that era.

 

[Qlorn]

Love this table. Sorry I missed the date to sign up. Wont miss the next Tourney. I play Big Shot as much... if not more... than most tables out of all 4 seasons. The expletives that come out of my hole after a ball goes down the either side... only come from a rare breed of simply designed tables. ala Gorgar and Black Knight. For some reason I like to torture myself a bit before I play some of the more "happy tree" tables. Dunno what it is....

EM is what I love the most about pinball. To me, and clearly this is my opinion.... but EM to me is where the essence of pinball skill lies.... existentially speaking of tables played in person

 

[shutyertrap]

Since I finished up all the wizards on Pin*Bot, I went back to this to get that last one, the 250,000 score. To say the least, I still haven't managed it. I did score 249,410 which is frustratingly close yet so far away.

Two things I've noticed that amp up the frustration more than the usual suspects of this table. The first is how many balls seems to go right through the tip of my flipper. On any other table, when the ball grazes the tip I'll at the very least see a trajectory change. Here the ball just goes right past and down the middle. The other thing is how often yet haphazardly I'll tilt. I don't know if it's my gamepad or this particular table, seeing as how it requires a lot more nudging than I'm used to doing on others, or if it's the coding for it, but I tilt A LOT. Some rounds I can nudge to my heart's content. Other times, one flick of the stick is all it takes and I get a tilt. I've tried pushing the stick softly and gotten a tilt, while other times I do a hard flick and I'm fine. There just doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to when it's gonna go off, which means I'm very hesitant to use it offensively and thus suffer a lot of drains because of that.

Final thing. Anyone else seem to score just as good, if not better, when playing 3 ball instead of 5? Don't know why that's the case, but my scores usually wind up about the same no matter which I choose.

 

[Kratos3]

Since I finished up all the wizards on Pin*Bot, I went back to this to get that last one, the 250,000 score. To say the least, I still haven't managed it. I did score 249,410 which is frustratingly close yet so far away.

Two things I've noticed that amp up the frustration more than the usual suspects of this table. The first is how many balls seems to go right through the tip of my flipper. On any other table, when the ball grazes the tip I'll at the very least see a trajectory change. Here the ball just goes right past and down the middle. The other thing is how often yet haphazardly I'll tilt. I don't know if it's my gamepad or this particular table, seeing as how it requires a lot more nudging than I'm used to doing on others, or if it's the coding for it, but I tilt A LOT. Some rounds I can nudge to my heart's content. Other times, one flick of the stick is all it takes and I get a tilt. I've tried pushing the stick softly and gotten a tilt, while other times I do a hard flick and I'm fine. There just doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to when it's gonna go off, which means I'm very hesitant to use it offensively and thus suffer a lot of drains because of that.

Final thing. Anyone else seem to score just as good, if not better, when playing 3 ball instead of 5? Don't know why that's the case, but my scores usually wind up about the same no matter which I choose.

Once I focused on keeping the ball off the slings, it only took me a couple games.

I've hardly played it since.

 

[shutyertrap]

How do you keep them off the slings? Those way, way overpowered slings.

 

[Xanija]

Once I focused on keeping the ball off the slings, it only took me a couple games.

Thanks, this was the key. I've just tried it with this and within 4 games I had this wizard goal. Sometimes things can be so simple.

How do you keep them off the slings? Those way, way overpowered slings.

Nudging. Whenever you see the ball heading into the general direction of slings, you just nudge to avoid whenever you can.

 

[Kratos3]

How do you keep them off the slings? Those way, way overpowered slings.

Preemptive nudging.

 

[shutyertrap]

Preemptive nudging.

Which brings me back around to the problem of this table tilting on me without reason. Grrrrrrr

 

[WhiteChocolate]

syt: " It'd be like saying you like old movies and someone just grabbing any black and white film off the shelf and saying, "here, enjoy!" "

/me cues up some ed wood ... or the un-mstied version of 'manos'!

 

[Slam23]

How do you keep them off the slings? Those way, way overpowered slings.

I think it would be nice to get a "map" like we had with Genie, in which "good" shots were annotated beside "bad" or "prohibited" shots. That one helped me a lot to clean up my game. For the slingshots I only start nudging as a general rule when the ball hits the upper or lower part, as hits to the middle often don't evolve into drain risks. This also dependent on the angle of the ball in relation to the slingshot. Big Shot often lures me into flow play instead of controlled which on most tables is in the end less succesful. I'm torn on this when dealing with this table, because trying to get control often leads to drains in the end.

 

[Snorzel]

SYT opened this thread back up at my request as this will be 1 of the 8 tables from this months tournament! Post any new thoughts, or better yet, tell us all how bad you are going to whip us on this one in the tourney