Table of the Week Club...Week 24: TALES OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS

[shutyertrap]

Imagine how different our 24th TotW would be if it was based on Disney's Aladdin and had Robin Williams doing call outs! Yes, our table of the week is Tales of the Arabian Nights, and there better not be a single person who doesn't own this table seeing as how it's free.

This also completes our tables for the next tournament, which happens to be the last tourney of our inaugural season! Have we really been doing this for six months? Wow. So here's the tables that will be played...

Twilight Zone
Big Shot
Pin*Bot
TotAN

Tournament will be on Saturday, July 25th. Sign ups will open on July 22nd. If you played in at least 4 of the TotM for this season, you can enter to win the ultra cool Randy "Macho Man" Savage custom shooter rod from Wizard Amusements. We'll also blow out the rest of our codes from FarSight for TAF goodies on Xbox One and PS4. I believe Bonzo has another multiple choice of Steam codes to give out too. If anyone else wants to add to the prize pool for this tourney, PM me or email BlahBlahBlahCade@gmail.com and we'll include it. It's our season ender, so let's go out with a bang!

And just to clarify, there will be a season 2 with 6 months more of tourneys. The machine keeps rolling on and that will start in August.

But back to what we came here for...TotAN!! Discuss, share strategies, and enjoy the bazaar.

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

This will not end well.

 

[invitro]

Imagine how different our 24th TotW would be if it was based on Disney's Aladdin and had Robin Williams doing call outs!

It would be as bad as TotAN is good.

 

[neglectoid]

Twilight Zone
Big Shot
Pin*Bot
TotAN

I might do ok in this tourney if I practice.

 

[neglectoid]

Twilight Zone
Big Shot
Pin*Bot
TotAN

I might do ok in this tourney if I practice.

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

So I have a major scoring strategy for this table: Once two balls are locked, try and activate Lightning Lamp when Multiball and Make a Wish are lit. Shoot for the Bazaar scoop, and one of the options will be "3x Lightning Lamp". This will reset the Lightning Lamp timer and award triple the points for each spin until the end of the round. Activate multiball, and then shoot the Lightning Lamp a ton for big points!

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Lightning Lamp abuse and bonus are the way to go on this table.

That and keeping Genie Battle going as long as possible.

TotW has now covered all of the starter pack tables: TotAN, BH, RBION, ToM.

None from Season 4.
Three (High Speed, BK2K, Diner) from Season 3.
Seventeen from seasons 1 and 2.

 

[mpad]

I usually don't have the time to participate, but by coincidence I am playing a lot of Totan right now.
I am still struggling with the harem multi ball goal, so any tips how to intentionally pursue this thing would be great.
I also think the flippers on this table would greatly appreciate the 3.0 overhaul. Can't aim at anything with the left flipper. All important left side shots happen to be located within the last mm of the flipper tip.

Anyone else having a strong performance drop/ freeze at the initial plunger skill shot view? Dx11 portrait, fx maxed out.

 

[Johni3w6]

Not sure if this is the right strategy but, I tend to try and hurry up to save the Princess by using Jewels in the bazaar.

Currently this table is featured in the TBA tournament, so I'm not sure how much I'll play it as the Totw.

Interesting group of tables for the next Totw tournament.

 

[vikingerik]

So I have a major scoring strategy for this table: Once two balls are locked, try and activate Lightning Lamp when Multiball and Make a Wish are lit. Shoot for the Bazaar scoop, and one of the options will be "3x Lightning Lamp". This will reset the Lightning Lamp timer and award triple the points for each spin until the end of the round. Activate multiball, and then shoot the Lightning Lamp a ton for big points!

The real right way to do this is to use Genie Battle instead of regular multiball. You can stack 3x Lightning Lamp into the wizard mode. It's tricky but very possible to keep LL going during the Skeletons phase, and then once you reach the unlimited-balls phase, the LL timer doesn't even run anymore so it's permanently on. And you can keep the Genie Battle with LL going indefinitely as long as you're careful not to either win or lose the Genie fight.

I've gotten 300M+ from this stack multiple times, far outweighs any other scoring on the table where a normal trip through the modes and battle scores maybe 70M.

 

[Qlorn]

Love this table. Getting the Harem and Tiger shots down is key for this table. Took me awhile but I learned to tap the flipper for a finesse shot into those loops. Its not perfect but its a decent percentage of success. Dont use the LL/Multi ball tactic. Feels like Im cheating the Genie... not that he wouldnt punch me in the face if he had the chance...

This is one of the top 10 tables I would own.

 

[shutyertrap]

So I haven't played this table in forever. Apparently I got all the wizards already, so I don't need to do that. I never have had that great of scores on this though, my best being sub 200 million I think. I'm very curious to read what you guys do, especially since I really don't know the progression of things on this table. In the past it was fill the scimitar, wash and repeat. Clearly not the most efficient way of scoring. I don't know how to light lightning strikes, I don't know how to light the shooting star capture...'bout the only thing I ever learned on this table was how to wait for the Harem to light up, and that was 3+ years ago when it first came out! It's the epitome of a 'just whack the ball around and something is bound to happen' table for me. I know that won't cut it come TotM time.

To sum up...I should read the instructions.

 

[WhiteChocolate]

i'd never played tales much before, so the current ps3 tourney's been a re-schooling! i'd always wanted to go for the 'bazaar/wish' jewels too, but last few times instead tried choosing the bonus scoring (lightning/3x lamp/etc) instead, and managed to break my rut to get a lil' higher in the tourney ranks! and focused a bit more on just whaling the genie/lamp more than usual, cuz you want to/have to do so more often for story modes and bonus scoring in the end... the jewels will come as they may! you might score better choosing to play that way.

 

[Maggie]

This table kicks my arse. I've tried all the various strategies, but just don't have enough ball control to really get anywhere. So. Frustrating!!!!

 

[WhiteChocolate]

syt: hit the bazaar hole a lot to get lightning lamps and shooting stars and other bonus-y things; you probably figured that out by now ;0

maggie: i dunno what to advise; there's some tables like this, theater of magic, no good, fish tales... just sooo fast, and not necessarily because the table is geared steep; it's the bumperplay and directions of upper spouts to lower outs! best you can do is do your best to 'slow down play' to be more under your own control, and do flipper-catches when you can, then take a shot... -sometimes- ya gotta flip fast, otherwise you're gonna lose the ball... other times, there's -just- enough time to flip-catch, or to nudge a ball as it upward-arcs to prevent it maybe from draining - ya kinda hafta quickly make the judgement call, or just take your chances that a quick maneuvar (-ver? ;0 lol sp and too lazy to dictionary.com atm) will benefit you more than waiting/doing nothing and seeing it drain away. ;0

even with all that, i just can't get much anywhere more with no good gophers, lol gonna give up on that one! just when you think you've figured out how to score serious pointage on it, same technique/strategy don't seem to work next time...

i'm not much of a rules-reader, but gonna do some more looking into arabian, no good, just to see if i'm missing some 'collect jackpots' or something - seems like i rack up a few but maybe don't hit the collect on some of them?? so used to other tables where you get nearly every jackpot immediately; i think some hold out on you till you hit some specific target, ala 'monster fish' on fish tales...

 

[workshed]

Has there been any consensus as to whether the Harem Multiball/Genie stack is possible in TPAs version of the ROM on this table? I've heard that it is fixed in the latest ROM version but I'm not convinced of that. Even if it does work it is hard enough to pull off that it isn't a viable strategy when you only have two chances to play the table, but if it still is a thing going balls to the wall might be an entertaining strategy, even if making it work is a thousand to one shot.

 

[Maggie]

Well, I added 35m to my previous high of 104m. Woo hoo. Up to #8110 on the all-time leader board! Yeah, yeah, but at least now all my tables are in the top 10,000!

This is one of a few tables where I knock out the wizard goals pretty easily, but still score badly overall.

[MENTION=4374]WhiteChocolate[/MENTION], all the tables you name are ones I struggle with. My skills are improving, but the overall lack of skill shows on which tables work for me and which tables don't.

 

[invitro]

Well, I added 35m to my previous high of 104m. Woo hoo. Up to #8110 on the all-time leader board! Yeah, yeah, but at least now all my tables are in the top 10,000!

This is one of a few tables where I knock out the wizard goals pretty easily, but still score badly overall.

@WhiteChocolate, all the tables you name are ones I struggle with. My skills are improving, but the overall lack of skill shows on which tables work for me and which tables don't.

The TotAN leaderboard is corrupted and should be ignored.

For Fish Tales, practice backhanding the lock from a caught ball on the R flipper... it's easy after some practice. Then you can start multiball very quickly and go for those jackpots...

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Has there been any consensus as to whether the Harem Multiball/Genie stack is possible in TPAs version of the ROM on this table? I've heard that it is fixed in the latest ROM version but I'm not convinced of that. Even if it does work it is hard enough to pull off that it isn't a viable strategy when you only have two chances to play the table, but if it still is a thing going balls to the wall might be an entertaining strategy, even if making it work is a thousand to one shot.

I think it's pretty clear there was an update that removed this exploit.

Only 3x Lighting + Genie Battle left now. I was sooooo close to getting that set up yesterday.

 

[Slam23]

This is probably the most played TPA table, if only because it's packed with the free TPA version. I really like the table for the theme, layout and play flow but it's also a bouncey SOB. I can't play this table under any amount of control. If I try, I drain rapidly. Have never managed to stack LL with Genie battle either. A while back there was a plunger problem with (top) hole 3 not registering. This was fixed but I highly suspect TPA of making other changes to the table too. One was very welcome, which was widening of the left orbit. This should really help with getting all those Harem MB goals. Before this orbit was almost unmakeable from any flipper, rolling ball or controlled didn't make a difference. This widening also makes Tiger Loops easier to get. But, I also think the left outlane was widened, which leads to more drains. In about 5 games for the ToTW thing, I wasn't able to crack 200M+ which I did fairly regularly before the plunger fix (my GC score = 275M). Could be all imagination offcourse, anyone else have this suspicion? Also, when playing for a longer time (I think maybe a couple of games), my right flipper sometimes goes dead. This I haven't had in a long time and not recently on any other table. So I'm not having that much fun

For making the left orbit: a precise backhand from the left flipper with a controlled ball is possible, although not easy (mirrors the Fishtale shot actually). I usually shoot from the right, both rolling and controlled balls. It is somewhere just before the tip of the flipper. If you make the orbit remember to keep the right flipper up for a controlled bounce. Don't try to shoot multiple orbits, because they are very hard to make and if you do, sometimes the ball goes screaming between your flippers.
In MB: stack with LL (3x preferably) as said before and try to keep surplus balls go up the ramp to be out of the way a while. I like to play with max 2 balls which usually is a situation that happens quite quickly... After rescueing the princess, MB is the quick and dirty way to collect the EB from the special without actually also losing the ball. Keep that bonus coming!