Tactics and Strategies

[relaxation]

Taking the spinning disc into account.. think of it as a roundabout, yes a late backhand coming down on 2'o clock will spin it down to around 5~5:30 making it pretty safe if zipped, another carry is a backhand to the left mushroom target that enters the disc area at 10'o clock and leaves about 2 o'clock and often will hit the other yellow muchroom target.

The only entry point on the disc I don't like is 4'o clock -> 8'o clock that'll carry it into the slings or worse.
[MENTION=5136]Tarek Oberdieck[/MENTION] how was your game, were a majority of them collected on one ball?
my breakdown was
ball 1 - 158, ball 2 - 0, ball 3 - 24, ball 4 - 63, ball 5 - 0, I think I saved ball 1 two or three times from accidental early backhands.

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

@Tarek Oberdieck how was your game, were a majority of them collected on one ball?

Yes, but I can't remember the exact scores per ball. The strategy is simple. Enable the skill shot, lock a ball in the right saucer, enable the kickback and the right lane to 3k. And for sure the flipper zipper. Now catch every ball without a flip in the middle and flip soft with the left. This kicks the ball to the right flipper and now you can backhand the right lane and repeat. Can be done forever if you're good enough...

 

[Fungi]

Yes, but I can't remember the exact scores per ball. The strategy is simple. Enable the skill shot, lock a ball in the right saucer, enable the kickback and the right lane to 3k. And for sure the flipper zipper. Now catch every ball without a flip in the middle and flip soft with the left. This kicks the ball to the right flipper and now you can backhand the right lane and repeat. Can be done forever if you're good enough...

Yep, and I got bored very quickly.

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

Yep, and I got bored very quickly.

Understandable.

 

[Slam23]

Boredom is the main ingredient of this particular grind

I do a double flip (one instance in which it's not a beginner's style of play ) and cradle with the right, then backhand it. Do you shoot the backhand running Tarek? Or do you cradle first?

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

Do you shoot the backhand running Tarek? Or do you cradle first?

No, I always catch before.

 

[kinggo]

life is to short to play this one for 1M

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

life is to short to play this one for 1M

It's a short time table. Only minutes, not days...

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

The first rule of Fireball is, if the flippers aren't closed, close the flippers.
The second rule of Fireball is, if you hit a yellow mushroom, refer to the first rule.
The third rule of Fireball is, don't try to deliberately keep the kickback lit, it has a life of its own.

 

[Slam23]

That sounds very Asimov-y, like the laws of Robotics

 

[krazysteve1958]

I discovered this same strategy early on. It's a safe, brainless method for high scores and there's no shortage of folk immersing themselves in it as the high scores reflect. Too bad there's not a separate high score list for anyone who doesn't want to participate in this lunacy.

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

I discovered this same strategy early on. It's a safe, brainless method for high scores and there's no shortage of folk immersing themselves in it as the high scores reflect. Too bad there's not a separate high score list for anyone who doesn't want to participate in this lunacy.

Well, the goal in pinball is it to reach points with the best possible ball control. Fireball with this strategy is for sure an extreme case and very boring. On the other side I would say playing this table in any other way is pure gambling. The short flippers, the spinning disc and the hungry outlanes makes it nearly impossible to get any serious ball control. Is that more interesting?

 

[Jay]

I agree that the skillshot is important, and it's not too difficult. I don't have a problem (neither on iOS nor Steam for PC) with catching the ball with the flippers closed, popping it over to the left flipper and then hitting the trapped ball. I can do that fairly consistently. Sometimes the spinner isn't my friend, but much of the time I can keep hitting it.

Sometimes instead of going directly for the trapped ball, I go for Odin. Then when I hit the trapped ball, there's a chance of one of the multiballs going down the Wotan channel, basically giving me an extra ball. If I lose one of the multiballs, I just repeat the process of cradling the ball and hitting the trapped ball. I find the game really relaxing, actually. It's one of the least hectic tables I've played, thanks to the zipper flippers.

 

[shutyertrap]

So I've spent the last week playing this. It was frustrating the hell out of me, as I couldn't seem to figure out a safe way to play. Then I saw Tarek's score and knew there must be! You guys cracked the nut for me, although my safety rating has only increased from 25% to maybe 50%.

My biggest issue where things are dicey on the table is when I'm trying to light all 3 Wotan lights. Center is easy, but backhanding into the right and left shrooms often results in a drain for me. With as many railroads there are on this thing, have you guys discovered a safe way of doing this?

 

[relaxation]

You're not using the spinning disc to your advantage: you backhand to the left, its bounces off the shroom to the disc, disc carries it to the right into the shroom.. from there you just need to zip up the flippers and begin scoring. The setup takes 30 seconds or less to get started. Great time to practice your minor nudges, I suggest you invert your nudges in the options menu, this will mean when you nudge in a direction the ball will follow that direction. In the linked video you can see what kind of pace/intensity for nudging I use.

 

[shutyertrap]

I've had the spinning disc to that exact thing for me before, but I can't figure out the timing of the flip to make it happen at will. I'm up to 260,000 points which is good enough to be number 2 among friends and 44 (?) overall. It's funny how you get in that zone, but then suddenly can do a wildly ill timed flip. Mind numbing repetition I guess. This makes Lyman's Lament seem like child's play!