Thoughts on views (angles)

[Fungi]

Can someone explain to me the difference between view 1 and 2? I keep trying to see it, but view 1w gets in my way of comparing.

 

[Jeff Strong]

View 2 is a bit higher. This allows you to get a better view of the top bumper areas and such.

 

[Cloda]

I play on landscape on quite a small 21inch screen (or on occasion a 32inch). For these screens in landscape, 1 and 2 and 8 are generally too small / far away. I am usually between two Views - either 4 or 5. I prefer 4 most of the time, as the view never leaves the flippers, but just zooms out as the ball moves to the top of the screen. The advantage of that is that the flippers always stay in view, you have a closer flipper view when you are making your shots, you clearly see all the targets you are aiming for even though the top of the table is out of view and when the ball comes down and the table zooms in, it has the effect of focussing your attention to the ball. The main disadvantage of View 4 is that you don't have a clear View of the top of the table, similar to 1W, but not as flat and that is annoying with e.g. rollovers above bumpers and it can also makes top flipper cross shots difficult (depending on the placement). My solution to that, which I have proposed to Zen a few times over the years, is to have an action camera (similar to when the castle explodes on Medieval Madness) over the obstructed features. They can position it themselves or give the player the option to place it where they best need it. I always play with the DMD on the bottom left, as you then don't have to take your eyes off or far away from the flippers by having to look all the way to the top of the screen to see it. Here is a video of me playing Civil War with View 4.

View 5 works better than 4 on some tables when you have flippers higher up for cross shots. The first table where that was implemented is Ms. Splosion Man and it worked brilliantly for that table as seen in this video. In general, where practical, I'll always prefer View 4 as with View 5 you loose sight of the flippers when the ball goes up and it it very hard not to track the ball with your eyes so it becomes much harder to react to balls that shoot back from e.g. a post shot or flying down towards the flippers after a failed ramp shot as can be seen in this Rome video. With the Zen physics it was still manageable as the ball movement is less random and more predictable, but with the classic arcade physics you have a much faster ball, more variability and thus much less time to react.

A last thing that I can add is that with the Williams tables and new physics engine, I had to first play around with the views because the overall dynamics are so different, but in the end I came back to View 4 again as it still have the most advantages for me. Here are my thoughts on this on the official Zen Forum.

 

[Silverball67]

I prefer view, called 1b, which is similar to 1, but with a wider, slightly flatter angle.