Thread for irrational dislikes

[HotHamBoy]

Not having to worry about machine condition is a positive for digital pinball.

Agreed! But the flip side of that is the predictable physics. Pinball loses some charm when you know exactly how the ball will behave coming out of a kickout or off a ramp. But when you don't have to worry about randomness you can focus on strategy. TPA is so awesome just for learning rules and layouts. It's really cool to come across a table IRL that you've only played in TPA and be able to play it and understand your goals immediately... and then be completely disillusioned when it destroys you I remember my first live encounter with AFM... really put me in my place.

 

[EccentricFlower]

Irrational dislikes? I have no irrational dislikes. All my dislikes are rational

Mostly my big one is that I hate video modes. I play pinball to play pinball.

I don't have a problem with all kinds of complex DMD stuff, but I likely won't SEE it because I'm the kind of player who must absolutely watch the ball every second or I screw up. This is why I love vocal cues, even annoying ones - they're easier for me to notice than the DMD trying to tell me to do something. I played HS2 for two days before I ever realized there was an onscreen "SHIFT GEARS" to go with the cue.

Ooh, actually, I do have an irrational dislike: Score inflation on pinball tables.

I don't know why they do this, but it annoys me when you play a table where a million points is the new 100,000. The tables I mostly played when I was a kid, passing the million mark meant you were doing pretty well. There's some later ones in TPA where a score of 1 million means you drained without actually hitting anything!

 

[DA5ID]

Irrational dislikes? I have no irrational dislikes. All my dislikes are rational

Ooh, actually, I do have an irrational dislike: Score inflation on pinball tables.

I don't know why they do this, but it annoys me when you play a table where a million points is the new 100,000. The tables I mostly played when I was a kid, passing the million mark meant you were doing pretty well. There's some later ones in TPA where a score of 1 million means you drained without actually hitting anything!

"Feeling good about your score on AFM is like measuring your net worth in (old) pesos" - don't know if i heard that quote in here or in my pinball league but it makes me laugh...

on the other hand - the scoring system in WOZ feels so insanely low that i mentally add a few zeros to my score just to feel like I did a good job.

 

[HotHamBoy]

Agreed about WoZ. They need to add a zero. The scores feel really piddly. Matching a single digit also seems weird. I know it's just psychological but I see why the scores got so big as time went on. It just makes you feel good, even if 100 mil is actually pretty poor.

I hate games where it's all about that one shot. You can play for five hard minutes and get about the same score as one multiball jackpot. Rollergames' Sudden Death hurry-up is a good example of a shot that makes everything else feel like a wasted effort. In the same sense, it really sucks when a difficult shot doesn't pay out. Zen Pinball's table are pretty guilty of giving you very few points for some ridiculous combos but dumping on points for a hurry-up or mission reward.

 

[mrhorseshoe]

Add me to the video mode hate brigade. I just get irritated whenever the flow of the game is interrupted for arbitrary reasons.

I also dislike the high cost of pinball machines. I work two jobs just to make ends meet. I know I will never be able to own one.

 

[invitro]

I don't mind video modes at all if they're fun, fast, not too frequent, not the exact same thing every time, and award something significant when completed. So I enjoy the ones on AFM, MM, and ToM. I hate the ones on HD3e and CBW as much as you folks.

 

[DA5ID]

Add me to the video mode hate brigade. I just get irritated whenever the flow of the game is interrupted for arbitrary reasons.

I also dislike the high cost of pinball machines. I work two jobs just to make ends meet. I know I will never be able to own one.

I think if this resurgence of pinball is sustainable the cost of machines is going to climb (especially out-of-production classics)- thanks in part to TPA increasing demand

I could probably afford 1 (and just 1) machine if i did some hunting - but I have no room for it - at least so it's far enough away away from my lady that it doesn't drive her nuts. I think by the time I move into a bigger place machines will be out of reach financially. Unless of course all this is just a fad...

 

[HotHamBoy]

The burdens of pinball table ownership go well beyond the initial cost. You have to move it, you have to maintain it. It's going to break a lot, it's going to need regular maintenance that requires a lot of knowledge and skill. Overtime new parts will be needed. You need room for it and you probably want to have your own house where you plan to settle because lugging it around won't be fun, nor will having to consider it when making housing decisions. And one day you're going to get bored with it and want another, thus starting the whole process over. I once bought a 2-slot Neo Geo MVS. Worked great, a steal at $300. One day the monitor just didn't turn on. Ended up being a major hassle and that was just an upright arcade cabinet. Sadly, I had to part with it at a loss.

Truth is, owning pins is pretty impractical for most people. Better to just live in a city with a solid pinball scene and a few good public places to play. But that's why we play TPA, right?

 

[invitro]

Better to just live in a city with a solid pinball scene and a few good public places to play. But that's why we play TPA, right?

You don't know how right you are... if I lived in such a city, I might not even play TPA at all (well, I'd need to be able to afford going to lots of tournaments too). But I think many people here live in good pinball cities.

 

[WhiteChocolate]

beh!! you just answered a long-lingerin' q in my head... surely isn't a pre-multi-K budget in terms of experimenting with (real-world electronics/pb maintenance). i know i'd love to get into the biz, but i never quite entirely took to those "radio shack" kits when i was a kid - i loved playing with the explained experiments, but never really got "the gist" of a lot of engineering/components of those things. :\ boo - with "radio shack" going out of biz every day sadly, more and more (really, i kinda cry for "radio shack's" demise! ;0) - where should peeps find good multi-experiment kits like they used to sell, the "50/100-in-1" kits like radio shack usedta sell?? :0 even if it is a "low wattage" environment, it's something a lot of computer-casual engineering-types could get into again these days...

 

[DA5ID]

Sparkfun is a local open source hardware company that we are proud of. Kind of like 2015 version of RadioShack with some maker movement thrown in
https://learn.sparkfun.com

 

[WhiteChocolate]

Sparkfun is a local open source hardware company that we are proud of. Kind of like 2015 version of RadioShack with some maker movement thrown in
https://learn.sparkfun.com

keen! something i'll try to keep looking into... feeling like at this point in my life (laff i should know a bit more electron-y than i do still... i see things like modern LEDs and arduino projects, and keep thinking ohhh, i'd loveta do little bits of that... never thought much of keeping up/being a hardware geek all these years, and those guys gotta be gettin' some of the coolest geek-out shiz these days! (stuff like that guy who makes the "stop-motion drips of water in mid-air" stuff... that's some awesomely trippy stuff!

 

[soundwave106]

where should peeps find good multi-experiment kits like they used to sell, the "50/100-in-1" kits like radio shack usedta sell?? :0 even if it is a "low wattage" environment, it's something a lot of computer-casual engineering-types could get into again these days...

I think the only major retail electronics store I know of that sells parts these days is Fry's, for those living in (mostly) California or Texas. The DIY electronics scene has really moved online, with Adafruit and Sparkfun being the two big players I know of for hobby kits. Beyond kits, people tend to congregate in various DIY forums and order parts directly from Mouser etc.

I've played a bit with coding an Arduino, I think it's pretty nice. Not terribly handy with a solder iron yet, though.

 

[HotHamBoy]

You don't know how right you are... if I lived in such a city, I might not even play TPA at all (well, I'd need to be able to afford going to lots of tournaments too). But I think many people here live in good pinball cities.

My friend, I know exactly how right I am I live on the West side of Indianapolis where there's currently about 7 public tables spread across the entire city and only half of them work well and are worth playing. I have to drive at least an hour to get to a place with at least 4 tables (Bloomington/Shelbyville). The best options are Lafayette (75 mins) Louisville (2 hrs) or Chicago (3 1/2 hrs). My sister lives in Nashville (5 hrs), home of www.gamegalaxyarcade.com, and you better believe that when I visit I spend the whole day in Antioch. Game Galaxy has about 50 awesome pins, all classics, at a $10 unlimited play day rate. I recommend the trip to anyone.

As far as messing with electronics, I recommend people do what I've done and mess around with custom controllers for digital pinball. Mod an existing USB/iCade arcade stick with side buttons or build a dedicated pinbal controller from scratch. Go to www.ultimarc.com and buy their $35 basic i-pac keyboard PCB and buy some buttons from www.focusattack.com or ebay (but be carefull and do your research). I recommend high-quality concave HAPP buttons as they are the type used on real pinball cabs. www.marcospec.com also has buttons and pinball parts, including a wide range of other authentic pinball buttons such as ball launchers, start buttons, coin doors, etc. If you can't solder try crimp connectors. Any hardware store sells these along with 18-20 gauge wire for cheap. You can grab a lockdown bar off of ebay for ~$20 if you realy want to go all-out on your box.

And you know, I think I still would play TPA if I lived in a good pinball city. It may not behave exactly like the real tables but it's an awesome way to learn the rules and layout of tables without wasting quarters or being on-location.

 

[HotHamBoy]

Have I mentioned how much I dislike disproportionately large skillshot rewards? Duuuuuumb.

 

[Espy]

Have I mentioned how much I dislike disproportionately large skillshot rewards? Duuuuuumb.

Are there any tables that have a decent skillshot reward? Normally I just avoid them as they're not really worth the time to aim your plunger.

 

[Slam23]

Have I mentioned how much I dislike disproportionately large skillshot rewards? Duuuuuumb.

I hate all shots that are disproportionate in terms of scoring and are one-time/luck opportunities, like the double your score last shot on POTO. I can't quickly think of another (have to go to work) but the Billion shot on Bride for example is repeatable and therefore exempt from my dislike.

 

[HotHamBoy]

I guess I play so much Zen Pinball that I don't really have any easy time seperating design in real pinball from design tropes in Zen. Zen has some terrible score balance.

But yeah, I also don't like when a single shot is worth half your final score.

 

[DA5ID]

Are there any tables that have a decent skillshot reward? Normally I just avoid them as they're not really worth the time to aim your plunger.

Congo super shot 25mil. Repeatable on locking balls for multi ball

Love it. Can usually win tournaments on this table cause I know how to make this shot constantly

 

[geohoo]

TPA tables that get super hard after you score well and make the game not fun anymore, sometimes soon after they come out. It's like there is an artificial barrier to getting better and mastering a table. When I played real games in the arcades I generally did master the current game I was playing. (At least those that came out before arcade games also got harder with better play, and even those I usually could at least keep improving on.) I'd rather get bored with a game and stop playing it because it's too easy for me at some point than to get beat up from the AI deciding to cut me off from improving my game high score. So how is this an irrational dislike? From what I have gathered from other posts I've read at various times (a couple in response to a post I made), most people don't even believe the games do get harder with better play. So if I'm wrong (I'm not.) I guess it is an irrational belief.