Slam23
Active member
- Jul 21, 2012
- 1,279
- 2
Hi guys,
Although I still find this table frustrating to play, I had one game that I kept going for a while giving me a modest 11B for the #4 spot, very much so behind Tarek's 99B. It required a very specific way of playing that minimized risk and to get to some targets that are very hard to reach. This took some fun out of the table but even with the misalignments physics-wise, it is thus still possible to reach 10B+ scores
TL;DR
Stack EB! Don't lose ball, collect big bonus.
It's all about EB
Offcourse it's all about EB to keep the game going. Three repeatable EB's can be won, and 4 can be stacked at maximum: Washington, random Striker Hole award and timed EB TV Award (I believe every third of 4). The last one is offcourse the most difficult and not as frequent too. This makes hitting the Striker hole the most important skill and I found exactly one way of doing it, aside from random roll-ins. Hitting the goal target for a goal or when the goalie is to the side gives a ramp return to the right flipper. Keep that up to flipperpass the ball to the left flipper. When the ball has just the right speed to roll about halfway up the left inlane, you get a clean rolling shot to the Striker hole. Once you find the sweet spot it's quite repeatable. When it's lit for anything, the bonus aspect is that it will return to you via the ramp again, setting up a possible repeat shot. Only when it's unlit, the ball will roll near SDTM back out of the hole. I believe the hole can be stacked for lit Striker awards. I'm not sure how often it gives out EB on average, but it feels quite generous. I'm curious how that keeps up or not in really long games, fate may stack against you as we have seen at other more modern games (Casino Run from Jack*Bot comes to mind). I must say that I also had some hits to the Striker hole by just shooting a rolling ball out of a ramp to left inlane entry, but those were more lucky than skill, aside from the risk of producing a wild ball.
Getting to Washington on any given ball is the only certain way to lit for EB and luckily there are a couple of easy and minimum risk ways to go about that. First, shooting the left orbit from the right flipper is a finely tuned and quite easy shot to make. The rollovers above the bumper area can light the next city and shooting the orbit again will make it solid. Shooting from the right and having the ball scream around the orbit has some risk but surprisingly low. Multiball is a great situation to get a few cities closer to Washington. Random Striker award Advance 3 Cities is great too. Also a viable and safe strategy could be backhanding the left orbit from the left flipper when you have multiple cities flashing. It seems you only have to hit the spinner to make them light solid. The backhand is not forceful enough to make the whole orbit and will return for a controllable ball. I haven't experimented a lot with it because the right flipper left orbit shot seems to be safe enough.
I'll not be discussing the timed EB here, because well...the frustration level of it...best just to think of it as non-existent....
Getting to and playing MB
This is all about shooting the TV hole, and this is a P in the A shot to make. I have found only one way (on iOS anyway, but saw Tarek commenting that it also the case for PC), and that is via a right backhand shot. To get a controlled ball there is not easy, the best way is to shoot a right ramp shot from the left flipper, get a left ramp return and flipper pass it back to the right flipper, nudging may be required. Fortunately although the table will give some warnings, I have yet to tilt the table. The backhand shot has some risk, take it too short and you'll risk a left outlane drain, there seems to be a bit of a railroad there. Shooting too long is less risky. Then 1 in 4 balls will get rejected at the hole, even if you seem to have hit it just right. After a while you'll find the sweet spot, but it can be very frustrating.
There are two MB to be played, Final Draw regular MB after locking a ball up at the right ramp and Final Match "Wizard Mode" after landing at Los Angeles.
Regular MB requires collecting 5 "attributes" like Speed and Stamina, after which you lock the ball from either ramp. Getting the attributes gets harder after the first and second MB because the amount of lit shots to collect them get fewer in number and more specific in order. The left ramp is my least favorite because a halfway completed shot that rolls back will require a safe, and hitting the left Striker target at the entrance of the ramp will go SDTM without fail. Playing MB is all about juggling balls to either shoot a lit Goal or shoot a ramp to light Goal again. City Jackpots of various worth will be collected and you'll end up with a whopper of a 250M Goal by beating Germany. The best part of this is that MB will stay at the Germany Goal 250M level for the rest of the game when achieving MB again, making it a good point generator (there is no extra difficulty for this shot). This is especially so because it's nigh impossible to win Final Match after the first time for that 500M.
Final Match starts after landing at Los Angeles. You'll play Germany again and I now have to say that for me being Dutch, this is quite painful for reasons best Googled (just enter 1974 World Championship and you'll see why). Anyway, this kind of Wizard mode is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, every goal scored is about 75M, so that's nice. Scoring 3 or 4 on average is doable for 225 or 300M on it's own right. The plum 500M for beating Germany is what we want most offcourse, in addition to scoring goals. But I'll be impressed if you get that one more than once. In the first Final Match, Germany will get to 3 or 4 goals. It's already some achievement to beat that. Shooting at the goal is quite a tight shot from either flipper but's the way the 5 balls on the table get in their own way that will lessen your chances. Even with letting a few go at the time (which is a nice counterintuitive training which will help on other tables with similar timed unlimited ball modes), they return very quickly to the table. I wonder if this is the case on the real table. Anyway, after beating it the first time, the next round Germany will easily go up to 7 or 8 goals and only a glitch in which balls may get stuck in the Goal area, triggering the switch numerous times will get you to victory (see the First Impressions thread for details on that bug). I shudder to think what happens in the third rematch.....but still, playing it (and you'll have to at some point to return to normal play again) is nice for the 75M goals.
Where are the points?
Scoring big on this table is a typical case of increasing bonus. Keep the table going long enough and getting more EB's than you lose makes the bonus one of the best point generators. I haven't studied the composition of bonus enough for all the details but the base is formed by a running tally of cities and goals. This is across balls and will add up quickly to some 100+M alone. For any given ball, ultra mode scoring is added, and they'll get more worth after repeating them. The first ultra spinner is worth about 50M if completed, but the second one may be twice or triple that value. All in all, after a while you can get 400-500M easily from a good ball, and I'll leave it to @TarekOberdieck to comment on how high his bonus got on his 99B game. It's just sad (*Trump voice*) that you have to drain to get the bonus, but it's the most fantastic bonus to be had, believe me! (*Trump voice again*)
Other point generators have been discussed above, MB yields decent Jackpot values, but after a while you'll be shooting for the 250M and 50M Victory points. Even the 75M Goals in Final Match are not to be sneezed at. The rest of the scoring is well below the 50M treshold, for example the Boston Tea Party spinner shot (had it at max 40M one time with a lucky shot) Tackles an Cities alike.
Strategy
Just one essentially, at any given time take the shot that works best towards the next EB chance. You'll pass other goals (pardon the pun) while doing that. For example shooting ramps towards lock but also getting tickets to cities will speed up the path to Washington EB. I like how the table will provide you with a next logical shot when you follow this pattern, and although it becomes very linear in this way, there is a nice diversity in the type of shots you'll have to make. Use ramps to feed the other flipper with a flipper pass. Haven't used post passing a lot, but although it doesn't give a controlled ball, it is feasible. And for the rest it's all about practising the two shots that will get you Striker Awards/EB's and TV Awards/MB. Honorable mention for Unlimited Kickback Striker award. This will give you, well, unlimited kickback for one ball and the left drain being what it is, that's quite a powerfull award to get. I find it especially sweet in keeping regular MB going, and that helps getting to Germany.
Closing remark: after getting thoroughly frustrated with the tuning at first, getting into the groove of the table was enjoyable nonetheless. I still find it somewhat artificial in it's gameplay now, because of the very limited way that two of the most important shots on the table can be shot. That said, if they fix that, the table can be played infinite I think because then the EB's will be off the chart. Seeing a 99B score already from Tarek may even indicate that we are there already.
Although I still find this table frustrating to play, I had one game that I kept going for a while giving me a modest 11B for the #4 spot, very much so behind Tarek's 99B. It required a very specific way of playing that minimized risk and to get to some targets that are very hard to reach. This took some fun out of the table but even with the misalignments physics-wise, it is thus still possible to reach 10B+ scores
TL;DR
Stack EB! Don't lose ball, collect big bonus.
It's all about EB
Offcourse it's all about EB to keep the game going. Three repeatable EB's can be won, and 4 can be stacked at maximum: Washington, random Striker Hole award and timed EB TV Award (I believe every third of 4). The last one is offcourse the most difficult and not as frequent too. This makes hitting the Striker hole the most important skill and I found exactly one way of doing it, aside from random roll-ins. Hitting the goal target for a goal or when the goalie is to the side gives a ramp return to the right flipper. Keep that up to flipperpass the ball to the left flipper. When the ball has just the right speed to roll about halfway up the left inlane, you get a clean rolling shot to the Striker hole. Once you find the sweet spot it's quite repeatable. When it's lit for anything, the bonus aspect is that it will return to you via the ramp again, setting up a possible repeat shot. Only when it's unlit, the ball will roll near SDTM back out of the hole. I believe the hole can be stacked for lit Striker awards. I'm not sure how often it gives out EB on average, but it feels quite generous. I'm curious how that keeps up or not in really long games, fate may stack against you as we have seen at other more modern games (Casino Run from Jack*Bot comes to mind). I must say that I also had some hits to the Striker hole by just shooting a rolling ball out of a ramp to left inlane entry, but those were more lucky than skill, aside from the risk of producing a wild ball.
Getting to Washington on any given ball is the only certain way to lit for EB and luckily there are a couple of easy and minimum risk ways to go about that. First, shooting the left orbit from the right flipper is a finely tuned and quite easy shot to make. The rollovers above the bumper area can light the next city and shooting the orbit again will make it solid. Shooting from the right and having the ball scream around the orbit has some risk but surprisingly low. Multiball is a great situation to get a few cities closer to Washington. Random Striker award Advance 3 Cities is great too. Also a viable and safe strategy could be backhanding the left orbit from the left flipper when you have multiple cities flashing. It seems you only have to hit the spinner to make them light solid. The backhand is not forceful enough to make the whole orbit and will return for a controllable ball. I haven't experimented a lot with it because the right flipper left orbit shot seems to be safe enough.
I'll not be discussing the timed EB here, because well...the frustration level of it...best just to think of it as non-existent....
Getting to and playing MB
This is all about shooting the TV hole, and this is a P in the A shot to make. I have found only one way (on iOS anyway, but saw Tarek commenting that it also the case for PC), and that is via a right backhand shot. To get a controlled ball there is not easy, the best way is to shoot a right ramp shot from the left flipper, get a left ramp return and flipper pass it back to the right flipper, nudging may be required. Fortunately although the table will give some warnings, I have yet to tilt the table. The backhand shot has some risk, take it too short and you'll risk a left outlane drain, there seems to be a bit of a railroad there. Shooting too long is less risky. Then 1 in 4 balls will get rejected at the hole, even if you seem to have hit it just right. After a while you'll find the sweet spot, but it can be very frustrating.
There are two MB to be played, Final Draw regular MB after locking a ball up at the right ramp and Final Match "Wizard Mode" after landing at Los Angeles.
Regular MB requires collecting 5 "attributes" like Speed and Stamina, after which you lock the ball from either ramp. Getting the attributes gets harder after the first and second MB because the amount of lit shots to collect them get fewer in number and more specific in order. The left ramp is my least favorite because a halfway completed shot that rolls back will require a safe, and hitting the left Striker target at the entrance of the ramp will go SDTM without fail. Playing MB is all about juggling balls to either shoot a lit Goal or shoot a ramp to light Goal again. City Jackpots of various worth will be collected and you'll end up with a whopper of a 250M Goal by beating Germany. The best part of this is that MB will stay at the Germany Goal 250M level for the rest of the game when achieving MB again, making it a good point generator (there is no extra difficulty for this shot). This is especially so because it's nigh impossible to win Final Match after the first time for that 500M.
Final Match starts after landing at Los Angeles. You'll play Germany again and I now have to say that for me being Dutch, this is quite painful for reasons best Googled (just enter 1974 World Championship and you'll see why). Anyway, this kind of Wizard mode is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, every goal scored is about 75M, so that's nice. Scoring 3 or 4 on average is doable for 225 or 300M on it's own right. The plum 500M for beating Germany is what we want most offcourse, in addition to scoring goals. But I'll be impressed if you get that one more than once. In the first Final Match, Germany will get to 3 or 4 goals. It's already some achievement to beat that. Shooting at the goal is quite a tight shot from either flipper but's the way the 5 balls on the table get in their own way that will lessen your chances. Even with letting a few go at the time (which is a nice counterintuitive training which will help on other tables with similar timed unlimited ball modes), they return very quickly to the table. I wonder if this is the case on the real table. Anyway, after beating it the first time, the next round Germany will easily go up to 7 or 8 goals and only a glitch in which balls may get stuck in the Goal area, triggering the switch numerous times will get you to victory (see the First Impressions thread for details on that bug). I shudder to think what happens in the third rematch.....but still, playing it (and you'll have to at some point to return to normal play again) is nice for the 75M goals.
Where are the points?
Scoring big on this table is a typical case of increasing bonus. Keep the table going long enough and getting more EB's than you lose makes the bonus one of the best point generators. I haven't studied the composition of bonus enough for all the details but the base is formed by a running tally of cities and goals. This is across balls and will add up quickly to some 100+M alone. For any given ball, ultra mode scoring is added, and they'll get more worth after repeating them. The first ultra spinner is worth about 50M if completed, but the second one may be twice or triple that value. All in all, after a while you can get 400-500M easily from a good ball, and I'll leave it to @TarekOberdieck to comment on how high his bonus got on his 99B game
. It's just sad (*Trump voice*) that you have to drain to get the bonus, but it's the most fantastic bonus to be had, believe me! (*Trump voice again*)Other point generators have been discussed above, MB yields decent Jackpot values, but after a while you'll be shooting for the 250M and 50M Victory points. Even the 75M Goals in Final Match are not to be sneezed at. The rest of the scoring is well below the 50M treshold, for example the Boston Tea Party spinner shot (had it at max 40M one time with a lucky shot) Tackles an Cities alike.
Strategy
Just one essentially, at any given time take the shot that works best towards the next EB chance. You'll pass other goals (pardon the pun) while doing that. For example shooting ramps towards lock but also getting tickets to cities will speed up the path to Washington EB. I like how the table will provide you with a next logical shot when you follow this pattern, and although it becomes very linear in this way, there is a nice diversity in the type of shots you'll have to make. Use ramps to feed the other flipper with a flipper pass. Haven't used post passing a lot, but although it doesn't give a controlled ball, it is feasible. And for the rest it's all about practising the two shots that will get you Striker Awards/EB's and TV Awards/MB. Honorable mention for Unlimited Kickback Striker award. This will give you, well, unlimited kickback for one ball and the left drain being what it is, that's quite a powerfull award to get. I find it especially sweet in keeping regular MB going, and that helps getting to Germany.
Closing remark: after getting thoroughly frustrated with the tuning at first, getting into the groove of the table was enjoyable nonetheless. I still find it somewhat artificial in it's gameplay now, because of the very limited way that two of the most important shots on the table can be shot. That said, if they fix that, the table can be played infinite I think because then the EB's will be off the chart. Seeing a 99B score already from Tarek may even indicate that we are there already.
Last edited:
