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TOM Tactics and Strategies
- Thread starter superballs
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superballs
Active member
- Apr 12, 2012
- 2,653
- 2
- Thread starter
- #22
For midnight magic, the dead pass is actually quite easy. Just before the ball hits the left flipper, nudge the table to the right and the ball will reliably bounce to the left and rest there, sometimes even travel up to the crook of the right inlane. Take the time to aim with a set shot and you can score 100-150 Mil each MM
superballs
Active member
- Apr 12, 2012
- 2,653
- 2
- Thread starter
- #24
Good to know....I'm happy to see threads like this started for the other tables too. Hopefully I'll be able to add something to them as well. Now i feel like I've left my mark on the world lol. I actually like how we are helping others elevate our friendly competition. Sadly my power adaptor for my XBOX is being shipped to them for replacement but I've been playing BoP and MM a lot on my iPhone
Actionball
Banned
- May 23, 2012
- 116
- 0
Ive seen most of what I would say in other places.
My main tips would be timing and order of operations related.
Always use the Vanished ball during regular multiball if its convenient. The reason is easy, you get vanish relit for another 40mil after that is done and then can play that multiball. Much quicker than another 6 hits on the captive ball. Yes, 4 ball does suck so let it drain if you like. But hey, free 40m.
Take the Trap Door when ever available for sure, but ALWAYS before starting something important like multiball as those will kill it. The rewards available are far to important to be ignored. Early on something like "midnight" is an orgy of wealth as you get your magician rank raised, a decent scoring mode (I tend to ignore it after it drops under 20mil though) and most important that extra ball lit. Sometimes you get a booby prize like bonus X when you are at 8x already but its still the single most important easy shot in the game. I don't aim to get it lit, it just happens by bounces and off center shots on the middle ramp. Hitting the stand ups directly is fairly hazardous.
Hit every skill shot, don't care what you prefer just always hit them. Personally its always Start Illusion for me till later in game when that 2x bonus can be a very important leg up. When neither is available I am a 2x combo man all the way since I can run the theater loop almost on autopilot.
The main thing about going for the skill shots (beyond the obvious) is they add to bonus and are easy to rack up and hold ball to ball. The captive ball ones are often overlooked in favor of trying for a trunk hole or ball lock or multiball start but you miss out on that bonus swag, an hour on the clock and another hit closer to vanish. I don't find the captive ball to be any sort of hazard, its my preferred way to knock on the trunk or advancing the bonus X lanes by kissing one side or the other. 8, 10, 14 or more skill shots on an 8x multiplier over a couple of balls is a few hundred million in free points.
Run up THEATER and MAGIC and the clock early for the significant boost to your magician rating on the bonus. They are low risk shots that can be looped quickly. The illusions will happen only so fast, don't try to force and hurry those. The other 3 will put your bonus very fast and should be easily finishable on ball one. A few shots on the loops are bound to end up in the rollovers too which is desireable early on in every fresh ball.
Learn to get that 8x as a priority every ball, it ends up being worth billions. Its not out of reach to get billion + on a single end of ball bonus. There is only one illusion that will stop the balls on the inlanes so you need to get good at lightly hitting the captive ball to take some steam off that loop. The other easy way to get the multiplier up is get multiball going as often as possible. Send them up the loops, they hit each other and stop there in the jets for a bit so you can ignore a couple balls and hit the jackpot shots while they run up the bonus X.
Vanish multiball can be stacked with other modes. Consider this before just starting it up. You can use it during Midnight and MOST important the grand finale. 2 Balls takes a bit of the fear out of shot selection for that and when you are not tense you make the shots easier.
Spirit ring, highly under appreciated. If you hit it for the cycle you get 60mil and add 4 MAGIC letters closer to lock not to mention the bonus. Its the easiest way of lighting the multiball lock quickly after the second one, this is important because the letters don't hold ball to ball. Its a shame to waste MAGI 2 or 3 times. Not sure if spirit ring stacks with Metamorphasis, but it seems to stack with the combo points making it an 80 million 4 shot ramp sequence all totaled.
Never shoot the trunk directly if you don't have to. Bang it off the captive ball, often you get both trunk and captive ball hits.
Until they fix the magnets the trunk is a huge danger to dump it down the left drain from a right flipper shot. The tilt on this game is so liberal you should almost never be losing down the middle but don't help feed the drains.
Feel free to ignore the panic modes. 50 million on a hurry up theater trunk shot is not worth taking a badly timed bounce off the trunk into a drain. Its just not enough points to risk a poorly thought out shot on the trunk. Trap it if you have time and shoot or just ignore it, either way you win by not losing. Same for Trunk Escape, and to a lesser extent Hat Magic. Go shoot the spirit ring instead. At least that will be a shot that advances something AND get you as many points as Trunk Escape with FAR less risk. Trunk escape is super sucker mode, its 4 hits on a drain machine that only makes points, not headway to finale.
A little thought into when to hit stuff, even leaving a tempting multiball unclaimed for a few minutes can add several hundred million to a few billion points. Same shots, same play time but lots more points at the end. And with any luck they will fix that 10B rollover for the leaderboards if not the DMD and we can quit this game of who can tilt off their game closest to 999,999,999. On standard mode with all the free balls possible 10 billion is just way too low of a cap.
My main tips would be timing and order of operations related.
Always use the Vanished ball during regular multiball if its convenient. The reason is easy, you get vanish relit for another 40mil after that is done and then can play that multiball. Much quicker than another 6 hits on the captive ball. Yes, 4 ball does suck so let it drain if you like. But hey, free 40m.
Take the Trap Door when ever available for sure, but ALWAYS before starting something important like multiball as those will kill it. The rewards available are far to important to be ignored. Early on something like "midnight" is an orgy of wealth as you get your magician rank raised, a decent scoring mode (I tend to ignore it after it drops under 20mil though) and most important that extra ball lit. Sometimes you get a booby prize like bonus X when you are at 8x already but its still the single most important easy shot in the game. I don't aim to get it lit, it just happens by bounces and off center shots on the middle ramp. Hitting the stand ups directly is fairly hazardous.
Hit every skill shot, don't care what you prefer just always hit them. Personally its always Start Illusion for me till later in game when that 2x bonus can be a very important leg up. When neither is available I am a 2x combo man all the way since I can run the theater loop almost on autopilot.
The main thing about going for the skill shots (beyond the obvious) is they add to bonus and are easy to rack up and hold ball to ball. The captive ball ones are often overlooked in favor of trying for a trunk hole or ball lock or multiball start but you miss out on that bonus swag, an hour on the clock and another hit closer to vanish. I don't find the captive ball to be any sort of hazard, its my preferred way to knock on the trunk or advancing the bonus X lanes by kissing one side or the other. 8, 10, 14 or more skill shots on an 8x multiplier over a couple of balls is a few hundred million in free points.
Run up THEATER and MAGIC and the clock early for the significant boost to your magician rating on the bonus. They are low risk shots that can be looped quickly. The illusions will happen only so fast, don't try to force and hurry those. The other 3 will put your bonus very fast and should be easily finishable on ball one. A few shots on the loops are bound to end up in the rollovers too which is desireable early on in every fresh ball.
Learn to get that 8x as a priority every ball, it ends up being worth billions. Its not out of reach to get billion + on a single end of ball bonus. There is only one illusion that will stop the balls on the inlanes so you need to get good at lightly hitting the captive ball to take some steam off that loop. The other easy way to get the multiplier up is get multiball going as often as possible. Send them up the loops, they hit each other and stop there in the jets for a bit so you can ignore a couple balls and hit the jackpot shots while they run up the bonus X.
Vanish multiball can be stacked with other modes. Consider this before just starting it up. You can use it during Midnight and MOST important the grand finale. 2 Balls takes a bit of the fear out of shot selection for that and when you are not tense you make the shots easier.
Spirit ring, highly under appreciated. If you hit it for the cycle you get 60mil and add 4 MAGIC letters closer to lock not to mention the bonus. Its the easiest way of lighting the multiball lock quickly after the second one, this is important because the letters don't hold ball to ball. Its a shame to waste MAGI 2 or 3 times. Not sure if spirit ring stacks with Metamorphasis, but it seems to stack with the combo points making it an 80 million 4 shot ramp sequence all totaled.
Never shoot the trunk directly if you don't have to. Bang it off the captive ball, often you get both trunk and captive ball hits.
Until they fix the magnets the trunk is a huge danger to dump it down the left drain from a right flipper shot. The tilt on this game is so liberal you should almost never be losing down the middle but don't help feed the drains.
Feel free to ignore the panic modes. 50 million on a hurry up theater trunk shot is not worth taking a badly timed bounce off the trunk into a drain. Its just not enough points to risk a poorly thought out shot on the trunk. Trap it if you have time and shoot or just ignore it, either way you win by not losing. Same for Trunk Escape, and to a lesser extent Hat Magic. Go shoot the spirit ring instead. At least that will be a shot that advances something AND get you as many points as Trunk Escape with FAR less risk. Trunk escape is super sucker mode, its 4 hits on a drain machine that only makes points, not headway to finale.
A little thought into when to hit stuff, even leaving a tempting multiball unclaimed for a few minutes can add several hundred million to a few billion points. Same shots, same play time but lots more points at the end. And with any luck they will fix that 10B rollover for the leaderboards if not the DMD and we can quit this game of who can tilt off their game closest to 999,999,999. On standard mode with all the free balls possible 10 billion is just way too low of a cap.
- Mar 17, 2012
- 4,293
- 0
The key words are "if it's convenient". If Vanish is lit or one captive ball hit away and regular Multiball is ready, I'd say go ahead and try for it. Otherwise, I'd just head into regular Multiball...it's not worth the repeated captive ball hits and risk of drain just for an extra 40M, especially if you're good at hitting that right ramp and so can pick up 60M from the Spirit Ring whenever you want.
The Spirit Ring is active but non-scoring during Metamorphosis.
Actually, I've discovered after my previous strategy post that it is possible to repeatedly bounce the ball vertically between the trunk and the left flipper. I do this mainly for Midnight Madness, in which case you can score every "hour", for a total of 176M. You will actually hit the trunk twice each hour but the second hit will not register because the magnet has not reactivated yet. It also works for Trunk Escape and is relatively safe - at least, it's much safer than doing Trunk Escape any other way.
I would not try this on a real table, as ball movement and rebounding is more random on a real table than in the precisely calculated world of TPA.
superballs
Active member
- Apr 12, 2012
- 2,653
- 2
- Thread starter
- #27
A very very safe way to hit the trunk is to bounce it off of the yellow targets that activate the ball save. Takes a bit longer than direct shots but should also keep you relatively save on the outlanes, sometimes anyway.
Actionball
Banned
- May 23, 2012
- 116
- 0
By convenient I mean you already have the ball "vanished" and just have not run the clock loop to start its multiball mode and also have the lock/startmagnet lit. But that said since I always hit the captive ball skill shot there are times when between lock 1 and 2 or 2 and the start that this skill shot will be the magic number to light vanish...then I will vanish it if safe to do.
40 million is not worth draining over, but that left loop is such a safe shot. If this situation occurs 3 times during a game its 120 million you get with 18 fewer hits on the captive balls, which some people are quite leary of.
Same situation applies to a lit Trap Door ramp with the Multiball magnet active and you are holding the ball on a flipper. So tempting to start that multiball, the trunk magnet is easy as can be to hit, no danger but you lose the Trap Door light when its over...then thats 4 more hits on center field stand ups later in the game and a missed opportunity at maybe an extra ball or free illusion. Just a timing and risk reduction strategy.
Actionball
Banned
- May 23, 2012
- 116
- 0
Running up a couple captive shots to get a vanished ball to use for Grand Finale is VERY worth the effort though. Thats almost like putting 1.1 billion in the bank at the risk of a few ball shots. Of course its pretty easy to accidently dump it in the Grand Finale start by accident too while hitting it 
Actionball
Banned
- May 23, 2012
- 116
- 0
I managed to make one stick to the leaderboard tonight. I had to tilt off 3 balls to keep my bonus from overshooting, but I played it close enough to get 2nd for the month and 3rd all time of the consoles. Unfortunately I did not consider that the DMD limit on the game would transfer to the leaderboards as it didn't in WPHOF when I first got this game last month. My first hard run at those insane (glitched?) mobile high scores of 21+ billion fell far short at ~13 billion and I was bummed until I realized it wouldn't show up at all on the leaderboards, then I was downright depressed.
As nice as it is to get on the board its really sort of disgusting the way it happened. I was on it so well tonight that I was over the 9b mark on "ball 1" and had to stop actually playing for fear of hitting something too good and blowing it. Had to tank my second (maybe 3rd, it was a blur) grand finale about 2 letters from the end and tilt it off since I was at 9.7ish, then fart around very gingerly on ball 2 and 3, tilting off the bonus. I dearly hope they fix the way the leaderboards take scores from consoles and put in a tournament mode that limits you to 3 balls.
I am taking a vow now that no matter what I won't compromise a ride like that again for something as stupid as a leader board, Ill be sick with doubt to know where that run might have ended tonight.
As nice as it is to get on the board its really sort of disgusting the way it happened. I was on it so well tonight that I was over the 9b mark on "ball 1" and had to stop actually playing for fear of hitting something too good and blowing it. Had to tank my second (maybe 3rd, it was a blur) grand finale about 2 letters from the end and tilt it off since I was at 9.7ish, then fart around very gingerly on ball 2 and 3, tilting off the bonus. I dearly hope they fix the way the leaderboards take scores from consoles and put in a tournament mode that limits you to 3 balls.
I am taking a vow now that no matter what I won't compromise a ride like that again for something as stupid as a leader board, Ill be sick with doubt to know where that run might have ended tonight.
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Baintz
New member
- May 25, 2012
- 39
- 0
Discovered something completely by accident the other night, but thought it was worth sharing.
I had two balls locked, so the trunk was showing the magnet side. I then shot the left loop to complete THEATRE, and the trunk stayed as it was, so getting the hurry-up award was simple. A shot into the magnet side of the trunk is obviously way easier than trying to shoot the hole in the trunk. Got my hurry-up award, and multiball started straight after.
I had two balls locked, so the trunk was showing the magnet side. I then shot the left loop to complete THEATRE, and the trunk stayed as it was, so getting the hurry-up award was simple. A shot into the magnet side of the trunk is obviously way easier than trying to shoot the hole in the trunk. Got my hurry-up award, and multiball started straight after.
- Mar 17, 2012
- 4,293
- 0
Started the Grand Finale twice, finished it once and made 9 or 10 letters on the second one, and had a super-long multiball in between where the jackpots eventually hit 200M. Also managed some huge (800M+) bonuses toward the end.
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laughing_lunatic
New member
- Jun 6, 2012
- 359
- 0
Good grief... thanks to the tips and strategies in this thread, I just posted a score of 3,051,475,260. My previous high was just under 1.6B... haha, I don't think my heart has ever pounded so hard as it did during the Grand Finale, I came up just 1 letter short. And my biggest bonus multiplier was only 2 x. Makes me think of what could have been. Makes me want to play again. Pinball: The Ultimate "Oh, just one more game"
SoonPoker
New member
- Jul 19, 2012
- 44
- 0
Huw ? So I'm not the only one on Earth with this feeling ?
It's not the same for my wife feelings ... I don't understand why ...
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Do you guys nudge regularly? I hear a lot of people scared about shooting for the trunk and other such shots. I very rarely have any frustrations with this kinda thing. The only thing that annoys me about this table is the stupid magna-save not working at least 50% of the time. But I've read up on this on the other thread - hopefully it will be patched soon enough on the Xbox 360 version.
My top score on this table is over 12 billion, more than 8 billion of that was obtained on my FIRST ball of ball 1...and I think I got about 5 or maybe even 6 extra balls in total during ball 1. After my score went over 10 billion, I thought the scoreboard had crashed so I basically stopped playing properly and just let the balls drain to see what happened.
While I agree on the most part with the advice in the above posts, I would say the single most important thing you can do (if you're looking for a high score, that is) is to keep aiming for the centre staircase as often as possible. You want to get trap door shots as often as possible to maximise your cache of extra balls. A nice skill shot to learn is nudging the ball into the left-hand secret ball lock when doing a slow shot up the left centre loop. This completely bypasses the need to spell MAGIC over and over to get multiball. It can be tricky but it's a great shot to learn, because obviously the more regularly you have Magic Multiball, the higher your score is going to be.
On top of that, all I have to add is my technique for Midnight Madness to net 176 million every time. Assuming you get your first shot for 24 million, hold down both flippers. The ball will bounce off the left flipper, left bumper, then land safely on the right flipper. If you release the right flipper JUST as the ball lands on it, the ball will be more controlled instead of rolling further up towards the right lanes. It also gives you just about the right amount of time for the trunk's magnet to reset after releasing the ball. Rinse and repeat this once per chime of the clock. I have tried various methods of trying to score higher, but never get as high as 176 million.
I'm hoping to soon knock Caleb off the top of the leaderboard, I think he has about 35 billion or so. Now I know about the score reset, I won't panic and think my score has been erased when I get over 10 billion on my first ball.
On a side note, this site seems to have a really good community going on! This is my first post here as I only discovered that this site even existed yesterday evening. But I'm glad that it does and this awesome global community of pinball enthusiasts has gathered here. I never knew so many people were interested! Great site, great forums, great community, great game!
My top score on this table is over 12 billion, more than 8 billion of that was obtained on my FIRST ball of ball 1...and I think I got about 5 or maybe even 6 extra balls in total during ball 1. After my score went over 10 billion, I thought the scoreboard had crashed so I basically stopped playing properly and just let the balls drain to see what happened.
While I agree on the most part with the advice in the above posts, I would say the single most important thing you can do (if you're looking for a high score, that is) is to keep aiming for the centre staircase as often as possible. You want to get trap door shots as often as possible to maximise your cache of extra balls. A nice skill shot to learn is nudging the ball into the left-hand secret ball lock when doing a slow shot up the left centre loop. This completely bypasses the need to spell MAGIC over and over to get multiball. It can be tricky but it's a great shot to learn, because obviously the more regularly you have Magic Multiball, the higher your score is going to be.
On top of that, all I have to add is my technique for Midnight Madness to net 176 million every time. Assuming you get your first shot for 24 million, hold down both flippers. The ball will bounce off the left flipper, left bumper, then land safely on the right flipper. If you release the right flipper JUST as the ball lands on it, the ball will be more controlled instead of rolling further up towards the right lanes. It also gives you just about the right amount of time for the trunk's magnet to reset after releasing the ball. Rinse and repeat this once per chime of the clock. I have tried various methods of trying to score higher, but never get as high as 176 million.
I'm hoping to soon knock Caleb off the top of the leaderboard, I think he has about 35 billion or so. Now I know about the score reset, I won't panic and think my score has been erased when I get over 10 billion on my first ball.
On a side note, this site seems to have a really good community going on! This is my first post here as I only discovered that this site even existed yesterday evening. But I'm glad that it does and this awesome global community of pinball enthusiasts has gathered here. I never knew so many people were interested! Great site, great forums, great community, great game!
BonzoGonzo
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- Jun 12, 2012
- 458
- 0
hey, have fun here
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