Too easy tables (PC version)

[Heretic]

yep a "tournament mode"

 

[TNT]

Has Farsight hinted at how it would work?

I can see both viewpoints on this issue. For the guys who lived in the arcade I can see how they would like the difficulty to be higher. I haven't played a pinball IRL in a long time. But when I watch some of these videos on youtube of real tables the ball does seem to move faster than in TPA. It does appear to be because of the sloping factor as Magnum mentioned.

At the same time for the casual player if the tables are perceived as too difficult they may lose interest.

Having options would be nice.

 

[Robert Misner]

I think another issue is how easy nudging is on controllers..its abit to predictable in its execution..since switching to a plum bob setup I can't slap save hardly anything ..my scores have really gone down..but I'm ok with that since I couldn't slap save on a real machine to save my life

 

[MagnumXL]

Your custom CPU for Centaur was my favorite thing you ever did.

I'm glad someone liked it. I really wished I could have included the MP3 I used myself locally ("Battle Without Honor or Humanity" by Tomoyosu Hotei that was used in the Kill Bill movie and numerous car commercials, but I can see where a track from the Matrix would work well too; that and Tron are my favorite two movies of all time), but I suppose ultimately people prefer their own music to kick in. I always thought the secondary trick was to keep the song running (as draining ends it). I got this idea to animate the ball itself and it worked out better than I could have imagined. My favorite was on Fireball II. I had these little imp "pacdudes" inside a gem-like "fireball" and they did different things as they moved inside the ball (imps based on a short story called "The Bottle Imp" by Robert Louis Stevenson about a bottle with an imp in it that can grant your desires, but if you don't sell it for less than you bought it before you die, you burn in hell forever). So I figured, why not PacImps?

I've mentioned it here and in our BlahCade podcast. I even described it to Bobby and Norman at FarSight as being pure genius and highly disappointing it can never be added to TPA. While I enjoyed your other CPUs, that one actually changed the game and was the only way I played it. I still hear the multiball music I used (Burly Brawl from the Matrix) in my head start up when I get multiball in TPA version.

I don't know if you ever checked out my Fathom table (Scapino, aka Kurt Herman's table was a rendered version so it got more attention), but it also has enhanced rules on it, although perhaps the SLAM TILT penalty for sending the same colored power orb back to its own home base/saucer (thus destroying it and your game) might have been a bit much. (but that's why it's an extra play mode)

Hands down your were my favorite VP author and when you bailed from the scene, I pretty much did too. Your attention to detail was bar none and sorely missed after.

I hadn't really intended to "bail", originally, but a few different events occurred that all seemed to derail further development:

1> I bought a used Power Mac G4 while at the Pinball Wizards Convention in Allentown, PA (met MrHide there on two occasions) just to tinker with OS X since I've always despised Microsoft and Windows since my Commodore Amiga days. I liked what I saw and tried iTunes. I saw the potential of the 1st Gen AppleTV and upgraded the PowerG4 to ~2006 specs with a 2GHz G4, 1.5GB memory and an ATI 9800Pro video card, USB2 card and Sata controller. I actually used this machine as a server and surfing machine until 2012 when I replaced it with a Quad i7 Mac Mini with dual RAID0 drives (although I bought a Macbook Pro in late 2008, which brings me to #5 in a moment. I spend a LOT of time compressing my DVD movies into digital form, etc. and bought a large home theater with a 93" screen and HD projector, which also became a new time bandit (yeah I started watching that show too).

2> My step-dad died shortly after I released the re-make of the Addams Family table in late 2007 (he died in early 2008 and this caused a sobering delay of several months and I ended up taking my mom on trips to California, Alaska and Arizona later that year into 2009 to get her mind off it (I hadn't been on vacation in over 7 years myself at the time).

3> Let's just call this conflict with certain people in the community dating back to forum bans, arguments over Pinball 2000 emulation, people badgering for me to make various changes or certain tables, etc. I'd call it a negative vibe or irritant factor. How much effect it had, I don't know, but it was probably cumulative over the years. If you're not having fun, you find another hobby eventually. Interest seemed to wane to an extent after most popular tables were made as well. Releasing a table and getting 5 comments wasn't conducive to feel like bothering for other people's sake or some desired adulation or whatever. Ultimately, you should be making a table because you want to make it, not to impress others or make other people happy. Otherwise, you'll burn out.

4> VP9. I hated that it was released. Why? Because while it sounds like it offered a lot of nice new commercial-like features, it also KILLED (as in they didn't work without minor to major modification) most existing tables for various reasons (i.e. they broke a lot of things in the process). Rather than even attempt to toil and figure out how to make my tables work in VP9 (most people just had this attitude of "Let's just make BRAND NEW tables instead to take advantage of the features!), well, let's just say like #3 above, after spending SEVEN YEARS making tables to have the more complex ones simply not work for reasons I didn't even want to dig into the reasons (in fact, I took people word for the issues and I swear that I only just recently as in the past week even DOWNLOADED VP9 and TRIED one of my tables in it. Suffice to say, Addams Family died pretty fast with it. I haven't tried any other tables with it. I kind of DESPISE it for those reasons as I have zero interest in re-making nearly three dozen tables. I realize VP8 still works fine (at least it does here), but the few times I peeked into the VP Forums, the attitude seemed to be that VP9 was the most bestest thing ever made. Again, 7 years is a lot of time and I realized it at that point. I've also had depression issues for a long time and frankly, VP was rather cathartic for me. I should probably go back to it for that reason alone.

5> Near the end of 2008, I bought a brand new Core2Duo Macbook Pro (8600M GT; I got lucky my NVidia GPU never failed and it still works fine today). I bought it with the idea in mind of writing a music album (I play guitar and piano/synth and discovered I can sing to boot and wanted to see what I could do with Logic Pro. I spent two and half years working on that album from late 2009 until midway through 2012 and released the Pink Floyd/Tori Amos/Nine Inch Nails inspired album in the fall of 2012. I really thought it turned out spectacular compared to my early wondering whether I could even write songs or not, let alone perform all the required parts myself, etc. It turns out all those engineering skills + VP building skills = Layering Skills that work for writing music (or books) very well. It's kind of the same process as layering things in Photoshop even in away. Anyway, marketing is NOT one of my skills and sad to say the album is virtually unknown to this day due to a lack of any kind of music video to put to the songs or other marketing ploys. One of the songs (This Can't Keep Going On) is rather anti-establishment politically/religiously charged and could sell to either party (even Trump now that I think about it) and it's pretty catchy as an anthem. Anyway, I still don't know how to market it since I'm not a videographer or a publicist.

By this point, a lot of things had happened in my life (some career changes, shoulder surgery, etc.) and Visual Pinball seemed long gone, in a way. Believe it or not, I didn't play or even load up any VP tables probably from about 2010 until last week. Yeah, last week (same time I downloaded VP9 while I was updating VPinmame). But I bought Pinball Arcade back in 2013.... Hey, a pinball emulation I could finally play on a Mac (yeah, other than loading it up in virtualization or Boot Camp or my old Windows machine for some games, I kissed Windows goodbye a long time ago).

I had a few tables in progress that never saw the light of day. I even had all the fading lights done and working on Lord of the Rings (just checked them out again after all these years and they are pretty darn nice looking in terms of the photo-realistic fading lights) along with part of the table and most of the basic table layout was done for Pinball Magic. I DO feel bad about one thing, though. A VP Forum member who was working on his own Monsters Of Rock VP table was dying and wanted me to finish his table for him after he died. Sad to say, but I can't even remember his name because all the stuff he sent me and our emails was sitting on an email account that got deleted by Yahoo for not using for like 6 months or something at the time (as above, things happened during some of that time). For some reason, I must have never downloaded the images locally (at least I haven't found them) and at the time I wanted to do TAF first (and possibly one or two others that were in my priorities). But I did plan to give it a go at some point (he hadn't really got that far, but he had assembled some resources). Then the material got deleted by Yahoo. Yeah, I still feel bad when I think about it. Hell, the old forums got deleted and all my private messages with it as well when AJ's closed. If there was any access to the new forums, I didn't have it. I couldn't even create a "Pacdude" account there as it says it was already taken (guess I didn't have the password for the new forum for some reason). So I used "The Dude" (from The Big Lebowski) instead, but nothing much came of it. They wanted to do a chat interview when I announced I wasn't dead and I think three people showed up. I figured the scene was kind of dead or doing well without me. People told me how GREAT VP9 was and how awesome all the tables were for it, you know ones that could be made REALLY BIG like that closest camera view in Pinball Arcade where your nose is on the table...the view I despise since no one plays real pinball that way, but a large number of VP fans wanted every square inch of their monitor filled with a pinball table even if the camera had to be right behind the ball to do it. See #4 for why I didn't care to hear about VP9 once again (lol).

Anyway, there you have it. The story of my not so turned out the way I'd planned or hoped life. BTW, Borderlands 2 might be the most awesome game ever made other than pinball.... I spent a lot of hours playing that one the past year along with the Pre-Sequel. Kind of back on a pinball kick now, though. I have been having this sudden urge lately to make a table, if only to play with even freakier fading light effects. The issue would be that VP8 doesn't work in virtualization here at all (at least not with VMWare Fusion 6) and I'm set up for Photoshop and the like in OS X now. I think VP9 works OK virtualized, but did I mention I don't like VP9 because of petty and immature reasons??? Besides, it's easier to just let these Pinball Arcade guys do all the work and I spend some cash to play the end result, even if the tables are a bit too easy.


Hmmm, Will Wheaton.... he's supposedly quite the gaming "nerd". I wonder if he ever played one of my VP tables....

 

[Zaphod77]

Wow. small world. awesome tables Pacdude.

I was the one who did the layout work on the first f-14 tomcat, and the good version of surf n safari. The former ended up in that Ultracade pinball thing.

TO a certain extent, digital pinball will always be easier then real life.simply put, real life runs at greater then 60 frames per second. And it's totally unfair to use randomness in the flippers to make things difficult. Shots usually are either too easy or too hard, and it's a problem with digital pinball since day one.

TPA is mostly too easy because they try to be good about that. But there's also the fact that there is natural randomness in rebounds off of standups that is not emulated. T2 is the worst example of it, where escape doesn't get any harder because of a easy way to get all three with one shot every time. Just add a simple bit of random angle adjust off of those rebounds, and suddenly T2 is fixed. Plunges will rebound differently, yet the skill shot will still be consistent.

The odd thing is tat not every table gets this easy treatment. BSD, for example, is the noob killer in TPA that it was in real life. Space SHuttle has an evil. bumper to right outlane vacuum. DIner and Phantom of the OPera are a real challenge, but still not impossible to do well on.

I'm not the best player, But pinball in real life is rarely a marathon race. I'm really looking forward to tournament difficulty. just hoping it doesn't swing too far to the other end.

 

[Crazy Newt]

Thanks for sharing. Borderlands 2 and Pinball Arcade take up way too many hours of my time according to the Steam stats.

Still have to figure out a way to include ball-spin physics that don't alter the game mechanics in odd ways or bring gaming systems to their knees. I think this would help with making the tables more challenging, if implemented correctly.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

The odd thing is tat not every table gets this easy treatment. BSD, for example, is the noob killer in TPA that it was in real life. Space SHuttle has an evil. bumper to right outlane vacuum. DIner and Phantom of the OPera are a real challenge, but still not impossible to do well on.

Add Whirlwind to that list - a table where it's not even safe to plunge the ball. Yeah part of it is the inconsistency of TPA's manual plunger, but in this case, it makes plunging a risk. Personally I think WW is the best-implemented table in TPA. Not necessarily the best-looking, but it plays closer to the original (of those I've had extensive experience of, and WW certainly counts there) than any other table.

 

[invitro]

Still have to figure out a way to include ball-spin physics that don't alter the game mechanics in odd ways or bring gaming systems to their knees.

Did the Pro Pinball tables have ball spin physics?

 

[Fungi]

Did the Pro Pinball tables have ball spin physics?

BRUSA and Fantastic Journey did.

 

[MagnumXL]

The former ended up in that Ultracade pinball thing.

Yeah, Ultracade, I almost forgot about that. They used the wrong Sorcerer table (was supposed to be mine, but they ended up using Shiva's table by mistake somehow and he wasn't the least bit pleased about it. It never seemed to go anywhere. I never saw one in real life ever. The only time I ever saw "anything" by these guys was in Phoenix at Castles and Coasters and it was a big video game wall thingy. The idea of a pinball machine that could play multiple pinball games and need almost no maintenance was a good one from a certain perspective, but arcades were dying off and given a choice between a real table and virtual version of it at a bowling alley, I'd play the real one. In fact, I'd pay 3x as much to play the real one as long as it was in good condition. A simulation is better than nothing at home, but if I had the money and space, I'd own about a dozen real tables. Even then, a dozen tables isn't even a tiny slice of the machines that were available for real. Pinball Arcade has what, 62 tables now? I can still count out at least a couple dozen more I'd like to see and plenty more I wouldn't mind and yet more I've never even seen or played.

TO a certain extent, digital pinball will always be easier then real life.simply put, real life runs at greater then 60 frames per second. And it's totally unfair to use randomness in the flippers to make things difficult. Shots usually are either too easy or too hard, and it's a problem with digital pinball since day one.

Well, pinball in real life isn't that different in some respects. Some shots are easier than others. I can shoot all the shots on the real Theatre of Magic all day long in the real world on a properly maintained machine EXCEPT the right ramp (and the right orbit to a lesser extent). I've shot the center ramp like 20 times in a row before and then hit the inner right loop without missing a beat. You hit the ball at a given point on the flipper and it goes to the same angle every single time. I've always assumed the differences were a result of maybe three things.

1> The flipper physics are off somehow on the flippers whereby hitting the ball at a certain point on the virtual flipper does not send the ball to the SAME POINT as the real machine and that point might be correct on some parts of the flipper but wrong on other points. For example, when I flip for the center ramp on the VP version, it ends up closer to the right inner orbit or the standup target. VP always had trouble with aiming "straight up the middle" with settings that "look right" (in terms of where the flippers rest) and the end angle and power. Pinball Arcade seems to have a similar issue, but it doesn't feel as bad for the most part. I still can't repeat the center ramp and since you can't adjust the flipper settings in Pinball Arcade, I don't know if it's something that could be adjusted to aim correctly with small changes or something fundamentally off. I think you can aim that direction, but it's just in a different spot on the flipper. Pro Pinball could aim very well, but there was still something "off" in the game. Ironically, I SUCKED at ProPinball. I never could get that far in Big Race USA (my favorite one of the bunch), let alone Time Shock (ball eater). But obviously, other people like Tarek Oberdieck can adjust to either one (I noticed he was always at the top of the ProPinball games and he's at the top of most of the Pinball Arcade tables). Based on an interview I read with him, he feels the simulated tables and real world pinball are pretty much both right on the money with each other. I know this is NOT the case (or I'd hit the same shots in tables like Theatre of Magic), but clearly if your brain can adapt to the differences, you'll do well regardless.

There's something I'd call "flipper resolution" too in the digital world. That is in VP the number of points where you could hit the ball was like a digital stair-step. You could hit points 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10 and perhaps you could hit points 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, etc., but you COULD NOT NO MATTER WHAT hit points 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc. "directly" off the flippers. It's like the clock-steps of when you could contact the ball or flip the flipper was only available at 0.5 increments. In the real world, there's no such thing (maybe the speed of light or something). The ball moves in a linear fashion along the flipper and you can technically hit ANY POINT on the table with the right timing. This was a big problem in VP as well. I haven't noticed it as much in Pinball Arcade, but I haven't played enough to make a detailed analysis. But these two aspects of the flipper physics alone made the "aiming" feel off in VP. Everything was a matter of trade-offs. You could get some shots to feel right, but others would be off a bit and no matter what you did, you couldn't hit certain in-between shots very well.

2> The other issue is the table slope. I know in VP the numbers represented didn't seem to match up with what I saw in real world tables so would sometimes set it even higher (Attack From Mars) to get the desire speed of the ball return to match the local tables I was playing (slope of 9 worked well and I'd never use anything less than 7 in VP even on older tables where it probably should have been lower because it was boring. Real tables can be adjusted to a good range so it does come down to the operator. You COULD set the tables to be extra generous with the extra balls (like in Pinball Arcade) and use slopes of 4-6 degrees and slow things down to be easier, etc. But in my experience playing in various arcades across the country over the years, that doesn't happen too often. Higher slopes speeds up the game play (but you need strong flippers to compensate at a certain point; letting the solenoids wear out will make it unplayable) and faster return balls means less time to react (especially when it's screaming down towards the center) and harder to catch the ball, etc. A lot of people wanted shallow flipper slopes in VP and it was for a reason (i.e. the table was much harder with higher slopes). It could be that in real world situations, you'd find higher slopes specifically set by the operator in order to increase profits, but it also made for a FASTER game (along with strong flippers) and the combination worked well for people with fast reflexes that get bored easily with a lower slope. In Pro Pinball, I didn't see the increased slope affecting the game quite as much as in VP, though. I think there's another factor an that's how much momentum you get "back" in the other direction after hitting a target. In Firepower, the standups actually rebound the ball faster towards the drain. I tried to recreate that in VP, but the PA version feels like it's just hitting a wall and doesn't come back nearly hard enough regardless of slope.

Those two factors (aim and ball return speed) things affect my enjoyment more than anything else, but you're right there's also a certain "randomness" to collisions (I'm sure it's really not random, but micro-oddities of moving standup switches, etc.) that will send a ball off in more directions. I think it might be a corollary to the flipper "aim stair-step" "resolution" effect on the flipper end. That is to say, in the digital simulation, there are only so many directions a collision can send the ball to (angle 30 degrees, 31, 32, 33, 34 etc. and no 31.1, 31.2, 31.3). The net effect is that it APPEARS to be less "random" when in fact, it's a lack of RESOLUTION to the physics calculations. In other words, the math needs to go to more decimal places in every part of the collision calculations, etc. It's like the difference between 8-bit color (256 possible colors) and 16-bit color (~16 million possible colors), etc. The higher the resolution used, the more in-between possibilities. That is something that would have had to be fixed in VP itself, but the author seemed to lose interest VERY early on and eventually sold/licensed it to the Ultracade folk. I'm not sure yet where Pinball Arcade stands in "resolution" since I need to play it more (developing tables you tend to shoot the same shots over and over to make sure they're right, but don't think about it as much when you're just "playing" or trying a table out) but given some of the comments on here, there's either a resolution limit or some other factor that is making it rebound/collide in the "same" manner each time. I don't feel like "randomness" is the solution as it's not really random in the real world, it's just high resolution reactions to physics. Randomness might APPEAR to hit that 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 type spots, but it's going AROUND the problem rather than at it. You'll hit those points, but you won't be able to do is consistently since it's "random" now. In the real world, it's actually consistent, it's just that such small timing differences aren't readily apparent to the human eye. There are probably nuances that aren't obvious to physics engines sometimes either. For example, we have 16 day weather forecasts with computer simulations, but they're rarely ACCURATE to even 3 days. The simulation is missing SOMETHING they can't account for in their simulation that is present and has huge effects in the real world. We think we understand how systems work and how physics collisions react from experimentation, etc., but there seems to be something missing on the micro level (let alone quantum weird effects) that has substantial effects on the outcome. I tried to work around whatever it was the best I could and just get the table to feel as close to the real one as I could get it, but none are ever perfect.

 

[Zaphod77]

Add Whirlwind to that list - a table where it's not even safe to plunge the ball. Yeah part of it is the inconsistency of TPA's manual plunger, but in this case, it makes plunging a risk. Personally I think WW is the best-implemented table in TPA. Not necessarily the best-looking, but it plays closer to the original (of those I've had extensive experience of, and WW certainly counts there) than any other table.

It's totally safe to plunge the ball on whirlwind. it will either go up the ramp or go around the the upper flipper every time (and then you shoot the side ramp). don't go for the skill shot, that's death.

 

[Zaphod77]

Well, pinball in real life isn't that different in some respects. Some shots are easier than others.

That's a given. not all shots are same width. some shots, like final draw on world cup soccer, or guile on street fighter two, are insanely difficult.

But i'm talking about a different effect.

One frame can be too soon to make the shot, and the frame after can be too late, and this will cause a shot to be literally impossible. that's my digital pinball complaint. God simulation will work around that as best as they can, at the expense of things being too easy.

I can shoot all the shots on the real Theatre of Magic all day long in the real world on a properly maintained machine EXCEPT the right ramp (and the right orbit to a lesser extent). I've shot the center ramp like 20 times in a row before and then hit the inner right loop without missing a beat.

Yes soem shots are harder then it seems they shoud be in real life. THere are a few effects that cause this.
1) if the slot requires that the ball start to roll off the flipper before you flip. because the ball is on a curve during the flip, it makes the timing tighter. these tip of the flipper shots are very risky.
2) because of the angles, the shot is not as wide open as it appears. this is the issue with final draw. an improper slope can make this worse.

There's something I'd call "flipper resolution" too in the digital world. That is in VP the number of points where you could hit the ball was like a digital stair-step. You could hit points 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10 and perhaps you could hit points 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, etc., but you COULD NOT NO MATTER WHAT hit points 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc. "directly" off the flippers. It's like the clock-steps of when you could contact the ball or flip the flipper was only available at 0.5 increments. In the real world, there's no such thing (maybe the speed of light or something). The ball moves in a linear fashion along the flipper and you can technically hit ANY POINT on the table with the right timing. This was a big problem in VP as well. I haven't noticed it as much in Pinball Arcade, but I haven't played enough to make a detailed analysis. But these two aspects of the flipper physics alone made the "aiming" feel off in VP. Everything was a matter of trade-offs. You could get some shots to feel right, but others would be off a bit and no matter what you did, you couldn't hit certain in-between shots very well.

this is the other problem. one pixel is too early, and one pixel is too late. at certain ball speed,s certain shots are literally impossible. i HATE it when digital pinball games do this. HATE HATE HATE> it cannot be totally eliminated, but i try my best to minimize it. I do my best to make sure all orbits and ramps and everything else is hittable both from a trap and from a ramp feed. There are a few exceptions (vault on a properly set up TAF is near impossible to hit from a trap) but fo the ost part i used this principle to guide me.

Those two factors (aim and ball return speed) things affect my enjoyment more than anything else, but you're right there's also a certain "randomness" to collisions (I'm sure it's really not random, but micro-oddities of moving standup switches, etc.)

You are right. it's not randomness in real life, it's chaos. (slight difference in initial conditions making a big difference in results) But we can cheat and get away with in under the right circumstances. TPA correctly randomizes jet action. the jet bumper doesn't settle back inot precisely the same spot it was in before. so there's a difference. what TPA does NOT take into account is that the same thing happens with standups. they deform a bit after each hit, and do not go back exactly to the same spot. we can model this effectively with randomness. The same is true of slingshots.the rubber stretches each time they free, and does not snap back precisely to the same spot.

Even solenoids are not immune. the sleeve wears a little. it moves slightly. the ball has a bit more dirt on it. so scoop kickouts are not precisely identical even under ideal conditions either. flippers are less affected though, because of their high power.

Properly used a degree of randomness will make the simulation more realistic.

I don't feel like "randomness" is the solution as it's not really random in the real world, it's just high resolution reactions to physics. Randomness might APPEAR to hit that 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 type spots, but it's going AROUND the problem rather than at it. You'll hit those points, but you won't be able to do is consistently since it's "random" now. In the real world, it's actually consistent, it's just that such small timing differences aren't readily apparent to the human eye. There are probably nuances that aren't obvious to physics engines sometimes either. For example, we have 16 day weather forecasts with computer simulations, but they're rarely ACCURATE to even 3 days. The simulation is missing SOMETHING they can't account for in their simulation that is present and has huge effects in the real world. We think we understand how systems work and how physics collisions react from experimentation, etc., but there seems to be something missing on the micro level (let alone quantum weird effects) that has substantial effects on the outcome. I tried to work around whatever it was the best I could and just get the table to feel as close to the real one as I could get it, but none are ever perfect.

As i said above, some thing really are effectively random in real life, and thus can be simulated with actual randomness in pinball sims without being unfair. But if we try applying the same strategy to the flippers, it all falls apart. We CAN, however randomize the inlane feed from a ramp dropoff, though. just a slight difference. but the variation will affect your flipper shots just enough to make hard shots hard.

T2 on tpa is the biggest example. every plunge does exactly the same bounces. this does not happen in real life. the rebound off the bank of standups is not that predictable. it's angle is a bit random in real life.

inn real life, frame rate and resolution are infinite. we an always add more resolution, but enough framerate to accurately model real world pinball is a very tall order.

 

[soundwave106]

One frame can be too soon to make the shot, and the frame after can be too late, and this will cause a shot to be literally impossible. that's my digital pinball complaint. God simulation will work around that as best as they can, at the expense of things being too easy.

Like the weather, at this time you can't model physics down to the atom (not enough processing power). If you could, you could create the greatest realistic sim that no one would ever be able to play. So there is some degree of flexibility in the models.

I'm surprised in a way that virtual pinball flippers are stair-stepping though. There is certainly mathematics that can determine the exact location of something between two digital points (interpolation), and I doubt you'd need anything more than a simple linear interpolation formula (which shouldn't be terribly taxing on CPUs) to get any amount of points you want on a flipper. (Though there may be some rendering issues that would make this a far more complicated problem then I think.) You folks are probably right that discrete points *is* the behavior, and is probably a big reason why digital pinball is a lot easier than its real life counterpart (but also occasionally has some "impossible shots" that are much easier on the real machine). (Then again, certain mobile platforms need all the CPU help they can get...)

 

[MagnumXL]

Well with the release of F-14, I can safely say that table slope is a HUGE part of the problem. F-14 actually has a fairly steep slope and the game play is SO much better. Now if only I could select that slope for Firepower, High Speed and a few others and slightly less than that for TAF/TZ, etc. In the real world, you set the slope to whatever you want within the leg limits. Most arcades I went to had slopes around 6-9 degrees equivalent in Visual Pinball terms. Most TPA games feel more like 4-5 degrees and that means half the roll-back speed in many cases. F-14 feels good. Firepower often didn't have a huge slope, but the bounce-back of the stand-ups still sent the ball screaming back to the flippers (I see little bounce-back effect in TPA's Firepower and the stand-ups aren't animated at all which is disappointing too). I have played tables that were set to lower slopes and had extra balls enabled, etc. instead of credits and it was a snooze fest. I don't want to win because the table is dirty as hell (also slows the ball like crazy) or set to easy settings. I just want an "Arcade" difficulty setting in TPA so I can play most tables about how I remember them. It's how I set my own tables in VP and probably why I still favor playing my own Firepower and Attack From Mars over other versions. Game play is more important than eye candy (although I tried my best to do as much eye candy as I could with VP8 at the time. I still don't see fading incandescent light effects in TPA or other emulators. I feel like I'm the only person that noticed that incandescent bulbs don't turn off instantly as they have to cool down on the filament and this creates a snazzy fading effect as they go out. Obviously Capcom noticed as they were the first to purposely Fade lights UP to brightness as well as down). I wish TPA would add Pinball Magic come to think of it (Big Bang Bar and Breakshot were also awesome, but I made both of those already myself and so I ran them into the ground testing at the time like most of my tables).

 

[TNT]

I am no pinball whiz but getting humbled on F-14 was nice. Hopefully tournament modes aren't too far away.

 

[Robert Misner]

I think you are on to something about table slope.
Tables like Roadshow and Circuis Vortaire feel like the ball floats abit when it glides off the flippers.I wonder if the slope was increaded it wouldn't just address the issue...
Silly question but I'm honestly not sure..does the pro menu let you adjust the table slope angle? If so I'm curious if anyone with promode could increase the slope on some of the tables and record it and see if magnumXL and others that know the real tables feel it improves the action

 

[Fungi]

.does the pro menu let you adjust the table slope angle?

Negative

 

[Robert Misner]

Negative

bummer

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

I'm pretty sure that FS sets up the tables according to the recommended slope in the operators' manuals.

 

[Snorzel]

Got to say an option to adjust slope would be one thing that might get me to go pro upgrade, that is if it can be done on steam.