Top 5-10 Pinballs every made - Pro talk

[sneakynotsneaky]

This might sound stupid (and of course this is just my taste), but for me the weakness of MB is precisely that it is supposedly closest to this Platonic ideal of a perfect table. One person's weaknesses are another person's points of interest. Unfairness, lumpy scoring, nonlinearities, all of these things contribute to the interestingness of the experience. If all tables were like MB I think pinball would be the worse for it.

Of course this is probably just because I'm not at the level of skill required to get properly annoyed by quirks. For example, the importance of stacking Frankenstein with other modes to progress to Monsters of Rock annoys me, but that's because I'm not very good at it!

Anyway, carry on.

 

[invitro]

1. You did not play a good game and missed a lot or few goals - your score will be below 15 Billion
2. You had a very good game but either Super Jackpot or 5-way combo stopped you from playing wizard mode. Your score is likely to be 15-17 Billion
3 .You managed to play the wizard mode - If you ruled the universe you will be at about 20 - 25 Billion and only at this point the score starts to be a little bit diverse.

4. What about Victory Laps?

 

[PET3R]

This might sound stupid (and of course this is just my taste), but for me the weakness of MB is precisely that it is supposedly closest to this Platonic ideal of a perfect table. One person's weaknesses are another person's points of interest. Unfairness, lumpy scoring, nonlinearities, all of these things contribute to the interestingness of the experience. If all tables were like MB I think pinball would be the worse for it.

Of course this is probably just because I'm not at the level of skill required to get properly annoyed by quirks. For example, the importance of stacking Frankenstein with other modes to progress to Monsters of Rock annoys me, but that's because I'm not very good at it!

Anyway, carry on.

I don't think the lamp scoring in TOTAN makes it someone's point of interest. What I know for sure it stops people from playing that table. Do you really ??? think MB would be more interesting if there was a shot which would decide whether your final score is going to be 1/3 of what you could otherwise have ? I really don't think so.

Personally I dream about the day when people who have power would look at this forum and decided to change the code so that these weaknesses would be ironed out. I would not just play 2-3 tables on regular basis but I would play10-15 amazing tables which I could not get enough of. And yes I would finally play TOTAN because I really like that table, but there is no point now if I can't play for score. Hitting the lamp all the time is not in my interest - sorry.

4. What about Victory Laps?

Victory laps come after the wizard. I said in my post that after the wizard mode the score starts to finally differentiate a bit.
I don't think you perfectly understood me there.
The point is, if I play TAF my score can be anything between 50m (if I time out the modes) to 200+ million if I play well, before I enter Tour the Mansion. In AFM on entering wizard my score is very likely to be around 15 billion. I had a games in TAF where without wizard mode or very poorly played wizard mode I ended up with 300-400 million.
If you can't reach wizard in AFM you are very likely not to move much from that 15 billion. You are not going to change the strategy and forget that wizard as the successful wizard will award you 10 billion !!! I do not really want to do this comparison, but in a way this is feels a bit like getting 1 billion in Bride of pinbot. If you can pull it off, your score will jump from 15 billion to 25 billion and yes you can play victory laps on top of that so getting pass wizard mode can really double your score. AFM is more about - how far can I get, rather than what highscore can I pull off. I know I can't beat my high score if I do not enter wizard mode. In TAF I am playing towards my high score from the very first modes as you can't beat your score only by getting 50 Million from Tour the Mansion, but you need to play well the whole game therefore there is much bigger variety in final score depending on how well you played. STTNG is even better example as here the wizard depends on how well you played the modes. You never know in advance what is your score going to be after you finish the wizard as it can be anything from 500 million to few billion !!!

 

[WhiteChocolate]

still lovin' this thread; it's interesting stuff! i will preface this again saying that most tables, i've only played in TPA, so the "real world" play factor is tough for me to give a valid opinion about. but, i think in terms of ruleset, and build/layout (without factoring in "play" so much), i've got a good handle on this stuff...

i sadly concur with taking "creature" out of the top ten or so, for pet3r's reasons! figured that one out long ago... but it's one that theme-wise, and in a general play-sense, still ranks high up my list, alongside MB... it just hasta! it's not like it's, i dunno, (insert your least-favorite table design ) with just a "creature" theme makeover... but the whole emphasis on the left ramp does kinda go limp after awhile.

after reading all the MM stuff here, i'd started replaying it and re-appreciating it more; i'd always been "cool" on that one along with AFM; i don't know why, but "they're fun" and that's about it, is all they felt like to me... i think this is a case where with a private, digital choose-whatever-you-want smorgasbord (bork bork bork!), i was "spoiled" with choices! (if MM were at the student union with the only two or three other tables they usually keep installed, i surely would have appreciated the thought that went into it!

but upon rediscovering this one, definitely a "rules" table... i used to not bother paying attention to the flashing lights off the bat. i definitely do now!! (not all tables though i've tried to play this way in the past seem to make as much sense; MM along with MB really do cover this "let the player know what's going on"... probably others i've just never noticed, as i feel i'm rediscovering every table as i go! (i go for months now playing just a few tables, then slowly shift over time - that's the pleasure of coming to TPA a bit late! ;0)

from an "average player" standpoint, i would say that whatever's going on with the trolls... they pop up far too often! (just shy of CV's ringmaster, lol! i could see this time while playing a fresh game, that you're supposed to avoid that area, especially around merlin, off the bat... something maybe some interesting modern lighting design could help the player better take note of...)

 

[WhiteChocolate]

i suppose if there's a design element about tables like MM that i don't like, it's that they seem to center around just -one- toy, right up center - everything else is just ramps either side, in varying forms. shoot, stern's modern "star trek" does that too! (that may save on costs start-to-finish, manu to owner-upkeep, i would imagine, not as much to maintenance...)

but something happens to ya when you have a table with more than one toy/toy area laid out either side - yes it's more space taken up top and bottom, but people just like those innovative gidgety-gadgets... they really make the machine come alive. and it turns out that usually these side-toys more involve the ball, and the player, in the experience... if all the toy does is to be a wobbly, wonky centerpiece on the table, it's not as engaging, it seems to me! (from a TPA standpoint though, as i've never had the chance to be in a wonderful fantasy pinball hall full of these machines and watch other react to them.)

if all the table relies upon is one centerpiece (or worse yet, no centerpiece), then it just doesn't really capture the stand-by audience, watching someone else play... they'll watch someone else play and think "i wanna play that," then get their chance... one toy/area just simply isn't enough anymore!

(that's where under-table playfields, ala black hole/haunted house get so intriguing to me - "big lewbowski" revives that idea a bit! why aren't these kinds of designs more prevalent? i wonder where that could be taken in a modern-tech table... how do "lower playfields" relate in the ratings here? ;0)

vikingeric: if i may daresay?? "roadshow" and "junkyard" have a sort of "minecraft" element, the "collector's" tug... you wanna piece together that next gadget in junkyard; you wanna reach that next city in roadshow... and they are layouts that don't completely suck! not that junkyard though has that "shoot the dog" DMD-mode too repetitively... roadshow keeps the play on the playfield.

 

[PET3R]

whitechocolate - the reason why I have created this forum is the fact that every top 100, top 10 pinball list you come across includes votes from people whose votes are based on the looks and theme of tables and what great toys it got. I play pinball mainly for the score and to be honest I absolutely do not care about the toys. Yes, if the table has got amazing rules and it also happens to have a great toys that is a big bonus for me. But I would rather have table with no toys on it with a perfect deep and interesting rule set rather then very good looking table that gets boring after 2 minutes. I have never played this table (only seen gameplay of videos) so please someone correct me if it is unfair for me to bring this here but Wizard of Oz seems to be perfect example. It ranks 21 on pinside and if you read comments, the new players seems to love it but the pro players seems to hate it. It looks beautiful with all the lights and LCD screen, but it is said that the gameplay is boring. And even without trying I know I would hate that LCD. I hope every pro player agrees with me that all important information should be on the table in form of lights and arrows and not on an external display. You do not have time to look up what are you supposed to do as your eyes will always concentrate on the playfield. The DMD is on tables mainly to show the score, maybe time and once you hold the ball on a flipper to see additional info like number of damsels saved and jousts completed. But good table like MB do not require you to do this as you see your progress on the play field.

As I have mentioned before, I was growing up on PC pinballs and my favourite would be Pinball Fantasies Stones'n Bones. There were no toys whatsoever but for a scoring that table was a blast. There were different ways to score the points, but each option would give you points ranging from 1m to 30m max. You could do 2 consecutive loops around the table for 1m or 3 way combo for 5m or you could spell the 3 targets above bumpers that would open you a tower which first time gave you 1m, and then every other 5m. You would have target (the well & the vault) just like swamp in TAF that would very slowly increasingly award you score from 1m to 5m later on the ball. You had to shoot 9 standing targets (imagine Martian in AFM) around the table to switch on the mode and these were: Instant award 5m, mamuska equivalent during which you could also shoot jackpot of 10m I think, 10m instant, score jackpot of 5m or lock 1 ball to make it 10m or lock 2 balls to make it 15m, 15m instant award, 30sec to shoot tower 3x - (1st time 5m, 2nd 10m, 3rd 15m), extra ball, and the last mode was the biggest where you had about 20-30sec to shoot ramps where each would score 5m. During the last mode you could have scored jackpot worth of 10m after which you could have scored super jackpot if it was withing 5 or 10 sec. Cant remember how much was SJ but probably 20 or 25 at max. Or maybe 50m but it was very hard to pull off, it needed real skill.
As you can see all hits were ranging from 1m to 15m a hit (SJ exception). When you completed whole mode you could end up with 30m or in final mode with 50m. There were no huge score differences and the table was perfectly ballanced. No 10b award for Ruling the universe, no 3x infinite jackpot scoring. You played the modes because you seen it as an extra opportunity to get the points and it would not come into your mind to time them out, as they weren't very easy to start (remember hitting 9 spelling targets). If that table had a good physics I would still keep playing it even though it did not contain a multibal. But after playing Arcade pinball and discovering some other great tables I think I am over it now. I am not judging the table by theme or toys, if it plays perfect I will love it no matter what theme it got - even if it's zombies which I usually hate.

No toys, no moving parts, no flashing lights, no multiball , but very solid rules !!!

 

[Fungi]

So cake, not frosting. Meat, not sizzle. Story, not SFX. Girth, not length.

 

[PET3R]

So cake, not frosting. Meat, not sizzle. Story, not SFX. Girth, not length.

NO. It is more like this:

You - Ascari, Transformers, Pop music, Zen Pinball, Wizard of Oz
Me - Bugatti, Saving Private Ryan, Jazz, Pinball Arcade, TAF

It is really not easy with you guys

 

[karl]

If I could have 1 dollar to play real pinball for every round of Stones 'n' Bones I played on the amiga, I'd be a very busy man.

I was into digital pinball before that table. But after playing SNB I got hooked, big time. (Man, it was hard getting all those modes.)

 

[invitro]

Me - Bugatti, Saving Private Ryan, Jazz, Pinball Arcade, TAF

What is bugatti? Is that some kind of Italian food?

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

What is bugatti? Is that some kind of Italian food?

A Bugatti is an Italian sports car you buy when you want to impress people that you know more about Italian sports cars than just Ferrari and Lamborghini (and maybe Maserati).

 

[PET3R]

... can you please comment bit more on that RBION 2x scoring. How easy/difficult it is to make the ball go through that right lane ? Is it something you can learn to make the ball go always to the right and not through the middle ? How much effort it takes to turn on that 2x multiplier for a pro player ? Is it easy once you learn it or do you always feel a hard times doing it ?

MM - ....I think the biggest problem is that you have to score 10 trolls. I think this could easily be corrected if goal was to score only 2 or maybe 4 trolls. Or they shouldn't ask to hit each troll 3 times to score 1 troll. Is there any option in the settings where you could tweak the trolls to lower the goal or to score them after single hit ? Easy difficulty maybe ?

Anyone can answer any of these ?

If I could have 1 dollar to play real pinball for every round of Stones 'n' Bones I played on the amiga, I'd be a very busy man.

I was into digital pinball before that table. But after playing SNB I got hooked, big time. (Man, it was hard getting all those modes.)

Tower Hunt I learned to successfully shoot the tower 99% of the time, but during Tower Hunt mode when you had these 30sec.... and the panic how to transfer your ball onto left flipper .... great memories.

A Bugatti is an Italian sports car you buy when you want to impress people that you know more about Italian sports cars than just Ferrari and Lamborghini (and maybe Maserati).

Thank you Eldar for explaining it really well.

 

[PET3R]

Let's try to move this a little. Apart from the groups the tables are in no particular order. Does anyone agree/disagree with where the tables are ?

Top of the ranking
-------------------------------
MB - indication of time when stacking modes

STTNG - none found yet

TAF - magnets, timing out of the modes ?


Top or middle of the ranking
-------------------------------
CV - staying in the wizard mode after draining/ not scoring during wizard mode. Middle ramp - drainer

TZ - timing out of the modes, less interesting modes or modes that are not needed - skill shot mode, repetitive 2x clock modes, cluttered playfield

CC - importance of the bonus ?


Middle of the ranking
------------------------------------------------
MM - 10 trolls, repetitive shooting of the castle

AFM - Linear Scoring, goals - Super Jackpot, 5-way combo

SS - looping the left ramp during the wizard mode

RBION - 2x scoring, strategy of skipping the second round and going straight for another continent scoring, same layout as TAF


Bottom of the Ranking or out of the ranking.
------------------------------------------------
WW - overboard, 5x playfield, 3x Jackpot, Vacation Jackpot (Class 6 river + 3 Locks)

RS - importance of the bonus, 10sec lock for wizard


========================================================
Will anyone agree with me that we could throw TOM out of top 10 ? Compared to other tables I think this table has too many weakneses.

TOM - timing out of modes/not interesting modes, bonus importance, left ramp importance, repetitive shooting of the trunk, Meh Wizard mode.

Not only that but the good points in TOM can be already found in other top 10 tables which does it much better:

Timed modes - TAF, STTNG, MB, TZ
Achieve 4 different goals - AFM, CC, CV,
Shoot the trunk - MM, AFM, SS, CC, CV
Layout of the table - MM, MB,
Wizard mode - AFM

Can't think of anything where TOM excels in something that can't be found in different table.

 

[invitro]

Crooker - can you please comment bit more on that RBION 2x scoring. How easy/difficult it is to make the ball go through that right lane ? Is it something you can learn to make the ball go always to the right and not through the middle ? How much effort it takes to turn on that 2x multiplier for a pro player ? Is it easy once you learn it or do you always feel a hard times doing it ?

These things are well known for the TPA version. Crooker said he'd never seen a real RBIoN so he won't be able to answer. I have and played it quite a bit, but not as much as I might've as there was a MM to its left (and an Elvis two to its left), and I just don't remember it well. I now wish I'd played it more as this was 2006 to 2008 and the last time I had a nearby place to play with >2 great machines, but anyway.

It will be hard to talk about things like this that depend on how things feel on an actual machine.

 

[invitro]

Is there any option in the settings where you could tweak the trolls to lower the goal or to score them after single hit ? Easy difficulty maybe ?

You should be able to answer this question by looking at the manual . If you don't know how to find a manual, go to the MM page in IPDB and there will be a link to a .pdf of the manual.

 

[PET3R]

You should be able to answer this question by looking at the manual . If you don't know how to find a manual, go to the MM page in IPDB and there will be a link to a .pdf of the manual.

Checked it. There is only one option regarding trolls - to reduce hit count from 3 to 2, but this might actually make quite a good difference to the game.

 

[vikingerik]

MB - you said once you complete monster modes during the Monster Bash it immediately switches to monsters of rock. Even though this is very cool, I am thinking whether it is good as it stops you from playing the Monster Bash where you could have earn extra score.

Yes, changing Bash to Rock means you lose out on the rest of Bash. But this is an acceptable tradeoff because Rock scoring is so high, as you say. On a real machine, I'm perfectly happy to give up the rest of Bash to make sure that Rock starts before I might drain to end the game. And like you say, you don't have to avoid the scoop unlike Merlin's.

And yes, the Bash-before-Rock award of 50M isn't quite high enough to make up for missing Bash completely. But I still prefer this over having to shoot and start Bash and Rock separately. And this problem is easy to avoid - just make sure you leave one monster mode to stack into Bash instead of completing them all before Bash starts. Creature is the easiest to leave for last this way, as the four shots to start it rarely happen accidentally.

You could call these both small flaws in Monster Bash, but I think they are perfectly acceptable design tradeoffs to help the player get to Monsters of Rock. As I mentioned before, Monster Bash takes so many steps to help the player rather than hurt him.

I think I have discovered a new weakness for AFM. Linear scoring

I don't think this is a weakness. Linear scoring is fine. It's OK for one feature to dominate scoring if that feature is the wizard mode which makes you play everything else along the way. It keeps your goals aligned: your progress towards the wizard mode is also your progress towards big scoring. I prefer that over the table offering a bunch of side features that you have to ignore because they don't score enough (this means you, Ripley's).

I actually think TAF is too balanced for scoring. Like every single shot you do in TAF scores 5 or 10 million. It doesn't matter what you start or what strategy you apply, pretty much everything is worth the same amount. There are no big prizes to chase, no escalation, which makes the game duller and robs it of excitement. I want the thrill of the lumpy scoring of LITZ and RTU and Monsters of Rock. As long as the lumpy scoring makes you do a variety of things to get there and isn't just grinding one feature repetitively (Ripley's) and consistently rewards you rather than making you pass/fail on a narrow set of shots (Whitewater 3x jackpots, Stiff-o-meter, Road Show's wizard locks, BFTK.)

vikingeric: if i may daresay?? "roadshow" and "junkyard" have a sort of "minecraft" element, the "collector's" tug... you wanna piece together that next gadget in junkyard; you wanna reach that next city in roadshow...

This doesn't matter to me. I don't care about collecting the gadgets or cities. They are just counters of progress towards reaching the next modes. There's no difference between "collect X junk" and "shoot ramp X times".

Let's try to move this a little. Apart from the groups the tables are in no particular order. Does anyone agree/disagree with where the tables are ?

I put AFM up at the top of the ranking. Its only relevant flaw is the chanciness of the super jackpot requirement. Other than that, I think it's almost as perfect as Monster Bash. TAF can move down a bit.

I agree with pretty much everything else you say. Actually now the major problem with the list is missing the best tables that aren't in TPA: Indiana Jones, Revenge from Mars, Lord of the Rings, Simpsons Pinball Party, Stern Star Trek. Should we start rating those too? Although on a TPA forum, we'll have many players who haven't played them.

 

[vikingerik]

As I have mentioned before, I was growing up on PC pinballs and my favourite would be Pinball Fantasies Stones'n Bones. There were no toys whatsoever but for a scoring that table was a blast. ... There were no huge score differences and the table was perfectly ballanced.

I hate to tell you this... but Pinball Fantasies has a giant scoring loophole in three of the tables, all except Billion Dollar. It has to do with Hold Bonus. When you hold bonus, the entire held value can be multiplied on the next ball.

On Stones n Bones, you can play Grim Reaper and score 50M, which goes into your bonus... so if you hold bonus and reach 10x on the next ball, that's 500M. Hold that again and reach 10x again... that's 5000M. You get the idea. I once pulled that off on six consecutive balls on Speed Devils for a score that would have come to 16 trillion with a T, if the game didn't start running into rollover problems.

 

[PET3R]

I don't care about collecting the gadgets or cities. They are just counters of progress towards reaching the next modes.

This is exactly how I see the tables. When I look at them what excites me is set of rules. I was never into Star Trek but really love that table. It does not put me off at all that I am collecting there some crystals from the future and I really do not care about what is the story during the missions. Different theme would not make that table any better for me. The theme for me there is important for the shots to have the names so when I talk about the table it is easy to identify what am I talking about. Chair, swamp, thing, stairs, spell Martian, catapult, alpha quadrant, final frontier. Much easier than: the left ramp, the scoop on the left, the target in the top right, 7 standing targets - I think the 3rd from the left is the hardest to lit.

I hate to tell you this... but Pinball Fantasies has a giant scoring loophole in three of the tables,

I know about this and it is another reason why I do not play the table any more. But more than 20 years ago when I was a kid I would not notice this and there was no internet at that time where we could find out about it. In a way I am happy because it would destroy the game that I really loved and enjoyed so much. Also hitting the standing targets to start the mode is not really good rule.

 

[PET3R]

Actually now the major problem with the list is missing the best tables that aren't in TPA: Indiana Jones, Revenge from Mars, Lord of the Rings, Simpsons Pinball Party, Stern Star Trek. Should we start rating those too? Although on a TPA forum, we'll have many players who haven't played them.

Definitely. Please do. I will have to do my research on the rules and watch some videos, but I won't be able to comment much on these as I have not played them. But it will be very exciting to hear about their strengths and weaknesses from experienced players.

Feel free to comment also on Metallica, AC/DC, Spider-man, Tron