TPA - Favorite game...quickly becoming equally hated :(

[DJWhoDunnit]

TPA has been my favorite game of any type, any platform since I found it last september. I love the fact they are real tables and pretty damn good physics, and I wasn't a fan of pinball before. Well I have gotten pretty good at it now, and in turn have started being capable of making a run at the leaderboards. Problem being that it seems pointless to even try to get a good score anymore on my favorite table, because undoubtibly I will encounter an "armageddon" bug (aka game ending bug).

I previously posted about having a 5.73bil game on WH2O and a billion plus NGG game obliterated because it wouldn't move past the uploading when I had no network. Well I had a MB game yesterday over a billion on ball 1 with 2 extras, and only 1 used that during MoR had lost track of one ball thus after all drained it still thought I had one. The only way to move on is to quit the game, attendant doesn't work, tilting doesn't do anything either.

Then today on SS I was @150mil+ on ball 1 with 3 extras playing spider multiball and again had the same thing happen...it's very very frustrating to say the least. So much so that I almost feel like throwing my damn iPod out jus so I don't spend any more time or money on TPA. Even as stoked as I am for T2, I foresee more and more frustration as we near the end of the 1 new, 1 rerelease cycle...how am I to expect any fixes to these and other problems (CV and RBION completely unplayable on iPod touch 4g is prime) when it becomes 2 new tables a month? Add to that that if I want to buy the only table I don't have yet (BH) I have to pay like $9 for it? I, like many others here, am hoping upon hope that we will get the fixes...but being as that CV and RBION are unplayable, and the MM mess for over a year already, I would put the odds in favor of it not happening.

 

[smooverr]

I feel your pain. Had a couple of HUGE games wiped on me a few months back. For the first time in almost a year i didnt play any TPA after that for about a month. Then I kinda sat there one day and thought "It's not like anyone else is making these tables, so I might as well enjoy it for what it is and make the best of it"

I know how that sounds, and I hate it when people say stuff like that to me, but really at the end of the day, we've all brought these issues to FS over and over and they remain. It is what it is...is it perfect? Nope. Should we realistically expect it to be? Nope. But if you look past the bugs, and the latent flippers, and the artwork issues, its still HELLA FUN.

So at this point, it's pretty much suck it up and keep playing, because after all...

Its pinball

 

[DeeEff]

+1 to everything you said, smooverr.

And +0.5 to what you said, DJ. I've never been tempted to make a frisbee out of my iPad, but I have been frustrated by long-reported, long-acknowledged (by fellow forum members, at least), and long-unfixed game-ending or fun-reducing bugs.

But when all is said and done, TPA is the most entertaining, challenging, and addicting video game I've played since Counter-Strike was new.

A point of irony here; most of the bugs that frustrate us are probably not noticed by 90% of TPA players. Just two out of many possible examples: If you're not good (or obsessed) enough to get to a table's multiball regularly, and/or if you're not very good at playing the multiballs when you get 'em, you may never see the "lost ball" bug that drives us crazy. If you don't pay attention to some of the rules details, you may not even know about Troll Bombs or Monster Bombs or Smart Punches, so you haven't realized that a nudge uses them erroneously.

In short, the better you are at TPA the worse the bugs get.

I would like them all fixed yesterday (duh), but will I keep playing TPA and buying every table if they're never fixed?
[Government Warning: If you are a FarSight employee you must stop reading now.]
Yes.

 

[Kolchak357]

I try to remind myself that real pins breakdown all the time and this is all part of pinball. But it doesn't stop that immediate rush of anger when it happens.

 

[DJWhoDunnit]

at the end of the day, I'll keep supporting it in hopes of resolution as well as the challenge...it is extremely frustrating, but as long as there is still games going on 360 for crysis 3 or 2 if 3 dies first, at least I can get the same level of challenge and speed and just put down the iPod haha...but damn if it hasn't frustrated me enough to be #1 in the world in sniper kills, and top 5 in Marshall, Reaper Cannon, HMG, and pole kills haha

 

[sotie]

I would like them all fixed yesterday (duh), but will I keep playing TPA and buying every table if they're never fixed?
[Government Warning: If you are a FarSight employee you must stop reading now.]
Yes.

LOL. I always wonder if it's a mistake to state on here that I'll just blind-buy everything that they put out.

 

[brakel]

Even as stoked as I am for T2, I foresee more and more frustration as we near the end of the 1 new, 1 rerelease cycle...how am I to expect any fixes to these and other problems (CV and RBION completely unplayable on iPod touch 4g is prime) when it becomes 2 new tables a month?

Although FS hasn't fixed as many issues as I'd like, they do keep plugging away at them. It won't get worse when they don't have any reissues to do because they have been completely redoing the reissues. They are taking apart the machines, scanning and redoing everything from the ground up. In many cases they are also going from scripted in the old version to emulated in the reissue so they aren't even reusing their scripting notes.

When it comes down to it you have three choices. Keep playing and being frustrated. Stop playing. Or report all the bugs you encounter to FS, then get over it and play on.

 

[SydyneBall]

Yes, I've also had some bugs kill some high games in TPA.

But then I also think about RL pinball, where I've had to lift up a table, and/ or super Tilt to get balls unstuck.

Even a few times where the pinball would pop fly and end up between some feature and the glass, stuck for good.
Or a piece comes flying off and comes to rest in a place making the game unplayable (like in a drain).
Or a flipper going DEAD during a great run.
No reset, no tilt, no pickup, no nothing. Call the maintenance people. Wait DAYS to replay that machine.

At least I can reset TPA and report the bugs. And they are fixing them, just not as fast as we'd all like or what we feel is our worst bug.

Now that I wrote that, how about the physics engine allowing for pop flys?
That was always a satisfying sound when the ball cracked so hard into the glass it made you jump back, like the ball was going to break the glass, come through and whack you in the head.
Wonder if they could record that sound and recreate some of that... yes, that would be way back burner for the project...