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Farsight Studios
The Pinball Arcade / Farsight Studios
What separates the best players here from the rest?
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<blockquote data-quote="vikingerik" data-source="post: 242506" data-attributes="member: 3745"><p>The short answer is, yes, we just play longer. We don't have any miracle methods to score a billion while you score 250M. We just drain less and get more extra balls, until the latter exceeds the former, and then the game lasts infinitely long. We do the same things you do, just for longer.</p><p></p><p>It's really more about managing risk than accurate shooting. Dizzer is less accurate than I am but avoids drains better.</p><p></p><p>And it really is about the strategy to always chase extra balls to extend your game, as a higher priority than actually scoring. It's not intuitive at first, but there is an <em>increasing</em>-returns effect as you earn more extra balls per ball. Let's use Twilight Zone as an example, where every 15 door panels yields an extra ball. Let's ignore any EBs other than from the door panel. Let's use the total number of door panels to measure score, assuming they're proportional. (All of the following works for Scared Stiff's spider spins as well, but that's a little more complicated since there are two EBs per cycle and you can miss a spider spin. TZ is the simpler example.)</p><p></p><p>If you get 6 door panels per ball, you'll have one EB in the game (4 total), meaning 7*4 = 24 panels total.</p><p></p><p>If you get 8 door panels per ball, you'll have two EBs in the game (5 total), 5*8 = 40 panels total.</p><p></p><p>If you get 10 door panels per ball, you'll have <em>four</em> EBs in the game (7 total), 7*10 = 70 panels total.</p><p></p><p>If you get 12 door panels per ball, you'll have <em>eight</em> EBs in the game (11 total), 12*11 = 132 panels total. Look at what the math is doing: merely doubling your accuracy (or halving your drains) from 6 to 12 skyrockets the game length and score by 5x.</p><p></p><p>If you get 14 door panels per ball, you'll have <em>twenty-eight</em> EBs in the game (31 total). That sound crazy? Double-check the math. 31 balls * 14 panels/ball = 434 panels. 434/15 = 28 extra balls, that checks out. Just another small increase in efficiency tripled the game length and score again!</p><p></p><p>And of course, 15 door panels per ball earns back an EB on every ball and goes infinite.</p><p></p><p>That is where the highly leveraged margin of the top players comes from. Every EB you earn will itself earn a fraction of another EB. Then that EB earns more, and so on. There are <em>drastic</em> increasing returns as that fraction approaches 1.0. We get our returns by disciplinedly avoiding risk and drains in order to push the EB:drain ratio ever closer to that critical infinite 1:1.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="vikingerik, post: 242506, member: 3745"] The short answer is, yes, we just play longer. We don't have any miracle methods to score a billion while you score 250M. We just drain less and get more extra balls, until the latter exceeds the former, and then the game lasts infinitely long. We do the same things you do, just for longer. It's really more about managing risk than accurate shooting. Dizzer is less accurate than I am but avoids drains better. And it really is about the strategy to always chase extra balls to extend your game, as a higher priority than actually scoring. It's not intuitive at first, but there is an [i]increasing[/i]-returns effect as you earn more extra balls per ball. Let's use Twilight Zone as an example, where every 15 door panels yields an extra ball. Let's ignore any EBs other than from the door panel. Let's use the total number of door panels to measure score, assuming they're proportional. (All of the following works for Scared Stiff's spider spins as well, but that's a little more complicated since there are two EBs per cycle and you can miss a spider spin. TZ is the simpler example.) If you get 6 door panels per ball, you'll have one EB in the game (4 total), meaning 7*4 = 24 panels total. If you get 8 door panels per ball, you'll have two EBs in the game (5 total), 5*8 = 40 panels total. If you get 10 door panels per ball, you'll have [i]four[/i] EBs in the game (7 total), 7*10 = 70 panels total. If you get 12 door panels per ball, you'll have [i]eight[/i] EBs in the game (11 total), 12*11 = 132 panels total. Look at what the math is doing: merely doubling your accuracy (or halving your drains) from 6 to 12 skyrockets the game length and score by 5x. If you get 14 door panels per ball, you'll have [i]twenty-eight[/i] EBs in the game (31 total). That sound crazy? Double-check the math. 31 balls * 14 panels/ball = 434 panels. 434/15 = 28 extra balls, that checks out. Just another small increase in efficiency tripled the game length and score again! And of course, 15 door panels per ball earns back an EB on every ball and goes infinite. That is where the highly leveraged margin of the top players comes from. Every EB you earn will itself earn a fraction of another EB. Then that EB earns more, and so on. There are [i]drastic[/i] increasing returns as that fraction approaches 1.0. We get our returns by disciplinedly avoiding risk and drains in order to push the EB:drain ratio ever closer to that critical infinite 1:1. [/QUOTE]
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The Pinball Arcade / Farsight Studios
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The Pinball Arcade / Farsight Studios
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