Why has "Call Attendant" never worked?

[Master Magician]

Not sure if this is a PC issue or an everything issue, but "Call Attendant" is a nifty little button that doesnt really do much of anything.
- You can see your ball stuck.
- Your friends see your ball stuck
- You knock the table around, risking a tilt, ball is still stuck
- So you press "Call Attendant"...... and all game says is "Ball is not stuck."
You then quit game, as you're permanently frozen, and restart.

At one point or another, this has occurred on every table. On every table theres a particular location where the ball can get stuck. Sooner or later by the odds, the ball will get stuck there if you play long enough. But at NO time, on any table, in any situation, has "Call Attendant" ever accomplished anything. Its sole purpose is to say "Ball not stuck." It has no other function.

Is that button just there as a joke? To emulate getting stuck in a real arcade and raising your hand in vain for the single attendant who's always on the far side of the room and never helps you? Whereas thats a cute idea, can we get a button that actually solves the problem?

Thank You

 

[Nightwing]

The call attendant does sometimes work when the ball gets stuck. It will reset the ball and you can play as you were.

 

[neglectoid]

they don't trust the attendant enough to give him the keys.

 

[Teamski]

LOL! Definitely does not work on Star Trek!

-Ski

 

[Rudy hates me]

It's incredibly annoying when the ball is stuck/lost but the 'attendant' refuses to acknowledge it, thus ending the game.

Farsight - I'll give you a simple solution for free; if the flippers are inactive for 30 seconds and nothing is registering on the table in that time, call attendant should reset the ball to the plunger every time.

 

[DanBradford]

It's always (mostly) worked ok on iOS.

 

[Trackball]

It's incredibly annoying when the ball is stuck/lost but the 'attendant' refuses to acknowledge it, thus ending the game.

Farsight - I'll give you a simple solution for free; if the flippers are inactive for 30 seconds and nothing is registering on the table in that time, call attendant should reset the ball to the plunger every time.

I second this.

You already had a solution for the ball somehow flying out of the table: put a new one in the plunge lane.

I had TWO games of Star Trek TNG end prematurely in the last 24 hours, because a ball didn't just fly off the table...it DISAPPEARED. Right in front of my eyes! And because the game never detected it going into the trough, it did a ball search, eventually ejecting one of the pre-loaded balls...which made the game screw up once the next multiball ended.

 

[invitro]

I had TWO games of Star Trek TNG end prematurely in the last 24 hours, because a ball didn't just fly off the table...it DISAPPEARED. Right in front of my eyes! And because the game never detected it going into the trough, it did a ball search, eventually ejecting one of the pre-loaded balls...which made the game screw up once the next multiball ended.

This is IMO the worst bug on PC, and worse than all the other bugs combined. But they've said they can't fix it, so we seem to be stuck with it. I've had it happen dozens of times, the last (and worst?) being a game of TZ that was #11 (81B) and that I'd been playing for six days in early June (2016). (I guess should've stopped when it got in the top 15, and maybe not take six days to get there .)

As I think @vikingerik said, for the easiest games (longest play times), the main challenge to the top players is avoiding/managing this and other bugs.

 

[vikingerik]

"Can't fix it" is BS. Here's how. Implement a logging system that records the physics data every frame. When a ball goes missing, step back through the log frame by frame to see where it jumped through geometry or otherwise disappeared. That has to work. The real answer is too much time and effort for too little business value to justify it, which is understandable, but doesn't exactly help us.

That said, I haven't had any lost balls on STTNG that I ever remember, and only once or twice ever on TZ and never since they fixed the problem with the auto plunger gate. Ripley's and Scared Stiff are the two I know of with frequent remaining lost-ball problems, and yes, part of the strategy is just to avoid that, specifically by not playing those tables.

 

[rehtroboi40]

LOL! Definitely does not work on Star Trek!

-Ski

I've actually had success with this button on some tables, but never on the Sterns.

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

I think the issue might be that Farsight never implemented a proper drain system. In the event that multiple pinballs drain at the same time, the game doesn't recognize this and thus cause the ROM to think that there's still a ball in play.

But yeah, it's something that can be fixed. Especially if it's the case of a modern Sega/Stern.

 

[neglectoid]

I've actually had success with this button on some tables, but never on the Sterns.

the only time that I ever seen it work was on flight 2000. the ball got stuck on the entrance gate.

on a side note. I remember when I was a kid in the 70's balls would get stuck a lot on certain machines. when the attendant came to retrieve the ball, we would ask him to hit certain targets for us to rack up some quick points. most of the time they would!!! great memories.

 

[Tripredacus]

It works on the PS2 game. I forget which table, but it was possible to get the ball to fly out the side of the cabinet. Then call attendant would reset the ball for you.