Williams Pinball App Data Collection

[elcondor]

The latest update on Android seems to have removed the ability to buy part packs entirely, including the free one for ads. Not sure why.

EDIT: And now it's back again, looks like the backend was being update right at the time I checked.

 

[twopossums]

Looks like they are starting to use the timed events. Just played a new event. Attack from Mars. Two timed events. 5 minute and 1 ball challenges. Looks like it resets in 3d 8h for me. You earn a few more coins and tickets.

 

[shutyertrap]

They've also done some score rebalancing.

I just played 1 Ball on the Getaway in Premium Hard setting, and only needed 26 million points. This in comparison to Basic Hard a few days ago being 40 million points! Might be a fluke, but I'm keeping my eyes open since I already recorded games of every table in every challenge.

 

[twopossums]

I was going to ask you about that. There is an announcement in the game that they lowered the scores but I wasn't sure by how much. As long as they don't touch game play I'm OK with them lowering needed scores for challenges but if they make the game play easier I think they'll loose a lot of us fans.

 

[shutyertrap]

No, gameplay is no different. The only reason I even noticed was because I was dreading doing Getaway 1 ball on Premium Hard after struggling (way more than usual) to beat it in Basic Hard. I do the first challenge and completed it after doing one gear shift! I thought, wait a sec this was never like this before, was it? I looked up the video I had already done and sure enough, confirmed the MUCH easier score. I then compared that to my score chart made during Vol 3, found that not only had I never beat Premium Hard, Premium Normal on 1 ball was 128 million!! So yeah, they shaved 100 million off the requirement is all.

Reminds me of in beta with AFM, there was a challenge I literally beat by launching the ball and having it rattle around in the pop bumpers. Score goal met!

 

[shutyertrap]

I don't know about anyone else, but this limited time event is spewing coins at me! AFM 1 ball gave me +3, +4, and +5 for beating it. There's now a 24 hour recycle unless you want to pay 10 coins, which would be stupid to do.

Meanwhile the 5 minute challenge isn't advancing past Easy, and it's giving me +2 coins every time so time to spam that!

turns out it just had me play on Easy 3 times, and then went into 24 cycle. Oh well. All I care is in the span of 30 minutes I earned 18 more coins!

 

[grashopper]

So what is it that chooses the difficulty for the challenges? I was getting all easy as options for ages. Now everything is hard when I flip through them.

Edit: okay I’m pretty on board with how the app is set up now. Most progress I’m made in ages. Really liking it. Been playing a ton.
How are you guys getting so many zen coins for the level 4 unlock?

 

[shutyertrap]

So what is it that chooses the difficulty for the challenges? I was getting all easy as options for ages. Now everything is hard when I flip through them.

Edit: okay I’m pretty on board with how the app is set up now. Most progress I’m made in ages. Really liking it. Been playing a ton.
How are you guys getting so many zen coins for the level 4 unlock?

Okay, here's how it is supposed to work...

There are up to 4 challenges available, the 4th being the one you have to spend 200 coins on to unlock.

Though not labeled as such anymore, they used to be from top to bottom (easiest to hardest) Basic, Advanced, Pro, and Premium.

Each challenge has 3 levels to it before it is considered complete and goes into the 24 hour wait period; Easy, Normal, and Hard.

Just to be clear, Basic Hard score requirement is significantly easier than Premium Hard.

You can bypass the wait time by spending 20 and 30 tix respectively for Basic and Advanced, while Pro and Premium cost 5 coins to cycle.

There is a glitch in the game that is not consistent, whereby sometimes your first challenge is set to Hard, then goes to Normal, and back to Hard. If you spend the 5 tix to cycle the table, it almost always goes to the proper Easy, Normal, Hard pattern.

For the "Independence Day" timed event, the first challenge is stuck on Easy for all 3 tries, but the rewards issue in a progression. The 2nd challenge works as it should, is harder still, and offers even better rewards.

As for the coins, I don't know what others are doing, but here's how it went for me. When Volume 3 got released and I started tracking all my data, there were on average 7 coins available each day. You had to play all four challenges and beat every one. As soon as I had 100 coins for an upgrade, I did it, but I only had those 3 tables to do, having already maxed the others in an older build of the game that only needed 10 coins for upgrades. As I got close to upgrading the 3rd table, there was an update that changed the rewards drops, increasing how many coins you got but decreasing coins down to 3 if you were lucky. Once I had all my tables maxed though, instead of parts being issued there were coins. Lots and lots. So I started stock piling in anticipation of the Volume 4 release, mainly by cycling challenges multiple times in a given day. Eventually I had 450 or so.

When Vol 4 hit, I spent 250 to get the 2 star upgrade of White Water going, which in turn opened up a 3rd challenge, which let me collect even more parts in that limited window. Meanwhile, as those new parts weren't dropping in the regular challenges, I kept farming for coins. I just the other day got to max my first table, White Water, so there went 100 coins. The new timed challenge started, and it is giving 13-15 coins with the completion of both challenges. That means after 4 days I'll essentially have earned another 50 coins. As it is I'm sitting on 348, 200 of which will go to the last 2 upgrades. So I'll need to earn another 152 prior to Volume 5 just to be upgrade ready, but I'll stockpile more just in case I need it to unlock another challenge.

So yes, it's brutally slow going if you are just starting out in the app. Don't spend the 200 on the Premium upgrade, it's not worth it until you have coins to spare. Instead just keep cycling the Basic and Advanced challenges multiple times daily and try to earn 7-10 coins each day. In one month you'll have 300. As soon as you can upgrade a table fully, do it. This stops parts from dropping that you no longer need. Once you no longer need any parts, it's all coins all the time and more tickets than you'll know what to do with.

 

[grashopper]

Ah thanks. Was wondering why that was stuck on easy. Got so many parts!
Super impressive! Wish I had them maxed out so I could earn more. Feels like is never get them. Would be nice if they had a exchange option in the app. Turn in maybe 5 custom flippers or balls to get a zen coin or something.

 

[shutyertrap]

Don't despair!

Tracking your data is a bit tedious, but it also helps to show that you are actually making progress. There would be days I'd earn only one coin and I'd get all bummed, but then the next two days I'd earn 6 each and still be ticked about that one coin day. Once I started tracking, I realized what my averages were and what could be expected. I also was able to then map out when I'd reach certain reward goals. When you know for a fact you're only 14 days out from having enough coins or parts, that's much easier to stomach than no knowing and 'feeling' like you aren't getting anywhere.

There's this math question I remember seeing, where it asked would you rather have $1,000000 or a penny who's value doubles everyday for 30 days. Even after 21 days, you are just shy of 10 grand and would probably be kicking yourself for not taking the million. Day 27 you're just north of 600 grand, but then in those final 3 days of doubling you find yourself capping out at $4,949,278.72 which is nuts. That's what collecting in the app feels like; progress is mind numbingly slow, you seriously start wondering if you're just better off paying for coins and stuff. It's only right as you get near the end that it suddenly kicks into overdrive and suddenly you are in the surplus.

First major milestone is getting all your tables to 2 stars. With that, you can play whatever whenever.
Next major milestone is having enough parts to max out a table. From what I'm told, you'll now cease to earn parts for that table. I'll confirm for myself in the next day or two.
Having enough coins and parts to max out a table, that's going to feel huge and now you'll be able to try out the Pro physics and difficulty.
Keep plugging away, until you are down to having only 4 tables left to max out. You are now in the home stretch, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, things are going to move quicker now.
The last 2 tables will literally take you about a week to top off. Congratulations, but don't relax yet.
Earn your surplus of coins in prep for the next pack. It'll take around 3 to 4 weeks to earn all the parts depending on how aggressive with cycling you are, but at least that's all you'll be concerned with.
Welcome to the max club!

 

[grashopper]

Got a couple to three star. Most of the rest are two. If you get it to three star and get all the parts required for leveling to four but don’t pull the trigger due to lack of zen would it stop giving parts for that table? Would be great to start getting my field narrowed down.

 

[shutyertrap]

Got a couple to three star. Most of the rest are two. If you get it to three star and get all the parts required for leveling to four but don’t pull the trigger due to lack of zen would it stop giving parts for that table? Would be great to start getting my field narrowed down.

I have been told this is now the case, but I've yet to see it for myself as I was already maxed out when that adjustment supposedly went through. I forgot to take notice when I upgraded White Water, but I'm 20 away from Road Show so I'll purposely not immediately upgrade just to see what happens. Science!

 

[twopossums]

I’m not a 100% sure as I was able to upgrade mine as soon as they were available. My assumption would be until you upgrade you still earn parts. When I only needed one part and was playing an advance challenge I would still get 3 parts.

 

[shutyertrap]

I can now confirm that once you have reached your parts cap, you will no longer earn that part whether you have done the 100 coin upgrade or not.

I had Road Show and Hurricane in a neck and neck race for who was going to get there first. Sure enough, Hurricane got there. The next two challenges I did I only got parts for Road Show, which topped that one off. I started another challenge and all I received was coins.

SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN??

It means Zen has been listening! Once you have all the parts for all the tables, which was the doubly monumental task when there was no parts cap, you'll earn coins to upgrade those tables, every single challenge. The harder challenges will also issue more coins.

On top of that, the score requirements have been lowered to beyond easy considering that I just did one with Party Zone where I was able to win simply by hitting the skill shot on both Easy and Normal difficulty.

But wait, there's more! Whether it was in response to the Tweet I sent out or in the planning stages all along, they did exactly what I asked with the limited time event this weekend by having us play AFM in order to earn heaps of coins and tickets. Yep, 4 days of playing 6 challenges each day is netting me around 55-60 coins. You'd have to play 7 days a week for 3 weeks to even come close in normal challenge play.

Oh yeah and I'm now fully maxed on Volumes 1-4 without ever having spent a single penny on the app. Can I submit a 5 star review once more in the App Store?

 

[twopossums]

That’s awesome news about the part caps. That is really going to help the newer players.

 

[Ironmike]

Great improvements. Hopefully they have found a balance and will stick with it. 5 stars coming up.

 

[grashopper]

[MENTION=134]shutyertrap[/MENTION] wow great to hear! Thanks for taking care of all that pesky science for us.
Have a lot of parts to go but glad to hear it’ll start to narrow it down eventually.

 

[shutyertrap]

Happy to do it. When you can analyze the facts and see how things work, then you can ask for specific changes to be made. I’m never a fan of complaints about how people ‘feel’ about something, be it a game or a movie or even politics. It’s just my logical nature.

 

[sihumchai]

Big oof today for me. I am now on the same boat as the people who made accidental purchase on the store.

Zen please add a confirmation when buying things on the store! I accidentally bought Whitewater from the store for 250 Zen coins, and get this - 250 coins nets you a 2 star table.

But what if you already have 2 stars on that said table? You get a 4 star table instead..

Now why would that table even be available on the store when I already have a 2 star table? Argh..

/End rant

 

[MadScience2006]

Zen please add a confirmation when buying things on the store! I accidentally bought Whitewater from the store for 250 Zen coins, and get this - 250 coins nets you a 2 star table

Zen is aware of the "No confirmation before spending Zen Coins" issue and are apparently working to add a confirmation dialog before actually pulling the Zen Coins from your account. If you had an inadvertent purchase using Zen Coins, I would contact Zen and tell them of your issue. When doing so, use the Williams App to contact them:

Within the Williams App, tap the Settings icon (blue menu bar, top right), then the Contact Us button.

This will auto-compose an email with pertinent info to Zen like the DeviceID and UnitID so they can help you out more easily. If you want, you can then copy & paste the auto-generated info into a new email composed using Gmail (or any of your other email accounts) on your Mac or PC since I find it much easier to compose email using a full-size keyboard rather than a small mobile device's keyboard.

The email should be sent to: support@zenstudios.com

Subject line should include "Williams Pinball Feedback" or similar to draw attention to the Williams app.