Williams Pinball App Discussion

[ScotchYeti]

Is it really so unreasonable to ask for a pricing model like on Steam or the consoles? Zen could offer a premium app where you old fashioned pay for tables. In parallel they can continue with that othe model. Marrying both will not work in my opinion. I have deleted the app and when I see the comments here I know that it was the right decision. I might be in the minority though so no hard feelings.

 

[Citizen]

- either increase the amount of stuff collected with card flips or lower the upgrade requirements

PRO: faster collecting, will be able to get to 2 star level much easier which will open up Intermediate Daily Challenge for more tables which will in turn give more cards to flip (this was what it was like for me at start of iOS launch)
CON: progressively doesn't fix the problem the more tables get added, eventually puts new users in essentially same position current users are now

- once maximum amount of table parts are earned, upgraded or not, those parts will no longer be earned

PRO: no wasted rewards
CON: you'll never be able to earn enough parts to max out before a new pack lands, thus diluting the pool yet again.

Even though they wouldn't completely prevent the snowballing down the road, I think a combination of these two ideas would be good for now and a good start towards figuring out the problem in the long term.

- create clans, and within those clans you are able to trade or donate parts. Additionally have clan events that allow for even more collecting opportunities.

PRO: clans! You'd be able to really focus in on one table you want parts for more than others, while helping someone else out reaching their goal. Earning as a clan in events helps the whole collective, rather than solely going it alone
CON: can get super competitive, joining clans can be an issue, running clans can be quite divisive. Zen would have to figure out and balance an entire clan system

That's a really interesting idea. Wouldn't hurt to have a more immersive multiplayer experience, and yeah, competition is a vital component of pinball.

Being much more familiar with mobile gaming than I am, have you seen this sort of system work in a freemium game before? It's certainly something that could get me interested.

We used to stress that when discussing FarSight, constructive criticism was best. I encourage the same for what to do with the Williams App. Calling it names, declaring it a travesty, demanding they scrap the entire business model, these don't help in any way.

I was trying to analyze it constructively there. Like I said, I have no desire to see Zen fail with this. Unless you don't mean me.

Zen already sorta compromised by at least offering the limited time pack. You may ask for that price to be there permanently, which is understandable, but that doesn't fix the issue for people that don't want to pay anything and are fine with grinding (the majority of casual mobile app users, by the way).

Ideally I'd like to see permanent improvements for both groups, the people who don't want to pay and the people who don't want to grind. I completely agree things should be fixed for people who just want to be f2p, I don't want them left out in the cold either.

Is it fare of me to ask we as a forum move forward in that direction?

Can't we just resolve this in Thunderdome?

 

[shutyertrap]

I’ve been playing Clash Royale for 2 years now, this is how their clan system works. No videos to watch, but the currency system is not too dissimilar from what Zen is doing. I’ve been playing Game of Gems for a few months now, it too has clans, but trading isn’t a part of it. Instead it’s really so you can earn rewards as a group, which helps new players earn quicker.

 

[Kolchak357]

The three newest pins are easily worth the $10 imo.
TOM looks and sounds great. Gameplay very nice as well.
Champ Pub plays much better than the TPA version. I still don’t love the pin, but I might actually play it now and then.
SafeCracker is a miss for me. Not sure if it’s the camera angles available or exactly what it is, but the the upper flipper is difficult to see and use. Pin just feels off to me. I’ll stick to the TPA version of this one.

 

[1adam12]

On Android there appears to be a huge bug in champion pub. I played an arcade challenge. Towards the end, I got some sort of all jackpots multiball. Next thing I knew, the spitting gallery was playing and the game was just shooting and draining balls.

Like the other tables, I'm left with the feeling that it looks pretty but is riddled with issues.

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

 

[MBeeching]

I find it hard to believe the current mechanism is ideal for Zen or the players.
Subject to a few tweaks, a system along these lines would be preferable:

Tables - £2.99 each
Adverts - 50 tickets per hour
'Free' table - 25 tickets per play / 25 tickets & 24 hour rotation
Challenges & League Mode - 25 tickets / cosmetic & table part rewards
Cosmetics - 25 tickets single use / 250 tickets permanent unlock
Shop - Ticket packs / table parts for tickets

Players can opt to buy tables at prices comparable to other platforms, yet everyone has ongoing incentives to watch adverts and earn tickets. Perhaps retain a grind mechanism for table parts if players want to go down a F2P reward route, gradually increasing the available features (1 ball / 3 ball / visuals / physics).

 

[1adam12]

I find it hard to believe the current mechanism is ideal for Zen or the players.
Subject to a few tweaks, a system along these lines would be preferable:

Tables - £2.99 each
Adverts - 50 tickets per hour
'Free' table - 25 tickets per play / 25 tickets & 24 hour rotation
Challenges & League Mode - 25 tickets / cosmetic & table part rewards
Cosmetics - 25 tickets single use / 250 tickets permanent unlock
Shop - Ticket packs / table parts for tickets

Players can opt to buy tables at prices comparable to other platforms, yet everyone has ongoing incentives to watch adverts and earn tickets. Perhaps retain a grind mechanism for table parts if players want to go down a F2P reward route, gradually increasing the available features (1 ball / 3 ball / visuals / physics).

I like that line of thinking. As it stands, using a timed system is really screwing up the rule sets. For example in Champion Pub, if your ball drains, you would lose a match in progress. The Zen system just shoots another ball out.

I am particularly puzzled at how loose Zen is allowed to be with how these tables play. I contacted TPA regarding their add-a-ball tables shortly after I bought them. In the app, hitting the goal that would normally add a ball doesn't. When I contacted their customer support I was told Williams dictated how that feature was to be handled. They seem to be fine with Zen rewriting everything.

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

 

[shutyertrap]

I like that line of thinking. As it stands, using a timed system is really screwing up the rule sets. For example in Champion Pub, if your ball drains, you would lose a match in progress. The Zen system just shoots another ball out.

I am particularly puzzled at how loose Zen is allowed to be with how these tables play. I contacted TPA regarding their add-a-ball tables shortly after I bought them. In the app, hitting the goal that would normally add a ball doesn't. When I contacted their customer support I was told Williams dictated how that feature was to be handled. They seem to be fine with Zen rewriting everything.

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

FarSight’s contract for WMS was with the prior rights holder to Scientific Games. That contract stipulated they could not mod the tables in any way and everything had to be as it was for the main production run. Scientific Games gained control of those rights midway through FarSight’s run, but FS seemingly never altered the language of the deal. When Zen got the license, they negotiated that they had free reign to do whatever, hence the visual enhancements. They haven’t altered any of the table rules as far as the ROM goes, but obviously have let the game engine do things like let you have unlimited balls in practice mode or let challenges dictate the terms.

 

[Pete]

Picked it back up last night and it finally had a daily challenge that let me play a different table. What i wanted to talk about though was the ads im seeing for bingo live stream. Clearly this is being advertised as a sex chat or sex chat alternative. With all of Zens cencorship they might want to not advertise half naked ladies with their boobs hanging out... i dont know how they can cencor cartoon pictures while showing real video of boobs in the ads. Just sayin

 

[shutyertrap]

The mobile app is uncensored. Only the consoles are dealing with that, and they don't have ads to watch.

 

[Pete]

Oh cool didnt even notice it was uncencored. But i noticed something awesome just now... i had avoided the one ball challenge yesterday but saw TOM on my daily challenge just now so had to do it... they dont make you watch an ad everytime you start it anymore!!! That makes this 2000 times more playable for me. So far all the tables ive played (AFM, JY, TOM) seem very solid. The only one problem i can find is the plunger on TOM seems weak and i have to press and drag it down sevwral times to get the ball to reach the hole. This could just be my galaxy s7 edge and maybe other people dont have this problem idk. But the funny part is ive run into a TOM in real life with this same issue, so its a pretty realistic glitch to have. Just need to a new spring on it ha.

 

[shutyertrap]

Oh cool didnt even notice it was uncencored. But i noticed something awesome just now... i had avoided the one ball challenge yesterday but saw TOM on my daily challenge just now so had to do it... they dont make you watch an ad everytime you start it anymore!!! That makes this 2000 times more playable for me. So far all the tables ive played (AFM, JY, TOM) seem very solid. The only one problem i can find is the plunger on TOM seems weak and i have to press and drag it down sevwral times to get the ball to reach the hole. This could just be my galaxy s7 edge and maybe other people dont have this problem idk. But the funny part is ive run into a TOM in real life with this same issue, so its a pretty realistic glitch to have. Just need to a new spring on it ha.

So let's figure out what happened there. For me, the Basic challenge does not cost anything. No ads, no tickets, nothing. Advanced challenge however still costs one ad watch. So are you talking about the Basic challenge or Advanced? If the Basic, did you recently upgrade ToM to a certain star level? I seem to recall needing 1 or 2 stars to avoid any cost with the Basic challenge. It is kind of how in order to play a table in the Pro challenge, you need to have it upgraded to 3 stars first.

As for that plunger, yeah it's like that on iOS too. I've found that a slow drag on the plunger works way better than a quick pull. Wait till you play Black Rose, that plunger will give you fits also.

 

[Pete]

I have 1 star on TOM and not getting ads before 1 ball, but when i had 1 star on AFM i did get ads, did not know ads are dependent on stars

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Ads aren't based on the type of challenge, it's the level of challenge. The second level of challenges (Advanced) shows an ad before every attempt. It can cycle between the challenge types (1-ball, 5 minute, survival), as do the other levels. It's not always 1-ball.

I've not had any change of behavior based on how many stars the table has. Whether the table is 2* or 3*, I always have to view an ad before each attempt on the Advanced challenge.

 

[shutyertrap]

I have 1 star on TOM and not getting ads before 1 ball, but when i had 1 star on AFM i did get ads, did not know ads are dependent on stars

I don't know if it is or not, that's what I'm trying to figure out. The more detailed info we have, the better we can understand what's going on. On my other thread mentioned above, for tracking stats, I had a user contact me for my chart I've been filling out as they wanted to do it too. I sent both a blank form and one with info I've filled out. Just in that brief comparison of notes we can see that certain goal scores are the same, despite his and my XP level being different. So rather than relying on all our memories, figuring out the actual facts will help with a lot of the grief people are experiencing.

 

[shutyertrap]

Ads aren't based on the type of challenge, it's the level of challenge. The second level of challenges (Advanced) shows an ad before every attempt. It can cycle between the challenge types (1-ball, 5 minute, survival), as do the other levels. It's not always 1-ball.

I've not had any change of behavior based on how many stars the table has. Whether the table is 2* or 3*, I always have to view an ad before each attempt on the Advanced challenge.

Correct.

I just seem to recall right at launch, when I had no stars on any table, that the Basic challenge did cost an ad. Thing is I had stars on all my tables within 2 days and much has shifted and changed since then. I can't speak for what someone starting out today fresh as a daisy has to do at this point.

 

[Pete]

I think on the 1st day i started i had ads on basic for the 5 minute and ads on 1ball for the advanced. Currently the TOM im not seeing ads on is basic 1 ball

 

[shutyertrap]

Well you will always see ads for Advanced. Pro challenge costs 15 tickets, and Premium 25. For the record, those 2 chew through your ticket stash at an alarming rate. I'm now putting myself on an attempt limit so that I don't keep going into the hole of tickets spent versus tickets won.

 

[Lord Boron]

Am I the only one purposely not upgrading Safecrcker to keep it out of the Daily Challange rotation?

 

[crazyflipperfingers]

Am I the only one purposely not upgrading Safecrcker to keep it out of the Daily Challange rotation?

You are not the only one. I'm doing the same.