Williams Pinball App Discussion

[EldarOfSuburbia]

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

Nope. I'm also not wasting 25 tickets on it in League Play.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

 

[Pete]

Has anyone figured out if not upgrading tables does anything to influence the table parts that might spawn. Or if anything at all influences parts or is it all just totally random. Also does buying and owning the tables make league play free for them, and does it give you all upgrades (pro physics, enhancments ect) or are those seperate purchases only. And the custom flippers and ball skins, whats up with the hours listed by them, are these temporary things that only last that many hours and then go away?

 

[MBeeching]

Has anyone figured out if not upgrading tables does anything to influence the table parts that might spawn. Or if anything at all influences parts or is it all just totally random. Also does buying and owning the tables make league play free for them, and does it give you all upgrades (pro physics, enhancments ect) or are those seperate purchases only. And the custom flippers and ball skins, whats up with the hours listed by them, are these temporary things that only last that many hours and then go away?

- XP level & table grade has no obvious bearing on part drops or rewards. This only changes at Grade 4 as that prevents useless part drops.

- Grade 4 unlocks all the features for that table (including offline play).

- League play always costs 25 tickets regardless of table grade.

- When you buy features (physics / difficulty / visuals) they are available to use on every Grade 2+ table. I think they're a sensible purchase!

- If you buy a custom flipper or ball skin they have unlimited usages. The countdown timers simply rotate items and reduce clutter in the shop.

 

[Gorgias32]

For those who have unlocked the level 4 challenge (the "Premium Challenge" that you have to buy for 200 zen coins) - is it worth it? Is it really hard? What tables does it pick from (i.e. all 2 star you have unlocked, or other criteria)?

As the difficulty in the challenges has ramped up, I have almost stopped doing the level 3 challenges beyond 5 stars, because it's a waste of tickets and an exercise in frustration (unless it's survival on AFM, I pretty much always fail to get to 10 stars) and I am now skipping the level 3 one-ball challenges entirely. If the Premium Challenge is the same difficulty level, I'm inclined to not buy it and instead use my coins to upgrade tables to 4 stars.

 

[shutyertrap]

Premium challenge has higher goal targets. In my stats collection so far, I have indeed confirmed that Basic challenge has the easiest score goals and they ramp up each challenge level with Premium having the highest. I do not know what tables it picks from as I already had all of Vol 1 and 2 unlocked before purchasing it. In the 6 days I've been tracking, I have yet to have a Vol 3 table spawn in Premium, of which I have one at 3 stars and the other two at 2.

I have failed to earn the 15 star goal in Premium 4 of the 5 days I've tried. I've only earned 10 stars 3 out of 5. It costs 25 tickets per play, so it'll chew through your collection in no time. The card flip rewards have given me a lot of ball trails, a few flippers, and then tickets and parts. The ticket drops are of the 40, 60, and 75 variety which I think are too low for this level. They should be a minimum of 100 just to make the reward worth it. The parts drops have all been +4 and +5 for me, which is pretty good.

So is it worth it? If you are struggling to do 10 stars on the Pro challenge, no. Even the 5 star Premium can be a bear. I don't think the card flips are rewarding enough. I've actually put myself on a play limit now, as I wasted tickets big time on it and Pro. As an example, on day one of my stats tracking I had won a total of 685 tickets from all four challenges, getting 15 stars across the board. However, my total ticket count was -625. That means I spent 1310 tickets on Pro and Premium, which is astonishing to me. I need to make sure I don't dip below 6000 so I can still upgrade my other two tables to 3 stars, plus I need tickets to even play Pro and Premium. I typically earn 400+ per day just in Basic and Advanced, so I'm now trying to not play over that ticket count. Sometimes the 'just one more time' but bites though!

I personally think, with what Zen coins are worth, that saving them for table upgrades is the better choice. Once you have them mostly upgraded, say only 2 or 3 left, then buying the Premium pack might be worth it, depending on your play ability.

 

[Gorgias32]

Thanks SYT, that's exactly the information I was looking for. I have saved up 130 zen coins, I'm going to use them to upgrade a table to 4 stars.

I don't think I'm that bad of a player - I would have to think I'm at least average over all app users. I'm hoping/expecting the challenge difficulty to be something that they ratchet up and down over time as they gather more data. It's to Zen's advantage to have the challenges be JUST difficult enough that they always feel winnable and worth the price for the average player, to keep people coming back for more and spending those tickets.

 

[shutyertrap]

Today is my day 7 of gathering stats, and already I'm seeing some interesting things. I'll be posting a summary on that other thread http://www.digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/13993-Williams-Pinball-App-Data-Collection tomorrow.

I've got blank charts at the ready as well as what I've filled in so far if anyone wants them. The chart especially for filling in the various scores needed for each goal level would be great if multiple people were doing it too. We all get different challenges each day, so it could be filled in that much faster.

Just email me at blahblahblahcade@gmail.com and I'll send them your way.

 

[Naildriver74]

I’ve been trying close to 3 weeks for them to unlock the option for buying tables outright. Looks like I’ll be staying with TPA.

 

[Gorgias32]

On Android, the "buy the three new tables for $10" appeared right when they came out, but was time-limited and disappeared after a couple of days. I think that option is now gone, unless they run a special at some point in the future.

In the meantime, the only way to buy the tables directly is to buy Z coins, and you'll end up spending way more than $10 for the three - it's 750 (250 coins per table) to unlock, and 800 coins is $19.99 on the US play store.

This is exactly the problem that Zen has set up with this app and currency model - people just want to play pinball; when they install the app, and pick a single table as their "first", and they still can't launch it in Arcade mode, and it's complicated, unclear and expensive to unlock, you are going to lose customers. And that's not good for anyone, Zen or diehard fans or new potential customers alike. This is coming from a big fan, I really want this app to succeed and continue to flourish; the gameplay and options are fantastic once you get into the tables.

 

[shutyertrap]

You need 750 coins to purchase 3 tables outright. So yeah, $20 and you'll have 50 coins left over.

I agree this is not good for someone just getting into the app, and completely agree that it only gets worse as more tables are added.

I do not agree that people just want to play pinball, mainly because I enjoy doing the the daily challenges and rarely play a regular game of pinball on the app...I save that for the PC. If the mobile app is your only source for playing, then yes that statement is probably more correct than not.

As I am discovering daily, and I want to make this message loud and clear, if you only have 3 tables to grind for, you can do it relatively with ease while not spending a single cent. I am earning 36 table parts daily, averaging 7 coins per day which translates to 100 every 14 days, and have not been struggling for tickets so long as I manage them properly. I don't know what it'd be like if I were collecting for 6 tables at one time, and I can say pretty confidently that needing all 10 is probably an effort in futility since just as you might start gaining traction, the next pack of 3 is going to drop, which means you'll never be able to earn coins fast enough to pay for the final upgrades on all tables before more arrive.

Next time I talk to Mel, I'm going to present all my findings and see if I can shine a light on the fact that something will need to change. Maybe offering the limited time price on whatever pack you choose every time a pack drops, or putting the coins on sale once a month. As someone that enjoys the grind, I think the coin drops need to be more plentiful, averaging closer to 15 a day. I also think never mind if you haven't upgraded to 4 stars, if you have the final 100 parts needed then you should not continue earning those parts. The app should recognize you've collected all 170 parts and just stop. Additionally it would be good if you were only earning parts for say 2 packs at any given time, as this would help solve the issue of what happens as even more tables drop.

Hopefully Zen listens. There is no catch all solution that will please everyone. Zen has to make money, I enjoy that I haven't had to spend any, and others are more than happy to if the price matches other platforms. Zen not making money off me means they have to get more from those wiling to pay. If it was solely a pay to play app, I wouldn't be playing at all, same as a very large number of casual mobile gamers, which lowers the exposure Zen needs with the app. So yes, this is truly a Ven diagram of problems with and finding the balance for that central solution still needs some work.

 

[Naildriver74]

I was somewhat surprised at the number of people that like going through all the daily challenges. Just not what l care to do. I play this on IOS didn’t mention that before. 30 bucks for all tables is great. For some reason just can’t get it to pop up when I open the App.

 

[Gorgias32]

I actually really enjoy the daily challenges, that's what keeps me coming back to the app - when I said above that "people just want to play pinball" I was referring to the new first-time user who installs the app and has nearly everything locked out and inaccessible until they have figured out how the daily challenges, currency and grinding system works.

With respect to profitability, I don't know how much money Zen gets from each video view (I believe it varies) but I have seen numbers like $3 per 1000 video ad views. I have probably not viewed 1000 ads, but I have certainly viewed over a hundred in the time I have had the app - as long as I keep playing the daily challenges, eventually they will get the money that I would have spent on unlocking the tables outright, and it's recurring revenue for them. It's a win/win.

Zen's profitability from ad views alone is dependent on uptake/install base and how active the users are, so it would be fruitful for them to make it easier to get people playing those level 2 and 3 challenges. And it definitely doesn't help if new adopters jump ship early for whatever reason.

 

[shutyertrap]

At minimum I’m viewing 12 ads per day, and that’s only if I clear those advanced challenges on first attempt (rarely happens) and doesn’t include premium challenge. That puts me at 192 minimum views in just these past 16 days I’ve been tracking. I know it’s a hell of a lot more than that though as there’s been ‘those’ days with 1 ball advanced challenge and that 15 star goal.

Out of curiosity, can I see a show of hands for fellow Premium challenge players? I need the score goals for 15 stars on most of the tables and challenge types to fill in my chart, and often I’m lucky to get the 10 star score.

And for the record, 5 minute Premium on Safe Cracker, that 15 star goal is near impossible. Needed 1.26 million just for 10 stars and that I got just by the skin of my teeth. Everything has to go perfect, you need shortest path on board game, and some big point gifts from the scoop.

 

[shutyertrap]

With respect to profitability, I don't know how much money Zen gets from each video view (I believe it varies) but I have seen numbers like $3 per 1000 video ad views.

What do you think they get for click throughs? And do they get more if that click then gets an install?

 

[Gorgias32]

I'm not a commercial mobile app developer, but from what I'm seeing $3/1000 views is probably really low - although it varies a lot by market. Here's a link to a site with some estimates, it's a vendor so take it for what it's worth. ECPM is "Effective Cost Per Mille", which is the calculated ad revenue per 1000 "ad impressions"; I think that's a certain portion of the ad viewed. Click-throughs could add more revenue. I don't know if they have a way to determine if the app was installed after the click-through.

https://chocolateplatform.com/ecpm-index/

This is an interesting direction for my day, I didn't expect when I got up this morning that I'd be learning about mobile ad revenue...

 

[Kolchak357]

I’ve been trying close to 3 weeks for them to unlock the option for buying tables outright. Looks like I’ll be staying with TPA.

If it didn’t give you the option to purchase outright, just contact Zen using the in app “contact us” button located under settings. Tell them you didn’t receive the purchase outright option and they will hook you up. They did it for me. I enjoy the challenges now and then, but most times I just want to play a few games on a table or two. So I like the purchase option.

 

[Naildriver74]

We’ve been going back and forth. Nothing is popping up. I don’t know what the problem is.

 

[Fungi]

I wonder. Does the offer to purchase outright only happen immediately after release, or would it still be offered if you didn't update the app until months later?

 

[Naildriver74]

I reinstalled the app and it popped up to purchase. It said it expired in two days.

 

[Pete]

Why am i having a zen coin taken away everytime i complete a challenge. It gives an error connecting to server warning and takes a coin away every single time. I dont remember it doing tbis before, ive lost 15 or 20 zen coins in the last couple days and now im almost out, was trying to save them but they just get taken away