Williams Volume 4 *OFFICIAL* Game play thread

[Pinballwiz45b]

[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]Sorry, it wasn't the guide. There's a small hint in the description of the Multiball Score Bonus Upgrade: Clowns need not apply...[/FONT]

It says that for every table.

 

[MBeeching]

This is true to the real table. There's a dip in the ramp, and if the ball doesn't have enough momentum to make it up the incline from there, there's an exit for the ball to fall out to the side. I think the ramp shot still counts, the switch is before/above that area.

I'm convinced there's a global issue relating to excessive spin and influence upon ball momentum. I've knocked up some diagrams to illustrate:


White Water
Clockwise > upper right flipper > Insanity Falls > Ball is still clockwise which pulls it back




Medieval Madness
Clockwise spin off left flipper > Dragon ramp > Apex > Ball is still clockwise which pulls it back




Theatre of Magic
Anti-clockwise off right flipper > Left orbit > Apex > Ball is still anti-clockwise which pulls it back




The initial spin is too strong so it continues influencing the ball when it reaches various points on the table. This results in severe loss of speed and often a complete change of direction, surely this rotational force should be fading much earlier given the ball's direction of travel?

It's a shame there are no cosmetic options on the PC version as that could make it easier to prove what the ball is doing. Hope that explanation is clear enough, thoughts or opinions extremely welcome

 

[Tarek Oberdieck]

It says that for every table.

[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]Ok, forget it. Indeed the clown scores never doubles. That's the original WMS ROM setting. Maybe you can double the score during the bonus count with Zen's score boost. but I guess that doesn't award the achivement...[/FONT]

 

[zmcvay]

[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]Maybe you can double the score during the bonus count with Zen's score boost. but I guess that doesn't award the achivement...[/FONT]

It might work to use the wizard power at end of ball on a 5+ million Clown Time, honestly I didn't think to try that until after I already got the goal.

 

[Bl5deRunner]

The recreations are really nice.

If you wanted to make White Water REALLY authentic, you could add the sound of the ball hitting the glass when traveling down the waterfall ramp (hits the glass on the way up closer to the end of the ramp).

I will say that the ball seems to fly down the middle in Road Show (faster than I remember on any of the actual RS pins I played back in the day).

 

[trash80]

The recreations are really nice.

If you wanted to make White Water REALLY authentic, you could add the sound of the ball hitting the glass when traveling down the waterfall ramp (hits the glass on the way up closer to the end of the ramp).

I will say that the ball seems to fly down the middle in Road Show (faster than I remember on any of the actual RS pins I played back in the day).

Zen Pinball FX3 doesn't have playfield glass for the ball to hit. Maybe they will add that in a future update and maybe we could get some DMD reflections then too.

 

[Bl5deRunner]

No but it would be fun it if made the sound even though we know there isn't actually glass that we can "see".

 

[Bl5deRunner]

Something else I noticed on Road Show--if multiple things are happening on the table, the pin can't handle multiple sounds (i.e.--if another action is happening on the table, and I hit Ted, you don't hear the clanging/crashing sound, you only hear Red announce the day ("Friiiiiday"). Not something that happened on the real pin if I remember correctly.

 

[trash80]

No but it would be fun it if made the sound even though we know there isn't actually glass that we can "see".

Would it? I think it would wear out its novelty pretty quick if it happens every time.

The ball doesn't always strike the glass there when playing a real table. And if there isn't a material that the ball can interact with to trigger the sound, it seems like what you are asking for is a glass tap sound scripted to play when the ball travels over that hump. Add a random element to that script and its six one way, half a dozen the other I suppose.

Or... they could place a non-rendered primitive across the top of the playfield for all the Williams tables and assign a proper trigger. It would be nice to have the glass tap in the other tables as well since some of the previously released tables do have occasions of vertical ball travel in the real world too.

 

[shutyertrap]

You can play with the glass on in Zaccaria...and it's one of the first things I turned off.

It's one thing to play in the real world, where you can move your head to avoid glares and odd reflections, a whole 'nother when those things are static and unavoidable.

 

[trash80]

You can play with the glass on in Zaccaria...and it's one of the first things I turned off.

It's one thing to play in the real world, where you can move your head to avoid glares and odd reflections, a whole 'nother when those things are static and unavoidable.

Zaccaria made their glass too 'glassy' IMO, and while it can be interesting with the grime and scratches dialed way up for a few minutes, I started to feel pretty yucky about being in an arcade that would allow their tables to become so neglected.

There are a couple VPX tables that have really captured the arcade experience of the playfield glass reflections (and sounds), but you are correct in that when we play these for real, we do adjust ourselves to minimize these AWESOME LOOKING effects.

This makes me think that in the future the proper solution will be eye tracking in conjunction with shaders.

 

[Bl5deRunner]

Would it? I think it would wear out its novelty pretty quick if it happens every time.

The ball doesn't always strike the glass there when playing a real table. And if there isn't a material that the ball can interact with to trigger the sound, it seems like what you are asking for is a glass tap sound scripted to play when the ball travels over that hump. Add a random element to that script and its six one way, half a dozen the other I suppose.

Or... they could place a non-rendered primitive across the top of the playfield for all the Williams tables and assign a proper trigger. It would be nice to have the glass tap in the other tables as well since some of the previously released tables do have occasions of vertical ball travel in the real world too.

Agree with the randomizer. One in every (insert number).

 

[kimkom]

Really impressed by this pack, particularly Hurricane and Road Show. Lots of fun.

White Water

• I've already had the ball fail to make it through the left waterfall ramp, stopping and falling off midway through. I've also seen it get stuck at the bottom of the same ramp, in the loop by the left flipper. This might be true to the real table, I have no idea. Both instances corrected themselves, although the latter used magic physics.

Thanks. That's good to know and I did expect the real table would have some fail safes, however my reference to magic physics on the Zen iteration is that the ball stopped dead at the bottom and then after a few moments of being completely static shot back up and out of the ramp hole. It didn't roll naturally. No worries though, just glad they had measures in place.

Klopek, I owned a White Water for about 4 years having also played it excessively in arcades.

I've also seen the static ball at the bottom of the left ramp in Zen's version. In fact, the very first shot I hit there ended up with the ball just sat there for 5 - 6 secs and then magically being moved.

This would never happen on a real table.

The ball would never have just sit there since the clear plastic is shaped to deliver the ball back should it ever not make it all the way round (which happened extremely rarely).

 

[MBeeching]

Klopek, I owned a White Water for about 4 years having also played it excessively in arcades.

I've also seen the static ball at the bottom of the left ramp in Zen's version. In fact, the very first shot I hit there ended up with the ball just sat there for 5 - 6 secs and then magically being moved.

This would never happen on a real table.

The ball would never have just sit there since the clear plastic is shaped to deliver the ball back should it ever not make it all the way round (which happened extremely rarely).

Agreed, the original plastic appears to be slightly banked so a slow ball naturally gravitates towards the exit depression in the mould, whereas Zen's model seems to have a fairly wide flat base. I still think the ball is losing too much momentum upon entry (apex/ball spin) which makes Insanity Falls unreliable.

 

[kimkom]

Agreed, the original plastic appears to be slightly banked so a slow ball naturally gravitates towards the exit depression in the mould, whereas Zen's model seems to have a fairly wide flat base. I still think the ball is losing too much momentum upon entry (apex/ball spin) which makes Insanity Falls unreliable.

Yeah the real plastic is quite heavily banked, as shown here:
http://christopherhutchins.com/gallery/album638/40_G

And another view:
http://christopherhutchins.com/gallery/album638/39_G

Hence why there is no way it can stop where Zen's version currently does.

I'm also finding both of the upper playfield shots to be a lot harder to hit than on the real table.

 

[wilbers]

Multiball upgrade for Hurricane is different than for other tables. Usually its 1 multiball for levels 1-5, then 2 multiballs for the rest of the tiers. With Hurricane its 3 for levels 1 & 2, 4 for level 3, and I haven't got to the others yet.

Also, the 2nd table mastery award, is it just me or does it look a bit painful where the drum is?

 

[zmcvay]

White Water also has increased requirements for Multiball upgrades. I think it makes sense, Multiball is much easier to get on some tables than others, it should be varied to the table itself, especially since the multiball upgrade is probably the biggest scoring increase for most tables.

And yeah, I like completing challenges for better looks at the art assets, but I'd wipe away that one if I could. "Clown Time" indeed, yeesh.....

 

[Scared Stiff]

Really impressed by this pack, particularly Hurricane and Road Show. Lots of fun.

White Water

I've already had the ball fail to make it through the left waterfall ramp, stopping and falling off midway through. I've also seen it get stuck at the bottom of the same ramp, in the loop by the left flipper. This might be true to the real table, I have no idea. Both instances corrected themselves, although the latter used magic physics.

On the mobile version, I have had the ball not make it up the ramp about 25% of the time. This is bad, because it then shoots right down the middle and drains ending your ball. They need to fix this. It’s not realistic at all.

 

[wilbers]

Multiball upgrade for Hurricane is different than for other tables. Usually its 1 multiball for levels 1-5, then 2 multiballs for the rest of the tiers. With Hurricane its 3 for levels 1 & 2, 4 for level 3, and I haven't got to the others yet.

Still something funny happening with multi-ball upgrade on White Water, just got to level 3 and now it says progression 4/9 towards level 4 without getting any further multi-balls. Something similar happens with score boost and rewind (not sure about slow motion as I tend not to bother with it) wizard powers on some tables - unlock a level, and the next tier is partially complete without doing anything. When doing the challenges think it goes to 0/x towards next level and progresses normally if you try challenge again immediately after, but if you go out of challenges and check upgrades it first it progresses a bit without actually doing it. Is it the same for everyone else?

 

[Cloda]

Road Show Tips

I’m slowly but surely finding my feet with Pinball FX3 on my recently bought Xbox One. I’ve been playing some tournaments (but am not a big fan because achievements and scores does not count in the long run) but my main goal I set myself is to see if I can get into the top-ten (or at least the top-twenty) leaderboards on classic arcade physics for the Williams / Bally tables. The first table I tried it on is Road Show and I finally managed a top-ten score after a few weeks of playing a bit a day (I love being able to do so on the quicker, more intense Williams / Bally tables).

Here is the last 5 minutes of the game as recorded with my Xbox.

I don’t feel like I mastered the table yet, and I botched two big scoring opportunities and an extra ball in this game; I immediately lost all the balls on super payday (San Francisco - Monster Attack), I bricked a shot to start pay day multiball losing my last ball, and I could have gone for the multiplier multiball but didn't notice. I’ll definitely go for a bigger score again in future but for now I’ll move on to another table.

Here are some tips that worked for me in this game:

- The skill shot into the blast / wheel hole is easy to get and the score increases each time you hit it (to a max of 25M) and reward you with a souvenir (which can pay out handsomely with an end-of-ball bonus) so go for it at every opportunity.
- Go for Red each time you can as the score also increase for big millions (to a max of 25M) each time you hit her and you also get a Cheeseburger bonus of 20M if you hit her often enough.
- My original strategy was to go for the Payday multi-ball and not worry so much about playing the city modes, but I soon realised that playing the city modes is a much better approach for advancing your score.
- It is difficult, but it is worth trying to advance the bonus multipliers as you can get big end-of-ball bonus scores (I got 360M at end of one ball). There is some specific mechanism at play how to advance it, but shooting up the left and right ramps in combo seems to do the trick.

What strategy work for you when playing this table?

Edit: Here are some tips in reply to my post on Facebook by Bob Steele:

1) Watch Bowen's tutorial on the PAPA youtube channel and be sure to thank him if you ever get to meet him in person! The one he did on Road Show is by far the best.
2) I pretty much never shoot for Reds mouth - the main reason is I usually miss and put the ball out of control and the second one is the magic standup - see tip one to know what I am talking about there.
3) On the initial plunge, sometimes I don't go for the skill shot - instead I try to change my first city to Miami then start that mode. I've racked up over 100M many times ripping the spinner over and over again. The New York mode is not worth the risky shots to the dozer.
4) After Miami, I go for the skill shot every time to get the free souvenirs - I also shoot the bunker as often as I can to get those souvenirs as well. You can activate the bunker souvenir by shooting the right loop (up between Red & Ted) which will put you in the bumpers so be ready for that feed to fly at you once in a while.
5) I always try to advance the multiplier as the main priority - after your 2 ramp shots to advance it, be sure to get the "spin the wheel" reward before you advance to the next one. After 6x, the wheel awards go away. Sometimes I will throw in a mode start as I'm progressing the multiplier. I had a 900M+ bonus on my recent 7 billion+ game that i played the other night - that score was achieved without any multi-balls (other than the ones you get with some of the modes) so building that bonus is far more valuable than any multi-ball can be unless you are really good at hitting red over and over again.
6) Try to stay away from the risky shots in a few of the modes (New York & Nashville are the main ones). The risk/reward of those modes aren't worthwhile. You can usually get a few accidental shots in Nashville just flipping around but I don't try to aim for it. The nice thing about Nashville is as long as you have the 2 balls going, the mode doesn't end.
7) Never ever sell your souvenirs - they are worth much much more in bonus!
That's about it for what I do...... good luck to all!

and my reply...

I did watch the excellent PAPA tutorial video and initially I started the game off as he (and yourself) suggested but eventually figured out that I can just restart if I don't score or lose the ball on the New York mode (although I'll definitely play Miami if I start that up). I find hitting Red not that risky in arcade physics mode or rather not much more risky than just letting the ball drop. I'll definitely weigh it up next time I play but for now I'm first going to play some other table.