Pinball

[T-hawk]

Just because I like pinball does not mean I'm any good at it. If you have been playing for 20 years on real machines then I guess it's not that complex, but when you grab TPA on a sale and start playing for the first time I think Twilight Zone is not the table I would start out with.

Heh, yeah, agreed there. Attack From Mars is the perfect starter table in TPA, you really don't need to do anything but bash on the saucer and maybe shoot the multiball lock lane and you'll do fine. You'll get the hang of TZ within a couple hours though.

Holy crap, you are the #1 player in the world with 41 billion points? How long did your game for that highscore last ? And are you playing tournaments against other people on real machines as well? How close would you say is playing TPA compared to a real machine?

Yes, that 41 billion on TPA Monster Bash is me. (I needed a new gaming handle, this one is too generic.) It was 3-5 hours or so, don't remember exactly. The scoring for Monsters of Rock inflates progressively with the total instruments collected throughout the game, after 17 trips it was worth nearly a billion just for starting.

3-5 hours is short though. My top scores on Twilight Zone and Terminator 2 were each around 12 hours, spaced over a couple days.

TPA is laughably easy. The physics are deliberately railroaded for catches and shots that are many times easier than real machines. I'm only moderately good on real machines (have made Monsters of Rock once in my life and Rule the Universe twice) and tournaments aren't really my style.

I may stream again this weekend and will post here. Sunday is more likely to be free for me although I know it's Easter.

[sunrise089]

Anyway, I would appreciate it if you would announce and record your next streaming session.

Me too! Looking forward to it.

This. Not on Easter though please, kids...

[T-hawk]

Ok, I think my Saturday is free enough to give it a shot. I'll start around 1 PM Eastern and go from there for a few hours, stop in anytime. http://www.twitch.tv/vikingerik78

[Gustaran]

Are you taking requests?
If yes, I would like to see if you can win the Battle for the Kingdom on Medieval Madness!

[T-hawk]

I'm going to do the Williams Challenge, which tours through 10 tables requiring a certain score on each. It includes Medieval Madness, but I'll reach the target score before BFTK.

I'll think about requests if I want to keep going after that challenge, but not that one. I refuse to play BFTK on TPA because I haven't earned it; I want to see it for the first time on a real machine and never have. On almost every other table in TPA I've made the wizard mode on a real machine so don't mind abusing TPA's teddybear-easy physics, but not MM.

I'm sure there's other videos online for BFTK.

[T-hawk]

Here's the saved stream. http://www.twitch.tv/vikingerik78/b/521271192

I didn't realize how low my microphone level was, sorry if you can't hear me very well.

I'll stream for another challenge sometime next week.

[sunrise089]

Thanks for uploading the stream. I watched some of it and the audio wasn't great but it was audible. I'll do another watching session when I can turn my speakers up a bit louder.

[Gustaran]

After watching the stream I think I understand what T-Hawk meant by "easy physics". I think the "problem" is that T-hawk has literally beaten TPA, it seems the game is just too easy for him. The only way to get a new highscore is to play for several hours basically doing the same thing over and over again, so it's not a question of "can he make the shot or not" (because the answer is always "yes" ) but one of endurance.
Don't get me wrong, it is quite impressive seeing someone activate Castle Multiball in Medieval Madness at his leisure, but I would not want to play or watch it for 3 hours or more and I assume Medieval Madness on a real pinball machine is more fun for him as well.

Still, I learned some valuable things especially the regular use of the "bump" buttons to control the ball and the amount of general control one should have. Oh, and some elegant moves getting the ball from one flipper to another , I haven't managed that so far.

I have one more question: What do do you think about free pinball software like Visual Pinball and Future Pinball? Do they make for a more "real" experience? If I understand correctly, it is possible to tweak the physics settings, right?

And what do you think about Pinball FX2 vs. TPA?

[T-hawk]

I have literally beaten several tables on TPA including Medieval Madness, yes. All it takes is to average more than one extra ball per ball in play. You go infinite, the game will never end. It's like a nuclear explosion, critical mass is when each particle (extra ball) spawns more than one additional particle. Of course this only works on a table that offers a repeatable extra ball and allows stacking them. When the extra balls are limited, there's always room for more skill at the high end.

Actually I strongly dislike Medieval as a real machine because of that clunky rules structure around Trolls and Multiball Madness, but that's another topic entirely.

Yes, there's a LOT of skill in subtle flipper moves. Not just the post passes to switch flippers, which are trivially easy in TPA once you realize they're possible. But I do a lot of stuff in tipping and redirecting and influencing incoming balls to get a catch under control. The most important skill to advance from a novice pinball player is learning when NOT to flip. When a ball is coming perpendicularly towards a flipper, often the best thing you can do is NOT flip and let it bounce into a catch on the other side. It's exactly the same basic principle drilled into every kid who plays soccer: always stop the ball before you shoot it.

Your flippers are not bats or clubs for whacking the ball. They are your hands inside the game cabinet. They can deflect, clutch, grab, hold, throw, tip, and do any number of more sophisticated manuevers.

I haven't played Future Pinball or Pinball FX2 at all. I played Visual Pinball a bit when it was new about ten years ago, but it just felt fake for some reason in a way that TPA doesn't, though I really can't articulate why.

The Pro Pinball series are by far the best simulations with the best physics, and have the lion's share of my pinball play over the years. And it just so happens that the Pro Pinball games are just now in development for modern improved editions, with an alpha for Timeshock just having been released to the testers.

[T-hawk]

Oh and since I'm the mod, I've taken the liberty of splitting the pinball stuff out into its own thread.