Request Any comment from Farsight re: outlanes?

Has Farsight said anything about re-tweaking these vicious outlanes? I've been playing less CV lately, which is a shame.

I think the worst example I've seen was a new ball - hit the skill shot - bounced into the jets - drained down the right outlane. Ball save kicked in - launched the ball - which ended up in the jets - and drained down the right outlane AGAIN - this time no ball save.

2 right outlane drains back-to-back and I never even got to use the flippers.

There's nothing wrong with the outlanes as the real table is just as vicious. The outlanes were not draining at all in the initial release which is why people are complaining now. The table was way too easy before.

I completely agree about the original table being too easy... just seems like they went too far in the other direction with the last update. I think I have the "Ball Save" DMD screen memorized dot for dot.

ClaudeHenrySmoot said:

I completely agree about the original table being too easy... just seems like they went too far in the other direction with the last update. I think I have the "Ball Save" DMD screen memorized dot for dot.

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I'm going to Pinballz this weekend and I'll play a few games of Cirqus Voltaire and see how close, or far off, FarSight is with the outlane drains.

That would be great. Or is it normal that you nudge the table whenever the ball heads for the right outlane?

The mean thing is that you think that the ball has a chance to survive. On a table like funhouse you know that the ball is lost when it goes to the far left. On CV it gets punched around only to finally drain...

ScotchYeti said:

That would be great. Or is it normal that you nudge the table whenever the ball heads for the right outlane?

The mean thing is that you think that the ball has a chance to survive. On a table like funhouse you know that the ball is lost when it goes to the far left. On CV it gets punched around only to finally drain...

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Cirqus Voltaire's vicious outlanes are on par with Pin•Bot's outlanes and nudging is a necessity on both tables to keep the ball from going anywhere near them. It's also a good idea to minimize the ball hitting the slingshots on both tables as well.

PiN WiZ said:

Cirqus Voltaire's vicious outlanes are on par with Pin•Bot's outlanes and nudging is a necessity on both tables to keep the ball from going anywhere near them. It's also a good idea to minimize the ball hitting the slingshots on both tables as well.

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What nudging strategy do you try for most often on this table? Do you try to force the ball straight back into the in-lane or bounce it off the outside peg? Personally, I find these outlines to be much worse than Pinbot simply due to their unconventional design. Also, the objects above the outlanes add a huge amount of unpredictable variability that usually leads to the ball being thrown right down the outline before you have a chance to react to it. I have had a hard time enjoying this table simply because of how often the balls will quickly go down the outlanes.

Crush3d_Turtle said:

What nudging strategy do you try for most often on this table? Do you try to force the ball straight back into the in-lane or bounce it off the outside peg? Personally, I find these outlines to be much worse than Pinbot simply due to their unconventional design. Also, the objects above the outlanes add a huge amount of unpredictable variability that usually leads to the ball being thrown right down the outline before you have a chance to react to it. I have had a hard time enjoying this table simply because of how often the balls will quickly go down the outlanes.

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Actually those outlanes are not the problem, but it is the posts that are beside them. They are set to hard (all the way to the top) on most machines you can set these to three settings easy, medium, and of coarse hard.

Pinball is supposed to be fun, especially in a virtual pinball environment, where there isn't a profit motive involved in screwing the player with cheap drains to keep ball times down. This table, as presently constructed, is 75% luck based garbage. My first game was my best one, even as I supposedly learned the shots and tricks better. That should tell you something right there. I got comparatively lucky my first game and even as I get better, my scores can't improve. Unless I just endure endless frustration hoping I get lucky again. Screw that. This table needs to be fixed, badly.

Note to Farsight: it's always better to err on the side of providing an enjoyable, fair experience. If you cater to the vocal minority of masochists, you're just going to drive away the much more massive casual crowd seeking to have fun. If you have a situation where a table is too easy and the only solution is to make it stupid hard, leave well enough alone.

Otherwise, provide some options for the player under penalty of disabling leaderboard scores. You already do this with the unlockable Tilt option. If you do it for other options, say Cirqus Voltaire's ridiculous outlane posts, or number of balls per game, or Easy/Medium/Hard ROM presets, there's no harm to the leaderboards, and people other than those who enjoy punishing unfairness can actually have fun with the product they paid money for.

The outlane posts are actually set halfway on consoles, ie medium difficulty.

On iOS currently they are set to the bottom: ie easy.

bavelb said:

The outlane posts are actually set halfway on consoles, ie medium difficulty.

On iOS currently they are set to the bottom: ie easy.

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bavelb, please add to this post indicating that you find this ironic.

Epsilon said:

Pinball is supposed to be fun, especially in a virtual pinball environment, where there isn't a profit motive involved in screwing the player with cheap drains to keep ball times down. This table, as presently constructed, is 75% luck based garbage. My first game was my best one, even as I supposedly learned the shots and tricks better. That should tell you something right there. I got comparatively lucky my first game and even as I get better, my scores can't improve. Unless I just endure endless frustration hoping I get lucky again. Screw that. This table needs to be fixed, badly.

Note to Farsight: it's always better to err on the side of providing an enjoyable, fair experience. If you cater to the vocal minority of masochists, you're just going to drive away the much more massive casual crowd seeking to have fun. If you have a situation where a table is too easy and the only solution is to make it stupid hard, leave well enough alone.

Otherwise, provide some options for the player under penalty of disabling leaderboard scores. You already do this with the unlockable Tilt option. If you do it for other options, say Cirqus Voltaire's ridiculous outlane posts, or number of balls per game, or Easy/Medium/Hard ROM presets, there's no harm to the leaderboards, and people other than those who enjoy punishing unfairness can actually have fun with the product they paid money for.

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There is absolutely NOTHING in this post that I disagree with. Every single word, punctuation, motivation, I wholeheartedly endorse.

Please FarSight, give me back Cirqus Voltaire.

Fungi said:

Please add to this post indicating that you find this ironic.

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Hmm? It was in response to the post above me, which was mostly a complaint about FS making CV too hard on 360, which I think isn't the case at all (and almost all highscores on this forum and on my friendslist support this). The fact that the post is set too an easier position on iOS is indeed very weird as the table feels a lot harder.

bavelb said:

The fact that the post is set too an easier position on iOS is indeed very weird as the table feels a lot harder.

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This works for me.

bavelb said:

The outlane posts are actually set halfway on consoles, ie medium difficulty.

On iOS currently they are set to the bottom: ie easy.

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The collision mesh for the iOS outlane post seems to be much higher than the artwork, as the ball will sometimes clip through the visible post even when traveling slowly.

At any rate, the iOS table is currently not behaving consistently with a real CV with its outlanes set all the way down.

Are you sure the outlane posts are set at medium on the consoles? To my eye, it doesn't look like there's much room for them to move higher, but that could be the angles playing tricks on me.

I mean, I have to admit my blood was up a bit after playing like 6 straight games where it felt like the outlanes were just murdering me before I could even finish a Ringmaster. That, combined with the fact that the ball-through-flipper bug makes slap saves on center drains impossible in this game, was making me see red. But I wholeheartedly admit that getting a virtual pinball machine to provide a fair challenge without making it trivially easy is an enormous challenge, and I don't mean to sound petulant about it. It's an extremely fine line, especially when you're wanting to maximize the impact of leaderboard scores on long-term play value for the more skilled players.

I respectfully submit, though, that there's absolutely no harm in letting the more casual players among us have options to make the game easier (or even more difficult, depending on the table) as long as we're willing to opt out of the leaderboards while using those settings. This is already done with the Tilt option, so the programmatic hurdle would have largely already been leaped. One of the aspects of this game that is so appealing to me, and I suspect many others, is that it could potentially provide a meaningful substitute for actually owning these machines, for those of us with the lack of finances or living space to ever make that a reality. People who own real pinball machines can do all sorts of things to make it as easy or tough as they want, and it would be fantastic (and not particularly difficult to implement in limited ways) to be able to do that with these virtual tables.

FWIW, I did manage to improve my scores (twice in the 130-150M range); it just took me longer than usual to figure out some of the ways to better control the ball around the flippers. This table feels quite different than some of the others around the flippers for some reason, and I think one of the reasons I had so much trouble with the outlanes is that I was juggling way more than I really needed to and having the ball flying around at those high speeds make outlane drains way more frequent. Once I was able to slow it down more consistently, I was able to have much more success.

Epsilon said:

Are you sure the outlane posts are set at medium on the consoles?

I respectfully submit, though, that there's absolutely no harm in letting the more casual players among us have options to make the game easier (or even more difficult, depending on the table) as long as we're willing to opt out of the
FWIW, I did manage to improve my scores (twice in the 130-150M range); it just took me longer than usual to figure out some of the ways to better control the ball around the flippers. This table feels quite different than some of the others around the flippers for some reason, and I think one of the reasons I had so much trouble with the outlanes is that I was juggling way more than I really needed to and having the ball flying around at those high speeds make outlane drains way more frequent. Once I was able to slow it down more consistently, I was able to have much more success.

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Yea they are pretty much halfway. I still tend to avoid those lanes completely with nudging however. Especially the right as the lanes is obscured by the neon tube.

In the long run operator settings would be nice, but lest we forget pfx1 and zen1 didnt have these either. I rather they spend dev time n cleaning up current tables and bringing new tables before diving into new features.

My standard for "is this table set too hard?" is generally: how hard is it to get the replay/extra ball score, and then: how hard is it to get to wizard mode (and clear it). In the long run followed by: how consistent is my scoring on it (or is it a matter of luck). For me personally I got to say none of those 3 were flagged when playing cv.

CV does feel different around the flippers indeed,.

I'm about to shatter an Xbox controller over these effing outlanes. This is some Pin•Bot level bollocks right here.

The 360 outlanes? They're much friendlier than the iOS ones, I assure you. How are you nudging to try to escape them? (And how often are you going in them in the first place?)

Id say the left one is pretty safe/ok due to the angle of the balls coming to them, and the speed at which they arrive(the menagerie ball slows the ball down), allowing you to respond.

The right one however is rather iffy due to the bumpers above them slinging the ball in at an almost perpendicular angle. Combined with the ramp running over them, I really try to avoid that one and the bumpers above it.

I havent figured out how to nudge out of it succesfully. Its not uncommon for me to nudge the ball IN to the outlane as I "panic" and quickly nudge to the right (moving left stick right that is), which makes the ball often bounce against the back of the slingshot and into the outlane.