3 things that irritate me a lot

First and foremost I'll say TPA is amazing. Best on the market IMHO. That being said I just have to voice my issues with it.

1. Ball lag! I've read so much about flipper lag on this, but that never happens to me. Instead I get the ball lagging like crazy and warping around the table constantly, as if the frame rate drops or something. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it causes me to miss shots and catches all the time. This is incredibly annoying.

2. Camera position! One of the things that makes Zen Pinball so great to me is the game saves your preferred table view for each table. You don't have to worry about altering the view from table to table. TPA doesn't seem to have that feature and depending on the table I am playing, it can be either View 1 or View 2. I know this seems trivial, but it's not something I want to be worried about when I load up a table. I want it to just remember what view I like best for that particular table. More of a minor annoyance.

3. Ball Drains! I may be in the minority here, but I don't really nudge all that much. Usually because I fail at it anyway. But I played my fair share of the real tables where I also didn't nudge. What irritates me here, is how easy it is for the ball to drain. It just seems more likely to drain in TPA than in real life. It really keeps me from getting what I consider high scores.

Anyway, these issues aside, TPA is still the best pinball video game out there.

1. I'm with you on this one, but it doesn't effect my game too much.

2. non issue here

3. You gotta nudge! Forget about scoring for a few games and practice nudging. You can literally "steer" the ball when it's heading down toward the flippers, get the bounces you want, and gain control of the ball.

I second that. You gotta nudge. No doubt about that. Trust me when I say I completely agree about the ball draining a lot. It really does. That's how authentic pinball is though. I have to say that it drains more on TOTAN and Gorgar more.

1.) I never noticed any ball lag until the latest patch (just a couple days ago). Now I get lag on RBION & TOM, but this is a known issue, and Farsight said they're getting a patch out soon to fix this. Also, playing in 720p instead of 1080p is supposed to help in the meantime, but I haven't tried it.

2.) Yes, the camera angles do vary from table to table....and more camera options are always a plus. I'm still hoping for a completely customizable camera angle sometime in the future.

3.) Real pinball machines drain a lot too....perhaps TPA might drain a bit more in some cases because the physics are less random than real life, but that also works to your advantage in some cases as well because it's often a little easier to predict where the ball is going. However, you absolutely have to nudge. There are a ton of balls that can be saved from doom with just one nudge. Just keep practicing, and you'll get better at it. My advice is to start out with working on extending your flippers in the middle by nudging left or right when the ball is heading for the middle and it's just out of your reach. You'll be amazed at how many balls are actually reachable that you thought were too far away before. With the outlanes, start out with forward nudging, just to get used to the idea of nudging the ball up and away from the drains (think of yourself as a goalie, if that helps), and then incorporate directional nudges once you get better at predicting the bounces....hope that helps.

And as far as draining in general goes, always remember that you only drain when you miss shots, so working on your aim is the #1 way to extending your ball durations....good aiming is much more important than good nudging.

Well see the problem is that I suck at nudging. I don't get how to do it. I flick the thumbstick...TILT...or it is just uselessly makes the ball move none. I get fed up with it so I don't bother with it all that much. But the reason I mentioned draining is because I have played Medieval Madness extensively in the real world because my uncle who lives like 10 minutes away has one that he refurbished. The ball just doesn't drain as much as it does in this game. Seriously, it pisses me off to the point of turning the game off sometimes. I hit a ramp, then when it comes back to the flipper I'll hit it, it will bounce off a target and then drain without any bounce back from the rubber hinges there. It doesn't happen that easily in the real world.

fuzzyfoot88 said:

Well see the problem is that I suck at nudging. I don't get how to do it. I flick the thumbstick...TILT...or it is just uselessly makes the ball move none. I get fed up with it so I don't bother with it all that much. But the reason I mentioned draining is because I have played Medieval Madness extensively in the real world because my uncle who lives like 10 minutes away has one that he refurbished. The ball just doesn't drain as much as it does in this game. Seriously, it pisses me off to the point of turning the game off sometimes. I hit a ramp, then when it comes back to the flipper I'll hit it, it will bounce off a target and then drain without any bounce back from the rubber hinges there. It doesn't happen that easily in the real world.

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Yeah, Medival Madness does need a physics update. Every table since then plays more realistically though.

I used to suck at nudging too, but I've gotten quite a bit better just in the last couple months, simply because I made an effort to practice. Before, I would rarely even try either, so there is hope if you take the time to figure it out.

if nudging bothers you (it shouldn't, and you really ought to know how to use it), 'just' get better at your shots-at-ramps-targets-etc

i mean, what advice can one give you in that regard...

fuzzyfoot88 said:

Well see the problem is that I suck at nudging.

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We ALL do to start with. But along with what Jeff and BonzoGonzo said about the importance of learning to aim well and hit your ramps and targets, nudging is an integral part of the game. And essential part of the game, I'd say. During (for me anyways) a good, high scoring game, I'll save a drain MANY times during the course of the game with nudging. Delicately, of course, a little nudge goes a long way. If you go nuts with the nudge stick, then yeah, a tilt is in your future. It's an ongoing thing for me. For instance, I SUCK at outlane drain saves. It all seems to happen so quickly, generally, that I have no time to react. That's where being proactive comes in. I tend to nudge to avoid, or get a ball away from slingshot etc, being as they are a huge outlane drain risk.

Medieval Madness is a nudge fest for me. With the well documented flipper issue, it has to be.

Edit: Also, learn the tables well enough to know where your high risk shots are, lamp posts on ToTAN, Castle gate on MM etc. and either try to weigh up the risk/reward of taking the shot, or as I usually do, take the shot but be ON the nudge as soon as you need it, which is usually 1/1000th of a second after making the shot.

Learning to nudge completely opened the game up for me.

The thing that makes nudging hard, in real life or in TPA, is that if you're nudging to prevent a drain, you have to do it long before it's obvious that you have to do it. So the key thing is learning the table well enough to know that the ball's going to head for the drain when it's still at the other end of the playfield.

I'm still pretty bad at it. But the case I have been able to make some progress with is the one in which the ball fails to make it up a ramp, comes back down and falls straight into the center drain. Many tables have a ramp like this (Medieval Madness and Monster Bash, definitely). Gorgar has, not a ramp, but a similar situation with the spinner lane at the upper right.

The thing to do is to train yourself to recognize the situation right when the ball starts to fall back down, and give the table a shove while the ball is still coming down the ramp. But it's extremely situation-specific. If you don't know the table well enough, you're as likely to shove the ball's trajectory into the drain as out of it.

fuzzyfoot88 said:

2. Camera position! One of the things that makes Zen Pinball so great to me is the game saves your preferred table view for each table. You don't have to worry about altering the view from table to table. TPA doesn't seem to have that feature and depending on the table I am playing, it can be either View 1 or View 2. I know this seems trivial, but it's not something I want to be worried about when I load up a table. I want it to just remember what view I like best for that particular table. More of a minor annoyance.

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More generally, TPA tends not to save your preferred settings for a table, or saves them only haphazardly. This is a problem that goes all the way back to Pinball Hall of Fame, and I've never understood it. I think that all of the user settings for a table should be persistent. How hard can it be to remember whether I want the HUD on or off?

It may be that it's just always lower-priority than other issues; as a coder I can sympathize with that.

When you're just starting off nudging just try two things. If you're going toward an out lane hit down on the left stick. If you're going straight down the middle hit the left stick to one side. Whichever side is easier for you. Just do one short tap. If you're tilting on one nudge then you're probably hitting the stick all the way and holding it for a split second.

I think you'll find that using just those two nudges will help your drains alot without giving you too much to think about at first. As you get used to this you will start to learn some of the nuances of nudging and what to do different on different tables.

this is a great subject "when to nudge"...shall we start a new thread....

anyone?

One way to get good at nudging is to get in the habit of moving the stick every time you suspect it might go down the outlane. I even do it even if it's too late. The sooner you nudge, the more likely you'll make a save. If it's a few inches away from the outlane, you're probably (but not always) too late.

I want a nudge slider on mobile...ipad nudge you could hold the base and tilt the top...now you gotta shake like crazy...well to keep vaild scores tilt needs to be the same of course but...gimpy shoulder makes shaking to hard a real prob...the top tilt worked

I've learned that it's important to nudge EVERYTIME the ball doesn't make it up the Peasant Ramp, and when Rudy spits.

Heretic said:

I want a nudge slider on mobile...ipad nudge you could hold the base and tilt the top...now you gotta shake like crazy...well to keep vaild scores tilt needs to be the same of course but...gimpy shoulder makes shaking to hard a real prob...the top tilt worked

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Yea I have a real hard time enjoying the game on ipad or android because I can't nudge properly. You gotta play on console to truly appreciate the game. If you are into pinball, it's worth buying a ps3 just for TPA (and ZP2 tyvm)

Getting back to nudging advice: As others have already said, you gotta nudge waaaay early. Predict the path of the ball, and correct it. Control the ball, don't just let it fly around and wait to see what its gonna do. Send the ball toward the actual flippers themselves, away from outlanes, slingshots, and center drain. Don't wait until its already in the center drain or outlane, if you see the ball even heading that way, nudge it! Another trick is to take momentum out of the ball by nudging forward when it hits the slingshots, this prevents it from being bounced into the outlanes.

Fungi said:

I've learned that it's important to nudge EVERYTIME the ball doesn't make it up the Peasant Ramp, and when Rudy spits.

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Spot on ! It's become a unconscious thing with me now, on both MM and FH when either of those 2 things happen. Also shooting for the castle when gate is down on MM.

And the really cool thing is, once you get used to nudging, you'll find yourself doing it to manipulate the ball's position, not just to save drains. Then the game enters yet another realm of strategy and tactics.

It's really strange with me. I have games where I get high scores (I got over 1.5 billion on Monster Bash before I deleted the save settings) and I will have times where it drains constantly. Can't fault the draining issue, but on the 2.02 patch, I have had problems with lag on 1080p. I constantly miss shots because of that. Hopefully with the new patch FS is coming out with, it will fix the flipper lag. I prefer looking at the entire table for camera as it helps me anticipate what I need to do better. That was a big problem on Gottlieb PHOF where it was hard to see what was coming up.

The way I became good at nudging was to play A LOT of Central Park on the PHOF Gottlieb Collection. The PS2 version is really sensitive, so you can only move the stick about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way. On the Pinball Arcade, you can hit the stick as hard as you can all the way and not worry about nudging. If you don't have a PS2, then playing a lot of Jive Time on the PS3 version of the Williams PHOF will help too. Also, the sensitivity in the Williams Collection is more similar to TPA.

By the way, I can't wait until more tables from the Gottlieb Collection are released on TPA with their upgraded lighting and physics. Especially Ace High, Central Park and Big Shot.