The ball...

Generally I really like the game... but the more I play it the less I'm growing enthusiastic about the ball. I hear (and read) from people all around that it's acting closer to real life pinball machines, however I don't remember ever seeing/playing one in which the ball is that speedy or that bouncy. Most of the time it seems like it's traveling at light speed across the playfield, making it very hard to follow, let alone even react to it in time.

It's not that much of a problem on tables like Black Hole (at least with its upper level) or TOM where the playfield is relatively open or just has easy to reach ramps, but TOTAN is almost unplayable in its current incarnation. With the ball as it is now almost every target/ramp you can hit or reach seems to have turned into a death trap or like every action that I take is "rewarded" with an outlane drain. It is (at least to me) almost impossible to keep the ball going for very much long. I've got so many center drains in very quick successions on that table it's not even funny. And I never had a problem with TOTAN before! Not in real life, not with the version in the PHOF collection.

However I haven't heard from anybody else yet who's having the same problem as me... so maybe I simply just suck? lol But heck, this is annoying...

I think your final option might be right. I'm not trying to be a jerk there, and don't get me wrong, i'm in the same boat as you, it seems some games all i get are outlane shots. There are people putting up insane scores and I wonder how they can keep a ball on the table that long.
Once in a while i'll have what looks to be a prodigious game turn into one awesome ball and two quick drains and some completely wasted extra balls.

I think my only real issue with outlane drains is in ToM where the right Hocus Pocus (most claim the left but I only seem to have a problem with the right) seems to activate well after the ball is past the point of no saving.

I am not a particularly good player, and I can play TOTAN for a long time. I feel like the physics are pretty close -- far better than any virtual pinball I've ever played before, at least.

The scores I've been getting on Bride of Pinbot for iOS tonight are right in line with what I was getting on an actual Bride of Pinbot table last weekend, at least.

superballs said:

I think your final option might be right. I'm not trying to be a jerk there, and don't get me wrong, i'm in the same boat as you, it seems some games all i get are outlane shots. There are people putting up insane scores and I wonder how they can keep a ball on the table that long.
Once in a while i'll have what looks to be a prodigious game turn into one awesome ball and two quick drains and some completely wasted extra balls.

I think my only real issue with outlane drains is in ToM where the right Hocus Pocus (most claim the left but I only seem to have a problem with the right) seems to activate well after the ball is past the point of no saving.

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i'm in the same boat as you there. Just tonight on TOM I got 3 extra balls (6pm, 600,000 and pinball in the trap door) on ball 1 only to lose them immediately in the outlanes. I almost threw the controller down in disgust. then upon starting Grande Finale lose on the right drain when hocus pocus activated. and I didn't even get to 2b my highest score is 3.2b without getting grande finale.

I do think it's like real pinball as even then you can lose the balls to the outlanes real fast.

TOTAN is ridiculous though on the outlanes IMO. hitting the slingshot nearly always drives the balls to the outlanes. whithout the save, might as well start the game over.

I'm going to a place tomorrow where they have TOM and other tables I have not played before to see how close it may be to the real thing. Then again it's a simulation. Ball physics can't be exact... (or can it?) Loving TBA and Zen. Zen tables may not be realistic but they are well designed and fun to play. They are both a Pinball players dream.

I love the Marvel collection in PFX2 notably Wolverine.

I've noticed though that when the ball is in the kickers if you give an upward nudge it helps keep the ball out of the outlanes. I find the magnosaves much more reliable in TOTAN than in ToM but then i might just not have known they were active while i was playing.

Medieval Madness definitely appears far faster and lighter than it's real-life counterpart. Even taking into account that my local one could have a smaller angle than the virtual one, the ball still feels like it doesn't have any weight. BoP is spot-on though. Ball feels like it's heavy and takes effort to move up some ramps, whereas on MM you can see it goes around some loops/ramps far too quickly (namely the damsel ramp)... even if you haven't seen it in real life.

FarSight has already stated that they are aware there's room for improvement and they plan on tweaking the physics to get them closer to the real tables.

Glad to hear! Have they mentioned any specific examples or is that just a blanket statement? It's great the're willing to work towards getting everything right, but I hope it doesn't mean that all tables will play differently each time DLC or a patch is released.

Shaneus said:

Glad to hear! Have they mentioned any specific examples or is that just a blanket statement? It's great the're willing to work towards getting everything right, but I hope it doesn't mean that all tables will play differently each time DLC or a patch is released.

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They said they would look into ball speed and bounciness of the rubbers among other things. They said they would have to tweak some very delicate settings in the physics engine to adjust the ball speed, so I hope they're careful not to go too far the other way to where it starts playing like the PHOF Collections.

Playing on the PS3 since the release a week ago I haven't come across any strange things regarding ball physics.
Farsight has said that they plan on improving ball physics to make advanced techniques like the live catch possible.

While there are some spots where the ball goes much faster than anyone's ever seen, there are a few things that magnify that effect.

1) If you're playing on a 50" TV, is it not possible that your eyes would have trouble following the ball over that large area as compared to a monitor half that size?
2) These tables were modeled using well maintained, even professionally restored machines. Those machines would play faster than anything we ever saw out on location. With that as a base, if you add in a few misses in speed control like the Damsel ramp on MM, you get crazy speed in a few places.

I'm not arguing that there aren't some issues. FS has already said that they are going to work on it but it will be tedious work because it's so touchy. I'm just thinking about other things that can make the issue so obvious.

This is one of the things i really like about Farsight. I know some cry that we are beta testers but in reality, this product is showing a nice balance between a commercial product and a community developped product. In light, we have paid for it, however, in order to get what we want they are taking our input seriously and making the necessary changes. And that is huge to me.

One technique i would really like to see is when you are holding 2 balls on a flipper you can gingerly pass one while the other one travels up and down the kicker. I saw it on a youtube video showing advanced tactics. I have performed a few live catches but it seems harder in TPA than in real life...it's a tactic that IRL i'm actually really good at ( i should say THE tactic i'm really good at lol).

superballs said:

I think your final option might be right. I'm not trying to be a jerk there, and don't get me wrong, i'm in the same boat as you, it seems some games all i get are outlane shots. There are people putting up insane scores and I wonder how they can keep a ball on the table that long.
Once in a while i'll have what looks to be a prodigious game turn into one awesome ball and two quick drains and some completely wasted extra balls.

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Yeah, I know what you mean... and it's something I don't mind thaaaat much. Extra balls that didn't score much or just one ball in the game doing well are things which kind of belong to pinball and are to be expected every one in a while. *g* Sometimes you just have losing streak and games won't work out very well.

TOTAN on TPA however seems to be beyond bad luck. I mean... you spin the ball in, shoot with the flipper and

• hit the target left to the genie. The ball ricochets and literally bangs into the center drain.
• hit the genie, the magnet holds the ball for a while... and when letting it loose it rolls right into the center drain. When it doesn't it will hit the lamp... and that one will cause it going down the center drain.
• hit the lamp. From there it will either go down the center drain or at least the outlanes.
• enter the tiger loop. Nothing and no one can help you know. The ball will go down the center drain. It will.
• hit the genie and because of a very mad bounce you find the ball in an outlane a milisecond later.

And so on and so on...

Wellyeah... people say "Nudging is your friend!". But having to nudge after almost every shot you do in order to survive? Isn't that a bit silly? Not to mention that nudging automatically WILL save the ball, you may well hope it does but it's nothing to really rely on. Besides, with the TPA ball being quick as it is it's often already too late when you perform a nudge. Or the nudge doesn't have a real effect on it because... well... the ball is too quick.

I think my only real issue with outlane drains is in ToM where the right Hocus Pocus (most claim the left but I only seem to have a problem with the right) seems to activate well after the ball is past the point of no saving.

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That's the only problem I have with ToM as well. (On that table my games are usually long and I rarely finish a play under a billion points.) However that table pretty much only has ramps to aim for and they're all in the upper half of the table. So there's lots of space for the ball to roll around and breathe... whereas TOTAN's table is quite stuffed with toys and targets, and therefore has a lot more to bounce off from. And an OTT-bouncy ball as the TPA one just doesn't do very well in that environment.

1) If you're playing on a 50" TV, is it not possible that your eyes would have trouble following the ball over that large area as compared to a monitor half that size?

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That would explain why most of the players with the highest scores on the leaderboards have the tag "playing on moble" next to their name.

Totan is a mean table in real life, though. From what I played of one, the Pinball Arcade physics seemed close.

I'm not going to say that TPA has perfect physics (no pinball sim can ever completely recreate the random ball movement on a real table), but it's pretty close with the exception of the ball speed which is a little fast. I'm all for FarSight tweaking the physics on a table to match those of the real table, but I'm not for them tweaking the physics to make the tables easier for those who are always getting outlane and SDTM drains. Everyone needs to remember that pinball is a game of skill (not luck), so if you're constantly getting drains then I suggest you work on your ball control. You have to catch the ball, aim your shots and make sure you're accurate. There are many tables (including TOTAN) that punish you with drains for erratic ball control. Practice your ball control and nudging and I promise you'll be a better player with less drains to worry about.

Kaoru said:

TOTAN on TPA however seems to be beyond bad luck. I mean... you spin the ball in, shoot with the flipper and

• hit the target left to the genie. The ball ricochets and literally bangs into the center drain.
• hit the genie, the magnet holds the ball for a while... and when letting it loose it rolls right into the center drain. When it doesn't it will hit the lamp... and that one will cause it going down the center drain.
• hit the lamp. From there it will either go down the center drain or at least the outlanes.
• enter the tiger loop. Nothing and no one can help you know. The ball will go down the center drain. It will.
• hit the genie and because of a very mad bounce you find the ball in an outlane a milisecond later.

And so on and so on...

Wellyeah... people say "Nudging is your friend!". But having to nudge after almost every shot you do in order to survive? Isn't that a bit silly?

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Silly? Not at all. Watch some of the PAPA videos (www.pinball.org/videos) and you'll see professionals nudging the table almost every shot they take in order to survive the wicked tables they're playing on. PAPA's tables generally have the outlanes set as wide as they'll go, with their posts removed, and sometimes other modifications as well. Cruelest tables in the world, probably. Now, about TotAN:

• When the ball drops from the magnet: You'll know in the first quarter-second where it's headed. If it's headed for the drain, nudge to get the ball to whatever flipper it'll be closer to. You may need to combine with a slap save if the nudge isn't going to get it all the way to a flipper on its own, which is quite common. If it's headed for one of the lamp posts, nudge to the left when it hits the post and it should fall off the right side onto the right flipper.
• Hitting the lamp from below: For this discussion, envision the lamp as a clock. The posts are at 12 and 6 o'clock, or 3 and 9 o'clock, or whatever. If the posts are at 12-6, don't hit the lamp from below. You're just asking for a drain. If the posts are at 9-3, it is usually safe to whack the lamp, but concentrate and be prepared to make a slap save if the ball comes screaming back down the center. If the posts are at an angle and you want to hit the lamp, aim for the back post if at all possible. This gives you more time to react if the ricochet is bad, and immediately after the hit the front post will swing around and sometimes interrupt the ball's descent.
• Managing the tiger loop: Nudge the table right before the ball leaves the loop. This will both alter the direction of the ball and rob it of some speed. You may need to experiment with the timing and direction of the nudge to get the ball to land on a flipper and not on the slingshots.
• Direct genie shots: I've had a genie shot go SDTM, but I've never experienced a genie shot go direct to an outlane. I guess a really bad bounce off the lamp could do it, but for the lamp to be in the required position, it'd block the genie shot in the first place. Where are you taking this shot from when that happens?

Kaoru said:

That's the only problem I have with ToM as well. (On that table my games are usually long and I rarely finish a play under a billion points.)

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Theatre of Magic is a very forgiving table. This is not to say it's not challenging - it is - but you can get away with a lot looser ball control on ToM and not be punished for it. A lot of this is because the entire upper half of the playfield is a ramp, orbit or lane. With the exception of the trunk, there's not much to ricochet off of up there.

Arabian Nights is a harsher mistress. An errant ball is quickly punished, too much side-to-side movement means a trip to the outlanes, taking a wrong shot (such as whacking the lamp when its posts are near-vertical) will result in a SDTM drain, nudging is required to save the ball frequently, etc. Proper ball control is not just a good idea, it's a must to survive on this table. Traps, post transfers, live catches (even with the bouncy physics, they can be done on TPA), judicious nudging are all your friends. And there's only one way to get these skills: practice, practice, practice. Take a game and ignore your score - turn the DMD off if you want - just work on your control. Whack the lamp at different angles and see what works, what's dicey, and what's an instant drain. Take another game and make those tiger loop shots and practice catching the ball from them. Not only will this improve your control, but after you master this - that first extra ball at 6 tiger loops? P'shaw! Child's play. You've essentially turned TotAN into a 4-ball game at that point (or 5-ball if you're at the point where an 8M score is also child's play). And unlike the real tables, you're not paying for each game and you're not hogging the machine while you practice, so have at it.

Great tips, Serenseven.

One has to keep in mind that the tables are designed to be a challenge so that the owners could earn money with them. Every table has dangerous shots, without some nudging you won't get very far.

I wonder what people will say about tables like Gorgar or Pin*Bot.

Ugh...Gorgar....

Brian Clark said:

Totan is a mean table in real life, though. From what I played of one, the Pinball Arcade physics seemed close.

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As I said above, I too played it in real life a couple of times, but I can't remember it being THAT speedy and THAT bouncy as it here. However there's a point in what someone else here in this thread said. This is a game that is 15 years old and the tables that you occasionally see out there aren't in mint condition anymore... while Farsight uses newly restored machines as a template as their games. And I never got the chance to play a properly new TOTAN table. But still... I never witnessed a ball action as insanely speedy/bouncy as it is here on a real life pinball table in general. I mean... on some occasion I even saw the ball bouncing out of a return lane just to go down the outlane. And no nudging in the world could prevent it from doing so.

Serenseven said:

Direct genie shots: I've had a genie shot go SDTM, but I've never experienced a genie shot go direct to an outlane. I guess a really bad bounce off the lamp could do it, but for the lamp to be in the required position, it'd block the genie shot in the first place. Where are you taking this shot from when that happens?

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Ah, sorry. I wasn't too clear about that one. I didn't mean a direct shot from the genie, but a shot from the genie going to somewhere else (slingshot, lamp, target, whatever) and bouncing off from there directly into the outlane. And since the ball at times tends to take off like a rocket these things happen within the blink of an eye, and I'm literally talking about a fraction of a second. Too fast to see/recognize what's going on, let alone even react to it. Well, at least for me. (And the shot doesn't necessarily have to come from the genie, I just took it as an example, I just as well have said "ramp x" or whatever instead.)

But thanks for all the advices and hints! I'm going to try to follow them the next time I play.

I have to add though that I only have this problem with TOTAN. I do find the ball acting OTT on the other launch tables as well but it doesn't bother me too much on them.

Not only will this improve your control, but after you master this - that first extra ball at 6 tiger loops? P'shaw! Child's play. You've essentially turned TotAN into a 4-ball game at that point (or 5-ball if you're at the point where an 8M score is also child's play). And unlike the real tables, you're not paying for each game and you're not hogging the machine while you practice, so have at it.

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This is the most motivating thing I've read in a while. Thanks!

ScotchYeti said:

I wonder what people will say about tables like Gorgar or Pin*Bot.

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Ironically I never had that much of a problem with those two. *lol* I mean, yeah, they're hard and challenging... but playable and very satisfying. I love these tables and can't wait for the re-release.

Pin*Bot is great if challenging, Gorgar however I find a chore to play, from the straightforward ruleset to the art down to the annoying heartbeat. The easy drains are just the cherry on the smelly top.