Should Pro Mode Settings Be Saved After You Exit/Reenter Game?

I'm noticing when I make changes in Pro mode, those changes only stay in effect while I'm playing that title. If I exit out of the table and go back in, Operator mode is again off and all the changes revert back to Farsight's default settings.

Is this right? Do I really have to keep going back into Pro mode after restarting a table to change all the settings again each time?

rennervision said:

I'm noticing when I make changes in Pro mode, those changes only stay in effect while I'm playing that title. If I exit out of the table and go back in, Operator mode is again off and all the changes revert back to Farsight's default settings.

Is this right? Do I really have to keep going back into Pro mode after restarting a table to change all the settings again each time?

Click to expand...

It should save your settings. That sounds like a bug. I'll look into it.

Mike Reitmeyer said:

It should save your settings. That sounds like a bug. I'll look into it.

Click to expand...

It seems it doesn't save any bookkeeping stats either.

I would assume this is also due to the same bug.

Curious if anyone using Pro Mode can actually keep their settings? For me, Operator Mode continues to toggle to Off when I exit a table.

rennervision said:

Curious if anyone using Pro Mode can actually keep their settings? For me, Operator Mode continues to toggle to Off when I exit a table.

Click to expand...

Pro Mode has always been like that. It'll turn itself off when you exit the table, but if you go and turn the Operator Mode back on, you should see the DMD go through the loading sequence and when it comes back it will be as you left it, with settings and audit data retained. I've been playing Twilight Zone Pro for ages now on iOS and it hasn't lost the data yet, but I still have to remember to turn on the Operator Mode each session. Now if you've been doing that and your settings/data don't come back, than that's definitely a bug.

It would be nice if a table would stay in Pro Mode until the player turned it off - and it would be really nice if there was a visual indicator at the table start screen (maybe the yellow START button could read START PRO) for which state the table was in.

Hmmm. That's interesting. I would be OK with that, but for instance - I keep having to go into Scared Stiff to turn off family mode. Family mode stays off only until I exit the table. Wonder why mine is acting like this?

I looked at mine and the settings are not being saved even if you just turn operator mode off and on in the same game of scared stiff.
This is definitely a bug.

Sean DonCarlos said:

It would be nice if a table would stay in Pro Mode until the player turned it off - and it would be really nice if there was a visual indicator at the table start screen (maybe the yellow START button could read START PRO) for which state the table was in.

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+10.000.000
Just realized this as well. This would help soooo much.

Didn't realize that there are actually two table states. It is a cool feature though, if you could easily switch it.

And family mode (and other settings without effect on balancing) should be exclude from sanctioning.

+1, staying in pro mode until the user switches it off again would be great!

The way TPA works, I can understand Pro mode turning off every time. It goes back to the defaults to play competitively with everyone online to compare scores and whatnot. In Pro mode, your scores only matter locally and aren't uploaded to the leaderboards.

As long as it saves the settings you do set when using Pro mode, I don't have an issue with it resetting to default and having to flip the Pro switch to get back to it. But if it forces you to set all that stuff again, something is wrong.

While there are a lot of settings in pro mode that could drastically effect your table scores, and that's why it turns off online scores, and resets to standard mode every time you boot the table, there is one setting I wish you could set that wouldn't invalidate your scores. Some tables have a "family mode" setting. It just adds a little more swearing or raunchy comments during gameplay. The only two I know for a fact that have them in TPA is Elvira and Terminator. I'm sure there are more, but I only know of those two. I don't see why that setting would have any bearing on your table scores. We should be able to turn that on or off without being punished for using pro mode.

Problem is it doesn't reset to standard fairsight settings in my case. I turned off family mode in medieval madness a few weeks ago to see the dragons head get cut off. The game obviously saved this. Had a great game yesterday and nothing counted towards goals etc., which was quite the bummer. I checked, had to turn on operator, open coin door, and family mode was still off (factory setting). Fairsight setting is fm on.

I am not shure what the reset button in the coin door does, reset to fairsight or to factory settings? They are not the same! So it is really hard to get back to the settings that are valid for leaderboards, if you don't remember which settings on which table you messed with.

So it would be great if anyone would clarify this and / or there would be some indication if the table is in altered mode or not.

And family mode should definetly be excluded from highscore ban. Elviras "dirty talk" can be motivating for some people, but this is a legal way to boost scores I guess.

mpad said:

Problem is it doesn't reset to standard fairsight settings in my case. I turned off family mode in medieval madness a few weeks ago to see the dragons head get cut off. The game obviously saved this. Had a great game yesterday and nothing counted towards goals etc., which was quite the bummer. I checked, had to turn on operator, open coin door, and family mode was still off (factory setting). Fairsight setting is fm on.

I am not shure what the reset button in the coin door does, reset to fairsight or to factory settings? They are not the same! So it is really hard to get back to the settings that are valid for leaderboards, if you don't remember which settings on which table you messed with.

So it would be great if anyone would clarify this and / or there would be some indication if the table is in altered mode or not.

And family mode should definetly be excluded from highscore ban. Elviras "dirty talk" can be motivating for some people, but this is a legal way to boost scores I guess.

Click to expand...

Reset in the coin door menu resets everything back to the original state (settings used in non-pro mode) before you changed anything in the coin door. This is in case a setting you set breaks something, it's an easy way to get it back to a known working state.

Unfortunately there is no way to know that the only setting changed is family mode, so leaderboards and goals are locked out to make it fair to everyone. Also setting changes mess with goal detection in some cases. Which is why we just disabled them.

Btw, I believe the animation of the dragon decapitation is in family mode as well. So you don't need to activate Pro to see it.

Mike Reitmeyer said:

Reset in the coin door menu resets everything back to the original state (settings used in non-pro mode) before you changed anything in the coin door. This is in case a setting you set breaks something, it's an easy way to get it back to a known working state.

Unfortunately there is no way to know that the only setting changed is family mode, so leaderboards and goals are locked out to make it fair to everyone. Also setting changes mess with goal detection in some cases. Which is why we just disabled them.

Btw, I believe the animation of the dragon decapitation is in family mode as well. So you don't need to activate Pro to see it.

Click to expand...

Thanks for clarifying! To bad you can't play with FM off at some tables, but at least you convinced me it can't be helped. I think I can live with that.

So the reset button should revert to FS Standard settings = leaderboards and goals enabled.
I tested this on three tables I know I changed. Here are the results
1) Medieval Madness - reset: Family Mode = ON, and yes, you actually can see the decapitation (still wonder where I got that idea)
2) Attack from Mars - reset: Family Mode = ON, OK
3) Scared Stiff - reset: Family Mode = OFF (factory setting), tried 3 times. Is this Standard FS Setting? This would't make sense, would it? But maybe I'm wrong again.


EDIT: I just found that post http://digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/7317-Family-Mode-default-setting-seems-to-have-been-changed
now I'am all confused again. why the hell is it possible for Scared Stiff to have family mode OFF by default and not for AfM and MM?
hope I don't wake any sleeping dogs here.


It still would be great if the table icon or menu would somehow indicate if leaderboards and goals are locked or not.
Saving two states for easy swiching would be killer...

mpad said:

Thanks for clarifying! To bad you can't play with FM off at some tables, but at least you convinced me it can't be helped. I think I can live with that.

So the reset button should revert to FS Standard settings = leaderboards and goals enabled.
I tested this on three tables I know I changed. Here are the results
1) Medieval Madness - reset: Family Mode = ON, and yes, you actually can see the decapitation (still wonder where I got that idea)
2) Attack from Mars - reset: Family Mode = ON, OK
3) Scared Stiff - reset: Family Mode = OFF (factory setting), tried 3 times. Is this Standard FS Setting? This would't make sense, would it? But maybe I'm wrong again.


EDIT: I just found that post http://digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/7317-Family-Mode-default-setting-seems-to-have-been-changed
now I'am all confused again. why the hell is it possible for Scared Stiff to have family mode OFF by default and not for AfM and MM?
hope I don't wake any sleeping dogs here.


It still would be great if the table icon or menu would somehow indicate if leaderboards and goals are locked or not.
Saving two states for easy swiching would be killer...

Click to expand...

Learderboards/Goals are only enabled when you turn Operator Mode to Off. If it's set to On, we disable those, reguardless of what settings you choose.

In normal game play, Scared Stiff, Family Mode is on (I just checked). It appears when I made the Coin Door reset state, the factory setting of Off was used.

Either way, if you play with Operator Mode On, the goals/leaderboards will be disabled.

Learderboards/Goals are only enabled when you turn Operator Mode to Off. If it's set to On, we disable those, reguardless of what settings you choose.

Click to expand...

NOW I get it!!! I feel a little bit stupid, but the explanation when you turn on pro mode was kind of misleading. Allright, that makes sense and is like having two states to switch between. So I can keep FM OFF for all tables, and just disable Pro mode when I want to score goals.

In normal game play, Scared Stiff, Family Mode is on (I just checked). It appears when I made the Coin Door reset state, the factory setting of Off was used.

Click to expand...

Why don't you just repeat that "mistake" for all the other tables who have been censored. Would be an easy way to switch between FM mode on and off then...

mpad said:

Why don't you just repeat that "mistake" for all the other tables who have been censored. Would be an easy way to switch between FM mode on and off then...

Click to expand...

Scared Stiff is the only table that you need to play in Pro Mode to utilize non-Family Mode however. The other tables that have family mode have it disabled in the default (non-Pro) state.

I'm a stat freak. The way pro mode works makes the reason i bought pro mode tables (for all the bookkeeping stats etc) completely moot. I would love to see all those stats after months of play, avg ball time, game time, extra balls given etc. The way it's setup now all the bookkeeping and stats are useless. So much so, that I stopped
buying the pro tables. If it can't be done with out resetting maybe Farsight coud do it some manual way, if promode is active, have it dump the stats to a file at the end of the game that can be manipulated to cure this problem. Anyway props to the Farsight guys, I'm sure it seems thankless sometimes, I appreciate your efforts...

netizen said:

Scared Stiff is the only table that you need to play in Pro Mode to utilize non-Family Mode however. The other tables that have family mode have it disabled in the default (non-Pro) state.

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Ah...but...I thought I read sth about MM had to be in family mode by default for rating reasons.
And why would that make sense to disalbe FM in non-pro (default), and enalble it in pro???
Whatever! It just messes with my head.

So the thing is that you can never know what the default "non-pro' settings really are, beacause if you enter the pro menu to enter coin door for checking, some settings are miraculously changed already.

I'll just try to remember that...or...as I don't know the difference for non obvoius FM censoring either, just try very hard to forget about it.

Mmmbacon said:

I'm a stat freak. The way pro mode works makes the reason i bought pro mode tables (for all the bookkeeping stats etc) completely moot. I would love to see all those stats after months of play, avg ball time, game time, extra balls given etc. The way it's setup now all the bookkeeping and stats are useless.

Click to expand...

I'll have to check when I get home, but I'm pretty sure those statistics are collected. At the very least it collects enough to be able to start reflexing the replay score after about 50 games or so.

You do have to remember to put the table back in Pro mode before looking at the statistics, or it will show you the values from the saved ROM state used in normal mode.