Official Poll For New Difficulty Mode

OK, so when I saw that TAF gold edition had its own leaderboard, this reminded me how much each table desperately needs a separate leaderboard for a tournament style difficulty setting. I have to be honest that I don't play nearly as much TPA as I used to because many of the tables become a marathon and seem to go on forever, and I'm not even that great of a player, but shorter game times always keep me coming back, while the marathons leave me looking at the clock wondering when it will end.

We had asked Bobby about in the past (a few times, heh), and we'd always been told it's something they want to do, but that's about it. Well, the TAF gold leaderboard persuaded me to go out on a limb and ask about it one more time and here's the response I received:

"Adding the gold ROM and a second leaderboard was done in anticipation of adding tournament difficulty settings and more leaderboards.

Adding the ROMs and leaderboards is not simple and we'll have to do it one table at a time.

They'll have different nudge strengths, physics, collisions, and ROM settings.

Physics/collisions settings I'm planning on:
More sensitive and stronger slingshots
Steeper table angle
More sensitive tilt
Less nudge
Wider outlanes

Do you want to run a poll on the fans site to get people to vote for the top 8 tables for us to add a tournament difficulty setting for? Once we get this in, we'll have a tournament featuring those 8 tables."

Woohoo!

Be on the lookout for the poll soon, and PLEASE vote for the marathon tables that really need this treatment. I'm looking at you Twilight Zone, Scared Stiff, Funhouse, etc.

Disclaimer:

This will NOT affect the default difficulty of the game. It will be a seperate mode!

Poll is now up!

Any one-shot games are currently out of the question for me. They're already marathon games of their own (*ahem* Bride of Pin*Bot)

Went with:

Twilight Zone (not very punishing)
Creature (vacuum ramps; steep Jackpot values)
Scared Stiff (just too easy in general)
FunHouse (long ball times)
Monster Bash (long ball times)
Terminator 2 (Extra Ball-fest; might as well do it before license expires)
Attack From Mars (multiple RTU's)
Medieval Madness (multiple BftK's)

I'm also looking at Addams Family, Ripley's, and No Good Gofers; hopefully they'll be in the next poll. They'll need the treatment as well.

Honestly don't know why Cirqus isn't in the poll. Needed a steeper angle too.

My picks:

Twilight Zone
Scared Stiff (UGH! Especially with the lag on this table on the PC version when running on my laptop)
Ripley's Believe It Or Not
Junk Yard
Cactus Canyon
Attack From Mars
No Good Gofers
Medieval Madness

Note: I've noticed a lot of my picks, and probably a lot of peoples choice of tables, will be mode based tables (the ones where you collect modes to reach a wizard mode). I don't know if this is coincidence or just because it's simple to understand on these table the shots required that it becomes easy after a while. I bet it's a combination of both and the physics of earlier tables to. Just a thought.

I picked:

TZ (because c'mon, it's supposed to be a ball buster)
Creature (all the extra balls and a too easy ramp)
Scared Stiff (it just completely lacks challenge and is an endurance contest)
TAF (deserves a proper tournament mode and to be every bit as tough as TZ should be)
RBION (too easy to collect extra balls on, and ball bounce is way too predictable)
Funhouse (even though I prefer Whirlwind and Earthshaker, this one wins in the too easy category compared to IRL)
Cactus Canyon (a great tourney table that needs those settings and a few less extra balls)
NGG (again, ruined by all the extra balls)

Monster Bash almost made the cut, but then so did a couple others. My choices were more about tables I frequently see in tourneys, and tables where too many extra balls ruin the fun.

poor tz the red headed stepchild of tpa...well least we know whats gonna be done first 10 votes as of posting from ten users overall

High Speed needs it, too. Something needs to be done about being able to sit on the flipper and have the ball stop after it comes off either of the two habitrails. Makes it too damn easy. I've never seen anyone IRL roll over the scores on a HS, but I've done it multiple times on the virtual one.

Maybe rather than more sensitive tilt, the nudge buttons just move the table less? I'd like to see this overall.

Voted
Scared stiff; can you tilt it in a 45 degree angle that would make it challenging
TZ, would be nice to see this in punisher mode.
Funhouse, you told me too!
Attack from Mars; would play more often if I knew I wouldn't be stuck in game for too long.
Black Hole. Played it in the wild during the nineties and know I had a harder time keeping the ball alive.
MM: Played this the most but for some reason can not really stand this table now (think it is the music, better turn that off) but if it got harder maybe that will revitalize it!
Cactus Canyon: Seems like a popular tournament table, or maybe it was just a fluke that those I saw included this one.

Go go Farsight!

- Twilight Zone
- Scared Stiff
- Ripley's Believe It or Not
- Black Hole
- Bride of Pin*Bot
- Attack from Mars
- Black Knight 2000
- Medieval Madness

Jeff Strong said:

Poll is now up!

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thanx

voted obviously for Attack from Mars and Twilight Zone.
But also for Cue-Ball Wizard and No Good Gofers
These 4 !

But actually when you look at the votes, it's clear that people are not voting because it's too easy: they vote for their best pinball table. Clearly.

All-time no-brainer:
TZ. The poster child for taking a tough real-world table and making it a joke to play.

Regular no-brainers:
Scared Stiff. Please can it just be steeper? I could loop the ramps in my sleep. I probably have.
Black Hole. I can see how this table might be fun - if it were more difficult.
Funhouse. TZ-lite.

Best of the rest:
CftBL. Just fix the left ramp and make the center lane a bit more dangerous and all will be well. KISS is a rhythm shot you can spam IRL as well, it's a design flaw of the table in general, so you'd have to fiddle with the ROM settings to stop it giving out EBs after a while. Or ever.
TAF: Steeper with fewer/no EBs, and make those kickouts more random. See how kickouts are handled in Party Zone, SST, POTO. I thought a corner had been turned in S4; it seems I was wrong.
Bride: Just turn off EBs and make it steeper. Games are long enough as it is.
RBION: It was this or NGG, but NGG needs so much more than rules tweaks to make it playable.

Honorable mentions:
WH20: It's not on the list, but the Lost Mine kickout needs to be less predictable.
NGG: See above, but there's a lot more that needs doing than just rules/physics tweaks.

Don't need it right now:
AFM: EBs are semi-limited; with the only repeatable one being Video Mode. Ball length can get ridiculous, but that can happen on a real one too.
Cactus Canyon: Not sure why this is in the list, and EBs are strictly limited. Nothing repeatable.
Fish Tales: You want to make Fish Tales harder?!

wizard33 said:

<snip>
But actually when you look at the votes, it's clear that people are not voting because it's too easy: they vote for their best pinball table. Clearly.

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I don't know about that. I would vote on Centaur, Black Night otherwise. MM I just don't play for some reason and Scared stiff is not fun, whether this is because it is just so easy it gets boring or a combination of this and the table itself I don't feel I really got an opinion for myself.

But maybe you where pointing out something else? Or maybe it is as you say and only the posters voted what they truly felt needed it. eh... rambling...

I refuse to vote. All tables should be tuned as close to reality as possible, that's what a pinball simulation is all about. I like hard and brutal tables, that makes you come back for more. Same with video games, all these old school games are simple in concept but hard to master, that is what a game should be all about. I don't understand what is fun about a pinball table where it is hard to loose a ball, it should be the other way around.

Am I the only one who finds Medieval Madness plenty difficult enough as is?

says the guy who increased zaccaria from 3 to five balls to extend his admittly short games! lol

the point is we were asked for a batch of the FIRST eight.

two thngs everyine must consider

1. what needs it the most 2. what people also wanna play, if the effort put into the first 8 doesnt pay off why do the rest? lets not get into tpa being tuned easy youve know this for 3 years now and still come back for more



edit - speaking to night lol

edit2 - we all know a tournament setting will onky appeal to the top ten percent of users the majority are perfectly fine with tpa as it and would get very angry if they couldnt reach their pervious scores in a stantard game. 80 percent of the userbase is just fine and dandy with how things are. surely you dont think we represent most users? they dont have time to get into pinball debates, they justw anna play a few casual fun games a week.

Sean DonCarlos said:

Am I the only one who finds Medieval Madness plenty difficult enough as is?

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id say mm isabit middle of the road as far as tuning goes alittle easier than the real thing but not by much, but then its been years since i played anything real

Sean DonCarlos said:

Am I the only one who finds Medieval Madness plenty difficult enough as is?

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I sort of agree, but I played this a ton in college in a campus arcade and I know I never even cracked 100M.

EldarOfSuburbia said:

Scared Stiff. Please can it just be steeper? I could loop the ramps in my sleep. I probably have.

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Scared Stiff is meant to be easy and loopable as a real table also. You have to do more than just loop ramps to progress, especially when the Crate starts needing dozens of hits. Scared Stiff needs bug-fixing for the crate and lost balls more than it needs difficulty tuning.

EldarOfSuburbia said:

Black Hole. I can see how this table might be fun - if it were more difficult.

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Sean DonCarlos said:

Am I the only one who finds Medieval Madness plenty difficult enough as is?

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These are the same problem (also Scared Stiff): slap saves are too easy with TPA's overpowered nudging, and these tables mostly only drain in the center with few ways to send the ball towards the outlanes. If you're not good at slap saving, each of these will be considerably harder. But if you are, it's almost like you're playing with no drains on the table at all.

Shaneus said:

Maybe rather than more sensitive tilt, the nudge buttons just move the table less? I'd like to see this overall.

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Yes, that. We cry "More sensitive tilt" but that's not really workable with digital controls. If a single press tilts, well then you can't ever really nudge at all except once or twice per ball by tilt warnings. If it takes multiple presses to tilt, well just catch and wait after one nudge. We need the power of the nudges nerfed downward significantly.

As usual, Pro Pinball gets the nudge system just about perfect.

night said:

I refuse to vote. All tables should be tuned as close to reality as possible, that's what a pinball simulation is all about. I like hard and brutal tables, that makes you come back for more. Same with video games, all these old school games are simple in concept but hard to master, that is what a game should be all about. I don't understand what is fun about a pinball table where it is hard to loose a ball, it should be the other way around.

Click to expand...

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totally agree; I prefer challenging tables over weak tables any day.