Pinball FX3 released - first impressions

psykil said:

How do I make this young lady stop screeching at me every time I play the pinballs?

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Marry her slap her or buy her coveralls expensive coctails

She's still there at the end of a table match to tell you when you earned upgrades - that's not an bad thing right?

First impressions: very wonky UI. Hard to find anything. Not very intuitive at all. When I think I go to my pins, I seem to be applying for cab support. Stupid popups I have to click through. I guess I'll get used to it, not a big problem as I'm not in it for the UI but the pin playing. But still I was surprised I expect better from zen. Tables look nice I suppose but really not that much of a difference. I couldn't tell you what's different specifically and I probably wouldn't have noticed if I didn't know it had been upated. Physics seem smoother but I'm not even sure physics have been changed lol. Maybe it was a while ago since I played fx and my playing style has changed.
Biggest let down was the lack of custom online vs. It's what Farsight has failed to do and it was pinball fx's chance to show us how it's done. Well they certainly didn't. I heard they might add that but the topic of this thread was first impressions and my impression was surprise and disappointment.
Custom tournaments is fun I guess. As a novelty.
The levelling up system and perks, like better multiball scores and better popbumper scores is to me plain stupid, a total waste of manhours that could have been spent coding more important stuff. Like Online multiplayer games. How hard can this be? Every game and their mother have online real time multiplayer possibilities, how hard can it be to do an online pin multiplayer. Like at least do a a 4 player game where you take turns, or play simultaneously and you have like the other peoples DMD displayed alongside your own so you see their score and whats going on. This is pinball and it's been there since like the beginning of pinball almost but still not in digital year 2017. But they crammed in all kinds of useless RPG style crap that is just bringing the game down for me. Yuck. It feels like they're totally dissing pinball I almost feel offended.

The new pack is a loooong booooooore. First game ever ever of back to the future took foreeeveer and I played the wiz mode twice before caling it quits. At least I started figuring out what to do, kind of, cause E.T. is also loooong playing and you just want it to end it eventually, the difference is I was as clueless to what to do after the game as I was before. I guess I could check the rules and I guess I will, but yeah wall of text and I just wanted to jump in and play. The E.T. music puts you to sleep and the voice acting is terrible. At least bttf is funny in how bad it is. Haven't played jaws yet. The rest of the pins are the same old so yeah that was that.
The loss of south park is absolutely not worth it. Fx2 way better than fx3 because of that.

At least it makes Farsight look better they're not the only ones not competent enough to pull off online vs.

I think the upgraded play options, the free importation of all prevoiusly purchased tables, and the expanded online options make FX3 a truly excellent sequel. It is beyomd what my expectation actually was. For example, I had already decided I had spent enough for one lifetime on pinball games, and was just going to play the TPA and ZEN stuff I had bought previosly. But now, I am going out to buy a new PC just because of FX3. It runs OK on my old Pentium with integrated graphics, with a "just barely" too low frame rate at resolution 1280X720. Go up to 1920X1080, and we get a slight but choppier yet. Playable, but not ideal. Looking at a new tower now actually. Cheers!

I have to agree about the new tables in general, they are not the strongest efforts from Zen, who have had a really great track record recently (Bethesda, Women of Power, and Alien packs have all been excellent).

- Back to the Future - the modes are definitely on the easy side, I finished the mini wizard mode for 1955 on the first ball of my first game. Seems like ball saver activates all the time when you go down an outlane, which is nice but keeps game times long. Really long player. The shots are just okay.
- Jaws - right now my favorite of the three. It's harder overall, activating a mode is on a timer so you can do a bunch of work to light the mode start cup and then you only have 15 seconds to get the ball in there, it's a tough angle. But satisfying when you hit it. There are a lot of shots and interesting timing. Still unpacking this one.
- E.T. - out of the gate, this just feels weird. There are so many ramps and loop shots at different angles, some you can hit from lower flipper only, some upper only, some from either. Kind of awkward flow. I agree with the poster above that it seems a little too easy, long game times.

"It looks like you're going to play some pinball! Would you like help with that?"

First. Thing. I. Turned. Off.

Also I wholeheartedly agree that sticking access to all your currently owned tables in a nondescript box in the bottom left corner is not exactly a winner.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

First impressions, I thought I was NOT going to like the upgrades and xp and just stick to the classic mode (which does have a separate leaderboard). Turns out I do like "earning" upgrades and using them. In tournaments you are playing people who have the upgrades active, and it encourages you to upgrade that table as well to level the playfield and use different "upgrade" strategies to win.

For example I was playing a 1 ball archer tournament and the high scores were around 4mil. I upgraded the skill shot to 5mil (starts at 2) and boom 1st place (also ended with a 16mil score for good measure).

DA5ID said:

For example I was playing a 1 ball archer tournament and the high scores were around 4mil. I upgraded the skill shot to 5mil (starts at 2) and boom 1st place (also ended with a 16mil score for good measure).

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Wow sounds very exciting everything I ever wished for in a pin game

DA5ID said:

She's still there at the end of a table match to tell you when you earned upgrades - that's not an bad thing right?

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Her voice is like cancer in my ears.

Latest update on Steam has broken it. Just like Zaccaria's last update broke the controller options. While Fathom seems to be okay so far, it remains to be seen what other TPA tables this release will break.

Back to the Future is really fun for a while. I like that you can stack all the multiballs together for some insane action. But that's about as deep as it goes. Essentially the different time periods are modes, each with three objecives and a little frenzy afterwards to power up the Delorian and jet off to the next set. The objectives themselves aren't really that interesting and boil down to "hit this X times" and then move on. The different periods are pretty much interchangeable with each being essentially a reskin with a different flavor on the targets and toys and different callouts. This is where not having access to the source material really hurts this table. I think the VA for Marty is actually really well done. Doc Brown is really not. Every time you hit an objective shot they call out a line from the movie. It gets old fast. This is a fun table but I don't think it has much staying power. I would've liked to see more differentiation between the different times, like even major changes in the playfield.

Jaws is excellent. The missions are fun and varied, and each has two sides to it - Quint mode and shark mode. Quint modes are started by shooting ramps and targets and shark modes start by completing inlane letters. You can start either separately or stack the complementary shark mode onto any running Quint mode and then decide who to play for. I've played about ten games and haven't seen half of them yet. Quint's VA is perfect. Raging Sea is brilliant. I can't shoot the shark saucer to save my life.

ET is another one of those loopy horseshoe crossramp tables in the vein of Marvel Champions and Rogue One. I can't believe Zoltran Vari didn't design it. I played it a couple times and really don't have any interest in returning. Elliot is worse than Doc Brown and the FX3 lady combined.

As for FX3 itself I like what they've done. I think the challenges, upgrades, and mastery points do what they're meant to do, which is give you things to aim for other than just points as well as new ways to play tables you might have gotten bored with. Deciding which bonuses to use on a particular table adds a bit of strategy. I haven't tried any of the multiplayer stuff so I can't comment on that. Practice mode is something I've always wanted. Purists will of course hate all of this.

Gameplay-wise, their flippers continue to feel really.... heavy? clunky? My fingers are always sore after I play Zen. Backhands seem more difficult but I might just be used to TPA. The already ridiculous nudging has been cranked up even further. You can "nudge" a caught ball from one raised flipper to the other. Bangbacks still abound.

switch3flip said:

Wow sounds very exciting everything I ever wished for in a pin game

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I get your point, I was thinking it was cooler than it sounds from a strategy point of view. I've won in tournament play just because I knew more about the table than the other guy - like skill shots in congo or indy. Whacking the ball is fun but solid knowledge on how to get the most points has its place. Like when you are playing someone really good and they are on ball 3 and are behind and they pause for a bit and map the exact shots they need to beat you. (all you can do is say "oh ****" and hope they drain and their bonus points don't get you).

switch3flip said:

At least it makes Farsight look better they're not the only ones not competent enough to pull off online vs.

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They didn't even try, which doesn't necessarily mean they are not compentent enough.

DA5ID said:

I get your point, I was thinking it was cooler than it sounds from a strategy point of view. I've won in tournament play just because I knew more about the table than the other guy - like skill shots in congo or indy. Whacking the ball is fun but solid knowledge on how to get the most points has its place. Like when you are playing someone really good and they are on ball 3 and are behind and they pause for a bit and map the exact shots they need to beat you. (all you can do is say "oh ****" and hope they drain and their bonus points don't get you).

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Ok fair enough you got a point there too.

Xanija said:

They didn't even try, which doesn't necessarily mean they are not compentent enough.

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It's only been beta tested for over a year without them getting it to work, surely you can't have missed this.
http://digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/11744-Head-to-Head-Public-Beta

switch3flip said:

It's only been beta tested for over a year without them getting it to work, surely you can't have missed this.
http://digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/11744-Head-to-Head-Public-Beta

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I was talking about Zen. I'm fully aware of FarSight's attempts. I've spent quite a few hours in testing the beta, if you look into the thread you linked.

Xanija said:

I was talking about Zen. I'm fully aware of FarSight's attempts. I've spent quite a few hours in testing the beta, if you look into the thread you linked.

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Ok sorry my bad, was a misunderstanding.

Zen has said they're still working on getting vs implemented and fx3 will get updated to have the feature.

But you're right, part of me dismissing zen is also based on an assumption that vs is a fairly big priority for them to launch, but I could be totally wrong and they might not give a **** about what customers want. For me it's just mind boggling not to have the feature if you are capable of implementing it.

switch3flip said:

Ok sorry my bad, was a misunderstanding.

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No problem.

switch3flip said:

Zen has said they're still working on getting vs implemented and fx3 will get updated to have the feature.

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If they ever release it, I'm sure it will work.

At the moment I'm quite happy with the new features. There's sure a lot of potential for other tournament modes.

I’m not sure I like the idea of upgrades, but hey bttf is fun...but I start getting sloppy on long games, I’m a huge fan of the movies and there’s much more variety than the real one. Maybe next they will tie in with ready player one...a fun little read, trailer for the movie was awful....not even spleiberg can make people look good in vr....

I checked it out quickly and I really don't see a big difference to fx2. Besides they got a really bad UI, but it seems u gotta have this as a Pinball game today.