What FX3 Tournament Settings Should Zen Add?

shutyertrap

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Staff member
Mar 14, 2012
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Those of us that play and create custom tournaments in Zen's FX3 have wishes for settings we'd like added. Let's throw down some ideas, pros and cons, and then I'll compile a nice list I can present to Zen. Here's some that come to mind...

1. Last score earned is your tournament score - You've earned a good score, it's put you into the top five, but it was tough getting it. Do you try for better, knowing that you might get a worse score and that will become your new mark? While this mainly is viewed as a request for those unlimited entry tourneys, it also would be an interesting wrinkle to 3 or 5 entry tourneys where scores can be tight.

2. List number of attempts next to name on leaderboard - Ever wonder how many attempts it took someone else on the leaderboard to get the score they got? Are you in a limited attempt tourney and wondering if you should save your remaining entries until someone else beats you, well now you can see if anyone even has any left to do it with!

3. Average score over 'x' amount of attempts - Everyone gets say 5 attempts and the average of those 5 scores equals your leaderboard score. This encourages multiple tries in tournaments while also eliminating those fluke high scores.

4. Bracket system - This one is a total pipe dream of mine, but would be so much fun and also encourage people to play tables outside the tourney system. You'd pick the table and how many players up to say 32. You could decide if it's a single, double, or quad bracket. Players are seeded based on their top score in the single player game. You then have 24 hours (or whatever time set) to play your match, winner moves on. This continues until their is a final match. All other tournament settings could be in play too, so it could be 1 ball, survival, 5 minutes, with upgrades, etc.

5. PinGolf - I have never played in one of these, but they sound like fun. Those in the know can correct me if I'm wrong, but it takes place over multiple tables and revolves around reaching a certain score with as few balls as possible. Yes? Please fill me in someone! But I'd love for that to be a mode choice.

6. Multiple table tourney - This would take some serious effort on Zen's part, to create the software to handle this. The idea is you pick say 4 tables, and there are leaderboards for each table. Points are scored on how where you place for each table, which ultimately creates the winner of the tournament. Essentially it's what many IFPA tournaments do without requiring any sort of playoff.

7. Head 2 Head - On the PS3 with FX2, you could play with 3 other people at the same time, viewing their score right below yours as you played. I don't know why that never made it over to Steam, or why Zen didn't put it in FX3, but it was fun for 5 minute battles and score rushes.



So what else would you all like to see? Thoughts on what is listed?
 

Pinballwiz45b

Well-known member
Aug 12, 2012
3,677
33
Head to Head is needed ASAP. The current Matchup needs refined.

If Multiple Table Tournaments, then tournament settings are needed, no further questions. Brackets might also do well with this given how many pinball tournaments use this format.

PinGolf is interesting -- I think that's what it is?

#1 is very intriguing. Harkens back to PAPA qualifying, I believe.

Average Score really doesn't make any sense. If you do well then do poorly, then you have a score that you didn't really achieve.
 

Gorgias32

New member
Jan 14, 2016
436
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These are great ideas.

I have seen pingolf can be run a few different ways (on Youtube) - probably the most common is that a specific score is selected that is a reasonable challenge to reach, the machine is set to 5 ball play, and players try to reach the score in as few balls as possible. If they fail to reach the target score on 5 balls they get a 6 for the table. It runs over the course of a number of tables, and the winner is the one with the fewest balls at the end. It's a fun way to play because even if you tank a table and get a crummy score, you could "hole-in-one" on the next one and be right back in it.

I've seen a variation on head-to-head where there's a table-specific goal set (i.e. start "trolls" in MM, or destroy the first saucer in AFM, etc.), and the player who activates it in the shortest amount of time wins the match. This is a fun way to have potentially really quick head-to-head matches, and it's not that hard to pick out a challenge or two from individual tables. This is probably not something I would request from Zen in their next batch of multiplayer updates, but would be something fun to see down the line.
 

wilbers

Member
Aug 8, 2018
569
0
Lots of interesting ideas. I'd never head of the concept of PinGolf before; in a similar vein there could also be get a particular score in as fast as possible time (on 1 table, or multiple tables).

Last score is your tournament score sounds like it has potential, think I like it better than the suggestion in the other thread that first go you get 100% of your score, 2nd go its 99%, 3rd go its 98% etc.
 

Gorgias32

New member
Jan 14, 2016
436
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Good point, it would probably be a relatively easy thing for Zen to implement to have a timed "get to score X" head-to-head- they already have triggers fire when you reach a specific score in the star challenges. Easier to implement, at least, than pin-golf, which would require counting balls, potentially across a set of tables.

I also second the vote to have an option to set up tournaments where only the last score is counted. At this point, I generally just put one game in to each tournament (unless I completely tank my first game), but having only your last score count would add a real sense of risk/reward, which is, after all, one of the great things about pinball.
 

Crazy Newt

Member
Dec 2, 2012
351
12
I'm not sure how strict any emulation is being done, but it would be interesting to have a pingolf version where the player could use up to 12 balls to complete a score/hole. There could even be par levels. It could be a great idea for a digital pinball machine based on a golf theme. Though, it would be very challenging to come up with a scoring system that continued to make things interesting and prevented an above average player from getting a hole in one every time.
 

DA5ID

New member
Aug 27, 2014
916
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I have been in a lot of pin-golf tournaments with both scores and "activate a feature" as goals (even mixed in the same tournament).
some of the goals off the top of my head
lock a ball in banzai run
reach warp nine in star trek
start a particular mission in simpsons pinball party
lots of start multi ball on various pins.
basically each has the potential of a hole in 1 but its frustrating (and hilarious) when you flub and can't get it with 5 balls (you are scored a shameful 6)
 

msilcommand

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Mar 22, 2019
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I would like the ability to create at least 3 tournaments, and a quicker/easier interface to sort tournaments.

I also don't think tournaments on "Normal" mode with upgrades should earn anything. Maybe something arbitrary like stickers for the newbs who play in normal mode.

Also, tournament scores should be saved to your Single Player table stats. I crushed a massive score in a classic tourn for MM, but it doesn't show up on my Single Player stats for that table under classic mode. It should.
 
Last edited:

Nomorestalker

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Feb 19, 2013
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6. Multiple table tourney - This would take some serious effort on Zen's part, to create the software to handle this. The idea is you pick say 4 tables, and there are leaderboards for each table. Points are scored on how where you place for each table, which ultimately creates the winner of the tournament. Essentially it's what many IFPA tournaments do without requiring any sort of playoff.

hands down #6. I do a weekly tournament on stream and this would make things more interesting
 

Lroy

New member
Mar 9, 2019
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I second the aforementioned comment that tournament scores should also be uploaded to the global leaderboards. Even if it’s just classic-arcade or classic-tourney set-up.

My pipe-dream would be for Zen to incorporate a video replay mode where we can actually click on a person’s name in the leaderboard and see a replay of their game and how they reached that score. There are other games that allow you to do this. M2’s SEGA AGES games on Nintendo Switch for example.

I know the logistics of such a system may be unfeasible for Zen but for me, this video replay feature is over above the single most useful and desirable thing I feel Zen could bring to enrich the community of digital pinball. It would be such a useful tool to share knowledge and skills amongst players.


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msilcommand

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Mar 22, 2019
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My pipe-dream would be for Zen to incorporate a video replay mode where we can actually click on a person’s name in the leaderboard and see a replay of their game and how they reached that score. There are other games that allow you to do this. M2’s SEGA AGES games on Nintendo Switch for example.

I second this! They should store replays of top 3 scores on every tournament, and then just delete them after a set period of time. Maybe they could save the record breaking scores somewhere for historical purposes. I don't see this being a huge amount of work for ZEN, development-wise. It would just be a huge amount of storage management.
 

wilbers

Member
Aug 8, 2018
569
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I second this! They should store replays of top 3 scores on every tournament, and then just delete them after a set period of time. Maybe they could save the record breaking scores somewhere for historical purposes. I don't see this being a huge amount of work for ZEN, development-wise. It would just be a huge amount of storage management.

I can't see how it would be feasible - when playing there is no way of knowing if a game is a top 3 score until its finished which would mean every game would need to be recorded and that would nudge up hardware requirements to play it on. Nail in the coffin of that idea will be data protection - probably can't do it without everyone playing tournaments agreeing to it before they play.

What we do have at present is umpteen youtube videos - isn't that sufficient?
 

msilcommand

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Mar 22, 2019
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I can't see how it would be feasible - when playing there is no way of knowing if a game is a top 3 score until its finished which would mean every game would need to be recorded and that would nudge up hardware requirements to play it on. Nail in the coffin of that idea will be data protection - probably can't do it without everyone playing tournaments agreeing to it before they play.

What we do have at present is umpteen youtube videos - isn't that sufficient?

Temporary recordings of every game wouldn't be too hard, especially if non top 3 get immediately deleted.

There's no data to protect in a stationary game, other than the user name, and that could just be a basic setting. The only other pseudo user data is literally flipper movement and nudging, lol
 

trash80

Member
Dec 14, 2018
472
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What we do have at present is umpteen youtube videos - isn't that sufficient?

It is. And once you realize all you need to watch is the Tarek and/or P45b videos, (since they are usually in the very top) all this game-based recording stuff is moot.
 

Lroy

New member
Mar 9, 2019
228
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[MENTION=7432]wilbers[/MENTION] Not everyone has a YouTube channel and video capture technology. Plus, it was more an interest in seeing my fellow community members performances in tourneys we play together rather than the Top scores on the global leaderboards necessarily. Like a mutual learning tool where we can each watch each others best attempts at a given table rather than simply watching an anonymous person’s gameplay on YouTube. But I do recognise this is a pipe-dream unfortunately.


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trash80

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Dec 14, 2018
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[MENTION=7432]wilbers[/MENTION] Not everyone has a YouTube channel and video capture technology. Plus, it was more an interest in seeing my fellow community members performances in tourneys we play together rather than the Top scores on the global leaderboards necessarily. Like a mutual learning tool where we can each watch each others best attempts at a given table rather than simply watching an anonymous person’s gameplay on YouTube. But I do recognise this is a pipe-dream unfortunately.


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If you use Steam you can watch each other play.
 

msilcommand

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Mar 22, 2019
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[MENTION=7432]wilbers[/MENTION] Not everyone has a YouTube channel and video capture technology. Plus, it was more an interest in seeing my fellow community members performances in tourneys we play together rather than the Top scores on the global leaderboards necessarily. Like a mutual learning tool where we can each watch each others best attempts at a given table rather than simply watching an anonymous person’s gameplay on YouTube. But I do recognise this is a pipe-dream unfortunately.


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You are right, and it's not a pipe dream. It is very possible. It is just a matter of whether or not ZEN has the resources to allocate to adding such things to their game. And Trash's reference to Steam isn't really applicable to what you are talking about. Your suggestion is a logical step for expanding the Tournament portion of the game that ZEN should be thinking about.
 

msilcommand

New member
Mar 22, 2019
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Further, ZEN doesn't need to capture full video or visuals to create replays. They just need the data of the playthrough which they can then insert into the frame of the visual portion of each table. These are stationary, single screen games.
 
Last edited:

Lroy

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Mar 9, 2019
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[MENTION=7578]trash80[/MENTION] I don’t play on Steam I’m afraid and never knew you could watch each others game-play on that platform.


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