algorythmic level of difficulty

this question belongs to those(like me) who play an overwhelming amount of hours devoted to a specific machine in search of that tables highest scores...i am VERY good at pinball, played all my life, i absolutely love TPA, so here is my question....when i play a specific machine(space shuttle, medevial madness, the creature...) it seems that the higher your score, or the higher the jackpot amounts, or the number of extra balls stockpiled, that the machines consistantly behave negatively, sending balls off pop bumbers directly to the outlanes, shots to ramps and other targets seem to slightly miss and take an odd trajectory, and this happens in an upward trend relative to your score. a perfect example of this is medevial madness when making an assault on the relm(king of the relm), the difficulty seems to take on mind of it's own as it seems almost impossible to do, time and again...so, is the programing as such to prevent and protect existing high scores? i am not a casual player, i log an immense amount of hours, i am very good at pinball, i am left to believe that an ALGORYTHMIC LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY exists, it can be no other way. if you devote all of your TPA playing time(an absurd amount) to ONE specific machine you will eventually experience what i am talking about. can someone other then the peanut gallery answer this question?

That's just pinball, effin' with you. ; )

One thing PAPA's Bown Kerins always says is that when he's got a big shot to make, he tries to sort of trick himself into seeing it as just a normal shot, no big deal, and that helps prevent him from getting nervous and bricking it.

budtki@verizon.net said:

this question belongs to those(like me) who play an overwhelming amount of hours devoted to a specific machine in search of that tables highest scores... when i play a specific machine(space shuttle, medevial madness, the creature...) it seems that the higher your score, or the higher the jackpot amounts, or the number of extra balls stockpiled, that the machines consistantly behave negatively, ...

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Interesting thought, but I (usually) experience pretty much the opposite. I am an OCD pinhead, looking to "beat" the machine (which for me is getting to wizard mode on one ball, or accumulating max EBs on every ball, etc.), and I typically play one machine for hours (days, sometimes) without playing anything else. An example; last night (in TPA) I hit my PB on Medieval Madness (843M) in a game that took about an hour, after which I quit due to boredom. But my point is that I couldn't miss; everything I aimed for just happened, and my score didn't matter - just the next shot. Shots that I thought wouldn't hit did; SDTM's weren't; and the outlanes were magically nonexistent.

IOW, it's all in your head - hit the groove and everything just works.

"Don't think - flip!"

what the hell are you talking about

I've been suspecting this with Scared Stiff. I noticed the oddest ball movements whenever I start Stiff-O-Meter mode. Suddenly the ball will take an odd angle towards a slingshot and then head directly to an outlane. I still think it's in my head, but at least I'm not the only one with suspicions. Also, I haven't noticed this behavior with any other tables, which only arouses my suspicion more.

It is just the psychology of it all. The tension and excitement get to you. Happens to me all the time. For example, I play much better on my first ball than my last. Ony my first all I'm thinking "No pressure, if I mess this up I have at least two more chances", but on my last ball I'm thinking "I must not mess this up, this is the last chance..." If I get a really great first ball, the following balls are generally good too, because the pressure's off to make a dent on the machine.

Anyway, Farsight have nothing to gain from programming this. It's wasted dev time that would exist purely to annoy players.

DeeEff said:

Interesting thought, but I (usually) experience pretty much the opposite. I am an OCD pinhead, looking to "beat" the machine (which for me is getting to wizard mode on one ball, or accumulating max EBs on every ball, etc.), and I typically play one machine for hours (days, sometimes) without playing anything else. An example; last night (in TPA) I hit my PB on Medieval Madness (843M) in a game that took about an hour, after which I quit due to boredom. But my point is that I couldn't miss; everything I aimed for just happened, and my score didn't matter - just the next shot. Shots that I thought wouldn't hit did; SDTM's weren't; and the outlanes were magically nonexistent.

IOW, it's all in your head - hit the groove and everything just works.

"Don't think - flip!"

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Probably not OCD unless it causes a huge amount of anxiety and impacts your quality of life.

This keeps happening to me on real pinball tables!

Like, every time I reach Destroy The Ring on LOTR with hard settings.

It has nothing to do with programming, and everything to do with choking under pressure. Read any of my blog entries that are marked with the "tales of woe" tag and you'll get the idea.

Espy said:

Anyway, Farsight have nothing to gain from programming this. It's wasted dev time that would exist purely to annoy players.

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This I buy. It's definitely all in my head.

hey deeEeff,
the very reason that i stressed that i am a VERY good at pinball was to get the proper answer from one of the programers, i knew their would be comments like yours where the situation that i'm speaking of doesn't seem to exist due to lack of play. i knew someone who thinks they're good may condescend...posting a high score to justify their knowledgable reply. just have to say, I GOT YOU BEAT on medevial madness(991,646,230)-bobmick1996, i also have(48,221,740)taxi-5th place, check out my harley score(1,815,056,800). now to prove my point, if your so good that you are obviously immune to the algorythmic difficulty effect that i and other inferior pinballs experience then just try to beat my high score on THE CREATURE- sooner or later you will see what i am talking about, or even an easy machine such as space shuttle...note on space shuttle i had 3.5 million on my first ball, with 2 extra balls stock piled, i thought for sure i would obliterate the high score...guess what, it didn't happen. the pop bumpers kept sending the ball to the right most outlane!

So now you're attacking others.
Gord should get rid of you.

budtki@verizon.net said:

space shuttle... the pop bumpers kept sending the ball to the right most outlane!

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This is what Space Shuttle does. It does seem to be a programmed path for the ball to flow into, but with nudging you can break that draining effect. Although it does become rather frustrating at times.

Hey, budtki -

I believe you may have missed my point, which I stated in my second paragraph above. The first paragraph was simply a personal observation which I thought might help illustrate the point of my second paragraph. I apologize if you took it as a condescending brag - it was most certainly not intended as such.

If you want "the proper answer from one of the programers (sic)", perhaps an e-mail to support@pinballarcade.com would achieve better results than posting here. Just a suggestion.

And congratulations on your high scores.

Take it easy, folks...

DeeEff,
sorry if i came off a little aggressive, but at first i too thought it may be just coincidence, but after playing a specific machine for huge hours and experiencing the same ill fortunes time after time, the same odd bounces that rarely happen or almost seemingly never occur while the scores and jackpots are low, or the ironic superfast ball drain after achieving an elusive extra ball, i've been left with no other answer...not that such a program design would such an awful thing, all i wanted to do was confirm something that i believe is realistic and probably the case. i love TPA, play every single day, it is one of my favorite things to do, we all grew up playing pinball and to us TPA is simply a small dream come true, but i do log a disgusting amount of hours on TPA and after playing for so long i have ultimately come to this conclusion...even if the programers themselves told me that this was NOT the case, i probably would NOT believe them anyway...oh and by the way, the creature has a flaw that shows up from time to time(especially when super jackpot is lit with multiplyer maxed) the ball exiting the right inlane to an awaiting flipper catch sometimes totally ignores the flipper as though it wasn't even there and coincidentally drains...again, sorry if i came off a bit aggressive, look forward to seeing you beat my high score on creature, but don't do it on one of those phones, i've played from a phone before and i believe for whatever reason it is much easier then playing from a game system.

Y'know, it occurs to me that there are examples of odd behavior on tables that occur consistantly but only in specific circumstances.

Example;

Taxi

When hitting the ball up the Gorbi loop, it's very difficult to NOT pick him up. It's as if the player is getting an assist. Then after you've picked him up, the shots up the Gorbi loop magically doesn't make it to the Gorbi kickout.


Theatre of Magic

When hitting the right loop, the ball comes down the left at an angle that you'd expect. But when you start the "Tiger Saw Multiball", notice how that ball kicks out towards the center gap when leaving the same loop.


Cirqus Voltaire

Same as in ToM. When the ball leaves the left side of the Acrobat loop, it's reacts as expected, but hit that loop when Acrobats are ready, look out!


It's the fact that these "random" occurances happen not so randomly are what makes me suspect foul.

Don't forget about the placebo effect Your mind can play some cruel tricks on you.
As much as you might like to disagree, you will get fatigued after long periods of concentrating and draining odds will increase.
When you start to reach what you concider higher scores, you will experience hightened stress levels, you've admitted you start to think about other things and get hung up on stuff (algorithms and weird shots for instance). You should know how much a very subtle change in mindset can affect your game.

Although bud does come off a little brash, I think he may be on to something. I have noticed this myself, but like others have said, I chalked it up to just placebo effect or mind tricks. Sometime shots and bounces just seem so inconsistent, especially when you need (or don't need) them the most. I'm conflicted on this actually..... Don't know what to think

DrainoBraino said:

Although bud does come off a little brash, I think he may be on to something. I have noticed this myself, but like others have said, I chalked it up to just placebo effect or mind tricks. Sometime shots and bounces just seem so inconsistent, especially when you need (or don't need) them the most. I'm conflicted on this actually..... Don't know what to think

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That's just pinball being pinball. The camera shot on TZ comes to mind.

It's all hogwash. After playing long enough you'd notice if the tables acted contrary to physics. There are only a handful of places in TPA where there's physics weirdness and they are consistent at all times (big shot left outlane as an example). You can even see kickout trajectories being affected by the the ball entering a scoop or similar from a weird angle. The perfect reproducible example of this is the left side saucer or whatever it is on gorgar. The ball will leave the scoop at different trajectories but it always happens according to what angle the ball entered it from. Funhouse has similar stuff where you can usually predict when the kickout will be dangerous because of the nonstandard way the ball entered it. After putting literally hundreds of hours in it's really easy to see cause and effect of practically every shot that happens in any table.