The format isn’t too bad since there was more games to pick than you had to play, which allowed me to pick and choose my favorites and avoid playing entry ruining games like Ali and Stars (saw a lot of people who didn’t qualify who would have if they just waited for a long playing modern game, since by their nature there’s less entries played so you can’t get a zero).
The major criticism I have is just … Jesus what the eff was with those tilts, especially on classics?! I tilted mini pool from the force of pushing the flipper button in, people were tilting pinball pool just thinking about making a move, stars tilted if you tried to save an outlane, surfin tilted trying to bump a stuck ball, I could go on.
Please, for the love of frijoles, you don’t need feather tilts on classic games… if anything they should be looser than moderns, so you can actually use, ya know, classics skills on them…. Lesson learned for next year I hope
For sure, you make a good point. Personally, I didn’t have trouble with tilts but was being a slapper and not a pusher. But I heard enough comments to accept it was an issue.
It seems really tough to set tilts. I don’t think people would be happy if we - who are playin in the tournament - played dozens of practice games to get the tilts just right. But It sounds like we need to get more than one set of eyes on the games during this part of the prep.
Like I said, I didn’t have huge issues with tilts, even on the games you were talking about. But not
Everybody plays like I do or moves the games the same way, right? So I think next year, during that part of the checklist phase, we get more than just one opinion.
It wasn’t intentional. The idea is to make the games friendly for limited entry. They can’t be THAT friendly because we will NEVER re-calibrate tilts for finals as that’s a can of worms in a million ways. But it’ll be approached differently next year!
Feel free to send feedback our way, public or private.
It’s really not. Set them loose on classics. Show me a classics game that plays long, then you can get creative with the tilt. If it doesn’t play long, the tilt should be loose. Especially with limited entry. You’re making good time already with the format choice.
Don’t make tilts crazy just cause it’s a big event. I’ve made that mistake too.
My stars has a very loose tilt, it’s on 5 ball and it still doesn’t play long. Just take it game by game instead of defaulting to a standard tilt setup.
Let EVERYONE help play test them. Just let anyone that walks up during setup, practice. It’s okay. Just let people do it. You’ll find all the crazy tilts and leveling issues immediately.
Also. Changing games that are playing too long between qualifying and finals is totally fine. Just be transparent and let everyone practice.
I’m a heavy hander, so I miss out on some kinds of nudges as well. One of the policies I came up from setting up games was doing a nudge test of every kind of nudge that I could think of:
Up nudge (tap, series of taps, push)
Left/Right (tap, slap, slide) on various points in the game
Shimmy
Dig
Ski jumps/flipper passes
See how the game reacts to each of them and adjust accordingly. To the point @chuckwurt made, the more folks you have testing tilts the less knowledge one person gets. Also, you don’t need to play out the games to get tilts tested - just fire up a game and start moving the machine. Maybe play a ball or two if you need to test features, but most of this can be done with ball in shooter lane.
I THOUGHT the tilts on the classics were loose Erik.
Like I said, any classic tilts perceived as tight were not intended that way. We like our games playable.
Hope to see you in attendance next year! As we did between this year and last, we’ll again work to improve it even more all around to keep everybody happy (which, while impossible, is always the goal!)
Making it limited entry herb is definitely up my alley! Derby weekend can be tough for us hillbillies though. Definitely gonna keep my eye on this one and NYCPC.
Great tournament. Really nailed a perfect format for the time restrictions but even just for herb in general. Love the equal opportunity of it with everyone getting the same amount of entries. Would love to see other herb tournaments use something similar but adjust based off how much time there is for qualifying.
All games played fair of the 12 I chose to play with the exception of mini pool. Gave it one little bump when it was up top to get some target action and tilted. Brutal for a game where nudging is arguably the focus and you lose ball in play plus one for tilting.
A few games had tighter tilts than I was expecting based off the description ahead of time of them being very playable or however it was written but as far as there setup for a tournament of this level they were fair IMO
Also worth noting for anyone who wasn’t there or didn’t tune into the stream. Eric Stone ruled the universe on an AFM whose tilt was eating players alive and Ray and Eric got back to back 30mil supers on Surf N Safari.
Overall I had a great time! Love the limited entry format and not having to stay in the tournament area for the whole time. It seemed very well-organized.
Re: tilts. I had zero issues on the classics although I heard some grumbling from other players. The tilt on 007 was extreme, everyone in my group tilted at least 1 or 2 balls during our match, little to no room for slap saves.
