I actually like Vegas. If the flippers are set up to not allow the easy trap, looping is a lot tougher and there’s some decent risk/reward to build the loop value (up to 5M per) via the drops.
Would it be fair to say that a good tournament game, is a game which gives a high probability for better pinball play to win over worse pinball play, in a short amount of time?
An example. As much as I like T3, I can see some problems with using it in tournaments: The defining feature, the backglass RPG game, isn’t really pinball, in the sense that skill there doesn’t help you anything on other pins. And RPG is huge for score. And then there is the video mode which also isn’t pinballish, and mostly just luck. And call-outs like “Shoot here and here” are negative entertainment for tournament players. And on top of all this, as pointed out in “Director’s Guide”, some ramps are too easy, and it plays too long. While none of these issues are game-breakers, when combined they add up to a game that simply is tournament-unfriendly. Am I right?
This kind of info could be listified if the community wants that, but it seems to me it would be outside the realm of papa. Rather than banning any particular game, list the things that make particular games (not) suited for tournaments.
About the element of luck: It would be possible to measure the element of luck based only on results from tournaments. If there just are enough data with pin names, scores and players, we could derive an objective measure placing each pin on a range from better-players-almost-always-wins down to 50/50-chance-regardless-of-skill. Are there any game result databases available? If the data is there, the math is no problem. It would also be possible to put numbers on the relative advantage of playing late vs early, for each pin. Are we interested?
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Trying to decide whether the ‘better player’ won is fraught with all kinds of problems - not least determining who the better player is. There is almost zero chance of having a large enough sample of the same 2 players playing on the same game to make it statistically viable.
There was a graph posted with all of the scores from all of the games after Pinburgh (?) on here, although I can’t find it right now. The most interesting thing I found looking at that was the spread of scores. There were many games where the score was quite linear, suggesting that score was related to length of ball time - regardless of what you were shooting.
Others which started linear and then almost went exponential at a certain point. Scared Stiff was one of those that was linear up to a certain point and then the gradient of the graph rocketed. My take on it was that this was the point that players got to Scared Stiff.
I’m sure someone can remember the graph and repost a link.
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https://public.tableau.com/profile/corey.hulse#!/vizhome/PinballWorldChampionships/Welcome
Found it - @coreyhulse created and published it
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ooooooh
Don’t forget someone makes a new chip for the Sudden Death issue on Rollergames if you are thinking it’s a keeper. Glad you’ve joined the Kick Butt club.
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I know that Super Mario Bros (another Premier) has a “catch-up” mystery award. How do people feel about plundering in Jersey Jack’s POTC?
i turned plundering off when i used this game in tournaments.
Check out JJP PotC: Does Plunder impact tournament viability/TGP? for a pretty robust discussion of how to make the game competition appropriate.
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I love the Game Notes on the PAPA site but it is woefully incomplete.
Maybe we could start a WIKI here and have @PAPA_Doug sign off on it and add it to the site.
Also, Lights, Camera, Action stinks for tournament play.
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Why? We use it often.
Having never played it until this past Pinburgh, I will quote myself during one of my rounds: “I shot that guy and all I got was 5,000 lousy points.”
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The catch-up feature is the reason we don’t use it.
Back on topic, my favorite band game is Iron Maiden.
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Oh scratch that. Got my games crossed. We use Last Action Hero and disable the smart missile.
that game has tournament mode
Do you use the moded rom?
Can’t turn off extra balls on SMB though. So lame.
No modded ROM.
I use the modded ROM. I like the fact that it doesn’t give a charity multiball on ball 3.
Wow, that was a robust discussion. Many interesting takes on it.