Ehm, think it is. The obvious answer would be, what ever is default, of course. However this operator likes to do 5 balls with one extra ball tops.So, there is some customisation done here.
Can’t tell if snark, but this is an interesting response to read. Curious if you’re willing to explain the type of behavior you feel this setting/feature “guards against”.
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I’m in the 2.something crowd. I’m always for options, so I don’t mind that the feature exists, but I would really prefer it wasn’t an option that was used in any competition I’m playing in.
<------ Not a world-class pinball player.
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“3. Nope. This setting should not exist.”
The gulf between even decent players and casuals is immense. Most people that have any kind of skill at all can usually leverage 2 tilt warnings a ball into 1 extra ball per ball. Not always true, but I would say way more often than not. So, combined with the skill of balls/games lasting longer anyway, with per-ball warnings you’re already almost doubling the length of the game for better players vs casuals.
I’m OK with giving you 1 extra ball per game via tilt warnings. I’m not OK with giving you 3 extra balls.
Now, bringing up the warning-through thing is a fair point, and I actually do have a plan to address that at some point in the future. That’s such an edge case, though, especially with how long we wait between tilt hits and player changes, it’s a little silly to worry about too much.
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I don’t like to pigeonhole my thoughts into the options listed. I like the design choice. I like the strategy it adds, and I like the fact that it makes the '“add one tilt warning” awards more meaningful.
I feel guilty doing the giant stern double danger save. People always complain, “how come he gets away with that, when I tilt for much less”. This protects against me trying that every ball.
I think it is better on location. There are people who rage danger every ball, and deathsave and such. If this makes you reconsider, than it is good.
Maybe someone should bring back the 1 ballsave per game as well
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I certainly appreciate your sentiments here, @keefer , and I agree with you on the premise of a warnings-per-game instead of per-ball setting, but sadly, out on the tournament circuit, I find the setup of your games to be completely incompatible with your philosophy, lol.
For as we know, Everyone Is Good™ now and so TDs must set their tournament banks up as brutal as possible to keep game times down and lines moving, so when you find JJP games in the bank with this tilts-per-game setting, sadly they will be setup with the same insanely tight tilts as all the other games in the bank (not to mention out lane posts removed, lightning flippers, etc.). And oh, what a sad feeling it is to receive a double danger warning on your first nudge of the game only to discover that you are now out of additional warnings for the remainder of what will inevitably be a very short game. 
TLDR; I’m with you in spirit, but poor application by TDs makes me firmly in Camp 3.
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Toto exhausted
What nice excuse to swing by after work for a bit of Wonka. It is set for “per game”.
This thought process makes sense, especially for top players who are super effective at nudging. I can see the logic in wanting to give players only 2 “extra ball” opportunities per game instead of 6. I think a strong argument could be made that this makes the game easier to set up and balance in a competitive setting, and heavily reduces the chance of runaway 40-minute games, without having to cripple the game with modifications such as removed rubbers and insane tilt sensitivity.
But even though it might be ultimately a superior way to balance a game for good competitive play, it’s going to be very hard to swim against the established stream on this. TDs will instinctively set it up the same way they set up Stern games (remove outlane rubbers, set the tilt super tight) even though it might not need it. And even if they don’t, players are going to hate it by default because they will feel like something is being taken away from them, and a skill they worked hard to learn is being devalued.
I’m convinced things like this will work out over time. It’s only just recently that people have really come to realize you can increase balls-per-game on a Sam+ Stern for compensation balls, even though it was possible since sometime in WPT’s lifecycle (so, 12-13 years now?). That’s a pretty long time for something to really take hold.
All the tools are there in JJP games for people to set the game up like what they want other than tilt cooldown, and that’s not really something I’m willing to offer. You can change to 0 or 1 warnings if you’re wanting your games to play that tightly.
At some point, there’s not that much I can do to change how people setup games. Education could help, though, such as if the PAPA setup tips suggested backing off of tilt a little since it’s per-game by default?
Bad TDs are going to TD Badly. We’ve all been to badly-setup tournaments, and I agree it sucks and is why there’s quite a few I won’t/don’t participate in anymore even if I were more prone to travelling to them (which I’m currently not).
well the per game notes can help with TD’s so they have an easy way to look up per game stuff that is not common to a lot of games.
Maybe JJP common but it’s tilt thing is diffrent from all other newer games out there today.
and if you really want to get out there on the old stern electronics games tilt does not count for next player till valid playfield.
As for badly-setup tournaments in some cases setting games way to hard can fall into that.
This may not be relevant at all, but were discussions like this happening when pinball went from 5 ball to 3 ball by default? What about at the invention of tilt warnings? Or is this all unique to the current era and players are of a higher caliber overall?
3! Please, give me the chance to play pinball.
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This has not been my observation of typical players. What you say is probably true at, say, the Circuit level. But from what I’ve seen of casual play, leagues, and local/regional tournaments, a significant number of players can’t reliably save balls. Either the ball is speeding around so fast that it’s down the drain before they knew what hit 'em to even try saving it, or they try nudging to save (perhaps incurring a warning or two) but it’s still 50/50 whether it goes into the inlane or outlane, or whether a flipper save succeeds or fails.
It did not help that Stern apparently never documented that you could now enter the service menus in the middle of a game, make changes, and resume the game in progress. That’s a fundamental change from how all (AFAIK) pins worked ever since the “service menu” was created. The newest Stern I own is Star Trek, and its manual still states…
The 4-Button Service Switch Set provides access for three (3) functions available for your use: 1: SERVICE CREDIT, 2: VOLUME [ - ] / [ + ] and 3: SERVICE MENU.
To access any of these three (3) functions you must first open the Coin Door (see pictorial above) with the Game in the Attract Mode …
Exit Service Menu
In the MAIN MENU and in all SUB-MENUS (where the “QUIT” Icon is present), if the “QUIT” Icon is selected and activated, or the green [ BACK ] Button is selected repeatedly (depending on which sub-menu you’re in…), the SERVICE MENU Session will be exited and returned to the Attract Mode.
Taking a peek at Jurassic Park’s manual, it has minimal info at all about the service menus, but no longer mentions attract mode.
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I guarantee operators were raving in choirs about ball saver and tilt warnings back in the day. I really want a seminar talk from an industry veteran who honestly tell stories of what pinball stuff we can thanks “them” for. Good and bad (lightning flippers, cough).
I have wondered if Pat Lawlor was against ball saver from a genuine game design point of view. Or if it was more like, operators do not like this, we should not do it. Which is legit.
Keefer, respectfully, I do not like the term “an extra ball” used in relation to warnings-only nudging. Josh Sharpe is also on record talking EB in relation to ball saver. Mmmm, ehhh, no.
For an extra ball you get, a chance for a skill shot, can plan a strategy, (usually better than) 95% chance of a ball on a flipper, have reset bonus, have no modes running. A clean page, basically, to attack the game from.
A tilt warning is per definition with the ball out of control. And non of the above. And no extra bonus payout for sure.
And speaking of game time, an extra ball will by average add significantly more than, say, an extra nudge for the game that did not tilt.
As a player you expect start-of-ball to be ground zero for climbing game objectives ahead of you. And to get three chances of this for the game. Having bad cargo like fewer tilt warnings just stains.
Tilt warnings not resetting per ball is a legit invention. But I guess game difficulty and game time is a result of everything. Software and mechanical.
Skillful players will always have long (longer) games. But that is a good thing, right. Added revenue due players happy with the game, wanting to go back and explorer it deeper, battle for high scores etc.
Speaking for myself, I totally abandoned a BKSOR in town after a few games. It was just too drainy and too tilty. Thanks, and goodbye.
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Well, not necessarily. It’s kind of a balancing act which depends on a lot of things. If you often have people waiting in line to play, you probably want shorter playing games to increase revenue. Or you might want to improve the earnings/maintenance ratio. Or you want games to be hard because you have reason to suspect that your good players get tired of them if they are too long playing or too easy to “complete”.
I find it funny to contrast this thread with a thread I remember from either the WOZ group or owners thread. Owners were complaining that they had the ‘credit dot’ pixels on their screen because the game had determined that the tilt might not be working. Owners were asking for an option to override.
I respectfully agree… with Keefer, Josh, and others. A successful nudge (that prevents a ball from draining, whether it earns a Danger or not), is akin to getting an extra ball: you have prevented a drain, and get to continue playing a ball that you would not have otherwise, had you not nudged or not had the mercy of a Danger at your disposal to accomplish the nudge.
Same goes with viewing ball-saver as an EB, and in the ball-save case, it’s even another ball physically served to the shooter lane. Sure, you don’t get another skill shot, but there are very few (zero?) games of the ball-save era that have a skill shot that can score in the same range as the expected value of getting to play another ball.
While it’s true that you don’t get an additional end-of-ball bonus, an argument can nearly always be made (except for Star Pool, ugh) that getting to continue playing effectively “another” ball has greater potential for scoring opportunity than an additional end-of-ball bonus. And I’d argue that more often than not, getting to continue to capitalize on your current ball’s mode or BonusX multiplier is better than a brand new EB.
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