Is there IFPA verbiage to differentiate game malfunctions that auto-select something for your GAME vs your BALL?
If not, I think there should be, and I’ve seen pretty much all TDs agree and often make their rulings based on this.
Example:
Star Trek chooses your mode for you: Play on (minor malfunction)
AC/DC chooses your song for you: Play on
vs.
TMNT chooses your turtle for you: New game for you (played after everyone else, unless you are player 1, then just restart for all players, major malfunction)
GOT chooses your house for you: New game for you
That one shitty game that has level 1-2-3 that impacts whether you get 1x, 2x, or 3x scoring: New game for you
Are you saying what you want the ruling to be vs what it currently is? Because I have definitely had a GoT auto-selected house ruled as a play on (which I think aligns with the current rules verbiage).
I believe it all come down to TD discretion on what constitutes significant strategic advantage. And the general consensus has evolved into being forced into a choice that cannot be changed via gameplay is a significant advantage for the other players.
“Any malfunction which provides at least one player with a significant advantage over any other player competing on that machine is known as a beneficial malfunction. Tournament Officials shall determine what constitutes a significant advantage.”
“Any beneficial malfunction which provides one or more players with a significant scoring or strategic advantage in a way that is not part of normal gameplay will void the score of the affected player(s), unless all immediately-affected players and Tournament Officials can agree on a suitable adjustment of the score or other elimination of the advantage.”
Thought, Does the house selection situation give the player an advantage? On GoT, if my opponents only score 300 million, martell will do. If they get to hand of the king, I would want to choose Targaryen or Lannister. I shouldn’t be able to choose my path based on my opponents score. The player should have to declare the house they will choose without the benefit of knowing opponents scores.
Choosing a house after someone else finishes a game that you got a comp game due to the auto plunge self selects a house seems like an unfair advantage.
You can freeze all timers (except ball saves). If your playfield X is timing out, hit the button to extend it and give you a good window to actually advance it instead. Also any combo shot X’s you have won’t go away, so you can take your time to setup a huge shot.
You’re effectively only 3 modes away from HOTK, and 6 from Iron Throne.
Both of these can be potentially game-deciding factors.
This could be solved by asking the player which house they wanted instead when the game auto selected it, and hold them to it when they play their comp game.
Or it could just be… oh well, a beneficial slight advantage is better than a detrimental disadvantage from a malfunction so we go with the lesser of two evils
Add Star Wars (Stern) to the list. A random switch locking you into Luke would be pretty devastating.
There is no IFPA rule specifically addressing this, and I agree there should be. I was the TD in Frisbez’ game when GoT locked him into Stark. I considered 3 options:
Rule it a major malfunction that can’t be resolved without restarting the game. Take a picture of the previous player’s scores and pick up where we left off, giving the players that already played Ball 1 two comp balls. For rule support, I could use “A minor malfunction that occurs repeatedly, to the extent that it is markedly affecting play of the machine, may be considered a major malfunction at the sole discretion of Tournament Officials.” Being in the wrong house means this malfunction is repeating for the player the entire game, and it definitely markedly affects play. But forcing the other players to lose their progress felt like it could be even more impactful than the situation we’re trying to fix. And the rule support was a bit of a stretch, so it didn’t feel like the correct ruling.
Minor Malfunction. Play on. It has rule support: “Loss of any lit feature, running mode, or other gameplay specifics, shall not be considered a major malfunction.” But this is a pretty serious malfunction to be ruled “minor”.
Let the player play a comp game by himself after everyone else finished their game. I didn’t feel like this had any rule support at the time, so it felt like an off-the-book solution. (I hadn’t considered the idea of ruling this as a “Beneficial Malfunction”.) It would give the player the advantage of knowing what score he needs before starting Ball 1, which could affect which house he’d choose. What’s worse: the format was Multi-Match Play and this was the semifinals, which means that the player would not only know the other players scores for that game, but he’d also know exactly what place he needed to finish to advance to the finals – something he wouldn’t have known at the time the malfunction occurred. (As it turns out, he needed to finish 2nd, so he’d have known he needed ~700M to advance and that he wouldn’t need to chase down the very high top score.)
So after consulting my co-TDs, we ruled Minor Malfunction. I didn’t like it, but I thought it had the best rule support. I knew this must have come up before, so I searched tiltforums that night. Sure enough, there was an existing thread on it. All 3 options were discussed in the thread. Bowen mentioned they used the “Comp game afterward” ruling for Pinburgh, and that seemed to have the most support in the thread, though there were quite a few people in the “Minor malfunction” camp. Only 1 person advocated for Option 1. I now understand why some TDs use Casual Mode to lock everyone into Stark whenever they use GoT in tournaments.
In hindsight, I’d decided that I’d go with the “Comp game afterward” ruling in the future. I like Raymond’s suggestion of asking the player to decide which house they wanted to play and then locking them into that decision to allay any concerns about changing strategy based on players’ final scores.
I think Star Trek and AC/DC fall into the Minor Malfunction category only because you’re not locked in the whole game. Although on Star Trek, it could certainly make it impossible to stack Super Ramps and Super Spinner, or make it harder to go for a Nero III strategy if you’re locked into a different mode at the start of the game. I guess a TD could still opt for the Comp Game ruling if so inclined (though I feel this would be incorrect).
“Any beneficial malfunction which provides one or more players with a significant scoring or strategic advantage in a way that is not part of normal gameplay will void the score of the affected player(s), unless all immediately-affected players and Tournament Officials can agree on a suitable adjustment of the score or other elimination of the advantage.”
Needs to just add significant DISADVANTAGE wording to it or add an part Like
"Any malfunction which provides one or more players with a significant scoring or strategic DISADVANTAGE in a way that is not part of normal gameplay will void the score of the affected player(s), unless all immediately-affected players and Tournament Officials can agree on a suitable adjustment of the score or other elimination of the DISADVANTAGE.”
also change the Minor Malfunction / multiball rules to cover issues on games where you start each ball with multiball when you do not get it. So that it is not an minor malfunction and if other players got that then use DISADVANTAGE rule.
It’s not just Got in can be other stuff like skill shots that only one player misses to an switch issue.
Now what about in cases ball launch on danger though? or an player opting to have ball played on a fresh game
There is an ball played on a fresh game in the rules for that. Also some games auto launch on switch and that is an comp ball ruling.
and on ball 1 it may be more fair to just start an new game for that player vs giving them 2 ball ones (unless you set the game to 4 balls) and then still be locked out of choices.
What causes GoT to lock onto a house before the player can choose? Is this an issue with the ball rolling off the plunger lane switch, or a playfield switch activating while the ball is in the shooting lane, or the lockdown bar button activating, or something else?
Yes, from my understanding it’s usually triggered by the ball “bouncing” on the plunger lane switch when it’s fed into the plunger lane. The game sees this as the player plunging the ball (weakly), so it locks in the house decision. I’ve seen the same thing happen on Star Trek, although on Star Trek it only seems to occur when the ball comes to rest sitting “above” the plunger lane switch, instead of depressing the switch.
