I’m worried about people making finals banks and having to lie about it
“Why did you put Godzilla with paragon and old Chicago?”
Balancing groups of machines is fine. This is the example that is not fine:
Player → “Why did you not put Godzilla in ANY banks?”
TD → “Because it plays too long.”
Everything is going to be okay Ray 
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Yeah I really don’t get what the actual rule is but okay
ok lets say you have an game that say has long loading times can you kick it out of Finals under say it has software issues?
games that can crash if you are to good and get to the end of the code?
I remember playing in a couple of IFPAs (2008 and 2013) where Sorcerer and POTC were playing way too long. On both those games, the TDs made really significant physical changes to the games to make them harder so they wouldn’t make rounds play too long (I think KME still rolled Sorcerer on me after the changes were made though :).
Would it be a legal solution, if you want or need to keep all the same qualifying games in the finals, to adjust them before the finals to make them play faster by making the long-playing games more drainy and tilty in order to speed things up?
This is totally fine. When in doubt, turn off all tilt warnings on all machines if you want the event to go faster.
I do. But the subs are also established before the event. Makes it easy when and if a game goes down.
Because it’s being used in the gauntlet tournament which is going on during this event. And we cannot stream that game.
Is that okay?
Basically pinburgh. They don’t make all banks available for finals. Is that now illegal?
So by this logic any tournament that has Godzilla in qualifying and not in any finals bank I can cry foul and force the TD to lie?
I mean, I guess I dig it
and the finals games where build from the BEST playing games. also I think that Best playing did remove some long playing games.
“Cry foul?” . . . if by that you mean asking a TD why they removed Godzilla? In that case sure.
Just follow the rule. I’ll bold the important part.
“Any tournaments that eliminate any games that were previously available in the event due to time”
If the TD says - “We want to stream finals and there are games that the rig won’t reach, including Godzilla” (this is NOT DUE TO TIME, so it’s fine)
If the TD says - “Godzilla is taking too long and I want the tournament to end faster so we’re not here all night.” (this is DUE TO TIME, so it’s not fine)
If what you’re saying is a TD is either removing the game for time or lying, and those are the only two things possible . . . we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.
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“Can’t stream GZ” is likely due to BoC music, not the rig reach.
Obviously the best bet is just leave the long playing games out of the tournament entirely, or “soul crush” them sufficiently beforehand. But, if you make an error and still wind up with a long-player, the rule is you can only soul-crush it further for finals rather than dump it.
Edited: I do have one "what if’ card to play here, Josh…
Players find a repeatable, safe shot or similar exploit during qualifying that balloons play time and cannot be adequately soul-crushed for finals. TD wants to toss the game, not because of long play time, but because they don’t want to stream extremely boring gameplay, regardless whether it’s short or long time. Is that cull allowed?
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Yeah I get all that and did that exact thing by removing rubbers from your Jackbot. (Put them in the coin box area) for Pincinnati. But I remove games form finals even before the event due to not being in the stream area or being used for another event that runs at the same time as main finals.
Sounds like I’m good, just wanted to throw that out there.
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what about a location like D82 with 100 machines in qualifier but selected banks for finals?
They clearly can’t have 25 banks of 4 games, all available for choice in the finals so they have to eliminate some games, is that fine?
You are saying they should eliminate them “randomly”, not based on any “balanced optimization” if it is at all related to time?
I believe the intent of the rule is to ensure that a “representative portion” of the qualifying games are in the finals whenever it’s not all of them. That means not overly skewed towards a particular vintage, average game time, manufacturer, etc… The game time aspect became an issue when it got overused to cram more WPPRs into a given event duration. I suspect Josh would advocate for a similar rule on other skewnesses if he saw the game selections being warped in such ways. I also suspect that’s why he’s willing to look at events on a case-by-case basis when questions arise. When “WPPR avarice” got in the way of “fairness,” that was the time to step in. You don’t have to be “random” to be “representative.”
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Me → “Erik - Did you eliminate any games that were previously available from consideration because they played too long in the hopes of getting the tournament to finish quicker?”
In all seriousness @BMU has it right here. I believe it’s pretty clear what this rule is trying to prevent, and usually when this rule is triggered the decision by the TD is an egregious one.
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But there can be exceptions too right? I was previously swapping rounds of strikes between old and new games once the field was down to a low enough number where my field of games allowed it. Purely to help even out game draws for people down the stretch.
It was determined that I won’t be able to do that in the future. I think because it may open a door for exploitation.
I’m fine with it, just wanted to mention it here in case others consider that route.
When in doubt, email us. We’ll bring your situation to the pinball gods and see what they say.
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case by case i get it What i understand from this thread is to keep Godzilla in your tournament and you are good 
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Or… run your tournament the way you want to run it. Let TGP do whatever it does. No worries. Done.
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