Improving checkpoint scoring in Gottlieb (Premier) Victory

Games
1

One of my favorite locations to play in Indianapolis (PinVault) has a Gottlieb/Premier Victory that seems to have a cult following (one that I’m a member of). When playing competitive 4-player games, we’ve been burned by the checkpoint scoring issue described in an earlier post.

Out of curiosity, I started disassembling the ROM and I have some ideas on how to “fix” the issue, but wanted to get feedback from the community to see if there are better options.

Summary of Issue
This game has a sequence of “checkpoint” shots to hit. Completing a checkpoint lights the next shot with a hurry-up. On a 3-ball game, the hurry-up value starts at 100K and increases by 100K. On a 5-ball game, it starts at 50K and increases by 50K. Early checkpoints have a slower decay than later checkpoints.

The initial “race” is referred to as a qualifying heat. After any “driver” (player) completes the race by hitting the last checkpoint shot, checkpoints start at a fixed 800K (3-ball) or 400K (5-ball) value for ALL players. This gives a potential advantage to other players because everyone benefits from the increased hurry-up values.

Additionally, whenever someone completes a race, all players get reset back to checkpoint 1.

Simple Fix
Based on my understanding of the code, it would be simple to track each player’s completion of the qualifying heat separately. After making that change, a player would need to finish the qualifying heat to max out the hurry-up (800K/400K).

Options
With that scoring change (each player needs to complete the qualifying heat), is it “fair” to reset all players back to checkpoint 1 when someone crosses the finish line?

Should checkpoints after the qualifying heat stay at a fixed value, or continue to increase?

Details
This game uses 32 dip switches for configuration, with all switches in use. 15 switches are dedicated to setting coin chute pricing. I could repurpose some dip switches to selectively enable changes. Is that worth implementing?

Should I could change the “TEST MODE” text to include a version/revision number to aid in identifying that it’s running a modified ROM? One of the test modes displays a checksum of PROM1, which could be used to identify the revision.

Are there other scoring imbalances to address? I know a common strategy is hitting drop targets “up top all day”. Would players be more likely to go for checkpoints if completing the qualifying heat didn’t benefit all players?

Do we need spinner rip counters?

Have other people released updated ROMs for Gottlieb 80B games? Should I coordinate my changes with existing updated ROMs?

Copyright and distribution
I could make these changes for personal use, but distribution of an updated ROM seems impossible based on how the owner of Gottlieb’s intellectual property currently prevents distribution of manuals and ROMs on sites like IPDB.

Early Soren ROMs were released as a patchset that required original ROM images. Is this a feasible way to get updates out? The changes would be in PROM2, and would probably require an update to the PROM2 checksum stored in PROM1.

2

no each player has there own progress.

I think just free play mods for all of them.

also any way to add real Multiball to this game?

3

I’ve seen the free play mods, and would consider integrating that or re-implementing a version of it myself.

I think that’d be really difficult, and require significant changes to outhole/trough handling. There’s only one trough switch, so you’d have to keep the second ball waiting in the outhole until you have a switch hit on the playfield. With two balls in the trough, you’d have problems if the trough kicker failed to serve the ball properly. It could also get ugly if the second ball drained before the game could get the first ball transferred from the outhole to the trough.

I think that there are also times in the game where it holds the ball at a VUK and performs light shows without checking other switches.

I’ll leave a possible multiball to someone else, perhaps using an updated controller that isn’t constrained to 6502 assembly.

4

Test mode text describing change = absolutely. Otherwise no one will ever know what’s installed or that’s there’s something different. You should add it to the text that scrolls on the display as well during attract mode.

Dip changes = (especially to coin dips) - operators’ feedback on doing this is clear, DO NOT change options where there is money concerned! (if at all possible).

As for the actual fix, if you can track each player for the finish of the race, yes, do that, but a simpler fix might be to just never increase the checkpoints and give a score for finishing instead. As for one player’s finishing resetting everyone, I don’t think that’s fair at all. Nothing one player does on their ball should affect another players’ ball/status if at all possible (stuff like lock stealing should be minimal, but single ball game no worry there). The playfield field in a contest should be as level as possible.

After watching/participating in many tournaments and participating in many rom changes, I’ve found that unless there’s some overwhelming reason to do so, the players will STILL use the tried and true safe strategy. Now, if the game becomes more balanced because of the changes, AND you still can do that preferred strategy, you’ll have an edge on winning.

For the patches, always release patches for each rom detailing what’s in each patch. (Even if it nothing changes, make it clear what rom to use) Checksums before and after would be helpful as well.

5

The simple thing is would be require a multiball trough upgrade for these types of changes. That’s what all the other MB added games do, even if it’s something simple like adding a switch under the apron for the 2nd ball.

6

what about adding tilt warnings?
no system 80B games have them. But other games at the time had them.