Was playing Monopoly in a tournament yesterday and had some weird stuff with ballsaves:
during multiball, I plunged the ball immediately and hit the jackpot. While I was doing that the other two balls from the lock went in the pops and down the middle. I ignored them to get more plunges in during ball save, but there wasn’t a ball save this time. After the tournament I played the game again and confirmed that there was a ball save during multiball, as I’m used to in the past.
On ball three, I short plunged and got the ball on the flipper without any switch hits. I shot the bank to start cash grab, and the ball drained straight down the middle. The ball save did not turn on, but when I drained my ball ended. So I got no ball save at all ball 3, although I remember having it lit ball 1. I then watched the next two players play their ball 3s, and both got a ball save.
Is this a bug, or is there some hidden logic going on in either case?
Normal operation during MB is you shoot the right ramp, and the diverter drops the ball back into the shooter lane, then it auto plunges around to the upper pops while the lock ejects into the lower pops.
Normal operation sucks though lol. I always end up manually plunging the ball to the upper flipper at the start of Multiball so I can at least score a Jackpot or two right off the bat.
If a jackpot is collected while the balls are still being served, ball saves are cancelled.
[I think this is whats happening]. The ball save timer starts upon the ball being ejected from the trough into the shooter lane. If the ball then drains before the timer expires OR the playfield isn’t valid, the player gets it back with the display saying BALL SAVED. Shooting a closed bank immediately validates the playfield, so if the ball saver timer had expired (which it likely had by the time the short plunge+settle+shoot+drain occurred) and the ball drains after playfield is valid, no ball saver is given.
Wow, that’s mean, but would explain everything. I guess I need to stop going for quick jackpots then… Is it still okay to short plunge during MB, as long as you don’t collect a jackpot? Or do you need to let it auto-plunge?
Wait, the ball saver doesn’t start on playfield validation? That’s crazy… Is that some weird Monopoly quirk, or do other early sterns do that?