Are you doing 5 ball or 3 balls games? If 5, I wouldn’t worry so much if the goal wound up a bit too hard overall, as it will be the same for everyone. If 3 than you probably need to do a little more testing. FWIW, this is a good example of why I like the IFPA Pin Masters style scoring for pingolf. With 1 to 10 scoring, if a goal is a bit too hard, the median ends up being a 7 or something, with variation in either direction. In normal pingolf you’ll typically see everyone ending up with exactly the same score on a hole that was too hard or too easy. I was a bit worried at first that casual players wouldn’t enjoy the scoring format as much as a goal based one but have found it to be quite the opposite.
Thanks for the feedback. I think he is running 5 balls. My general philosophy on pingolf objectives is to choice objectives I think I can usually do in 1 ball and I can’t imagine not doing in 5 unless I get really unlucky.
On scoring vs objective, for this tournament each machine will be played twice, once for score and one for objective. It is not my tournament, I am trying to help out.
I’m just waiting to see how Pin Golf objectives will change once we implement the WPPR v5.3 changes 
Insert evil laugh . . .
Ghostbusters is a game where I would be VERY careful posting a score-based objective or a “do X in multiball” objective. Setting the score too high or asking for things to be done in multiball will lead to the trusty Slimer strategy that I won’t overtly mention but I bet is on @pinwizj’s naughty list. Getting to the multiball is fine, and collecting X modes/ghosts are definitely fine objectives. Collect a Super Jackpot (or multiple Super Jackpots) could be a fun one as well; it pulls some of the more obscure things out in the game.
Can you explain what this is?
In my opinion, having strictly score based objectives misses most of what makes the Pin-golf format so unique and interesting.
I agree with @sk8ball that the objectives should be something that players typicaly wouldn’t attempt during normal play.
Here were a few at a tournament I ran recently.
T2: start MB via the escape route
AFM: start Martian Attack (no SOL “Lite Martian Attack” award allowed) ie. Must qualify via targets
DM: achieve 10 combos (triggers only)
AC/DC: change the song
IM: start War Machine MB (monger disabled)
And of course:
NGG: complete 4 holes
I also avoid any objective that can be missed requiring the player to “start over” to make another run at it. I generally only use objectives where progress is maintained regardless of drains or features timing out, etc. I find this better for player morale.
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I think what makes pingolf unique isn’t at all related to using score or feature based objectives, it’s the notion that a player has a fixed goal to achieve in the first place and that they will count how many balls it takes them to get there.
I enjoy pingolf with feature based objectives, it’s tons fun to try and max bonus X on Paragon, see who can be the first to backhand the W shot on Dr Who or any of the things you listed. The drawback is everyone is playing the game the same way, and if the goals are not hard/easy enough the scores are likely to have a narrow distribution, which can lead to more ties.
On the other hand, score based objectives are easier for everyone to understand and they leave a game open to a variety of strategies instead of one. The scores can be way more spread out placing more value on getting anything above a 4 or 5. The drawbacks are that getting 10s can be even more frustrating for casual players and you’re not comparing everyone at the same objectives.
Either way, I wish there were more pingolf not less, so whatever scoring style one chooses is a-ok. I only bring the IFPA thing up often because I like it, didn’t know about it until Pinmasters was streaming last year, and thought it could really make pingolf viable for a league format. And as a bonus, I get trolled by Josh now because I was miffed to find that we can no longer run our excellent finals format for WPPR points in 5.2. 
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I assume he is referring to the rumours that on poorly “dialed in” GB you can nudge the machine and get slimmer hits. This might be very valuable in storage facility multiball. Didn’t work on the machine I tried it on this weekend (just as a test, I would never do that even on location 
)
Slimer Shimmy™ all day!
MB- Lyman’s Lament
SS- Spider Mania
Agree completely, except for brand new games where 95% of the players will need the goals explained to them and 50% of them won’t completely understand what the goals are.
Virtually all launch party tourneys are high score tourneys, as they should be. Folks just want to feel out the game. Shoot all the shots and try to start as many modes as possible. Walking up to a game you’ve never played and being told to do something specific doesn’t sound like fun to me. Plus, because of the specific goals new to most everyone, the game will be a bottleneck with more time where a ball isn’t in play. Better to just let them go for a high score and get a feel for the game along the way.
If the game has been on location for a couple of weeks and lots of players have gotten a chance to play it, that’s different. But if most of your players have never played the game, goals won’t be as fun as high score for that game. Let them get a feel for it before you started telling them what they have to do.
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I just thought of something. Objective-based pingolf would be really interesting for wedgehead-era EMs that often had “collect all cards/numbers/pool balls/etc for Special” - in tourney play these tend to not get gone for as specials don’t score points.
I like the idea of collecting X number of ghosts in GB…although I don’t know how they’re re-lit.
50m might be a little high…25 or 30m might be better. I can check tonight and report back with the average score from mine after a week on location. It’s one of those games like GOT where you can get a ton of points from just a few shots, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, you won’t even get close.
This is what I am worried about with score. In the match play tournament on the weekend, 1 3M skillshot seemed to win often. You are probably right, 20 or 30 might be more reasonable.
GB seems to have great options for objective based. Capture scolari brothers, score X supers, collect X ghosts, finish X modes, start multiball, play video mode, start PKE frenzy. Ok, some of those are too easy because they can be done in 1 skill shot, but still.
I am worried that score without explanation of how is really hard because people seem to spend a long time playing without accomplishing anything. A lot of building gear jackpot and building super for no points.
Look forward to the report.
Someone glanced on it before, but loose Slimers can be nudged for free Slimer hits and more importantly Storage Facility jackpots. As a scoring reference locally, CDS has put up multiple 600m+ games because of a loose Slimer.
After a few hundred games, the average on my machine (which is on location) was 26m.
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In some respects, I agree with you, which is why I have a mix of score and objective-based goals.
However, most players will play the machine pretty much the same way they always do with score-based goals. With my objectives, I can get them to explore rules that they might have ignored( LOTR- start Ring Frenzy), or force them to play in a way that they would normally avoid, such as challenging their recovery skils( Iron Man- start War Machine multiball).
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I ran the pre-IFPA13 PinGolf. Because the attendees were all likely to be pretty sophisticated (few noobs on a tourney the day after PAPA), I included some expert goals. For a more beginner friendly tournament, I’d have used much simpler objectives.
I’d love to hear participants feedback, but is seemed players talked a lot more about the objective-based holes that required “non-typical” play versus the score based ones. There were some different approaches on how to approach TOTAN and TZ goals. TOTAN was interesting in that game modes could block their progress (“oh crap, I lit locks” because it blocked progress on Tiger Loops) which could be infuriating as a player. I think in retrospect that made it more interesting, but might have added randomness.
Our objectives:
Hole 1: Stern Mustang - 12M
Hole 2: Stellar Wars - 35K
Hole 3: Tales of the Arabian Knights - Collect 2 Jewels and 3 Tiger Loops
Hole 4: Big Buck Hunter - Start 2 multiballs
Hole 5: Future Spa - 50K
Hole 6: Twilight Zone - collect 3 door panels and 4 hitchhikers.
Hole 7: Knockout - 30K
Hole 8: Flash Gordon - 150K
Hole 9: Time Machine - Start Multiball