New pinball skills tutorial videos: looking for feedback from high level players

link?

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Hey there,

For the upcuming full length Tutorial I decieded to write the whole Script before I launch the crowdfunding. This way alot of pressure goes away and I know exactly what I want and need for the production.
Even if I can’t collect all the money I need, I’m sure that I will somehow make this happen!
The Tutorial will be released in english and german and I guess there will be between 50-70 min of playtime. I also want to include new techniques and classic games if possible.

Anyway, if you could help me out again with language, terminology and technique questions I’d be more than happy :heart_eyes:

First question: How do you call it, if the ball jumps from the inlane transition to the flipper?
ball hop, flipper hop or inlane flipper hop?

cheers

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Flipper hop, and maybe inlane flipper hop, but that’s a bit clunky.
Never ball hop.

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Just flipper hop

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Here’s a tricky question that I haven’t been able to fully resolve yet.

Stern Catch vs Post Catch vs Rolling Post Pass

Each of those techniques is performed on balls coming from an inlane feed, but the timing is different.

A stern catch is done like a live catch and its the latest timed of all three techniques. You flip as the ball is about to touch the rubber of the flipper and it can reduce the ballspeed alot or even stop the ball on the flipper.

My problem is the right timing on post catches vs rolling post passes. Do you have any hint on how to perform the timing differently? Or deos it depent more on geometry which technique will result of those two? Anything can be helpfull for my research :blush:

From my experience, the post catch is earlier. Usually when I fail at a post catch, it’s because I flipped too late.

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Agreed. Geometry and physics would dictate a failed post catch to be late. Rolling post pass would be the result of a late post catch. I would think Steve Bowden would have a better name for the Stern catch. You can do it on other machines as well. Closest real world analogy would be a teeter-totter. :sunglasses:

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Thanks, that helps! Didn’t Colin called it Stern Catch earlier in the thread?
So if you have more suggestions youre welcome :slight_smile:
Would be sweet to have a name for it, since its a quite useful technique.

I’ve always called it a stall catch

I found it, Adam and Family calles it stern catch.
John calles it stall catch.

Now is the chance to write pinball history and give the move a name :stuck_out_tongue:

so what @Adam is calling a “stern catch” is basically the standard on a gottlieb system 3?

No. A “gottlieb catch” is different. For that one you do:

step 1: hold up the flipper any time before the ball arrives
step 2: watch the ball stop on the flipper, lol

The “Stern” catch, which I still contend is unique to modern Stern inlane design is raising your flipper at just the right moment just before the ball arrives from the inlane such that the ball looses all of its forward momentum and (some of the energy is transferred to backspin, it seems) stops on the flipper for a catch. The post isn’t involved at all in this maneuver, so it’s definitely a different type of catch.

There is yet another until-now-unnamed way to catch the ball on a flipper for some designs and that is the “wicked shimmy catch”. Just as you would try and shimmy a ball from the outlane by walking it back up into play, the wicked shimmy catch can work on inlanes that are mostly vertical (think of the right inlane on The Addams Family or the right inlane on Spiderman) where you shimmy the ball as it travels down the inlane and remove enough of its momentum so that the ball will stop on your flipper. We could also name this the “Rosa catch” because both Andy and Andrew excel at this maneuver and use it all the time.

To round out all the ways you can catch a ball on a flipper, let’s not forget the “Magna catch” on World Cup Soccer. It doesn’t work on all World Cup Soccers, but it does work on most. If you shoot the left ramp and fire off the magna grab before the ball arrives, the magnet will grab the ball for a trap on the left flipper. This can be super useful for hitting one of the all time most important shots in pinball - the scoop to start multiball. Some players prefer to hit this scoop on-the-fly from a left ramp feed, but if you’re better at hitting the scoop from a cradle, the magna-catch is definitely the way to go. Note, too, you can do the “backdoor magna catch”, too, lol, which is plunging, and holding the right flipper up for a ski pass to the left and then firing the magna grab, and that too will often end with the ball trapped on the left. The anti-thesis to all of these catches on World Cup Soccer is that when the game goes into ball search, it fires this magna grab magnet, so if you are comfortably cradled on the left and for some reason (usually a trough issue) the game goes into ball search, watch the ball fling out of your cradle and back into play, lol. Good times.

And as always, YMMV!

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can you go further into what the mechanism is by which the ball is losing momentum or clarify the specific timing? Is it the flipper rubber hitting the ball to slow it down? something like the p3 inlane to opposite flipper transfer with the inlane guide itself exerting some force? any clips you can think of off-hand or players to look at?

I think Adam already captured it: back spin. There’s likely also some of the physical momentum being slowed down as well from hitting the heel of the flipper rubber. Note: to get the ball to a full cradle, you often have to couple this skill with a micro-flip as the ball is near the tip of the flipper.

what is imparting the back spin? or is it already there when the ball’s in the inlane? if you have to do a micro-flip to stop the ball then it sounds like you haven’t succeeded at @Adam 's ‘stern catch’ since the micro-flip is usually enough on its own?

i have seen that move more and more, i feel like Jason used it quite a bit at INDISC and i saw a player for Portland doing it at our event last weekend on BKSOR to increase success of doing a post catch with a slower ball. Interesting concept for sure.

From what I’m seeing and feeling its not about spin. It feels and behaves like with Live Catches and the timing is also the same. I guess the friction also slows down the ball. Watch how smooth the ball will roll up the flipper after the manouver and this even can work better than in those examples.

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Indeed. It could very well be a “micro” live catch. Perhaps when the ball comes off the inlane guide it’s briefly “airborn” and if you raise the flipper at just the right time, you’re live catching with the back of the flipper near the crook. Your “Ostemeier” examples are gorgeous! Well done.

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Perhaps part of the effect is the dampening from the flipper rubber which in the now classic slow-mo video can be seen to be flapping around whenever the flipper is activated without the weight of the ball slowing it down - eg around 10:26 in this timestamped link

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