Pin-baseball!

General
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For all you baseball fans out there ( @PinballProfile ) this is for you!

Pin-baseball

Each game has a single, double, triple, and home run score threshold for an individual ball and out, double play, or triple play (see “outs”) thresholds for each ball. All games are 3 ball games. There are 9 innings, each game title is an inning. You play a game title until you get three outs then move to the next inning. Each game will have a target score multiplier equal to the game number on that inning, so the second game on a title you play all target scores are doubled, the third they are tripled, etc.

Bases, outs, and multiplier get reset each inning. Winner is the person with the most runs after 9 innings, or you cut to a top 16 for a multi day tournament for ifpa points and run each round with two innings each round and top 2 in runs scored from each group move on each round, etc

Outs

There will be a “out” score threshold as well as a “double play” and “triple play” threshold. The double play can only happen if there is one person on base, and the triple play if there are 2 or more on base. Otherwise the double play and triple play threshold is treated as a normal out.

Example score threshold (points scored on the last ball)

Stern Star Trek

Triple play: 0-4.9mil

Double play: 5-9.9 mil

Out: 10-14.9 mil

Single: 15-24.9 mil

Double: 25-49.9mil

Triple: 50-79.9 mil

Home run: 80+ mil

What y’all think? Would you play? What if it was a multi - day event? The logistics of tracking your delta on each ball is a little tough but could be solved with some software to help you, or you could make some rounding rules so you’re not counting all the digits, or make a home run score and use percentages like pin-bowling.

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Sounds interesting and something I would like to try. I would say that the target per ball is the better option as if it’s the game it could make for a very long event.

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So in your example, if Star Trek was game 9, a home run would be 720m, right?

That sounds interesting, but I could see this becoming a huge grind in later innings where people are on base but it can take long high scoring games to bring them in.

For outs, three outs and you move to the next game. But an out is defined as a total game score. Does that mean you get multiple attempts?

This all sounds interesting for sure.

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Interesting concept; some comments:

Targets on a per-ball basis would be much more labor intensive as far as scorekeeping was concerned.

Some confusion as to multiplier: first paragraph says it’s equal to game number, second paragraph says it resets each inning / game.

Agree that the format could lead to long times, e.g. if someone gets better scores each game at first, but each is a single; plays maybe 5 games before getting an out.

Also has the issue of players who play better getting to play many more games than those who don’t. Sort of being double-penalized for having a bad day, you not only score poorly, you play fewer games for your entry fee.

Similar to pin-bowling, where score X is a strike, Y is a spare, Z is pin count.

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I’ve updated the description to hopefully clear things up.

Yes, the idea is, just like baseball, there can be “big innings” and some … quicker ones. For flavor reasons I added the last minute “you can’t get a double play or triple play without people on base” but now I’m seeing how that makes every inning at least three games (probably more). Might have to go with the per-ball implementation… updated

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You don’t necessarily need a per-ball implementation…

I was mixing your original explanation with what I was imagining in my head…which was something a bit shorter/simpler. What about this…

  • Score thresholds like you have listed above for out, single, double, triple, home run.
  • You play each game once. Each game is three balls. If your final game score is in the “out” threshold, you get an out. (If you reach 3 outs at any point during the 9 games, you’re out. You’re not playing 9 innings, you’re actually just playing one inning…and you’re playing through the 9 person lineup of batters. It ends when you’ve reached 3 outs, or exhausted your batters).
  • All baserunners carry over between games. You can bat them in during future games.
  • It may make sense to do away with the multipliers in this implementation.

For extra awesomeness, let the players pick the order of the games. Then, there is a ton of strategy: do I pick harder games early to try and load the bases with singles and then bring them all in with a mid/late lineup homerun on a game I feel more comfortable on? Etc.

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years ago I heard about a @PAPA_Doug event that used something similar?

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Make each game one ball and this has a better chance! Currently it sounds like it would take an extremely long time to play.

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Each game is three balls, but you can get three outs on a game (score thresholds are per ball now). If I made the multiplier exponential instead of linear, or just put a hard cap, then the tournament would be minimum 9 games for someone who went three up three down all 9 innings, or more likely 27 games assuming the average inning takes three games to finish (average one out per game). It would take a whole day of course but actually I think it would be realistic (if finals were on a separate day, or you just throw out the direct play requirement and call it after 9 innings)

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Pretty sure what happened in Doug’s tourney was there wasn’t a run cap, so a high score on BSD got someone riduculously far ahead of everyone else.

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Yeah we ran something similar. You scored runs based on points/game with each game being one inning of a game (5 innings comprised a match).

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It was similar in that the scoring was baseball related, but the event was PvP, where this event sounds more like PvE. I like the idea of creative formats like this. I wish you well, and hope to see some post event feedback from you.

Let me clarify the opening statement. In Doug’s event runs were based on the opponent’s score. You would get a run for every multiple of their score you put up. If you got 6x their score, you got 6 runs. This is why BSD was the most important game in the format. You could score 50 runs on a player who failed to get anything going on BSD, but no other games had such a scoring imbalance.

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Alright, I’ve come up with the official rules and worked out some of the kinks… tournament format will definitely still take a long time, but if you have the base scoring thresholds high enough and the games playing tough I actually don’t think it’d take any longer than say, City Champ. You could probably squeeze it in to one day as well…

Pin-baseball

Each game will have a scoring unit that is one “base”. The number of units of scoring achieved in one ball determines the number bases hit. If you get less than the unit, you get an out or possibly a double play* or triple play**. The maximum number of bases for a ball is 4 (home run). After you achieve a home run score on a ball, you can either stop playing or continue playing to set up the next ball(s).

*Eligible if two or more players on base

**Eligible if one or more players is on base

Whatever amount of bases you achieve in a ball, you mark the number and then round your score down to the nearest rounding unit to become your base score going in to the next ball. You then take your actual score on ball 2 and see how many bases away it is from the starting base and score that much. After a three ball game is over, if you do not have three outs, simply restart the game and repeat. Repeat until you reach three outs and end the inning, or you’ve exhausted all of your batters (9 balls).

Example for Iron Maiden:

Scoring unit = 30 million

Rounding unit = 1 million

Out( triple play)* - <10 million

Out (double play)** – > 10 million and < 20 million

Out - > 20 million and < 30 million

Single – 30 million

Double – 60 million

Triple – 90 million

Home Run – 120 million

Let’s say…

On ball 1 you score 68,570,340. You would get 2 bases (double) and your score rounded down to the nearest 1 million (rounding unit) million is recorded as 68 million.

On ball 2 you end the ball with 105,455,540. You take your current score (rounded down for ease of math = 105 million) and subtract the 68 million you “started” with = 37 million. You look up what 37 million equals and see that it scores a single so you mark a single and mark your current score as 105 million. You now have runners on first and third base.

On ball 3 you end the game with 112,644,460 (ouch!). You take your current score (112 million) and subtract the 105 million = 7 million. 7 million is less than the scoring threshold so you get an out. However, because the score is less than a third of the 30 million, you are eligible for a Triple Play. Because you have two people on base, this is possible and your inning is over. After a predetermined number of innings the person with the most runs wins. For any ties, go to whoever had the most total batters used (number of balls played)

Example for an all-day, full TGP tournament:

7 innings of qualifying = 7 TGP (guaranteed at least three balls on each game)

Quarterfinals : 3 innings in group of four = 6 TGP

Semifinals: 3 innings in group of four = 6 TGP

Finals: 3 innings in group of four = 6 TGP

Total: 25 TGP = 100% Tournament Grading Percentage

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I generally find this to be an interesting concept; kudos for writing up a proposed ruleset.

However, my gut reaction is that the “scoring unit” value should be set to a pretty low value for each game, both to minimize player frustration and to avoid ties, even if that results in run counts that are somewhat unreasonable for real baseball. Considering your example, I’ve played a decent if not exceptional game of Iron Maiden, probably for several minutes, and gotten 0 runs for my trouble. As a competitor, I won’t feel good about that… and, there’s a good chance that my other competitors also wind up with 0, or maybe 1. Meh. Also: tiebreak hell. For this example, I’m thinking that a scoring unit of 10M might be much more interesting. (I know, some may remind me that it’s not unusual for a 9-inning baseball game to end 1-0 or 2-1 or something, but I don’t think pinball players are expecting that.)

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Totally, you wouldn’t want the scoring unit to be so high everyone just goes three up three down, but you also don’t want it too low or else nobody will ever get any outs and will all play 9 balls. Tricky balance for sure.

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Another option is to make bases be the tie breaker. So if you are tied in runs out use total number of hits as your tie breaker.

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I like that idea. Each run = 4 points. A runner stranded on 3rd = 3 points, a runner stranded on 2nd = 2 points, a runner stranded on 1st = 1 point. This is a little more confusing to explain, but I suspect it would operate nicer, both perceptually and for tiebreak purposes. Again referring to your example, using this option, the player would earn 4 points for the two runners stranded on base, which seems reasonable for the machine points scored, and also seems reasonable considering that if the player had managed to score >135.46M, they would’ve earned 7 points, so there’s significant value in getting past each scoring unit threshold.

However, this introduces a new problem: Is all this modulo the scoring unit? So, using your example, if I score 121M in a single ball, I bring all my batters home. If I score 151M in a single ball, I’ve brought all my previous batters (none, because it’s ball 1) home and now placed a new guy on 1st, right? If so, there are distinct thresholds where I’m better off intentionally draining my ball, which isn’t great. In “real baseball” terms, I might want to adjust my lineup so I put a couple guys on base before my big slugger knocks one outta the park and takes everyone home, because a home run is more valuable when more guys are on base. In this pinball concept, the big slugger – and all the preceding and following batters – are just me, myself, and I. It sucks if a 31M ball, then a 61M ball, then a 121M ball earns me 12 points, but a 121M ball, then a 61M ball, then a 31M ball earns me only 8 points.

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Yeah, having to keep track of hits definitely seems tiresome, but remember it would only be used to break the tie in runs. So stranding runners on base is still a determent to you, which I like because it puts that pressure on you like real baseball.

The original rules do not allow modulo, once you’ve hit a home run, you’re free to drain whenever. This would bring strategic implications in which you would want to use your free time to set up a multiball one shot away, then strategically drain so your next ball it’s easier for you. I could be convinced that modulo (also would be “unlimited” scoring) could be the way to go, but then someone could play a ball forever (although theoretically someone could still do that with the current rules, just to set up that wizard mode or whatever).

Interesting… I’m going to try to do a pin baseball run on stream very soon and see how some of these things play out in practice.

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Having flashbacks of 10yo me playing Whiffleball with friends on 2-3 player teams, having to keep track of “ghostmen” running the bases or getting forced out…

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Just wondering if this format would be better played on one ball and restarting your game. That way you have to keep re-starting your progression to get that home run. Just a thought. On most solid state games won’t matter a whole lot but for modern games it seems the further you progress there are higher scoring potentials. I would be tempted to set all games to one ball play if I was doing this format.