We had an issue on WWF at the NKY Pinball Open where the ball autolaunched while the player who was up was playing with the flippers before starting.
After testing we found out that after 7-8 seconds of being in the shooter lane, if you pressed the left flipper button, the ball would launch. So weird. Only the left flipper, and it was only after 7-8 seconds.
@Shep thought it might be a bug in the ifpa tournament mode. I reset the game back to factory, and it still does it.
Any ideas??
What happens when you turn off IFPA mode?
Josh gets $1 less…
Heyo!! Haha
No change in behavior. Turned off tournaments modes all together. Same thing. Also reset the game to factory defaults. Same thing.
And it never used to do it? Or you’re not sure?
Not sure. I rarely if ever play with the flippers before launching, and I doubt I’ve ever waited longer than a second or two to plunge.
I suggest venturing into the WWF Club thread on Pinside and seeing if anyone can confirm that it’s a thing.
Not exactly your answer, but it’s probably the quickest way you’re going to get one.
flipper ball launch will be the setting that will do something like this?
Are the switches ok?
I don’t believe this setting exists in this game.
We put the game in switch test and no other switches activated.
Only does it with the left flipper and only after 7-8 seconds. You can pretty the the flippers all you want before the 7-8 second mark, and nothing will happen.
Undocumented features like this are just lovely… @Shep and I found Capcom games will drop the flipper if it detects you fluttering the flipper button too much…
Did you guys check switch edges test to see if any other switches are triggered when the left flipper is used? I believe WWE has a high power switch on the coin door. I would also suggest checking the shooter lane switch to make sure it’s all the way closed when a ball is on it and it’s not borderline triggering. High power off, ball in the shooter lane, pound on the playfield with your fist to see if the shooter lane (or any other switch) triggers from vibration.
I’ll do this again more extensively, but yes we tried switch test.
But that wouldn’t explain why if you let the game sit with the ball in the shooter lane for at least 7 secs, then walk up, touch nothing but the left flipper button. Press it ever so slightly so as to reduce any kind of vibration at all. At that point it’s 100% guaranteed the ball will launch.
Then if I go up to the game and as soon as the ball feeds the shooter lane, I pound on the game flipping both flipper as fast and as hard as I can, nothing happens until about 7-8 seconds have passed.
Confirmed issue. While I no longer have this game, I used to own it last year and used it in a tournament and had 2 reports of auto launches. However after numerous “tests” and checking the settings, I couldn’t repeat the auto launch. Sold the game shortly after so never did a deep dive.
I don’t remember on WWF, but on Tommy (previous game by DE), there was a both flipper ball launch. Can’t remember if it was an adjustment or always on. I used to use it to get a consistent feed to the upper flipper.
Considering the amount of abuse the Tag button gets on this game, it doesn’t surprise me that they might have put in an alternate system…
JP also does the both flipper ball launch. We looked for a way to disable it and couldn’t find one.
Erik, I believe you have discovered a “feature” of this Data East game, just implemented in a slightly different way from most DE games.
My LAH does the same thing, although I’m not sure about the delay. (I’ll test tonight when I get home.)
There is a setting that is supposed to turn it off, but no matter how many times I change the adjustment, it always reverts to “Yes” for the left flipper. However, I don’t see the adjustment in the manual, so maybe it’s one that was added in the custom ROM. (I’m running version 1.13 of the code.)
In any case, seems to be a “feature” of DE games?
Maybe later ones. I don’t ever remember my LW3 doing this.
does setting tournament modes change that setting?
I think the default was hit both flippers in them.
Couldn’t hurt to do a hard reset. Power off, pull battery on CPU board, wait 10 minutes, reinstall battery and see where you’re at.
The seven second thing seems to point to software, but who knows.