I was playing in league. I had a stuck ball during multiball and craddled up the one ball and called the league official for a ruling. The interlocks were not disabled, and they suspected opening the door would kill my multiball. They ruled I should shoot me he orbit the dislodge the ball (stuck under gate). I did and continued my game.
My friends gave me a hard time afterwards for allowing the TD to make a ruling I would never had made. They thought I should talk the TD into opening the coindoor and ending my multiball. Iām I a bad person?
In a weekly league, that is more casual, sure bend the rules a bit.
But that is 100% the incorrect ruling, ball is stuck, official is called over to free it, the interlock should be disabled, but if itās not, sucks to be you, you lose your MB, ball is freeād play continues.
Huh? Some games kill your ball if the interlock is not disabled right? So in that case you open door, kill his ball, free stuck ball, then give him a comp ball?
Oh, for sure. But man, this is one of those absolutely stupid rules either way. A reasonable attempt to dislodge the ball should be allowed. Thereās no way in league Iād make someone open the door and all the āletter of the lawā types at league could start threads in anger for all I care.
In a tournament, yeah, you go full letter of the law.
Who decides whatās reasonable? If the shot needed to dislodge the ball is also a Jackpot shot, is that reasonable?
The problem with reasonable is that it is much to subjective, you need rules that will be dealt out exactly the same way, every single time, subjective things like āwhatās reasonableā offer to much grey area.
But yea like I said, context matters, in a league, let him try, who cares, itās a single game out of a ton that are going to played and this single game most likely wonāt be a huge difference maker in the grand scheme of things.
9 times outta 10 in this context as well the player drains as they attempt to do it anyway
But at Nationals as an example (interlocks will be disabled I assume @pinwizj? ) if interlocks are not disabled, trap up so you can lose your MB
If it was our league, we would give him one or two shots. If they canāt make it happen, open the door. We also have the luxury of not having anybody try to game the system by āmissingā into jackpots. I still donāt understand that type of approach to playing pinball. But yes, I see how people would take advantage of that.
A simple way to handle this which Iāve done before is have the player hit a shot that traps the ball, e.g. a VUK and then I open the door disabling power and we take care of the issue. If that is not possible, and cannot easily dislodged, or it would result in hitting jackpots to get it dislodged, then the coin door is opened. Or the player simply canāt hit the shot, eventually just open the door.
You mean like the TD being expected to rule on beneficial malfunctions based on āintentā??
Or a multiple ball situation being allowed outside of the MB mode because something was āearnedā or not?
Or definitions like āthe TD may attempt to restore game stateā (but doesnāt HAVE to even if possibleā¦)
The countless what are āallowedā ball traps vs not allowedā¦
The what is abusing design vs allowed tricks in the designā¦
What is ātheir turn or notā when a player isnāt at the machine, etcā¦ what is coaching in turn or notā¦
Sorryā¦ uniform applicability has not been the strong point of the IFPA ruleset in recent yearsā¦ as it continues to keep adding exceptions and interpretations that favor strategies that been anointed or not. Would be better to just have a special rules list for games with particularly bad behavior you want to ban and have more binary rules. But the rules have morphed over time to favor the player more IMO vs just being black and white with āthats pinballā as your 3rd bucket
Sorry, just ventingā¦ because I donāt really think objectivity/simplicity has been the biggest voice in the rulingsā¦ but rather trying to minimize disruptions to what āidealā play/outcomes has beenā¦
In this instance the stuck ball could be placed into the shooter lane and the door could be closed, however. Would you rather place it in the drain and award the compensation ball?
Yeah old flipper rubbers over the interlock switches saves on so many headaches later and takes like 5 seconds. If you have the keys to open then you can disable the interlocks.
If itās location play and you donāt have keys what else can you do besides watch the player and assume they are giving good intent/effort into freeing the ball?
Just to clarify the context (which Iām confident that Andreas intended), this āshake the ball outā and the compensation ONLY apply if itās the TD shaking the ball out.
