Can someone who was in Florida explain why only 2 games were being played at a time? If it wasn’t waiting for a game or adjacent game then was there a rule that only 2 games could be played at once?
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On my Maiden Pro I set locks and Eddie to hard. Tilt set tight but not razor tight. Lowered all MB save times down to 7-10 seconds. And wax. Game played very tough but was playable and didn’t hold up anything.
Here is a problem in rules from IFPA on state championship.
“ Once a player verbally announces their game choice, or chooses position, that decision will be locked in and cannot be changed.”
I would say if the TD is notified that they did pick a game to wait on but it is taking a extremely long time to finish that game then they can choose a open game to play without waiting on game they picked.
Also here is a few games to stay away from because of long play. Rescue 911, hobbit , lord of the rings, and Spider-Man
If a rule was made to not have players on either side of them during matches then this needs to be reclassified as the 24 hours of IFPASCS. Since this one day tourney all across the country has been in existence that is the most absurd situation I have heard since first tourney some 5 years ago
Only edit here would be TD approved – not just notified.
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We may be in the minority here but in WA we actually experimented this year with NOT bastardizing games, and just let it ends when it ends. Some small adjustments were made like ball save timers in multiball but physically the games were not modified too much. This was in response to feedback from last year… and it’s a public location so making patreons pay for games that destroy them in the week leading up (and weeks after, or all year for some cases…). @DBS can talk about it more, but I think it was kind of a cool thing to do. It really showcased to viewers the level of talent of people competing and we got to see some really epic matches!
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The Florida SCS was not at my house or venue, and I was not the TD. I was simply a player.
However, Florida is my state. I’ve been in every single Florida SCS and I take a lot of pride in what happens with Florida Tournament Pinball in general.
I feel a few things need to be clarified because there is some misinformation floating about and that is how bad rumors begin.
- Number of games running:
There were not only 2 games running at once. It was 4.
Granted, it is not all 8 groups in parallel for the lower 9-24 round and the subsequent top 16 round, but it was not “only 2 games”.
What was clearly happening was that the group of 4 that began was the highest seed in that round, followed by the groups with the next 3 ordered seeds. All 4 groups played in parallel. As one finished, the next highest group filled the spot.
So there were a maximum of 4 groups running at once in a round.
Nobody was allowed to play ahead into the next round while the current round was running, even if you already knew exactly who the upcoming opponent was. This makes perfect sense I hope.
- Rules about waiting:
The format was explained as it has been every year. Players were told they could wait for specific games.
Players were also told that if there was a group immediately next to the game to be played they could wait. There was nothing in writing and nobody enforcing this idea.
Most games were adjacent head to head, with just enough space to avoid nudging into the adjacent machine. It was not like people said “you are within 10 feet of my personal space, I am waiting”. It was possible to get sideways donkey kicked or touched with a slap save.
Despite any potential contact, it just seemed players were waiting out of respect.
I can’t recall anyone being told flat out NO you can’t play next to someone else playing. The waiting seemed to be agreed on by the parties. This happened every round. I never saw adjacent groups playing. If there were people who were told NO, I didn’t witness it.
- Use shorter playing games (?)
Eric Stone can play a lot of games “forever”. He is good on almost everything. How do you stop that? There were some other players putting up some decent scores as well.
If anything remotely taken out as an “Eric Stone style game” is removed or the games become bastardized so that they are “luck boxes” then we could forgo the SCS, draw a name out of the hat with the 24 players and avoid the trip altogether. 99% of the people there are not going to do what Eric does, or pull off what Nick did on ball one on AC/DC.
- Potential Solution(s)
Since complaining for the sake of complaining is not constructive, (and these topics are not even my complaints) I would propose some solutions:
Solution 1: If space between games is desired, maybe have fewer games turned on and available for SCS choice. Shuffle the location’s game placement order so that maybe every other one is used for example so that the actual tourney games will be spaced farther apart without having to figure out where to put the other non-used games AND more groups can play in parallel.
That could limit the amount of games from 25 to say 12 or 13. Now everyone can play at once, but have fewer game choices.
Solution 2: Get a hotel for SCS night. Make a weekend of it. Come Saturday, stay over, leave Sunday. I know it is not always practical: family, work, have other plans, money issues etc. but I am just throwing out solutions.
Solution 3: Makes notes of changes you’d like to see, and reach out to the TD in person after the event when there is not all of the stress of the SCS going on.
Solution 4: Reach out on the FTP site and start a conversation among the Florida players, not the global forum.
Hope that helps 
Preregistration links are now available for all three Colorado WPPRtunity tournaments in/around Nationals.
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Not sure what the reasoning is for that rule. I watched Cal play two rounds at the same time (maybe even three?) and it didn’t seem to be a problem. The eventual winner’s group always took longer than the other groups. The others didn’t want to sit around.
Our league plays at a location where the games are tight. Heads almost touching. It isn’t a problem as long as no one slide saves a game. The games all have grippy feet on them, which discourages slide saves. If I were TD, I wouldn’t allow people to wait for that reason. Yes, hands and body parts occasionally touch, but not as often as you think and no one has gotten donkey kicked yet.
Our games in MD were probably on the more liberal side as well, but I concur with the idea of letting players showcase their talents, and we too had some pretty epic matches.
Agreed. There is a reason behind this rule in the first place. It was implemented so a player can’t “fish” for a good game pick by gauging their opponent’s reaction to their pick, and then changing their pick if their opponent likes the game that was chosen.
“P1: I choose Alice cooper because its a snooze fest!”
“P2: yay! I was hoping you’d pick that, I also think its a snooze fest!”
“P1: Wait, now I change my mind, I’ll choose Jetsons!”
“P2: Oh no! My advantage on boat-anchor games is thwarted!”
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Does this rule apply to choice of game or position?! Multiple times throughout the day someone chose “game” walked around, saw nothing appealing then passed the choice to me. It’s widely known that I never choose games so I would have loved to prevent this!
I am pretty sure if they say game then it should be locked in.
Did they make a choice of which game? The rules say, “…verbally announces their game choice, or chooses position…” If a player hasn’t made a game choice, then my opinion is that they can still opt to choose position.
Further, did you bring this up with one of the other TD’s at the time? It certainly wasn’t brought to my attention.
“ Once a player verbally announces their game choice, or chooses position, that decision will be locked in and cannot be changed.”
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I did not bring it to a TDs attention because I didn’t think I needed too. I agree that someone should be able to switch to choice of position if nothing is appealing which is why it wasn’t brought up.
The question was more just for future reference.
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If they say which game, I absolutely agree.
If they have only chosen to pick a game instead of position, I think there should be a little window of time for them to change their mind.
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congrats to all the women state champs!
WSCS
OH - Holly Koskinen
KY - Phoebe Smith (OH)
NC - Linsey Rogers (OH)
AZ - Lee Ann Scardina
WA- Ashley Weaver
OR- Zoe Vrabel
ON - Gwen Holowecky
I cannot wait to see this list get longer and longer each year!
*Ohio had Erin Malysa travel from IL to compete and came in 4th. This is definitely something that puts Women’s Pinball on the map.
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What a great and exciting weekend in Renton at 8-Bit Arcade! We saw some epic games on TOTAN, Corvette and many others and of course the big Ironman match of Cayle George vs. Raymond Davidson for the Championship!
All the coverage is here and unedited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZAnYx5xmAo&t=384s
I also want to give special and awesome thanks to: Doug Marsh (Sound/Video), Stephen Donaldson (Host/Video), Hannah Hatch (Host), Jasmijn de Jong (Host), Ashley Weaver (Host/Venue Support), Dave Stewart, 8-Bit Arcade, Karl DeAngelo (Creator of the PINRIG), the community on Twitch, Facebook, Twitter and the peeps here on the TiltForums.
What a way to start off 2020!!
- Chase
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BUMP…please add links at the top post.