The magnet pulse caused the ball to move. Not paying attention caused loss of ball.
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How do you know if he paid attention the drain could of been avoided? I would of said major malfunction and gave them another ball from what ive heard.
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I don’t know for certain it would have, but I accepted responsibility for snoozing as it was likely to have been preventable.
I’m sure your ruling would have been appreciated by the affected player and met with a few eyerolls from the opponents.
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I have never ever ever seen this happen. And I used to have a WCS. Never on that one and never on any else.
If this happens from a 100% static cradle (not saying the incident spawning this discussion wasn’t), it is a matter of a more than usual shallow flipper. And a more than usual strong magnet. Reeling the ball off a cradle into the abyss is not usual WCS magna save behaviour.
Looking back at Cayles remark. What if it’s a matter of combined player interaction and ball search influenced ball manipulation.
I would say no, because you believed it was not being done correctly. This was only one of three incidents I’m aware of when we didn’t have consistency in TD behavior, and it was discussed so as to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
No.
There was a thread on this type of thing happening to Lyman on a WCS at a past tournament, assuming the same type of behavior happened to @jdelz without him realizing it… Lyman's MagnaPass. Unintentional? Serendipitous?
It’s caused by that flipper not reading end of stroke, so the game believes no flipper is being held up -> stuck ball, fire the lasers. The ball search magnet fires very briefly, so it would appear more like a Shadow ball lock than a magna-save.
In general during gameplay, the only ways a ball in play gets ruled a major malfunction is if it goes to bonus with a ball on the playfield, if a flipper dies, or if something physically shoves the ball into the drain like a fallen plastic.
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I agree that these two situations are at least somewhat comparable. In both cases the player took their attention off the machine (by either walking away or turning away) because the ball was at rest in a definitively ‘safe’ location (or what would/should be a safe location on a machine that is functioning properly). I think any machine malfunction that interrupts a static ball position that can be normally be maintained indefinitely without player attention is worthy of being considered a major malfunction.
That being said I don’t think it’s a clear call and I wouldn’t argue/plead with a TD who called it either way.
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The ball saver disabled by engaged flipper (on WPC games) is not EOS. But flipper switch (detailed in a previous post of mine, subtle stuff with two switches per button). But set that aside…
Maybe my memory do not serve me right. Maybe the magna save magnet is that strong to pull a ball from cradle.
This is surprising. A TD making a decision that a player doesn’t like is often necessary…I get that, it definitely shouldn’t be up to the player. I think a TD does have a responsibility to at least verbalize “this is what I’m about to do because of this.” At its best, the resolution will be understood by all and the game will be carried on in a timely matter. At the very least though, doing this can educate a player on why rules are the way they are and possibly garner some sort of respect to the TD that they deserve but often don’t receive.
Do you say this because you’re worried that a TD verbalizing a decision might open up room for unneeded discussion?
I guess. If a player says “I have a stuck ball, get it out” I’m not going to ask them whether that’s what they really want, I’m just going to do it. If they ask me “Can I declare this a stuck ball, and what would happen?” I’ll answer.
But if a player tells me they’ve already come to a decision, I’m going to act on that decision.
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TBH, I’m a little surprised at this ruling because [the collective] we’ve talked in the past about the suckiness of “ruling shopping.”
That’s awesome, congrats!
I had to think about this a bit. But if I legitimately feel a ruling is incorrect under the rules, I’d speak up about it – not necessarily to argue, but to ask for certainty and express a belief about what I think should happen. I guess that sounds close enough to arguing though.
However, I wouldn’t ask for a second TD, that’s a bit undermining; if the TD thinks they should call someone else over, that’s their choice, not mine. I also agree that “ruling shopping” sucks, and hopefully is happening less often.
I did have multiple incidents at Pinburgh 2016 where a player asked me about a ruling after someone else had already made a decision. Those incidents make me a bit grumpy because nothing good comes of them, and when you’re in the middle of other TD work they feel like pop quizzes.
Mind you, that stuck ball is always a collaboration. The player is resposible for flipper control and has to squeeze a side for the glass to be able to be installed.
It is players priviledge to take the tilt-risk of bumping the ball free. Sometimes you might choose to because of a timed event in progress, a lucrative target in the balls natural path (a lock for instance) or a ball leaning to an outlane.
For me that is exactly the point, we don’t know it could have been avoided, and we also don’t know that it caused the drain, its uncertain.
Are we going to start handing out rulings based on assumption or possibilities?
All we know was, ball was in play, the player wasn’t even looking at the ball and it drained. And the player assumes something maybe went down.
I mean, in that case, give me every ball back because the plunger put the ball in play, and that caused my ball to drain, maybe, i am not sure, but I think so.
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Agreed. Far too slippery and steep slope to adjudicate otherwise.
Do we really know if a player’s 3rd lock shot on Congo was truly strong enough to make it to the lock, or did the volcano lock mech malfunction? It doesn’t matter, because the flippers are still active as the ball comes trickling back down the side loop, and it’s still within the player’s ability to continue playing, regardless of the animation playing out on the DMD. I learned this one the hard way.
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crazy it happens to me a lot too! 
I hope you can attend a tournament i am the TD in. On a broken game i tend to side with the player…
The player in this case said he took responsibility for the drain - so you would side with him and say he was at fault? XD
Siding with a player means siding with a ruling that would benefit them. If there was a major malfunction and a player lost the ball and simply accepted this, I would let them know they need to play another ball. If they want to plunge that ball and walk off, they can but I (The TD) upheld the IFPA/PAPA rules which is what i try to accomplish. .
If I was at the event and this was the final ball in the match I would try to recreate the problem before I made a ruling. I know this is not always possible though.
I still don’t see how one can argue if a TD rules this a major malfunction and gives the player another ball. If you play on WCS and can cradle a ball on left flipper for 5, 10, 15, 20+ seconds without an issue but on this one you can only cradle for 10 before a magnet pulse causes ball to drain, I would consider that a major malfunction. Personally I wouldn’t use the game if possible.
“A major malfunction is a gameplay problem with a machine that results in the premature loss of ball in play in a fashion that is not a normal feature of the machine’s gameplay. These may be unusual one-time events, or they may indicate a recurring problem that will need to be addressed by technicians.”