What Happened on WOZ? Technical Analysis

Games
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I got asked to analyze a happening at the Bat City Open last weekend. I guess it was a tiebreaker, so ultimately a pretty big deal.

Here is the link I was sent: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/154325603?t=07h30m59s

To fully understand, however, we have to start a little bit earlier.

  • 07:29:58 - ECMB is started
  • A recent addition to the 6-series code was multiball ballsavers on the outlanes. It would seem not everyone knows about this yet. Note at the start of multiball, both TOTO and TNPLH lights are strobing green indicating they are active.
  • 07:30:12 - a ball drains down TOTO
  • Nothing happens here because the ball saver is on and the ball will be returned anyway. We don’t count progress towards multiballsavers while ball save is on so as not to waste them.
  • 07:30:25 - a ball drains down TNPLH
  • Same deal, although I’m a little surprised the ballsaver is still on at this point, honestly.
  • 07:30:38 - a ball is lost down TOTO and lights up T-TO
  • Notice the first O is still blinking
  • 07:30:41 - center drain, multiball will enter grace period in about 2 seconds.
  • At this point, notice TOTO and TNPLH go back to normal
  • 07:30:47 - glinda collected for add-a-ball, resurrecting ECMB
  • One noteworthy thing here is that TNPLH is blinking again, but for some reason, TOTO’s last letter (first O, second rollover) is no longer blinking. The other letters (T-TO) are still lit up
  • 07:31:04 - ball drains down TOTO during the ramp->throne room transition on ECMB.
  • I wouldn’t have necessarily thought it from the video, but it seems like the ball catches the second rollover, completing TOTO. The most important thing to note is that the ballsaver starts IMMEDIATELY upon the ball hitting that O, though
  • it is extra-obvious to note this because the ballsaver lamp is not typically messed with in lamp effects, so seeing it start immediately upon the final rollover is very telling.
  • 07:31:10 - crystal ball shot to start weak flippers/2x scoring
  • 07:31:12 - multiball officially starts when ball settles in VUK
  • notice right when crystal ball starts, the letters in TOTO re-activate and start strobing again. any consumed outlane multiballsavers reset when a new multiball is added to the stack, so this is expected behavior.
  • also notice right at this moment, one of the balls drains down TOTO and nothing happens because ball saver is already on.
  • 07:31:35 - center drain, nothing major here, ballsave is off
  • 07:31:42 - ball drains down TOTO catching 3 of the lights again, T-TO. at this point, though, the damage is done with 2 2x throne room jackpots for 100K total
  • 07:31:45 - ECMB and CBMB are over.

So, there you have it. I didn’t see anything unexpected at all, other than the lights not coming back on TOTO. I expect this is a bug, more precisely what probably happened is that the light state was restored for the lamp effect, but the process in charge of blinking the lights wasn’t restored. That would properly cause the lights to come back in whatever state they were in but not animate, so I can understand what happened there, also, especially since we just fixed a similar bug in Beorn in Hobbit.

I welcome any comments or questions. Hopefully that clears things up for people.

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Thanks @keefer.
Always interesting to learn something new: multiball outlane ball-savers… So both TOTO and TNPLH outlane ball-save logic act as instant ball saves during any multiball, correct?

You get one of each available to you per multiball, but if you stack on a new multiball, then you get both of them back available again. Also correct?

And getting a TOTO or TNPLH ball-save during multiball does NOT count toward your use of each during single ball play. Also correct?

And does the state the solid lit TOTO letters and TNPLH standups from single ball play (PRIOR to entering a multiball) carry into the multiball? Or does the state of each for the beginning of multiball reset to none of each lit/completed?

Thanks again.

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I can’t say I know WOZ well but reading that blow by blow break down of what happens was great! :slight_smile:

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If you stack the 3 multiballs, but don’t use the outlane ball saver until all 3 are running, does it relight 2 more times?

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Other than Battle the Witch.

Yes. The exact logic is: Progress is always saved, except when a new multiball is started (not just resurrected via Glinda), any consumed savers will then be reset to be able to be used again.

Yes, totally independent progress on each.

No, as above. Guess I jumped the gun a bit.

Progress during single ball play is remembered separately from progress during multiball play. Progress WILL be saved for multiball savers if you start a new multiball later, other than to reset consumed ones. So, e.g. you can play ECMB, drain out the left outlane and get “THERE’S NO PLACE” on your way out, drain out of mb, then later start a completely independent MB and you will still only need “LIKE HOME” to get a ball back.

No, similar to Glinda, the ability to use them only gets reset at the start of a NEW multiball, not a resurrected one. If you didn’t know, for example, you can start ECMB, get Glinda for AAB, start Rescue, get Glinda for AAB, start Crystal Ball, get Glinda for AAB, etc. If you start a new mb, your ability to cash one of these things in is lost if you didn’t use it before starting the new one. I.e. start ECMB, then start Rescue, then hit Glinda for AAB. Glinda will not give you a 2nd mb until another 3rd new mb is started.

The one thing you have to remember, though, is Glinda will NOT ever give the same thing back-to-back (except in the rarest circumstance she has nothing else to give you other than points, but that is almost impossible to pull off since Glinda is generally available when HOADC is available, so there should always be at least 2 things to swap between (horses and points)).

Most of my mystery awards follow the same rules.

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Neat, this was me playing!

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@keefer WOW. That was seriously in depth and extremely informative. Thanks for chiming in and clarifying that for all of us.

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You gotta love pinball.

How many other industries can you think of where you have an issue and you send a video to the developer/designer (if you can even figure out who it is) and you get back a detailed blow by blow breakdown of what happened?

None. :slight_smile:

Thanks @keefer!

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