As a tournament player, what is harder to adjust to/more difficult; removed out-lane posts, or wide open out-lanes with no rubbers?
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I think they’re pretty much equivalent functionally. My subjective experience is that they’re both much harder than having rubber there.
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Well if you take out the posts completely you’re also taking the rubbers with them (I hope). I’m assuming you’re leaving the inlane/outlane divider rubbers in and removing the upper posts completely? Without the upper posts you’re relying on the wall a lot so I’d guess that taking the upper posts out is still more difficult.
Though after playing these games at PAPA20, I think shortening the ball save timer on multiballs is the new “outlane posts removed/lightning flippers installed” modification. I had no idea how much more difficult that would make a game!
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I think that would depend on the game. On GOT it would seem needlessly cruel to slap a ball off the wall only to have the in lane rubber give you the finger and drain it back down the left.
I don’t want to be needlessly cruel, but I also don’t want 30 minute games all over the place.
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Removing the rubber at the inlane/outlane division makes the inlane and outlane openings larger by the same amount. Removing a wall post rubber makes only the outlane opening larger. I would tend to think the latter will be more difficult and harder to adjust to. And a mini post at the in/out split can still be pretty useful to nudge off of.
This ripping out outlanes business is for PAPA A only. Two things causing this relevant. Top top players, and a system allowing reattempts. Otherwise I do not see the point.
The trick of setting up games is to find the optimal luck/skill balance in regards to the player base. A fair playing (and 100% working) game. That still cannot be abused by the best players. And this because of game duration more than anything else, really.
A bastardised game, may be too much luck of the draw for intermediately skilled players. That might not find it their money and time worth. Short/unfair games and no fun.
I am not sure I understand your “harder” question. But outlane post adjustment is actually not always that easy. Being hidden under plastics and stuff. Easy to do things are: clean and polish the playfield, install new balls, calibrate the tilt (not too tight though and have room for warnings), fresh flipper rubber ring, fine tune the pitch. Easy to come by stuff that will get you a long way towards a fast and tough controllable game.
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Not always. Some games, like Spidey or LOTR, will play too long if you don’t pull the outlane posts. As always, test your adjustments before games count.
When adjusting outlane posts, remember that most players are right handed. if one outlane is going to be wider than the other, it should be the right one.
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I agree to an extent, but what I was getting at was; is a naked metal post harder to deal with than no post at all?
And to expand a bit more on you luck/skill balance; which option would increase/decrease the skill to luck balance.
As I said, I don’t want to be needlessly cruel, especially since both A&B players would be using these machines for qualifying (unlimited) and the finals (and lets face it, folks don’t want to watch a TILT fest on stream).
Will also disagree with this. PAPA C had games this year with outlane posts removed (and rubbers). As did B. And they have in the past as well.