I am getting ready for state champs here in OR, and had sent a game list to all the players some weeks ago. This event is being held at one of our public locations, Quarterworld Arcade. One of our players was mentioning that the Game of Thrones at this location had a flaky shooter switch, and it would periodically select a random house for the player. This player’s opinion was that the game should be pulled because of this. I responded that I should just set it to novice mode instead (this auto-selects Stark for all players.)
In the moment it was kind of a cheeky joke, but the more I thought about it the more I liked it. For most people it wouldn’t change much. From what I’ve seen, most players are choosing Martell for their house, and they’re going to chase Hand of the King with an ideal stack of Lannister, Greyjoy, Stark, Tyrell. (Pipe down Tyrell people, I know you’re out there but lets face it, you’re the minority.) By forcing everyone to play Stark, you aren’t changing this strategy at all, you are just removing the add-a-ball from play. People need to play better to get those huge scores out of the multiballs which is great, but even better it means nobody will go spinner-all-day to mark time because they have HotK lit and they already used their add-a-ball on Blackwater that ball.
I realize this removes some player agency in terms of how to approach the game, but in terms of the compromises we make for games to be playable, its pretty minimal. Thoughts?
I’d say this is a fine compromise. It guarantees everyone plays as the same house. I’d try and replace the shooter switch if possible first though. Haha.
Signed,
The idiot that plays as Greyjoy in competition.
P.S. Double check everything that novice mode does though. I think it spots you a couple houses right away too. Not sure what else.
This was happening to mine recently, and what had happened was that the washer on the player’s side of the shooter housing had been subtly mangled in such a way that it pinched the barrel spring (again, on the players side) tighter than it’s meant to be. This caused the shooter tip to stick out an extra quarter inch into the shooter lane, so sometimes balls being put into the shooter lane were bouncing slightly off the extended tip and losing contact with the shooter lane switch for just a brief moment…which would lock in house selection.
That said, I think sticking everyone with Stark is more fair than leaving it in a state where some people will get to select their mode and others will not.
Also, someone who complains loudly about being forced to use Stark (when everyone else is being forced to as well) probably knows the game well enough that they would prefer not to have it removed from the tournament.
So I was just investigating what all comes along with the casual mode settings, and it appears like it includes a lot of changes I’d probably rather not bring into play, which stinks:
V1.03 - October 13, 2015
Added Casual Mode Adjustment.
Factory PRO will be YES and NO for PRE/LE
No House selection at the start. PLayers will be HOUSE STARK.
STARK starts complete so they are one house closer to EXTRA BALL
GREYJOY starts lit.
No option to PASS on choose your battle
If only one house is lit the house will start without a prompt during CHOOSE YOUR BATTLE
Difficulty, HOME, and Directors Cut INSTALLS will change the setting.
Holding the ACTION button for 3 seconds before starting a game will allow the game to start NOT in casual mode if desired.
This actually happened to me in INDISC qualifying. Fortunately @pinbwzrd was on hand to do a quick repair, and off I went to restart and pick Martell - with hard locks - and put up a relatively respectable 1.1B.
From my experience with this issue - barring the ability to perform a quick fix to the plunger, simply pulling the plunger back as the game starts should mitigate this.
Oh interesting. Great point…but if it’s a multiplayer game, you’d need to rush up to the machine to beat the ball to the shooter lane. It’d be just like playing X’s & O’s.
If I’m remembering my novice settings correctly Greyjoy starts lit but, because you can’t pass on starting a house if you shoot the mode-start ramp, it’s very difficult to stack Greyjoy, Lannister and multiball. So it doesn’t make it as easy as it would initially appear.
Also has anyone had an issue with the auto select recently on the Quarter World Game of Thrones? I thought it had been fixed.
That doesn’t sound difficult at all. Tell players beforehand and put a note on the game. Anyone doing this is DQ’d for the game. Easy for any TD or other player in the group to see, even during gameplay.
Thanks for this tip, while at the location today I noticed that the spring between the plunger and the cabinet on the outside was completely crushed, causing the tip to stick out. Notified the op and they’re replacing it tomorrow so we should be good to go.
I still think casual mode in a major tournament would be an interesting experiment!
