Oh another thing I like to do for practice is take the tilt out or make it really loose. Sounds like a bad idea I know but, I think it has helped me. I try to imagine my game is in a tournament and has a tighter tilt. Instead of nudging the game like a psycho because there is no tilt, move the machine exactly as far as you need in order to save a ball. If you have to slide the machine in order to save it IE center drains, don’t save it. The idea was if you are going to tilt a game out to save a ball, it might as well be the smallest move possible so you might get away with it. I have my Barracora set up so that nudges of almost any kind are fine but, if a leg moves just a bit it insta-tilts.
One other thing in tournament / competitive play is that you have to be much more situationally aware than you might be in casual play. For example, if you’re in a playoff where you must get X match points or you’re knocked out, you can - MUST - play more aggressively than if you’re not in that situation. Sometimes I find myself too conservative in that situation, e.g. I’m reluctant to tilt even if I’m pretty sure the ball is going out the outlane. Nudge it, what’ve you got to lose?! (Unless, of course, your bonus might be enough to meet your goal … again, situational awareness.)
So for practice, sometimes I give myself a goal like “I MUST score 12 million points this ball”… as if I need that many points to surpass a hypothetical opponent and avoid elimination. If you play around with scenarios like that, you can practice the mindsets required for different stages and situations of a competition. This helps you work on different strategies for each game (safe but small points, vs. riskier but bigger points), judging how much nudging/tilt risk you’re willing to take at any given time, etc.
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Playing one handed has been really helpful, but I find multiballs to be a lot of flailing. Is that just the name of the game when doing this? Are you trying to park balls in the pops? Something else? cc @CFFLegs
My most recent practice i did a round on each game at the arcade followed by a round on each left handed and a round on each right handed, followed by a bunch of regular games.
My practice location has ACDCpro, WDpro, METpro, STpro, and TRONpro, except ST always seems to be down.
I can’t seem to figure out WD at all, it’s a brickfest for me.
I haven’t found one-handed practice to be helpful in multiball situations. Just a lot of flailing. It’s more of a one-ball practice technique.
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True. The equivalent multiball practice to one-handed is two-handed, no cradles or catches.
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That would feel like a wasted opportunity to me. At that point, why not switch to two-handed and work on control and cradle separations as needed? When you drain back down to one, get control, then go back to one-handed play.
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Related to practice: Studying.
Should we be spending our study time just watching all the tutorial videos, or mix it up with tutorial videos and competition footage?
I’d say both. Tutorials show you everyone about a game. Competition videos you can see individual strategies for points. It’s great to know how to hit wizard modes but in competition you need to learn how to maximize points early and wory about long term big stacking goals and wizard modes after you’re in a good place. I’d never walk up to say metallica and say I’m going to win by going for end of the line. Horrible strategy.
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What’s the thought process behind one-handed play, or what specifically should I be paying attention to when I’m doing it?
Great thread.
I would say that it trains you to accurately predict where the ball is going to be. You have to allow time to move the one hand from flipper to flipper. Meaning, you are forced to evaluate the path of the ball earlier than you would when playing with two hands.
One-handed play improves prediction, gives confidence in bounce pass, and rewards nudging and drop/live catch skill development. When I first started doing it I was constantly surprised at situations where I was on the “wrong flipper” and a enforced bounce pass “saved” balls I thought were gone. It really gave me confidence to use the bounce in many situations where I would otherwise do a uncontrolled up shot. I usually switch to 2 handed “controlled” play during MBs.