List of Exploits that are Allowed / Disallowed in Tournament Play

Which exploits are legal in tournaments and which aren’t? It’s a question that comes up all the time.

Below is (the start of) a list of exploits which are allowed / disallowed in tournament play according to standard IFPA/PAPA rules. (Be aware that Tournament Directors may have their own house rules, however.)

This post is set as a wiki, to allow everyone to contribute to the list, improve descriptions, etc… If everyone adds a few, we’ll have a good list in no time.

This is related to the Deep cuts of semi-useful pinball knowledge thread, but is intended more to track which moves are tournament-legal and which aren’t.

Sometimes, the line between a deep rule and an exploit isn’t clear. When in doubt, put it on the list.

If it’s unclear whether something is allowed / disallowed, please discuss it in separate posts below until consensus is reached.

ADDAMS FAMILY
Name: Double Center Ramp Super Jackpot
Ruling: Allowed
During multiball, hitting two center ramps in quick succession will fool the game into thinking that the side ramp was hit, thereby scoring a double super jackpot.

Name: Free GREED Letter
Ruling: Disallowed (with intent)
Induce a tilt to get a free GREED letter on your next ball.

ATTACK FROM MARS
Name: Dirty Pool
Ruling: Allowed
During any multiball, immediately after destroying a saucer, shoot another ball into the saucer area. If it rattles around without going into the back of the saucer and the barrier raises before the ball comes down, you can play multiball mode with one ball. Hitting the barrier will ricochet the ball into the back of the saucer, automatically destroying the next saucer (but resuming multiple-ball multiball play). If you drain, ball search will release the captured ball.

AVATAR (STERN)
Name: Link Shakedown
Ruling: Allowed
Shaking the machine aggressively enough can cause the Link captive ball to register, scoring progress or starting Link Multiball without actually hitting the shot.

BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA
Name: Mist Shakedown
Ruling: Allowed
When the Mist mode starts and the Mist-ball is moving on the magnet across the playfield, if you’re unable to hit the magnet off the track, it’s possible to give the machine a sharp shake to break the ball free from of the magnet. If the tilt is set loose enough and if the game is set to the normal two dangers, you’ll be able to start Mist multiball.

CHAMPION PUB, THE
Name: Boxer Nudging
Ruling: Allowed
Shaking the machine aggressively enough can cause the Boxer to register, scoring progress or starting a Multiball without actually hitting the shot.

CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON
Name: Ten Billion Snack Bar Bug
Ruling: Disallowed
Start the 20 million snackbar countdown. Then start multiball. Then drain down to one ball in play before the 20 million snackbar would have timed out. Snackbar will restart, but will count down from 10 billion instead! Fixed in tournament rom release.

DIRTY HARRY
Name: Invalid Playfield Magna-Force Unlimited 10M Collects
Ruling: Disallowed
Selecting the Ramp skillshot and launching the ball collects 10M points. However, the 10M collect target doesn’t validate the playfield. So if you let the ball drain, the machine will relaunch it and you will collect another 10M. This happens repeatedly until other switches are hit to validate the playfield. Note: This can be problematic in tournament where Extra Balls are not switched off and where players are instructed to plunge without flipping.

Note: ball save off does not help or does it fully disable ball save.

GAME OF THRONES
Name: Mode Select Skip
Ruling: Allowed
Induce a tilt warning while the mode select screen is up. The warning will free the ball but not force you to light an additional house before choosing again.

Name: Unlimited Ball Save in Blackwater
Ruling: Allowed
If physical locks are on, the game will not start the ball save timer (as well as launch any new balls) until all balls have been cleared from the lock. Feed balls up the left ramp to confuse the game into thinking balls are still in the lock. Also a fun way to give an operator error!

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
Name: Groot Triple Add-A-Ball/Lose-A-Ball
Ruling: Allowed
If physical locks are enabled during multiball, any balls added to the Groot lock between shooting the scoop for Add-A-Ball and awarding the Add-A-Ball on the display will add an extra ball into play. Any balls leaving Groot during this time remove a ball from play.
may get fixed in a update.

JOKERZ!
Name: Trapped Ball Search
Ruling: Disallowed
Trapping a ball long enough will trigger a ball search. The ball search will lower the ramp, allowing the player to hit it without having to risk lowering it manually.

MEDIEVAL MADNESS
Name: Drawbridge Trap
Ruling: Disallowed
In multiball, use one ball to destroy a castle. Then shoot another ball so that the ball is trapped between the gate and the rising drawbridge. This is disallowed as a stuck ball in multiball.

RADICAL!
Name: Locked Ball Tilt Eject
Ruling: Disallowed
Induce a tilt to get force a locked ball to eject, so your opponent cannot use your locked ball.
Fixed in tournament rom release.

SHADOW, THE
Name: Phurba Lock
Ruling: Allowed
In multiball, shoot one of the ramps. With perfect timing, you may be able to move the phurba diverter just as the ball is passing it, thereby trapping the ball against the sidewall of the ramp. You can then continue multiball mode in single ball play. Note: this can damage the machine and the TD may choose not to allow it at their specific event.

SOPRANOS, THE
Name: Stugots Playfield Validation
Ruling: Allowed
Short-plunging the ball will allow the player to gain control and hit the standup target covering the Stugots boat ramp. The drop target is not a playfield-validating switch, so if the ball is lost down the center, it will be returned without starting the ball save. Locking a ball in Stugots will serve another ball to the plunger, allowing the process to be repeated until multiball is started.

SPIDER-MAN [STERN 2007]
Name: Dirty Pool
Ruling: Disallowed
During any multiball, immediately after destroying Sandman, shoot another ball into the saucer. If it rattles around without going into the scoop and the barrier raises before the ball comes down, you can play one-ball multiball.

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
Name: Eternally Q
Ruling: Allowed
Start Q’s challenge and before it times out, start regular multiball. Q’s challenge never times out and repeated Q shots can be made during multiball.

TALES OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
Name: Genie Nudging
Ruling: Allowed
Shaking the machine aggressively enough can cause the Genie to register, scoring progress or starting a Multiball without actually hitting the shot.

THEATRE OF MAGIC
Name: End-of-Multiball Secret Ball Lock
Ruling: Allowed
Shooting trunk hole as it is spinning back to normal position at the end of multiball can register not only a grace period jackpot but also the secret ball lock. This allows the player to quickly get back into Multiball.

TWILIGHT ZONE
Name: False Powerball Super Jackpot
Ruling: Allowed
During Powerball multiball, if a ball is in the magnetic mini-playfield, shooting another ball on the main playfield into the Camera will fool the game into thinking that the player shot the ball through the top of the magnetic mini-playfield, thereby scoring a super jackpot.
For comp play you may want to disable (set no power ball yes) and remove power ball.

WALKING DEAD
Name: Well Walker Nudge
Ruling: Allowed
Shaking the machine aggressively enough can cause the Well Walker to register, scoring progress or starting Well Walker Multiball without actually hitting the shot.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE
Name: Free Spin Multiball
Ruling: Disallowed?
When you have two free spins lit on the same side, it’s possible when a ball drains to roll over both Free Spin switches which awards one ball for each switch. You will now find yourself in a “single ball play” state with multiple balls in play, which is not allowed. You will have to let one of these balls drain out.
This may or may not be true as warp 9.9 is allowed.

This is awesome and a great way to learn about stuff like this. My inclination is to only list the things that aren’t allowed…seems like it would be a much shorter list and we avoid discussions about what counts as an exploit and what doesn’t.

First thing that comes to mind is stacking WHC or Wall MB with BWMB in GOT. Is that a bug, an exploit, or a feature? I’ve not heard of those being disallowed, but future code could make those stacks impossible.

I would say go ahead and put it on the list. A few reasons…

• If it seems “too good to be true” and you play it, but someone complains, at least you can point to Tilt Forums and say it was discussed here.
• Listing it will allow more people to learn, therefore spreading the knowledge (note that this post is filed under Wiki Rulesheets). You don’t have to feel bad about using an exploit that is public knowledge.
• If newer code removes an exploit, then it just won’t work anymore. We can always add a note “works on code vX.XX or earlier”.

Cue @cayle. Exploits? What exploits? It’s a skill set.

Yeah, he’ll have a bunch! He probably wants to keep a few in reserve, but it would be great if he shared a couple he has already played in public.

I’m pretty sure that the Phurba Trap on the Shadow isn’t banned by IFPA/PAPA rules:

In situations where a ball is trapped in a way that it can be released through player action other than shaking or bumping – for example, a ball at rest underneath a flipper or any other mechanism which the player controls – this is not deemed to be a stuck ball. Balls trapped in this fashion during multiball modes are not generally considered to be a rules violation, although the ruling will depend on the exact machine and situation.

If the bug gets fixed, I assumed they would just allow the ball save to actually count down even if balls are draining. Not get rid of the ability to stack them. That would suck.

Well walker “nudge”

What about the Ghostbusters soft into hard plunge? Is that legal on your side of the pond?

Interesting, iirc this was allowed per ifpa rules as the player can explicitly control the ball that is being held.

More for the list:

Assumed allowed:

I500 - unlimited supers.

WD? - perma-down state of up/down gate (though, maybe game is banned now?)

TAF - 256 mansion room melt down

Totan - Harem genie battle stack and/or 3x LL

Ripleys - Invalid Multiball

Assumed not allowed, or will quickly get smack-downed:

BSD - 9X scoring

Dirty Harry - Invalid pf magna-force unlimited 10M collects.

Iron Man - That secret game breaking thing

Plus… Secret stuff.

TD: “we have reason to believe you restarted your game mid-game.”

Player: “I’m offended that you would accuse me of such things.”

TD: walks away confused …

“You can’t tell me how to use my practice time!” or “Why you no longer get a full warm-up game if someone played that machine in the Epstein cup.”

It’s perfectly legal in our local league and tournaments. The same type of plunge also works on Aerosmith.

On certain WH20 codes, starting Whirlpool MB serves one ball to the plunger. Player can plunge, collect a river letter on the inlane, then drain. Playfield never validates. Can be repeated indefinitely for free River Class VI (6x bonus) and puny points.
Tournament Ruling?

Ruling: Throw that trash rom in the garbage.

I’d say this is pseudo-allowed; if I recall it’s banned in the case where it starts multiball in a recent rules revision.

Anything that can be obtained by tilt warning is allowed as well, although tilts with intent are not:

GAME OF THRONES
Name: Mode Select Skip
Ruling: Allowed
Induce a tilt warning while the mode select screen is up. The warning will free the ball but not force you to light an additional house before choosing again.

AADAMS FAMILY,
Name: Free GREED Letter
Ruling: Not Allowed (with Intent)
Induce a tilt to get a free GREED letter on your next ball.

Nudging during a fight on Champion Pub to trigger switch hits on the boxer. Allowed or Disallowed? Disallowed by the league I play in.

should be dissallowed like free genie nudges on TotAN.

Medieval Madness:
dissallowed - trap a ball between drawbridge and the castle gate during multiball

secret stuff is always allowed until someone exploits it on a big tournament under camera and the pinball community can judge, if this exploit should be legal or not.

The Creature 10B bug is setup for the next ball in play. In a multi-player game, who is the perpetrator then?

Calls for some interesting discussion.

Games where holding the ball is not postponding the ball search? Jokerz?

This is a stuck ball. No player control over device.

Always. That’s a statement. There is some gray area stuff, secret or not, where I say, the TD decides. Yeah, on deep and subtle stuff that might differ from one tournament to the next. So be it.

yes, a statement with intention. Almost everything is covered by the current IFPA/PAPA rules and there are really only a few things on certain machines which can be exploited by very few people who know these things - game knowledge rules

Not allowed: Radical - intentionally tilting to cause locked ball to be ejected
I’m assuming is allowed, don’t know if it even counts: ToM - shooting trunk hole as it is spinning back to normal position at the end of multiball can register not only a grace period jackpot but also the secret ball lock. I haven’t tried it at other times such as end of hat magic or theatre jackpot.

Intentional tilt is covered generally. Which is funny, as you see it all the time. Even in big time competition. As the IFPA of last week. Or is the rule specifically, intentional tilt that causes a benefit.

“Any player who deliberately tilts or slam tilts a machine in order to derive some benefit to his or her own play, or the play of others”
It’s in section 7 under stuck balls.

You are misremembering. It is explicitly allowed in the rules.

Nudging a machine so a locked ball moves and registers a switch causing a ball save, or nudging in order to manipulate a feature to begin a multiball would be permissible. Examples include shaking Bram Stoker’s Dracula such that the mist ball falls from its magnet starting multiball, shaking Avatar when a ball is in the Link assembly causing it to register, or shaking The Walking Dead causing the Well Walker to register a hit.

What about using your practise time on Twilight, specifically to have the Powerball as first ball out of the trough when you’re P1?

Nudging to trigger a switch such as TWD, CP, Avatar etc - I can add TSPP to trigger daredevil hits

I might need some backup on that one to be sure, but intentional stalling for a ball search/start a feature (PZ, Nightmare on Elm Street) should be generally disallowed.

Section III: Player Conduct, Paragraph 5. Intentional Delay

“A player may not intentionally cause a ball search in order to activate any feature of the game. A player is permitted to wait a reasonable amount of time, as determined by the tournament director, for a tilt mechanism to settle.”

In discussions with @PAPA_Doug on the non-ball search delay tactics, I’ve seen him extend this to “timing in” to certain features where you may need to wait a significant while such as Party Saver on PZ (not verified) or mode start on Elm Street. Where would these fall into this rule?

I’ve always followed this paragraph:

“Intentional delay is defined as time when the player is intentionally making no progress towards in-game objectives, including but not limited to time during which the ball is left in the plunger lane, held on a flipper, or passed from one flipper to another.”

Timing out modes, or timing in a feature to be activated has always felt like “progress” within that game being played, so I’ve never had a problem with it.

To me delay is a game that is completely stalled, and there’s absolutely no progress being made anywhere. For example, timing out a mode to clear the mode, then deciding to just sit there cradled for another 5 minutes. The first 30 seconds of timing out the mode . … fine. The next 5 minutes of just sitting there not making progress . . . not fine.

But not in GOT where if the lock switches are miss adjusted to get free locks.
When that was happening the game was taken out of the event.

what if you have a stuck ball that will be freed by the 1st search? Do you hold up an flipper and wait for an tech or just let it search? or Risk an tilt to free it?

7. Stuck Balls

During the course of play, it is possible for one or more balls to become stuck on a playfield feature, usually after becoming airborne. If this happens during single ball play, the player must wait for four automatic ball searches to occur. At the discretion of the tournament director, the forcing of a ball search to be triggered can be waived. This is for situations where inducing a ball search has adverse effects on the current game state. The expiration of any timed feature during this period is not considered a malfunction._

I always find it best to call a TD over to clarify the stuck ball situation. There’s of course nothing stopping a player from finding a way to free the ball themselves. Furthermore if they are not paying attention waiting for a TD, the game ball searches, and the ball drains . . . that player would not receive compensation.

Typically I will make this two ball searches, because I’ve seen games put out a chase ball in less than four and that’s a disaster.

There goes my Joust strat when both balls are on opponents side

One of the only games that might benefit from a disabled tilt.

On stern SW if you start tie fighter button slapper mode and immediately drain… a danger will allow you to keep blowing up tie fighters. vs with no danger it will end the ball and go straight to bonus. If you hit the MB threshold it doesn’t start MB so isn’t always the best idea on b1/2

You cannot induce a ball search for benefit (though this has still happened). But you CAN hold the ball on a flipper to progress the game, either to force something to start (Freddy) or to force something to end (so many mode games).

Munsters Spot mode: say I decided to hit Spot just enough to qualify its Super Jackbot, but Dwight insists I have to spent 40 more seconds thinking I give a damn about raising Spot again when really I just want the Munster Madness that’s gonna be lit right after. I can’t just cradle out 40 seconds cause of the timer freezes, so all I’d want to do to wait out the mode is shoot the scoop over and over. Allowable?

Encouraged.

I’d go with the shoot the left ramp, bump over to a cradle on the right . . . but you can go scoop all day if you want

… the left ramp is blocked

My usual is left loop to catch…

Scoop will also add time to the mode when the timer is under 10 secs

In Elvira Canaveral Tours The Addams Family Pinball Mansion Comic Book Guide from PINCOMBO.com it mentions the TILT GREED letter and while not particularly beneficial as a strategy (a bonus is worth far more than a single bookcase hit) I do feel it is in the spirit of the Ruleset similar to Dirty Pool.

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Elvira Canaveral
PINCOMBO.com
GameOfDepth.com
sintire.com

I was just reading the Roller Coaster Tycoon rulesheet someone put together on pinside, which mentions a “secret multiball” when two balls are kicked out of the lock (instead of 1) the game apparently says “2 for 1.”

Does this then fall under dirty pool/programmed fault? (Or unearned multiball?)

I don’t know it, but if the game has coded for it (ie: tells you 2 for 1), then it should be allowed.

It’s specifically called out in the IFPAPA rules as allowed:

Nudging a machine so a locked ball moves and registers a switch causing a ball save, or nudging in order to manipulate a feature to begin a multiball would be permissible. Examples include shaking Bram Stoker’s Dracula such that the mist ball falls from its magnet starting multiball, shaking Avatar when a ball is in the Link assembly causing it to register, or shaking The Walking Dead causing the Well Walker to register a hit.

So, can we have legal deathsaves on all DE games with awards too?

Death saves are different. That goes under treatment of the equipment and players health. I believe.

Not allowed on any game with an auto-plunger and a manual plunger -

Hip cheat to defeat auto plunge at the start of MB. (one ball multiball)

Any specific IFPAPA rules that address this?

Search for “plunger” on this page:
http://www.ifpapinball.com/rules/

(Yes, there is a rule.)

Yup, and it says you may only get a warning. Think I’ll try this at league next week and see if anybody notices. d;^)

Robocop
Name: 1st(?) Ball search releases locked ball
Ruling: Disallowed
If you get a ball stuck on Robocop, the first or second(?) ball search will eject the locked ball.

and in talking about this who is responsible for some of the odd stuff on certain machines that can lead to an player penalty / DQ?
Say someone who crashes the game or puts in an state that messes the up game for other players with an 255-256 rollover?
The player to read up on it on there own (and what about events that say no reference materials while playing?)
The player to know that 255-256 of something is bad? but only in some games?
The TD to post it?
All players in the game?

Even for rules that the one game is different from the common rules for the event?

Does this then fall under dirty pool/programmed fault? (Or unearned multiball?)

But under that logic maybe if there is an display but in some games other events may over ride the display for that.
Lot’s of games auto recover from an double lock kick out and it just an 2 ball with no multi ball scoring or modes.

Johnny Mnemonic has entered the chat.

Why is this marked as disallowed? It’s perfectly legal and skillful to execute. Phurbas are player controlled devices so it’s treated the same as a ball held under an upper flipper.

Potential game damage, I assume.

where was that ruled as Disallowed??
I head that it was legal.
And about Potential game damage??
holding an ball on an flipper for an extended time can have some Potential game damage,

It WAS disallowed due to machine abuse (I believe slamming the ball into the side of that ramp caused broken weldments on those ramps), but in the unification of the IFPA/PAPA ruleset that we worked through back in 2013, this became ‘not a stuck ball’ per the updated stuck ball rules verbiage:

“In situations where a ball is trapped in a way that it can be released through player action other than shaking or bumping – for example, a ball at rest underneath a flipper or any other mechanism which the player controls – this is not deemed to be a stuck ball. Balls trapped in this fashion during multiball modes are not generally considered to be a rules violation, although the ruling will depend on the exact machine and situation.”

Reading back through old emails, it was decided that we would leave this up to the TD’s to individually mandate, if they were interested in protecting their Shadow game from such abuse. By default IFPAPA rules however it’s allowed.

Wiki edited

I heard some chatter about what @cayle did. Does anyone want to share with the class?

I don’t know the exact scenario/setup, so for now I’ll refrain from spouting any potential misinformation.

I remember telling Neil Shatz the hipping trick the year PAPA NY had Tommy in the qualifying bank. He went ahead and did it but was told by officials he couldn’t do that anymore,

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https://youtu.be/UI6pSkIs_tc

Start Yakuza.

Shoot lock.

Don’t load the lock just drop it back into the lock.

Yakuza++

Profit for 30 minutes until magnet breaks.

In so many ways, Johnny Mnemonic’s code was just out of line with other WMS games of the time… so many exploits and glitches.

Bowen has it correct.

Though, the magnet breaking I hadn’t seen happen before (even with 10B+ worth of points). Nor had I seen the code crap out and roll over to 255 seconds. Was unfortunate and not intended that the game broke at D82 glpo.

For those about to Yakuza … We salute you!

and with glove disabled then you have deal with all kinds of stuff even ball search during video mode that can drain and end the ball with flippers off.

I dub this exploit “Yasnooza”.

IV.1.f

Due to the complex and imperfect nature of pinball machines, rare and / or unusual scoring situations may arise that are the unintended consequences of programming oversights, errors, mechanical issues, or wiring issues. If a Tournament Director deems a player is taking advantage of an unexpected scoring situation or an obscure “programming bug”, the Tournament Director reserves the right to warn the player in question to not abuse the situation further, end the game in progress at the current score, award a score of zero, or ask the player to restart the game. The determination of whether a player is taking advantage of a software or scoring issue and the subsequent penalty, if any, is left up to the discretion of the Tournament Director and will be based on the particulars of the specific situation.

Out of my curiosity then what was the intent? Isn’t it an infinite loop you can just repeat? Or sometimes it wouldn’t reset the timer so in theory you could only do it X amount of times?

Well now I’m extra intrigued…didn’t realize this was already accounted for in the PAPA/IFPA rules so it sounds like that exploit was not a legal play? TD discretion of course.

Right, it’s TD discretion.

I don’t know which version of the rules introduced it, but this rule has been on the books at least as far back as Pinburgh 2017, where it was applied on a game of CFTBL. Ah, the same discussion shows it was added to the PAPIFPA rules in March 2017.

What was the intent?

To score points, and win the match. Plan was to do the thing until I had a healthy buffer over the other player(s) scores (say 2B over including held bonus), and then stop doing the thing and continue with other types of play. This strat normally does not break the game, and you can stop any time by NOT skillfully dropping the ball back in the VUK.

Now, its up to interpretation weather or not you believe that strat requires any skill, but there is player input that has to take place for each scoring event, and there is risk on each scoring event that if you do not do it correctly the ball will be able to enter the greater playfield and drain. Now is that risk high? No. Does it exist? Yes.

Does the mentioned IFPA rule apply? I don’t think so - but its a completely subjective rule that is %100 up to TD interpretation. (note I’m pretty familiar with this rule, as it was originally written in response to me trolling Mark over a fake Iron Man bug pre-papa ).

I did this a couple of times when I had a JM years ago, but actually stopped doing it bc I didn’t want to break the game. Sometimes I still drop the ball back in the VUK to start a mode when I don’t want to lock a ball.

Didn’t Yakuza bug out and end though during this? I saw the total for Yakuza it pop up at one point (2.1b) and I thought someone said it was only paying 1M per VUK afterwards, believe it was when the weird integer thing occurred and caused the glove timer to go to 255. At 1M per that’d be a thousand VUKs per billion, would take 6-8 hours (4-6 seconds of moving the glove per each VUK thing) to reach the necessary threshold at that point. Hardcore.

Yakuza was active the whole time - but it did get weird there at the end.

It was paying ~50M per hand drop for the first “clean” 50 drops I did. Once the magnet took a crap (unintentional), and the code bugged and the timer rolled to 255 seconds (unintentional) not sure what it was paying. (That’s when I flagged a problem). It was clear though that Yakuza was still going however.

1M would be super hardcore indeed, and I don’t think I would have felt that to be reasonable. But at ~50M, and 160-200 hand drops for a win I’m game. that’s about 15 mins of game time if it had not broken.

@District82 I’m curious about how the magnet broke. Could it be repaired or did it need to be replaced?

and what if the TD is playing same game?
What if one of dev’s of the game is playing in the event?? (then having them make an call runs into integrity issues or even transparency issues)
Can’t have them say it’s not working right and then say well due to the NDA I can’t go deeper.

Backup TDs should always be used for these situations.

Devs playing doesn’t matter. What cayle did was something i can almost guarantee the devs of the game knew nothing about. If it really matters to you as the TD then simply don’t use their games if you can help it.

well devs playing in an newer game?
can the TD ask one who is part of that game if something odd is happening about what the game is doing?
Can they speak up and say something and in the that case on there own?

I may maybe want to move to an VOID game in full or play on
just to be safe from an integrity / transparency stand point.

Now maybe in an very likely thing like an 255 rollover or something that an TD can make the call on there own

NOW an pre event list of things is an differnt thing as long as it made known to all players before as well.

so let’s say you can ramp out or say skill shoot valid playfield for an long time to over come being way behind. How is that not skill and not makeing progress?
What is the limit of a TD to control your game strategy??

I do have one thing that may work on one game to keep rolling it over and over. Due an bug but you need to make shots to make it happen.

Thanks for the response brother, I was just more curious about the theory behind it. I can see both sides on if it’s the right or wrong play. But I would agree if it was done to intentionally break and void a game, I would rule that as unjust competition.

I have to assume this would be explicitly disallowed where possible, but variation I’ve found possible on a few BSDs in the wild is to “nudge” free the mist ball if it’s on the left, and mist isn’t going. If done when the ball in play is draining, but hasn’t yet hit the trough, you can continue single ball play on the now freed mist ball. On one hand I suspect this is a mechanical issue with the machines in question, but on the other I’ve seen it possible enough that I usually give it a shot in non-competitive play.

Both of these cases are explicitly used as examples in the rules now.

On the TD discretion / integrity question: TDs ultimately can do whatever they want. If you don’t trust a TD, or believe their motives are something other than putting on the best and most fair event possible, I recommend just not attending their events. Vote with your feet.

Yessir, always. What I do is designate a backup TD to make a ruling if it involves a game I’m playing in. And then designate a third just in case we are playing each other!

is the ruling for Stern Indiana Jones the same as Champion pub? If you can skillfully nudge the captive ball for Cairo Swordsman awards?
(I recently got a stucky and discovered my local copy was VERY EASY to exploit this feature)

Seems like Jaws premium and LE should be added to this list. Very easy time trap a ball with the shark during multiball as the shark is going down. No extra points for doing it, so I would guess not allowed.

software ball traps are allowed and what is the rules for led zeppelin premium / LE?

also this is something that you can’t see the ball while it’s down

Now has code to cover that right now does kick it out right away also settings to hold off the going down part.