Tournament Ruling - TD Tilts

General
1

I was playing in a comp recently on a TAF with a particularly tight tilt and loose legs.
During normal play I had 2 warnings already, but was still in the middle of a decent first ball, having played It and Mamoushka, as well as a couple of other rooms.

The ball got stuck on a bit of raised mylar above the Thing flipper.
Having tried to free it by tapping the side of the machine, and not wanting to risk tilting and losing my bonus by trying to nudge it out too hard I called the TD over, who told me to give it a shake.
I explained the situation and again asked for him to remove it.

Instead he gave the machine an almighty slap and immediately tilted my ball. As he walked away he simply said, you get a comp ball.

Not only did I lose my bonus, but also progress made when it came to the comp ball, Skill shot had returned back to 2mil, bonus for ramps and rooms had also reset.

As it happened I finished 3rd in a tight game, less than 4mil behind 1st place.

I know no provisions can be made for recompense of lost bonus, nor trying to replicate game state - but surely a TD should be at least attempting to sort the problem at the request of the competitor?

There were other rulings through the day, which were of a similar haphazard and detrimental to me (and me alone) which he made.

I noticed the kicker on the slingshot on Future Spa had come out on the left, due to the rubber almost snapping. I trapped up on the right flipper and called him over.
He removed the glass, took my ball off the flipper, put my ball in the shooter lane, replaced the slingshot rubber, then put the glass back on.
Saying plunge from the shooter lane. Denying me a clean shot from a trapped ball at the inline drops alley, which I had already cleared, and having to deal with the ball returning randomly from the pops after plunging.

Don’t even get me started on the way he changed the rulings with players picking the games for the knockouts, twice in under 2 minutes while I was stood waiting for my picks.

Is there a process for highlighting the poor judgement / unfairness of a particular TD - especially when it is aimed at an individual on multiple occasions?

2

Not all competitions are the same. What kind of ‘seriousness’ was there with this event? What were the other players saying? There’s not really enough info here to sort this out. I know you’ve been in this scene for a while. Was this a generally a ‘fun’ event or something else?

3

in an game like TAF with mode points in bonus and a way to see what it is did you ask to check info and manually add it if he did tilt?

4

It wss the UKCS, with a ticket to the Worlds up for grabs.

I didn’t check bonus, as I didn’t expect him to just whack it without any warning.
The other players didn’t say anything, the other TD was shocked that he had done it.

There was no point in arguing as he is known to dislike me and has been looking for a reason to bar me for a number of years.

5

Seems all you can do I voice your disagreement with the rules with the support from the IFPA ruleset on why the rulings were incorrect. Then maybe in the future see if one of the other TDs can make the ruling.

6

The theory on not compensating you for the lost bonus is that in your comp ball, you have the opportunity to replay those modes and re-earn the bonus.

7

but in some cases you do get to super bonus.
Like an player tilt through times you get the points / if you had an win ready on last ball.

8

What the OP didn’t know (and he could have asked me at any time) - at the league meet the day before - the same thing happened and whilst recovering the ball in the same stuck point the machine tilted whilst just removing the glass.

I did not give it an almighty whack either I gave it a tap specifically because if I took the glass off the game would 100% tilt - but hey Wayne as per usual, let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good story bro!

(Same thing happened the round after and the game was taken out for the rest of the tournament which the other TD agreed with).

Let’s cover the other issues:

On a game like Future Spa with the super wide glass that at previous tournaments we have had shatter - I play it safe - there is no rule that says I can’t do this btw but I also do it on embryon and paragon.

On the game selection, yes owing to bad choices not made by me we had a time problem, we opted to keep the tournament running to try and finish it off which meant when players were ready to play they played.

And Wayne - honestly if I wanted you banned I’d just release the audio of your commentating spot at the UKOpen which we had to filter out because of what you said.

Regards,
Neil.

9

Why not resolve the issue with the bad setup before the event if the previous day removing the glass tilted the machine?

4 Likes
11

So you knew the game was set up like garbage and didn’t bother to fix it. Honestly reflects worse on you than the guy’s original story.

1 Like