Topic: Pinball FX 3

Our latest tournament has come to a close, I somehow managed to fluke a big score to take the prize on this occasion.

Apologies to @zkibu and @iamcardboard for missing off your scores. The end tournament screen seems a little buggy in PINBALL FX3. Often see folks and then they disappear if at the end of the list.

Anyhow, well played all. Next table chosen and tournament details will be posted on the Adult Switch Gamers Discord tomorrow and I’ll endeavour to post them here as well.

Be great to have even more folks join in next time.

@Yorumi I’m a novice myself. So not sure how helpful this will be but...

I view each pinball table as a series of often interlinked or stacked puzzles. The solution to a piece of the puzzle is often accompanied by rewards based on your timing and skill. One component of a table often leads to another, often in stages.

So, experiment. See what shots trigger what response. Each table is different of course but many have set modes or missions for you to attempt and complete in sequence to build up your scoring opportunities. Some tables are almost telling a narrative in this way.

So have a play on a table for a good session or two. Don’t worry about your score, just see what shots you feel come naturally to you and observe what happens on the table. Flashing lights in specific areas of the play field or call outs, instructions on the DMD (display on the top left of the table) will indicate what you might want to shoot for next. Get a feel for the angles of the table and which flipper the ball tends to come to off ramps or targets etc.

You could also look at a tutorial for the table online or read the in-game table guide. I’ve found playing along with a group of like-minded folk in in-game tourneys helpful as we often discuss tips and our own discoveries with a table.

Then the next step is to focus on ball control. This includes knowing how and when to nudge/bump the table. Not too much to get a tilt penalty but not too off on the timing that you can’t impact the trajectory of the ball.

This is really the point I myself am at. To really improve, I know I need to learn the basics of trapping the ball, being able to pass the ball from flipper to flipper what I want to etc. Backhand shots and other techniques, using bumps and nudges to save the ball from draining especially.

Experienced pinball players seem to do all this stuff through muscle memory alone. It’s like a magic trick watching a skilled player play.

That’s probably enough for now. Of course the most important part is to enjoy the game and have fun. If you’re doing that, then you probably are already learning all the time and improving.

@Yorumi Just to add to what @Lroy said, find out what to do to get the kickbacks lit. That can be the difference between a ball out and a saved ball. If you lose a kickback the first thing you should do is get it back. Some tables have horrible outs on those outlanes and you can save yourself. There are a few tables where the kickbacks are often too hard to even bother with. More often then not those tables aren't too bad with outlane drains.

Another method I do it observe where the ball is going to drop. A lot of times you can send the ball around the orbit and have the ball bounce off one flipper and catch it with the other. Nudge bouncing from one flipper to the other to catch is a must often on missions as you need to hit certain lanes and holes. I spend at least half my games with the flippers raised more then down. Play a few games and just learn when you can let the ball bounce off a flipper or when you can catch it. I've gotten to the point where I can see when the ball will bounce to an outlane and nudge when needed.

Lastly, I will say pay close attention to what gives you the biggest scores. Some tables It's the multiball, others it can be getting missions completed, and still others are huge end of ball drops score calculations. For instance on that last part I can get a billion or 2 on Captain America on the Wii U version from ball drains because you get the multiplier maxed and spam a certain multiball over and over again. While that in itself doesn't get you a lot of points the more you can do it before the ball drops the more points you get afterwards.

@Spoony_Tech Some great advice there. Thank you.

By the way, our latest tournament is now open.

THEATRE OF MAGIC (one of the new tables released today). Password is pikman (yes that’s correct ‘pikman’) @meppi64 is our host. Classic/Arcade set-up. Open for 10 days. So go download the new tables and enter our tournament if you’d like some friends to play along with.

More details and chatter over on the Adult Switch Gamers Discord - pinball tournaments thread. Invite link to the Discord can be found in my forum signature.

@Yorumi Cool, hopefully see you on the THEATRE OF MAGIC tourney leaderboard. Feel free to shoot me over a friend invite on Switch as well if you’d like to.

Father of two myself. Totally understand. Offer of friendship on Switch still stands. Best wishes to you and your partner and little one.

@Yorumi Nevermind buddy. I don’t have your Switch friend code. Mine’s in my forum sig if you ever fancy adding me cool. No worries if not or if you forget. Enjoy your new arrival and the pinball when you get the chance, lol!

Mate. Forget about it. I totally understand. No worries.

@Lroy And here I thought I wasn't going to go for the PFX3 Williams tables at all and out they come with Theatre, one of the games that got me hooked on pinball for good. I'll do it...for science! I'm curious to see how different it feels from the real machine.

I'll have to work this in between Samurai Shodown practice for PAX East next weekend, though.

@masterLEON That’s the spirit! See you on the leaderboard.

...The 'realistic' physics is not realistic here. This will be a challenge in resting the urge to throw my controller at the TV! No time to elaborate now, I gotta sleep.

@masterLEON Are you referring to the drop catches and passes? @monkeyspasm mentioned similar in his first impressions on the table too.

Live and drop catches I find near impossible on PBFX3 in general, I am far from skilled though. TOM seems to play VERY fast to me, I've only played one real table for about 5 mins though. But I love it

Spacies Arcade on Youtube has a real table and mentioned a loop passing to the wrong flipper, and the fact that the ball feels and behaves exactly the same across all Williams tables here - it's understandable, but real tables have nuances and 'feel' very different to each other. Given a lot of that is probably down to wear etc, it's a tough ask and probably nitpicking.

I found Attack From Mars harder than the real table too to control the ball, but Medieval Madness and Fish Takes felt pretty much spot on to me. Zen are constantly tweaking and I trust them 100% to get it as close as possible.

I'm by no means an expert - I've played a few real tables and a ton of VPX. When I learn a table on VPX, I can't play it on PBFX3 and vice versa!

What Zen have done overall is absolutely outstanding, there is amazing talent in that studio.

Regardless, the difference from TPA is night and day, although I still have fun with TPA. I'm just really happy that we get to play amazing digital recreations of these classics.

@monkeyspasm Yeah, I’m hoping to travel up to Arcade Club later this year (delayed trip from last year, so who knows) as I believe they have some pinball tables as well as a mother-load of arcade cabs to play. I’ll be heaven.

I’ve only started playing TPA recently. Got one of the Gottlieb Packs and I also own STERN PINBALL arcade physically. I’m enjoying both but agree Zen really have raised the bar with these Williams/Bally tables. Phenomenal.

@Lroy Exactly what @monkeyspasm mentioned, shooting the center loop from the left of the trunk is supposed to feed the right flipper, not the left. In PFX3 it magically (pun intended) feeds the left flipper. I can deal with that, but it's very jarring. It's when the ball goes through the loop slowly, or if a right staircase ramp shot is too weak and the ball drops through the exit hole above the Spirit Card spinner, that it'll have a high chance of going straight down the middle when it comes down. One workaround is to nudge left early enough so it can reach the left flipper, but it's very annoying.

Also, some of 'my shots' are gone. My left flipper catch and release shot into the trunk is off timing and also near impossible, and my right flipper shot to the trunk is much earlier and is also unreliable, and a lot of bounces and ball reactions I expect from the game in motion just doesn't play out as they should. And yeah, the ball moves way too fast. Faster than when the game was brand new, even. It makes me wonder if someone over at PFX is play testing these games or just letting the game engine do the all work. The handling does get better when you turn on the enhanced play field. The only thing is if you switch back to the non-enhanced mode mid-game, the enhanced physics actually sticks. I'll see if I can turn off that button completely or map it to a button I can't accidentally press.

From what I recall, at least the tables for The Pinball Arcade were tested extensively and tweaked (in the first few seasons, I reckon) until they got something that behaved comparably like the real thing (minus table 'geography' that launches balls into the glass or up and over the play field or following cutout grooves to change the direction of the ball, i.e. Creature From the Black Lagoon).

I mean, I'm still going to try for it. It's just going to be a constant uphill battle. I just hope I don't pick up too many 'bad habits' when I go back to the real thing.

@Yorumi Adding to what the others contributed, if you're going for score, many tables have multipliers that help your score after your ball drains (most common), some even have full play field multipliers (less common). Increasing the multiplier is usually done by getting the ball through the lanes at the top of the field. Games like Theatre of Magic, Medieval Madness, and Attack from Mars have only two lanes to complete, while games like Creature From the Black Lagoon have four. Theatre of Magic caps the multiplier at x10 (complete the upper lanes 5 times), on Medieval Madness and Attack From Mars the multiplier is unlimited. Usually, just making shots like ramps, targets, loops/orbits around the play field, etc. will increase the end of ball bonus. If you stay alive long enough, that end of ball bonus can carry you to an extra ball if you come close to that threshold (the game usually shows what that score is on your third ball).

Aside from going for multipliers, which is kind of a universal pinball goal (my observation, the older the game is, the more important the end of ball bonus is), activating and completing modes/events is the way to reach a pinball game's "Wizard Mode", which can give you big points while your in it, and a big bonus if you complete it. In Theatre of Magic, the 4 main modes that are needed to activate the Grand Finale (Theatre's Wizard Mode), are spelling Theatre (shoot the outer loop from the left 7 times), activating Multiball (shoot the center and right ramps 5 times total, or through other methods, to spell MAGIC; then shoot the center loop around the Trunk twice to lock 2 balls, or through other methods; and shoot the Trunk to activate Multiball), advance the clock to Midnight (shoot the outer loop from the right 12 times to advance one hour per shot, or through other methods), and activating all 8 Illlusions (shoot the trunk 3 times, then shoot it one more time in the hole to activate an Illusion). Well, you technically don't need to finish any Illusion, just let them time out if you want. Once all that's done, activate Grand Finale with a center loop shot behind the Trunk. Then shoot any loop, ramp, or Trunk shot 12 times for 50 Million per shot, and an extra 500 Million upon completion, and...you start over to try to do it again (in which the end of ball bonus potential will be serious!). BTW, this dastardly game doesn't give you multiball for the Grand Finale, it has to be completed with a single ball!

It sounds like a lot, it is a lot, but it can be done relatively quickly if you're lucky. My fastest run to Grand Finale is was just over 13 minutes (which I didn't realize was fast until I saw the time).

But, if you don't want to think about stuff like multipliers, nudging, cradling, guarding, post transfers dead flipper passes, rules, etc. when you're just starting out, that's totally fine! (see I threw in some other stuff there) The simplest advice practically every seasoned pinball player can give out, and color me stupid if they don't do this whenever a new table comes out, is "Shoot the flashing lights". Then, when you're more comfortable, you can start digging in further.

@masterLEON Very interesting to hear your perspective on this, what with your knowledge of real pinball tables. I know exactly what ball drain down the middle you describe on ToM regarding shots falling down the spinner lane. I am slowly learning to bump the table to rescue the doomed ball but it’s certainly something I need to work on.

Our tournament on THEATRE OF MAGIC has now closed. Will update this post with pics when I can.

For some reason @Cw13 score at the end under @Zkibu has disappeared. But @cw13 takes the honour of choosing our next table and creating the tournament.

Thanks to all who took part and congratulations to our winner @Meppi64

New tournament is set up. Password will be "pikmin" like before. Black Rose, classic, 7 days. Good luck to all! Some amazing scores on last tourney.

How are the new tables? Worth getting?