What features would you like to see in Pinball FX 2.5 ?

[The Albin0 Rhin0]

You are a clever clever guy, Womble. =) But.....


While my opinion does stand with Extreme. Lets go back to that wise man's post again, shall we?

2. Agents - Arguably the best table thus far on PBFX2, the music is amazing, the sounds, everytime i play this table, i end up spending an hour or two with it.

2. Speed Machine - This table is great, it just takes awhile to get used to. I love cars, so that is why it is alright.

3. Buccaneer - This table could've been better, in my opinion, it is very low scoring, unless you hit frenzy. Love the theme and music though.

As you see, the other three were on the Alright or above tier in that list.

The FX core four as a group are great. Just can't assume they are bad because they are out of date. They are great in their own way. If you compare them to the newer tables, of course people will have those tables on the bottom of their rankings. Because Zen is improving with every release of each table, it makes the older tables look like, well, you know.

Yeah, they could use some touchups and polishes on several degrees. Possibly reworking the whole table to meet the standards of today's tables. But since Zen is a small workforce, it will probably be bypassed. But leaving them out of the game? Not okay with that.

Look at it from another perspective: the guy who would actually buy these tables. Unless Zen significantly improves these older tables, the buyer would (quite rightly) point out that the older tables are lacking not only depth, but key Pinball FX 2 features. And he'd be right to ask "when do we get those features?", just as others have done.

Well, those tables are 200 MSP compared to 240 MSP on newer tables with those features. But you make a really good point.

[pinballer]

Womble makes very good points.

I wouldn't mind one bit if Agents/Extreme/Speed Machine and Buccaneer disappear of my table list... they only fill up space that I would rather fill with Zen's new tables coming out. I love my formula 1 and recently started playing Formula 1 2011... absolutely love it and even though I loved 2010 and it is still a very playable game... there is no way that I will play it again. Can't think of a better example now... but hopefully you catch my drift.

Are you people serious. That you think some arbitary "total table average rating" is more important than having the tables? That having more (weaker) tables somehow hurts the game as whole?

That example of yours is more like if they made Agents 2, Speed Machine 2... that give the same basic experience but improved. What you're actually meaning is that because Halo Reach is better than Halo 3, Halo 3 should disappear from the world.

I for one like how simple the first tables are.

[Vincent]

Are you people serious. That you think some arbitary "total table average rating" is more important than having the tables? That having more (weaker) tables somehow hurts the game as whole?

I couldn't agree more.

[Big White Mint]

Are you people serious. That you think some arbitary "total table average rating" is more important than having the tables? That having more (weaker) tables somehow hurts the game as whole?

That example of yours is more like if they made Agents 2, Speed Machine 2... that give the same basic experience but improved. What you're actually meaning is that because Halo Reach is better than Halo 3, Halo 3 should disappear from the world.

I for one like how simple the first tables are.

Couldn't agree more. I like these tables. They seem like they could be real tables, and I appreciate that.

I won't argue against price cuts or revisions though.

[satch]

@ womble, does this mean that if you think a person does not come up to your standards that they should disappear off the face of the earth regardless of if other people like them

[Womble]

People, no.

Silly, argumentative questions, yes.

[Vincent]

@ womble, does this mean that if you think a person does not come up to your standards that they should disappear off the face of the earth regardless of if other people like them

Now there is a bit too much extrapolation in what you say Womble never said he wanted to make anybody disappear

[Twilight Sea]

I would like to see some form of co-op mode. Perhaps have a net-goal of a score number with you and a friend work together on their own tables to rack up the points?

[satch]

People, no.

Silly, argumentative questions, yes.

I was kidding sort of
Agreed that a new menu system is needed with a Favorites Tab and a these tables should disappear Tab

[Dalek Nation]

PLEASE:
I understand that a lot of people would like an adjustment to the way scoring is handled on certain tables (ie. Buc and other oldies). I would like to cast my ballot AGAiNST this. I love the fact that I struggle to get over 5 mil on Extreme, or 10 mil on Buc.
I get used to the rhythm of tables, and I like the flow of the table's scoring methods as they already are... with different tables having a different rhythm (anyone else know what I mean by this? I don't know how to make more clear.)

If I had to change anything, a return of view 4 (like the original, pre Fan 4 view 4) for all tables, and hotseat for old tables would be nice, but my real wish would be:
- Organization. I get annoyed how everytime I fire up FX2 it's always "Wolverine" that gets barked at me. No big deal, I'd just like it if didn't say anything until I selected a table.

[MrPanic]

This thread was just too compelling for me to not register, lol. These are the changes I would like to see, I'm actually targeting a paid update here so expect lots of new features.

A mayor menu overhaul
Now don't get me wrong, I like the way the menu looks. I just think that with the suggestions I'm going to make and the growing number of tables a new menu is very needed. This is the structure I'm looking for, it might be hard to read this way but I'll explain below.

Title Screen
_ Singleplayer
__ Table Select
___ Normal game
___ Daily Game
___ Special Game
____ Nights Mode
____ Training Mode
____ Challenges
_ Multiplayer
__Table Select
___ Splitscreen
___ Hotseat
_ Online
__ Quick Match
__ Player Match
___ Search Restrictions
____ Lobby Select
__ Ranked Match
___ Quick Race
___ Marathon Race
___ Timed Race

Hard to show a menu structure with only text, but I'll explain now screen by screen.

Main Menu
After the title screen you'll get dropped into the main menu. In the current build you'll see the tables to the left, messages to the right and some other buttons at the bottom. In my design the right and bottom stay the same, but instead of the tables get three big buttons. Those 3 main options are:
- Singleplayer
- Multiplayer
- Online

People who've been playing this game for a while probably won't notice anymore, but the menu's are a big mess in this game. I can be very confusing for a newcomer to navigate through all the options this game has. I didn't even notice you can play this game online till I got 8 tables or so. Putting the options in the front of things will make thing much easier to navigate. Especially in the online front it doesn't make sense to choose a table first, but I'll get back to that later.

Table Select
After choosing for Singleplayer or (offline)Multiplayer you'll get to see your classic table select screen. Well, not really. Obviously FX2 is getting rather crowded with all these new tables. Best layout here are the already suggested tabs. 'Zen Pinball', 'Marvel Pinball' and 'Pinball FX1' tabs would look nice, although 'FX1 Tables', 'FX2 Tables' and 'Marvel Tables' tabs might be more clear. A fourth tab with owned tables or favorites would be appreciated too (why doesn't excalibur have a trial btw, don't want to play it but the grayed out box drives me nuts).

Singleplayer
After choosing your table in singleplayer you should get a few modes to choose from. Of course there is only so much you can do with a pinball table but I still think that especially a videogame version of pinball should go above and beyond with different gamemodes for the tables. These are the options you'll get after choosing the table:
- Normal Game
- Daily Game
- Special Modes

Normal Game
Just the normal game that everyone knows. Set scores for the leaderboards.

Daily Game
People who played 'Pinball Pulse: The Ancients Beckon' should be familiar with this mode. It's a mode that you can only play ones each day per table. You only get one ball so it really is a one shot to win type of mode, any extra ball earned only gives you your EoB bonus again, so earning 3 extra balls will only result in getting your EOB bonus four times. I found this to be a very fun inclusion on Pinball Pulse and think it would be a perfect fit in FX2, I can surely appreciate a nice short mode that promotes playing more than one table. The fact that it only can be played one time per day may sound bad, but believe me when I say that it makes it so much more fun that way. This game mode will get it's own leaderboard.

Special Modes
Here you can find several game modes that don't really have to have a online leaderboard but are just for fun, here are some ideas for special modes:
- Night mode
A normal pinball game that disables the backlight of the table, very nice suggestion from Womble.
- Training mode
A normal pinball game that doesn't keep track of your total score, but your highest score per minute. You can turn on detailed scoring in the operators menu if you want to know how that plays.
- Challenge mode
In this mode the objective is to complete a list of challenges, kinda like achievements but a lot more than just three. Challenges vary from getting the max multiplier to complete a certain mission to complete wizard mode with 13 obsidian stones. All tables will get around 20-30 challenges that vary in difficulty so everyone can get at least a few challenges, but only a handful of people could get all. Scoring is tracked in completed challenges per game.

Multiplayer
The local multiplayer won't be changed at all, maybe some of the special could be playable here too but that doesn't have priority imo.

Online
Online should get quite a overhaul, things run quite good already but some things just don't make sense. After choosing Online you'll get these choices:
- Quick Match
- Player Match
- Ranked Match

Quick Match
This will throw you directly into a player match lobby you can join.

Player Match
After choosing Player Match you can change the search restriction to find lobbies, just like how it works now after choosing custom match.

Ranked Match
This is the part of multiplayer that gets the big overhaul, how ranked matches work now kinda causes it to not be played by most people. Restrictions are what make ranked playlists good, preset restrictions are what divides ranked from player matches, and streamlines the experience as a whole. Anyway, after choosing Ranked you'll get these options:
- Quick Race
- Marathon Race
- Timed Race
These modes only change what kind of goals the match will have, you'll get no chance to choose the table in ranked. Neither will you visually get thrown in a lobby before the game starts, you only see a countdown timer to when the game starts, and what table is currently chosen. Most importantly here is this doesn't work with the lobby system but with a matchmaking system.
Quick Race
Limits will vary between tables but are all preset for each table. Limit for this mode will vary around 10M, with 25M on easy tables and 5M on hard ones. Penalty always is 10%.
Marathon Race
Limit for this mode will vary around 100M, with 200M on easy tables and 50M on hard ones. Penalty always is 5%.
Timed Race
Limit is 10 minutes with a 25% penalty. A rather high risk gametype compared to the other ones.


Table breaking bugs fixed
Next to this major overhaul I would like to see some other things too. Fixing all the game breaking bugs are top priority of course. Glitches that don't lock up the game can stay for all I care, kinda give tables their own personality, but game stoppers are simply unacceptable. A extra option to instantly drain the ball in the pause menu can be very helpful too, in that case we can at least continue the game and submit a highscore. Or if the ball takes too long to drain after a tilt it just disappears, at least tables won't turn unplayable just because the patches take way too long. Many good suggestions were already done in this topic about this.

View 4 & 7 added to all tables
Probably hard to pull off because everything is dlc but I'm pretty sure if they turn this into a paid update many restrictions on updating should be gone. Pretty heavily suggested feature so it would be a shame if it didn't make the update, a few tables can really use it.

Mechanical sounds for all tables
Not as needed, but greatly appreciated. The sounds on Ms.ExplosionMan and SL literally make the tables so much better, very worthwhile for every table no doubt.

Rule sheets redone
Some explanations are vague and the picture usually makes no sense. Putting some small clips about certain shots, or multiple pictures of certain missions might make the rule sheet way more useful.

about some suggestions in this topic
I'm seeing a lot of good suggestions in this thread, but I do strongly disagree on some of them, so I do feel the need to get my opinion heard.
Classic do NOT need to be removed from the marketplace. All the content should be available to everyone, just because it didn't age well doesn't mean nobody would want the content. Maybe it should be more hidden away compared to new tables but it should never be removed (the tables are shit though, I do agree on that).
Superscore should not be removed either, I do think that something else should take its place as main skill level but that doesn't mean it should be removed. A system that gives points based on how many people you beat on all the leaderboards should be a better measurement of skill.
I don't think tables should be rebalanced for scoring either, nobody really takes those superscores serious anyways. And even if people do, tables play like the tables play, that you can't get much on all tables just makes tables more authentic. I think balancing would take the fun out of the table for me, but that's just my opinion.


In the end, if they only fixed game breaking bugs and left it at that I would be fine to, it's already a good game so yeah. But I really think this game can go above and beyond any pinball game so I do hope they'll at least try to make it happen. Do release the patch after Epic Quest and Marvel V&V though, better give Cloda some time to find all the glitches on those too.

So, that was my way to long first post on this forum, I hope you enjoyed. I hope it isn't filled with faulty English

[Scotty Canuck]

Multiplayer modes where you can see the other players game (either split screen or taking turns - like on a real table). Maybe add a time attack mode where players compete not to a certain score, but try to score maximum points in a set time limit. Being able to watch other players in real time can be a very effective teaching/learning tool.

Make Rocky & Bullwinkle fun to play again - I don't care about the scores (there are many other tables which are better for superscore), but the gameplay is brutal, and simply not fun. I know I am in the minority here, but I really enjoy the theme & it used to rank very high on my favourite table list, but is near the bottom since it was gimped.

+1 on the suggestions for mechanical sounds & lights dimming when a ball is lost on all tables.

Facebook intergration? As a form of advertising the game, maybe after beating a top score, you press X to post to FB (simular to the "I beat your score" feature we already have).

"Autolog" features. In the EA Sports racing games autolog notifies you when your friends have beaten your times. Something simular would be great... "Person X has beat your high score on Pasha, press X to try to take their score back".

Playlists. Select which tables you want to play on a rotation.

[Cloda]

PLEASE:
I understand that a lot of people would like an adjustment to the way scoring is handled on certain tables (ie. Buc and other oldies). I would like to cast my ballot AGAiNST this. I love the fact that I struggle to get over 5 mil on Extreme, or 10 mil on Buc.
I get used to the rhythm of tables, and I like the flow of the table's scoring methods as they already are... with different tables having a different rhythm (anyone else know what I mean by this? I don't know how to make more clear.)

This thread was just too compelling for me to not register, lol. These are the changes I would like to see, I'm actually targeting a paid update here so expect lots of new features.

I don't think tables should be rebalanced for scoring either, nobody really takes those superscores serious anyways. And even if people do, tables play like the tables play, that you can't get much on all tables just makes tables more authentic. I think balancing would take the fun out of the table for me, but that's just my opinion.

So, that was my way to long first post on this forum, I hope you enjoyed. I hope it isn't filled with faulty English

Awesome first post Mr. Panic and from my non-English perspective your English is perfect You made some really great suggestions and I agree with all of it except what I quoted from you and Dalek Nation. I'm a bit lazy so I'm not going to go into too much detail , but let me try to better explain my opinion and my suggestions on this:

I inherently don't have a problem with the different scoring rates on the different tables. I don't mind that you have to slog it out on Ironman to get to a 100mil but on Ms. Splosion Man in the same amount of time you'll have a 2Bil score. I am quite frustrated thought with the scoring on many of the tables for mainly three interlinked reasons:

- Time per game
- Modes whose scoring are are disproportionate to the rest of the modes/missions
- Modes that encourage you not to play a table to its fullest.

I would love to be able to play on average only 1 hour per game and a maximum of 6 hours on a game no matter which table. To get that right Zen has to balance different variables including kickbacks, ballsaver, super ballsavers (eg.. claw save), extra balls, table layout (e.g. Rome right ramp), End of Ball Bonus and off course spammable opportunities.

By spamming any mode you immediately play a much less riskier game and you usually get rewarded disproportionately compared to what you would by playing the table "normal". There are many examples including Rome (Romulus), Captain America (Red Skull multi-ball), Paranormal (multi-balls), Spiderman (Villain Levels), Nightmare Mansion (orbits), Biolab (clone multi-ball), Wolverine (Sentinel), Earth Defence (Air Strike multi-ball) and Excalibur (Rescue the maiden). The worst three tables for this in my opinion are Wolverine, Paranormal and off course Spiderman because the first two makes your game just to safe in combination with spamming opportunities and the last one... enough said

I know I'm a big culprit in promoting these spamming opportunities on many of the tables... but that doesn't mean that I like it My favourite tables are the ones where normal playing is being rewarded (even though there might still be some spamming opportunities) and these include Biolab, Pasha, Blade, Mars and Fantastic 4 (once it is fixed). Doesn't say they are perfect in scoring but they are definitely much better in my opinion. I do also enjoy some of the other spammable tables... but not for high scoring games e.g. Earth Defence and Excalibur because the challenge of the trying to get to and beat the Wizard mode is just brilliant.

Zen has experimented quite a bit in trying to get the scoring balance right on their latest releases (except Paranormal or Captain America) for new and experienced players... it is a step in the right direction for me except that Ms. Splosion man is now too easy so your games just end up being super long e.g. my high score game - 6 hours.

Sorcerer's Lair would also have been one of the better balanced tables, but for more experienced players it becomes very spammable after a while as you then don't complete any of the missions and just quickly play through to Midnight Madness with 12 Obsidian stones... it scores less than playing all the missions and getting 13 obsidian stones every 2 play troughs... but it is a whole lot less riskier, which makes it the highest scoring option.

A table like SotD is also quite good in its scoring in that it is essentially a spamming-the-multi-ball-mode table and you naturally end up having long games. I don't essentially have a problem with that, except that you are not at all encouraged or required to play the difficult Wizard mode to get a high score.

This leads me to one of my major gripes and disappointments with the scoring system on many of the tables and that is that Zen puts so much effort into a table to come up with exciting rule sheets, but in the end not even, lets say, 1% of players ever play the Wizard mode or even more than just a couple of modes. There are very few tables were they have the scoring balance right to encourage players to play the table to its fullest... Blade and Fantastic 4 (a fixed one) are two of the better examples for me at the moment and there are many of the other tables that would also be very good if only one or two scoring opportunities are toned down e.g. Excalibur and Earth Defence.

So... with my trying to be quick explanation (in which I failed miserably ) I don't expect Zen to change the old tables too much scoring wise (although I would still love it to happen), I am rather trying to appeal to Zen to pay more attention to new tables coming out to be better balanced. I also believe an alternative Scoring system that takes into account all the modes and missions will encourage the more serious players to play a table to its fullest irrespective of spamming opportunities.

It will never be perfect but it is definitely worth focussing on for Zen Studios in my opinion.

[Womble]

Make Rocky & Bullwinkle fun to play again - I don't care about the scores (there are many other tables which are better for superscore), but the gameplay is brutal, and simply not fun. I know I am in the minority here, but I really enjoy the theme & it used to rank very high on my favourite table list, but is near the bottom since it was gimped.

Same. I like the theme and the overall look.

But it's not a fun table to play. There's a lot of dud shots, semi-hidden shots, and repetition. Oh, and slingshots from hell.

Having said that, I don't think it's a worthwhile investment to try and fix the game. If they still have the licensing rights, a Rocky & Bullwinkle II table could work. More Peabody and Sherman needed though. Oh, and we need a big Wayback Machine prop.

[Dalek Nation]

Issue: SCORING

Here is my suggestion for a more streamlined "Superscore" which would make low scoring tables (ie. Extreme) as important as the tables nearly anyone can get over a mil on (ie. Ms. Splosion):

Sum all leaderboard standing levels, then divide this by the number of tables the person has.

This new superscore would be a better gauge at seeing who has "game" vs. the present score as the new one would be indifferent to the number of tables the person owns nor the gap between low score and high score tables. This means encouraging players to move up in the boards over just beating old scores (yes it is the same thing, but a different approach).

Issue: ORGANIZATION

- Organization. I get annoyed how everytime I fire up FX2 it's always "Wolverine" that gets barked at me. No big deal, I'd just like it if didn't say anything until I selected a table

I strongly take BACK saying this if it means not being able to leisurly scroll through the tables, NOR if it means takeing out the background artwork. If I get frusterated at a table, and want to back out, I want the game to keep its mouth shut, and not bark "Wolverine" at me. I don't know why this annoys me so bad but it does. Couldn't the default position for the cursor be on the bottom stuff (like "Tournaments" tab)?