So...the "Superscore" isn't really so "super." Really, it's just bull****.

[UranusIsBroken]

What is your "Superscore" really indicative of?

I only ask because BOKOOMONEY is 5th with a "Superscore" of 2,262,767

Upon further inspection, he has played a whole whopping ONE table. Paranormal. His score? 2,262,767,289,771

Has played ONE table, and is 5th in Superscore. What's worse? He's only got the 3rd highest score on that table.

Now...I don't give a rat's arse about Superscore, but what's the point in having it if you can play but one table, and have the 5th highest Superscore? Doesn't sound so super to me.


Input appreciated.

EDIT: Furthermore, the high score is 4.9 TRILLION? LOL Oh yeah? LOL

[DarkKodiaK]

from what i understand, paranormal table allows 5 extra balls per ball.

That and i know from reading around here people have played 16+ hours on a single game of that table. Now, I personally don't know what bugs or whatever is going on to achieve such a high score on that table. But i DO however recall that you can just slam extra balls into the cube over and over and over again without actually doing any of the missions. Only happened to me once. Don't know how to do it again.

but then again it's midnight, have had a few drinks. So i really don't know.

Paranormal is one of those tables that i like and "hate" at the same time. Because it's one of the tables i don't even have a 100 million score on. However, it seems to be a table that a lot of people in the past took a giant advantage over for scores.

[shogun00]

That and i know from reading around here people have played 16+ hours on a single game of that table. Now, I personally don't know what bugs or whatever is going on to achieve such a high score on that table.

Simple! Just grind the haunted house.

If you hit all 9 targets and then shoot the ball to the roof (the blaster), you get 20 million points and lits an extra ball.

[BPestZ]

@ DarkKodiak - Have you seen Cloda's thread and video for high scores on Paranormal? It is the blueprint if you want it.

https://forum.zenstudios.com/showthread.php?3556-High-Scoring-Strategy-Guide-for-Paranormal

@ the thread

There are a few tags high up the list with just a few tables played. Howling bull is in 11th with less than 10 tables played. His spiderman score is by itself good for 14th. For myself I set myself a goal of trying to get my ranking into the top 100 on every table. Which is why I was grumpy at the no F4 leaderboard reset. I have had every table in the top 100 but that one.

[Alipan]

Superscore is indeed fooked - you are right Paranormal is mainly to blame but the seeds were sown long before that.

The Spiderman tournament started to send things out of kilter - I remember I went up to 38th in the world after that even though I had only posted paltry scores on most of the other tables. I was ahead of many better players who just didnt play the table.

That was bad but Paranormal sent it to a whole new level. From what I remember most peoples technique was to keep raising the jackpot on the Doppelganger multiball which carries over from ball to ball. Eventually you can raise it to 100's of millions. I had a go at grinding it but too many bugs and my gaming time is too limited.

So yes superscore is pretty meaningless now - shame as I like the concept.

[BPestZ]

Superscore works for the vast majority of players too. I agree with UAIB and you Alipan but I wonder what could replace it to make it better for the top 10 percent. I personally think it would be a design straightjacket to try to make scoring uniform across tables. I want to advocate for table rankings but I can not think of a simple way. If you want to make table rankings matter you have to take into consideration how many tags have played each table, divide a tag's rank into the total number of tags for that table, take the percentages for each tag's score for each table and average them, giving a zero for each table not played. Then you might be ready to rank out tags by the 'score' obtained. Just imagine trying to explain this in the UI. Oh yeah, we would also need to do a kickstarter for Zen so they could buy a supercomputer to crunch numbers and explain to people how your ranking could go up without you even playing a game. Sigh

Maybe the best bet for us is to continue to advocate to Zen for ways to make games shorter. They really have listened to us on the extra ball situation after all. Paranormal would be less of a outlier if it didn't take so long to play, right?

[Cloda]

Superscore works for the vast majority of players too. I agree with UAIB and you Alipan but I wonder what could replace it to make it better for the top 10 percent. I personally think it would be a design straightjacket to try to make scoring uniform across tables. I want to advocate for table rankings but I can not think of a simple way. If you want to make table rankings matter you have to take into consideration how many tags have played each table, divide a tag's rank into the total number of tags for that table, take the percentages for each tag's score for each table and average them, giving a zero for each table not played. Then you might be ready to rank out tags by the 'score' obtained. Just imagine trying to explain this in the UI. Oh yeah, we would also need to do a kickstarter for Zen so they could buy a supercomputer to crunch numbers and explain to people how your ranking could go up without you even playing a game. Sigh

Maybe the best bet for us is to continue to advocate to Zen for ways to make games shorter. They really have listened to us on the extra ball situation after all. Paranormal would be less of a outlier if it didn't take so long to play, right?

Haha... great idea! Sounds about right on par with the discussion we had on the forum a while ago. You are more than welcome to dig into them, but remember once you go down the rabbit hole...

- Destruction of Superscore
- Destruction of Superscore 2
- Alternative leaderboards and table goals

Talking about Extra balls... I'm still confused as how it actually works on the Marvel AC tables. I'm pretty sure that on both Hulk and Fear Itself that I managed to get more than 3 extra balls on the first ball and then struggle to get more for the rest of the game. My suspicion is that you are still limited to 6 extra balls per game but that it can be scored at any time. Can anybody confirm it, or am I just seeing things

[shogun00]

Talking about Extra balls... I'm still confused as how it actually works on the Marvel AC tables. I'm pretty sure that on both Hulk and Fear Itself that I managed to get more than 3 extra balls on the first ball and then struggle to get more for the rest of the game. My suspicion is that you are still limited to 6 extra balls per game but that it can be scored at any time. Can anybody confirm it, or am I just seeing things

It's actually 5 extra balls "per game" on those tables.

Just take a look at the operator's menu. It will tell you what the settings (tilt warnings, extra balls, scoring) are.

[Cloda]

It's actually 5 extra balls "per game" on those tables.

Just take a look at the operator's menu. It will tell you what the settings (tilt warnings, extra balls, scoring) are.

I like it because often times I can start a game off an be in the zone and manage to score really big and earn a lot of extra balls. With the older tables with the 2 extra ball limit, the pressure builds up when you realise you are on your second or third ball and have to get an extra ball before your game ends... and often it ends very soon there after. Anyway... a bit long-winded, but all I'm trying to express is that it is now possible to stack up your extra balls while you are on a roll with a ball and stand a better chance of acquiring the maximum amount of extra balls.

[DarkKodiaK]

@ DarkKodiak - Have you seen Cloda's thread and video for high scores on Paranormal? It is the blueprint if you want it.

https://forum.zenstudios.com/showthread.php?3556-High-Scoring-Strategy-Guide-for-Paranormal

@ the thread

There are a few tags high up the list with just a few tables played. Howling bull is in 11th with less than 10 tables played. His spiderman score is by itself good for 14th. For myself I set myself a goal of trying to get my ranking into the top 100 on every table. Which is why I was grumpy at the no F4 leaderboard reset. I have had every table in the top 100 but that one.

Thanks, i'll give it a look later on.

*edit*

well how about that... after reading that i had a game of max extra balls and got 233 million. Yea, score sucked. Never really got the jackpot value all that high. Also FINALLY got the achievement for banishing the ghosts from the attic. Really don't like the grinding type nature of trying to get a really high score. Wizard mode was kinda lame too.

so there ya go!

[theRonlyConly97]

I love the emotions being expressed here.

Sounds to me like people don't want to put in the time on the infamous Paranormal table. To hate on someone because they have a high score on 1 table is pretty rough. Paranormal is not only tough in the reflex department, but mentally that table is grueling. It is psychologically exhausting doing the same shots over and over again on that table. At any time on Paranormal you can have a game breaker, which is mentally demanding as well. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Be cool man, it's only Pinball, not anything overly serious.

[BPestZ]

Haha... great idea! Sounds about right on par with the discussion we had on the forum a while ago. You are more than welcome to dig into them, but remember once you go down the rabbit hole

Talking about Extra balls... I'm still confused as how it actually works on the Marvel AC tables. I'm pretty sure that on both Hulk and Fear Itself that I managed to get more than 3 extra balls on the first ball and then struggle to get more for the rest of the game. My suspicion is that you are still limited to 6 extra balls per game but that it can be scored at any time. Can anybody confirm it, or am I just seeing things

I really do not think table rankings are a good idea in the end. I mostly typed that out so I could comment on this subject without commenting on someone else's ideas as I come to a negative conclusion. If real world considerations were not important I think table ranks would be great.

As for the extra balls it is like Shogun answered. This to me was good design. You are right the extra balls are not as easy to get as well for IG, FI and even Avengers. Hulk is pretty easy but still not excessive.

[BPestZ]

Sounds to me like people don't want to put in the time on the infamous Paranormal table. To hate on someone because they have a high score on 1 table is pretty rough. Paranormal is not only tough in the reflex department, but mentally that table is grueling. It is psychologically exhausting doing the same shots over and over again on that table. At any time on Paranormal you can have a game breaker, which is mentally demanding as well. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Be cool man, it's only Pinball, not anything overly serious.

Who are you talking about? Everyone else is naming names. For the record, the tag I mentioned in my first post looks to be better at pinball than me. Paranormal is far from hard.

The matter at hand is that I personally do not think that my superscore should be over 40 percent from 2 tables, when those two tables comprise about 7 percent of the total tables I have played. I hate the game your playing, twisting words.

[Cloda]

I really do not think table rankings are a good idea in the end. I mostly typed that out so I could comment on this subject without commenting on someone else's ideas as I come to a negative conclusion. If real world considerations were not important I think table ranks would be great.

As for the extra balls it is like Shogun answered. This to me was good design. You are right the extra balls are not as easy to get as well for IG, FI and even Avengers. Hulk is pretty easy but still not excessive.

I have kind off given up on the idea that we will have any improvement (if at all) on the superscore system until we maybe get to FX 3. Another more basic idea I though of the other day which could maybe be developed a little further is for superscore to still be worked out the same way that it is now but with each players top and bottom 5 table scores being excluded from the tally (including for the tournament bonus). In this way the "outliers" will be excluded from the calculation and you will get a better overall idea of the players skill in comparison with the rest of the players.

There is though another possibility as well for FX 3, assuming that all the tables will be transferred to the new platform as with the FX 1 to FX 2 transition. That will be the golden opportunity for Zen to adjust and tweak the scoring mechanism and balance on many of the tables that are just a few steps away from being a brilliant table. Some that come to mind is like Paranormal (reduce extra balls and the building of the jackpot), Sorcerer's Lair (Obsidian stones reset after two play troughs to the wizard mode), Captain America (capping of the EOB) and off course Spiderman (No more Villain levels that build up over games).

[duwease]

I'll use this opportunity to pimp my idea again.. just make Superscore the average of all of your rankings, don't even worry about the scores. So if you're 3rd on one table, 10th on another and 80th on a third, your superscore is 31.. and lower is better, obviously. Unplayed tables factor in as the highest rank for that table. This way you don't have to align the scoring on all the tables -- 10th place with a score of 80 trillion is as good as 10th place with a score of 120,000.

As for Paranormal, the gameplay may not be risky, but getting a high score is.. the table is very glitchy. I spent 10+ hours on a single game, and it glitched out with my score somewhere around 30 billion. I still haven't gone back to it since that happened (or back to FX2 really), although I still check back occassionally to see if there's been a patch.