Pinball FX 2 - bugs/issues and recommendations

[inF]

Friends score bug

Edit: Thankyou for the work around (Barbie already told so...) and it works indeed. But how about the complains below ?

* Over the 125 friends ingame = crash game

* I dunno if this bug was already posted here.

When you do have more than 90 friends ingame,
the friends leaderboard score stops listing at 90th place.

So you cannot see the other friends their highscore on this friends leaderboard.

Please could you fix this bug ?

Extra Ball,
inF. =PF= (CEO/Admin)

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/pinballfamily

[Roo5676]

Also, in case you aren't aware, it can be worked around by binding Launch to something other than the Enter key.

For what it's worth, I'm not getting double-presses when selecting a letter, only when moving left/right. I have the flippers mapped to left/right arrow keys. I think my "start" button on my cabinet that I use to select a letter is just mapped to the Enter key, though, so I guess that makes sense if it's an issue of it overlapping with the launch ball command.

[Piet]

I'm using an ATI Radeon HD 5800 and the game ignores my v-sync settings in the Catalyst Control Center. I wasn't aware of this at first so when I tried to fix the flipper lag I tried v-sync off and v-sync on without result.

After reading at the forums I tried to find a utility to change the flip queue size setting. I tried RadeonPro, changed the setting but still experienced flipper lag. RadeonPro shows the framerate during the game (60) which is how I noticed it was stuck in v-sync on. Apparently if I set the global profile in RadeonPro to <Tweaks> vsync always on (Double Vsync) my framerate jumps to 200-240 and no more lag Also creating a RadeonPro profile for pinball FX2 and setting <Tweaks> vsync to always off in this profile works for me.

It might be a good idea to put a vsync on/off setting in the game and start with it in vsync off, because with flipper lag it plays aweful. Without flipper lag it's a fun game

[Roo5676]

Moon Knight Mission Issues

Has anyone experienced problems with the missions/modes not ending on time in Moon Knight?

First, anytime I do the Whirleybird Multiball (the one with the blindingly bright blue glowing balls) and I lose all the balls except for one, it takes forever (like 10-20 seconds) to return to the regular mode on the table. I believe it says "Multiball Ended" on the DMD right away, but the single remaining ball remains glowing and none of the other lights or modes re-activate. I usually just end up just trapping the ball and waiting it out.

Second, the "Vote for Me" fight against the Black Spectre seems strange and buggy. In this mode, I believe it lights up all 5 ramps/orbits and you have to hit each one (with the remaining lights re-locating randomly after each hit). According to the guide you are supposed to not hit the unlit ones, which makes sense. As there is no timer on the DMD, I assume there is a certain number of "hits" you can take (unlit ramps/orbits) in the fight before you lose. The first problem is that it seems like there is a timer. I swear I failed when I had one lit ramp left and had the ball trapped. Perhaps this is actually intentional, but it's certainly counter-intuitive.

The other problem is what happens when you fail Vote for Me. The first thing that happens is whatever remaining lights you had lit will get wiped away and all 5 ramps/orbits will be lit. I believe at this point the Black Spectre starts slowly walking away from the fight and back to the upper left corner of the table. Hitting the ramps doesn't seem to give you any progress - they stay lit. However, it will say something on the DMD like "Bonus: 50,000" (like you are in the bonus mode you're supposed to get after completing missions?) and yet sometimes you will hear sound clips on each hit as if the mission is still going ("Vote...", "For...", "ME!"). The rest of the time the DMD will still say something from the mission to the effect of "strike back while you can". After a little while the Black Spectre will reach his corner, then you will hear a sound cue and the DMD will tell you "mission failed".

You can still pass the mission if you hit the 5 ramps/orbits quickly in the first "phase" of what I described, but it's unclear if it's giving me correct amount of time/attempts as designed. It's definitely the one I fail the most, but that may or may not be related.

Hopefully I got that about right. It's hard to watch everything while playing. But I was trying to reach the wizard mode on this over the weekend and noticed these issues consistently. I'm not sure if they were always there or if something changed in a recent patch -- I haven't played this one enough before to know.

[surf1der]

After you are down to one ball on whirlybird, I think there might be a final shot where you hear something like "now it's time to fix the whirlybird" and if you make that shot you get an extra jackpot or double jackpot.

The black spectre mission is timed, but the timer is not on the dmd. If you look below the flippers I believe there are 2 meters. I think the blue one represents your health and the red one is the health of your enemy. If you make a successful shot the red meter drains while the blue meter slowly drains over time.

I'm not sure what happens when you fail the black spectre mission. Perhaps bonus points you get are just a way to kill some time as the animation sequence finishes its thing.

[Roo5676]

After you are down to one ball on whirlybird, I think there might be a final shot where you hear something like "now it's time to fix the whirlybird" and if you make that shot you get an extra jackpot or double jackpot.

Yes, that still happens, but after the excessively long wait I described. Once my last ball stops glowing, then the left and right ramps open up and start smoking and you have like 20 seconds to hit them both and repair the whirleybird. This part works fine.

The black spectre mission is timed, but the timer is not on the dmd. If you look below the flippers I believe there are 2 meters. I think the blue one represents your health and the red one is the health of your enemy. If you make a successful shot the red meter drains while the blue meter slowly drains over time.

I'm not sure what happens when you fail the black spectre mission. Perhaps bonus points you get are just a way to kill some time as the animation sequence finishes its thing.

Thanks, I will look for those meters. That's the first time I remember seeing a timed mode that didn't have a timer on the DMD. I still think something is wrong, though. It's like it's got parts of the bonus round and the mission mixed together.

[bfollett]

High Score entry - Sorcerer's Lair

OK, I have to admit I didn't read through the whole thread to see if this is already reported, but when I try to enter a high score using the keyboard the following happens: When I arrow over to the letter I want to enter and then press the Enter key, the letter is entered twice and I have to back space over the second occurrence to continue entering the correct letters. This happens for every letter I enter.

Bob

[surf1der]

OK, I have to admit I didn't read through the whole thread to see if this is already reported, but when I try to enter a high score using the keyboard the following happens: When I arrow over to the letter I want to enter and then press the Enter key, the letter is entered twice and I have to back space over the second occurrence to continue entering the correct letters. This happens for every letter I enter.

Bob

Scroll up a few posts to #255.

[inF]

This is just the update that didn't get posted before the studio closed for two weeks (due to a Steam outage), so it was just the table + the hotseat scoring fix, other stuff will be addressed in the next patch. The initials bug shouldn't be a problem but the friends crash is pretty tricky. Different people are crashing for different reasons, so we're trying to figure out what exactly is causing it and going from there. I'll keep you all posted.

the game crashes when you have got more than 125 friends playing pinballfx-2 at steam !

Since I do only have steam pinballfx-2 friends in steam and no other friends in friendlist, my game crashes when adding the 126th friend (which is also playing pinballfx-2)

Hopefully it wil help you solve the problem.

Extra Ball,
inF. =PF=

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/pinballfamily

(Pinball Family has got Weekly Challenges running and it is open to all =PF= members)

[BarbieBobomb]

Thanks inF! If you can, please email support at zenstudios dot com and attach the dump file found in steamapps\common\Pinball FX2\ in your steam directory (if it creates one), plus any other details that might be important. The issue has been resolved for most people, so we're trying to get individual crash reports so we can resolve those too.

[LeanderL]

Got another Rome bug. The same bug I had some months ago. The ball got lost in the upper part of the table where the three firepots are.

[rooter]

I went to try Earth Defense for the first time today. Every time I click on it, Pinball FX2 immediately crashes. All other games open without issue. The only strange thing about my system is that it is running Windows XP.

[thegreybetween]

While I'm sure it is probably common knowledge to the Zen folks by now, I haven't seen an official reply here and the problem is hinted at by Rooter's comment above:

PBFX2 has a big problem that is the result of a recent update (though I'm not sure if it is a Steam update or a PBFX2 update that triggered the issue).

In a nutshell: Many users of Steam unknowingly have a broken Avatar, and if you or ANY of your friends have a table in PBFX2 upon which their avatar is displayed (as a challenger, perhaps), the game will instantly crash when you click on that table - if your own avatar is the broken one, the game crashes immediately upon entering the menu screen.

Longer story: You may not know your avatar is broken, because it appears fine in all sizes except for its standard 184x184 pixel size, which you rarely view unless you're on your profile page. Nevertheless, due to a Steam update, it is likely that your avatar is broken and should be fixed.

Fixing it is simple: Just upload the image again, or switch to a standard Steam avatar. After you're done, be sure to RESTART Steam before opening PBFX2 again. Then you'll be able to access the menu screen and any tables that do not have challengers.

But in order to properly use PBFX2, all of your friends who may be challengers or leaderboard owners also need to fix their avatars. You can determine if their avatar is broken by visiting their Steam profile. If the avatar image doesn't show properly, that user needs to fix it. You can send them a message and hope they get to it before you want to play more pinball.

Alternatively, you can simply delete those friends from your account, restart Steam, and play normally. Just be sure to remember who they are so you can add them back when a patch is available that resolves this issue.


Lastly, @Zen: A patch is coming, right?

[BarbieBobomb]

Lastly, @Zen: A patch is coming, right?

Of course! I noticed these reports coming in as soon as the patch was issued and we're working on it. Thanks!

[zebez]

Feature request:

• Full XBOX360 controller buttom remap.
• Being able to disable the 360 controller.

I would love to play with my arcade stick cause it has way nicer buttons for this kinda game. Problem is the LB,RB, RT, LT buttons are placed completetly wrong. By either being able to rebind buttons or disable the controller ingame I can get around it. By disabling it ingame I can rebind the buttons to keyboard commands with Joy2key, which is not possible right now for the game still takes input from the controller at the same time.

Excellent game btw