pro-score

[Scar]

how are the pro-scores calculated?

I've all the tables on ps4. I'm 1st on every table of all my friends, yet i'm 2nd of all my friends in the total pro-score list

[hunter328]

Proscores seem too high

What's up everyone. I took a little pinball break but am back. I checked out the pro scores to see how far I'd dropped. I hadn't played since right after the soccer table was released. I knew I wouldn't still be in the top 15 but was surprised to see I'd fallen all the way to 123rd. Then I saw the leader has over 4300 points and something didn't add up for me. When I'd last played the most you could get for a table was 1000 points, but even with the new Star Wars tables there's not 43 tables out there to get that many points from. The only thing I could think was it might be counting different soccer teams as different tables for those who bought more than one team, but that didn't make sense as it's still the same table and Zen's better than turning their leaderboards into a money grab forcing people to buy multiples of a table to compete.
So I figure the calculations have changed for pro score but I'm at a loss as to what the new formula is. Either that or I'm just missing something entirely or there's a glitch somewhere. Could someone please clue me in. It's the pro score leaderboard that keeps me coming back and playing ZP2 religiously, if it is glitched I hope it gets fixed. Without that aspect the countless replays would definitely lose some of their draw for me.

Thanks, and thanks Zen for the new tables, I'm DLing them now.

[Scar]

I think it's a glitch. Too bad, it takes all the competitive fun away. I hope it gets patched real soon

[shogun00]

The only thing I could think was it might be counting different soccer teams as different tables for those who bought more than one team, but that didn't make sense as it's still the same table

And that's exactly what's causing it. It seems that there was no other way for Zen to offer multiple tables skins on ZP2 without making a couple sacrifices.

[Scar]

And that's exactly what's causing it. It seems that there was no other way for Zen to offer multiple tables skins on ZP2 without making a couple sacrifices.

Really?

Then remove the pro-scores because they don't make any sense!

One of the reasons that i bought all the tables on ps4 is the pro-score. If this isn't patched, i don't think i'm gonna buy any zp2 tables anymore!

[hunter328]

And that's exactly what's causing it. It seems that there was no other way for Zen to offer multiple tables skins on ZP2 without making a couple sacrifices.

Thanks for the answer. I'm not a programmer but I'd think if someone who was put their mind to it and really wanted to that they'd be able to come up with an algorithm or change to whatever in their coding that calculates proscores to include tables X and exclude tables Y.
Shogun, did they post somewhere that this was impossible to do or was that an educated guess? I ask because if not maybe they just don't know some of us don't like it this way. Who knows, maybe there are some who do like it. I think I'll post a poll to find out. Maybe if people are against it, and it's possible, someone will take the time to fix it.

[shogun00]

Thanks for the answer. I'm not a programmer but I'd think if someone who was put their mind to it and really wanted to that they'd be able to come up with an algorithm or change to whatever in their coding that calculates proscores to include tables X and exclude tables Y.

It's not a matter of can they come up with a fix, but how much time and labor it's going to cost to make that fix. If the problem lies in limitations with the program's game foundation (the engine), then they will have to overhaul the entire game just to fix the problem. This can cost them thousands of dollars worth of time and labor to fix.

They ran into this problem with Planet Minigolf, where there is a wonky scoring bug that affects the leaderboards. The bug is right in the game's core and their response was it would be cheaper to make a new game than to fix the problem.

[Metalzoic]

Maybe one (or more) of them bought more than 1 of the Super League Football teams?

This table screws up the Pro Score because each team is worth 1000 points towards your score. Basically this table ruins the fair scoring system Zen had.

Several of us have posted and asked over and over about this. Is this a glitch they will fix? Did they mean to make it pay-to-win? But the Zen guys and Barbie still haven't answered (or even really responded) the question for some reason.

[shogun00]

Several of us have posted and asked over and over about this. Is this a glitch they will fix? Did they mean to make it pay-to-win? But the Zen guys and Barbie still haven't answered (or even really responded) the question for some reason.

Staying silent usually indicates a disappointing answer.

They probably had to make a sacrifice to get those multiple skins to work on the platform.

When Zen made ZP2, they probably had never thought that they would have a table with multiple skins. Can they fix this problem? Yes and no! You can pretty much fix anything, but the real question is how much money (time and labor) is it going to take? If the problem is in the very core of the game's architecture, then they will need to overhaul the entire game to fix it. That will cost about the same amount of money as making a brand new game.

[Metalzoic]

Yeah, I see now that there are several topics here about the problem and many posts, but not one acknowledgment from Zen.

A month and a half and they're still ignoring us. very weird and not good at all.
I can't imagine they would do it on purpose if they knew multiple skins would completely break the scoring system.
Regardless I haven't touched the game since it happened.

[shogun00]

I can't imagine they would do it on purpose if they knew multiple skins would completely break the scoring system.

They could and they would, if it means that it would please the general fanbase and continue generating cash. Keep in mind, that Zen is a business and they are trying to keep the lights on. They can't just cater to a small few who actually think the Pro Scores are important.

When they were making the Super Football League table, they knew that a lot of fans would like to play as real teams and they were able to strike a deal with quite a few of them. There's also the point that only Zen Pinball 2 has the Pro-Score system, while Zen Pinball HD (iOS and Andriod) and Pinball FX 2 have a different scoring system. If the only way they could add the skins to ZP2 was to sacrifice the Pro Score then they would. It's better than the alternative, which is not releasing the table (or just the skins) out at all on the PSN. You would get far more complaints from gamers asking why was this table or the skins exclusive to Pinball FX 2 and mobile devices. After all, the core and casual crowd want more tables. Only a select few are going to pay attention to the Pro Score.

To be perfectly honest, I never look at the Pro Scores. The Pro Score was always easy to inflate by just buying all of the tables and taking advantage of the tables with simple high scoring opportunities. I'm not even counting the Super Football League table skins.

I keep on asking the question, what about the people that don't have a lot of money and can only buy a few tables? I personally find the trophy data to be more useful. Case and point, I have a friend that's really good at pinball, but he only owns half of the tables. His Pro Score is pretty low, but he has pretty good leaderboard scores on the individual tables that he owns. Plus, he has unlock all of the trophies on those said tables. I find him to be a much better player compared to some that have a really high Pro Scores, but only have about half of the trophies unlocked. He definitely gives me a run for my money during our online games.

[Phobos790]

They could and they would, if it means that it would please the general fanbase and continue generating cash. Keep in mind, that Zen is a business and they are trying to keep the lights on. They can't just cater to a small few who actually think the Pro Scores are important.

When they were making the Super Football League table, they knew that a lot of fans would like to play as real teams and they were able to strike a deal with quite a few of them. There's also the point that only Zen Pinball 2 has the Pro-Score system, while Zen Pinball HD (iOS and Andriod) and Pinball FX 2 have a different scoring system. If the only way they could add the skins to ZP2 was to sacrifice the Pro Score then they would. It's better than the alternative, which is not releasing the table (or just the skins) out at all on the PSN. You would get far more complaints from gamers asking why was this table or the skins exclusive to Pinball FX 2 and mobile devices. After all, the core and casual crowd want more tables. Only a select few are going to pay attention to the Pro Score.

To be perfectly honest, I never look at the Pro Scores. The Pro Score was always easy to inflate by just buying all of the tables and taking advantage of the tables with simple high scoring opportunities. I'm not even counting the Super Football League table skins.

I keep on asking the question, what about the people that don't have a lot of money and can only buy a few tables? I personally find the trophy data to be more useful. Case and point, I have a friend that's really good at pinball, but he only owns half of the tables. His Pro Score is pretty low, but he has pretty good leaderboard scores on the individual tables that he owns. Plus, he has unlock all of the trophies on those said tables. I find him to be a much better player compared to some that have a really high Pro Scores, but only have about half of the trophies unlocked. He definitely gives me a run for my money during our online games.

Excellent post again Shogun. It seems that we're left to discuss the subject amongst ourselves.

You make valid points however I take a different approach to Pro Scores. The concept and change of scoring is so much better than the Super Score on PB FX2, which I believe just added up all the scores. Which was flawed because one table can yield a billion points and another barely 100,000 or less. The Pro Score ranking system was genius and truly works, ranking your score against the competition. Getting to the top takes true skill and commitment and every table had equal value, until now.

You're probably right that only a select few will really care about Pro Scores but we are the core fans, many of us owning the platform on multiple systems and owning almost all tables on each. I think that the idea of releasing multiple skins of SLF was a major mistake at $2.99 each and counting each towards Pro Scores. Both bad decisions, alienating core fans is never good no matter what company you are. Then, ignoring said fans here makes it worse. Plus - if we're paying full price, at least give each team it's own leaderboard instead of just one. Now, there's no way to tell which team I've played has the lowest score and needs to be worked on. Lack of foresight all around. In the SLF thread, Barbie said she'd check on that on that and get back to us...still waiting.

Since I was #17 on Pro Scores on PS4, before the table was released, I felt forced to buy more skins of SLF to compete, but as I said before, the whole system is tainted. I'd rather be in the top 5 on my own without any advantage, and having to buy 7 extra table skins for the chance to be at the top is very unfortunate - both for the $ (i don't mind too much to help support one of my fave game companies) and the ruined scoring system.

I've said all this before but it's now here in one place, sorry to rant, just a passionate fan.

[BarbieBobomb]

Hey guys - sorry for the late reply, we've been extremely busy with the release of Heroes Within.

We will not be adjusting or changing the pro scores in any way, each table has to have the same feature set as every other table and there is no way to change or turn off super score contributions for certain tables. Sorry for any inconvenience.

[Alipan]

Disappointing.....PS4 owners better hope Zen dont bring out any more football teams!

I would still be interested to know if this was intentional or an oversight.

Hopefully if the latter then lessons can be learnt for the Xbone version.

[skyway73]

They could and they would, if it means that it would please the general fanbase and continue generating cash. Keep in mind, that Zen is a business and they are trying to keep the lights on. They can't just cater to a small few who actually think the Pro Scores are important.

When they were making the Super Football League table, they knew that a lot of fans would like to play as real teams and they were able to strike a deal with quite a few of them. There's also the point that only Zen Pinball 2 has the Pro-Score system, while Zen Pinball HD (iOS and Andriod) and Pinball FX 2 have a different scoring system. If the only way they could add the skins to ZP2 was to sacrifice the Pro Score then they would. It's better than the alternative, which is not releasing the table (or just the skins) out at all on the PSN. You would get far more complaints from gamers asking why was this table or the skins exclusive to Pinball FX 2 and mobile devices. After all, the core and casual crowd want more tables. Only a select few are going to pay attention to the Pro Score.

To be perfectly honest, I never look at the Pro Scores. The Pro Score was always easy to inflate by just buying all of the tables and taking advantage of the tables with simple high scoring opportunities. I'm not even counting the Super Football League table skins.

I keep on asking the question, what about the people that don't have a lot of money and can only buy a few tables? I personally find the trophy data to be more useful. Case and point, I have a friend that's really good at pinball, but he only owns half of the tables. His Pro Score is pretty low, but he has pretty good leaderboard scores on the individual tables that he owns. Plus, he has unlock all of the trophies on those said tables. I find him to be a much better player compared to some that have a really high Pro Scores, but only have about half of the trophies unlocked. He definitely gives me a run for my money during our online games.

Excellent post shogun, couldn't agree more. In fact, I have been playing Zen Pinball since the first tables on PS3 and have bought every bit of DLC and I've never even bothered to look at the Pro Scores for myself or any of my friends. The High Score Leaderboards and as you say Trophies are my guide as to how well I and others are doing.

Having said all that I can see why some people might complain but personally it doesn't affect me even slightly.