What's up with the crazy slingshots?

[Metalzoic]

I'm actually surprised that anyone would want less active slings.
Having them react this way (sometimes insanely) makes them much more like the real thing. The Zen tables/games are great, but overall they are to easy with overly long ball times. Improving the slings like this helps alleviate that and make them more fun.

[Beliskner]

I'm actually surprised that anyone would want less active slings.
Having them react this way (sometimes insanely) makes them much more like the real thing. The Zen tables/games are great, but overall they are to easy with overly long ball times. Improving the slings like this helps alleviate that and make them more fun.

But not everyone wants it to be close to the real thing. There are other games already with "real" ball physics and more accurate mechanics. I play Zen because I want to feel like I'm in control of what's happening and that will go away with crazy slingshots and the like.
Also in return the mission modes on the Zen tables tend to be WAY more difficult than what real tables would throw at you.
In addition to that I don't see the fun in increasing the amount of ball drains that you can do little to nothing about. That's not making the game harder just more frustrating which isn't a good thing. A just played A New Hope a few days ago trying to complete the wizard mode and even though I had three extra balls I barely reached wizard mode on my last ball because pretty much all my balls drained because of the unpredictable sling shots and the super bouncy ball.

[MarkItZeroSmoky]

But not everyone wants it to be close to the real thing. There are other games already with "real" ball physics and more accurate mechanics. I play Zen because I want to feel like I'm in control of what's happening and that will go away with crazy slingshots and the like.
Also in return the mission modes on the Zen tables tend to be WAY morhe difficult than what real tables would throw at you.
In addition to that I don't see the fun in increasing the amount of ball drains that you can do little to nothing about. That's not making the game harder just more frustrating which isn't a good thing. A just played A New Hope a few days ago trying to complete the wizard mode and even though I had three extra balls I barely reached wizard mode on my last ball because pretty much all my balls drained because of the unpredictable sling shots and the super bouncy ball.

This is pretty much how I feel about it as well. I understand what some of you guys are saying though, with wanting a bit more challenge. There are some tables that seem too easy. But then again, how many hours do we have on those tables? In this game? Shouldn't we get better after playing this game, some of us for three, four, or even five plus years? Perhaps the new difficulty selection will satisfy the highly skilled.

But bringing the slingshots to a more "realistic" reaction does bring a bit of unfairness. Because in real life, pinball machines were there to make an Arcade operator money on every game. Of course youre not supposed to have marathon games. How would that be profitable? Real life slingshots are unfair.

And no, a ball going into the slings is not always the result of a bad shot. Quite often on Zen tables, the shot youre supposed to make, like drop targets or standups, deflect your ball right into them. Mission modes that require multiball...easy loss from slings when balls are flying all over the place. Any momentum loss from an orbit shot can easily put it in the slings. Sure you can play it safe & use nudge. It doesnt always work though, plus you might have to trap a ball to reset the tilt timer, and that indeed does ruin the flow of the high ramp tables. Add that to some really tight mission timers, and now you get a pretty frustrating experience. Its not that i dont like a challenge, obviously i do. But i dont want that uncontrollable and frustrating ball loss from overpowered, realistic slingshots designed to eat my quarters. Not with Zen. Its quite a challenge on the majority of tables to complete a wizard mode as it is.

Deep, I really like your tables. They are truly awesome tables. But I find myself putting them on the backburner until im ready for punishment sometimes because of those slings. They seem to be getting better, in regards to ejecting a 100 mph fastball to the outlanes. They are your designs, so ill play them as you make them, but if you continue to tune them up so that the Zen experience is enjoyable for everyone, I think everybody can be satisfied.

[deep]

Deep, I really like your tables. They are truly awesome tables. But I find myself putting them on the backburner until im ready for punishment sometimes because of those slings. They seem to be getting better, in regards to ejecting a 100 mph fastball to the outlanes. They are your designs, so ill play them as you make them, but if you continue to tune them up so that the Zen experience is enjoyable for everyone, I think everybody can be satisfied.

Thanks for the compliments! I understand you guys all, and will work on a solution in future tables that works for everyone. Maybe with a selectable difficulty at the start of the table? The easy diffulty could have much lower scores but weak slings, and the harders higher scores and stronger slings... What do you think guys? In the meantime, I tweaked the slings further on the Star Wars Rebels table to make them not so punishing. I played it a lot and there are much less outlanes because of them.

[daverthehutt]

I love when gamers talk about real life experiences. Very few real life experiences can be achieved sitting on your couch. There's a world outside your window. You want real life, get off your butt, go outside and find it. The real life pinball experience is out there too. It's at a bowling alley arcade. Hope you enjoy wasting money on short frustrating games. Tables like A New Hope are tough enough with the punishing timers on every mission including the wizard mode. Now add to that the slings, bouncy everything and dangerous to activate kickbacks.

I ask the power sling lovers who complain about easy tables and boring marathon games: Are you playing safe and just spamming an easy mode, or are you truly trying to get to the wizard mode. I had a great game of Fantastic Four a while back where I got to the wizard mode around 6 or 7 times. I think I only failed it once out of those tries. There was nothing boring about that. It was control, skill, and still a little luck, both good and bad luck.

I hate the power slings, obviously. I’ve bought every table since downloading the El Dorado demo 5 years ago. If the demo had been A New Hope, Wild West Rampage, Walking Dead, or Deadpool, I would own zero tables. If you designers insist on Power slings then make the kickbacks easier to activate. I suggest the basic in or outlane rollover activation. Also make the habit rails actually return the ball to above the rollover on an inlane. Not under it on like on Return of the Jedi. That way skilled players who understand the tables have the choice of activating them in order to control their blood pressure.

Sorry to be so negative and long winded, but some kind of compromise is needed with this issue.

[Alipan]

Maybe with a selectable difficulty at the start of the table? The easy diffulty could have much lower scores but weak slings, and the harders higher scores and stronger slings... What do you think guys?

If you are planning on using the same leaderboards for all difficulties I would say no.

It will be very hard for you to get the risk / reward right.

Big danger that people will just spam easy mode for high scores. Then we are back to those marathon games that the bouncy slingshots were meant to help prevent (lets see how the new Avengers table works out...).

How about if you complete the wizard mode or reach a certain score the slingshots get more bouncy?

[BarbieBobomb]

How about if you complete the wizard mode or reach a certain score the slingshots get more bouncy?

Interesting idea - would that be just for that specific game, or would it unlock for future games as well?

[Beliskner]

Interesting idea - would that be just for that specific game, or would it unlock for future games as well?

If this is considered please don't make it so it carries over to the next game as it wouldn't be fair at all. Weaker players might just slightly get above the requirements on a game while veteran players might crush the table on their first play. Every player should be able to start a game with the same conditions as everyone.

[Trynyty]

I hate the power slings, obviously. I’ve bought every table since downloading the El Dorado demo 5 years ago. If the demo had been A New Hope, Wild West Rampage, Walking Dead, or Deadpool, I would own zero tables. If you designers insist on Power slings then make the kickbacks easier to activate. I suggest the basic in or outlane rollover activation. Also make the habit rails actually return the ball to above the rollover on an inlane. Not under it on like on Return of the Jedi. That way skilled players who understand the tables have the choice of activating them in order to control their blood pressure.

This. +$100.00%. This would fix the issue. I'm about to have my gf start playing with me, and there is no way in hell I will let her touch Wild West or Walking Dead. She would play three minutes then tell me she doesn't like it. I don't own the other two franchise tables.

I watched the video on nudging, I've tried it. I tilt every time.
Other times, I can't figure out when the heck to nudge. The ball moves so fast, maybe it's because I'm old and my eyes don't move as well.... who knows. Please do something about those kickers.

Another solution would be to do what I LOVED about the older tables when I was just a tyke.... MAGNA SAVE!!! Even a little bouncy plate below the flippers.

When I hunted tables to play as a swaddling infant teenager, I looked for: a)Balls per play b)Magna Save c)Boingy pin at main drain. Not too many had b, a lot had c, and I stopped playing when it got to 3 balls for a dollar. WTH, man. I understand times have changed, and it's 3 plays. But as the above poster stated, real life is outside.

I would say that the majority of players are NOT pros (based on a poll of 1 person, my results indicate that 100% of players are not pros) and are playing a casual game and/or are being introduced to pinball for the first time. My son had never seen pinball before, and has already been turned off by the difficulty.

[daverthehutt]

If we are talking about being able to select difficulty at the beginning of a new game, then you should be able to select increasing difficulty as well. Pro’s can select hard with increasing difficulty. New players can select easy with non-increasing difficulty. Or continue increasing difficulty from where you left off on a previous game. I see increasing difficulty as an option that very few would be interested in. So to force that feature on consumers could be suicide to the seller. You can’t market a product to the minority, take a marketing or economics class people.

Look this slingshot thing has created a lot of arguing. Some love them; I think most hate them (I hate them so I want to think I’m in the majority, maybe not). Being able to adjust the slings makes some people question the fairness of the scoreboards. The scoreboards have been busted from day one. The easiest table to activate the ball save is Tesla. That was the first trophy I won on the original ZP. First game, within seconds of starting, a trophy pops for hitting the spinner. I didn’t even know what I did. Now I could keep a game going for years by just continuously activating the Tesla ball save. I could run up a great score doing this. It would be boring as hell and take a long time, but I could do it. Other tables have spamable high scoring modes (Darth Vader is one of the biggest culprits). Vader is also one of the hardest to take to wizard mode, IMO. I can spam the easy modes and rack up a big score in a marathon game, or I can lose quick trying to beat some very hard missions. That is why the scoreboards will always be broken.

So to use the scoreboards as a deal breaker for being able to choose difficulty is ridiculous. I want to turn down the slings on the tables that have the power ones to the level of the majority of the first 52 tables. That way I might enjoy the hard work the designer put in on Deadpool. Otherwise, I hate that table. BTW, I beat Deadpools wizard mode a few days ago and enjoyed doing it. I didn’t enjoy several cheap outlane drains. Thank you power slings.

[Eternal21]

I would like for Zen Pinball to remain a challenging game. Nothing feels better than spending weeks on a table, to finally earn that trophy. But the slingshots shooting the ball into outlanes don't feel fair. There's very little you can do at that point to save the situation. Sure you can nudge, but half the time the ball is traveling way too fast to know which way to nudge, and even if it stops momentarily teetering over the edge, it's still a crap shot at best. The table should be challenging, because of precise/timed shots that require skill, and not just being lucky at avoiding hitting slingshots at all cost.

I wish there was a checkbox option which would let you enable 'legacy' slingshots on the future tables (adding this option to already existing tables would be unfair to people that already earned the trophies on tables like Deadpool and The Walking Dead). I wouldn't even mind leaderboard high-scores being disabled for those games, as long as the trophies could still be earned.

And I agree with davethehutt. If you're playing marathon games, then perhaps the problem is you are focusing on a few shots that earn you the points, while dismissing the rest of the table. Take the table to the wizard mode, complete all side-missions and optional shots, your chances of draining are going to go up, and the game is going to be much more fun. And if you are really after the high-score only, then perhaps the problem is not with the slingshots not being random enough, but with your goals (leaderboards can be easily exploited; at least on PS4 version).

[Alipan]

Interesting idea - would that be just for that specific game, or would it unlock for future games as well?

Actually now I think about it some more it's a bad idea. People would just avoid completing the table.

Assuming the purpose of harsher slingshots is to reduce game time what's actually needed is better table design. Ie limit kick backs, no game modes you can spam and increasing difficulty the further you get (surely one of the cornerstones of gaming from early arcade games to the present day?).

[daverthehutt]

Until the power slings started, I never once heard anyone complain about this games difficulty. The porridge was always just right and Goldilocks enjoyed a nice meal. Now all of a sudden she can’t eat it because it’s either too hot or too cold. Fair and difficult are 2 different things. None of the bears poisoned the porridge. Stop poisoning my porridge with unfair slings.

Now look what you did, I’ve gone all fairy tale.

[DiscoKing]

@ Daver: I like the fairy tale analogy

Thought I might as well chime in too for what it's worth.

Point 1: people want to eliminate "marathon games" by increasing the difficulty of the active slings.

Point 2: I don't like them they are unfair and random . The game is more about luck and less about skill.

My thought is I agree with point two (just so that you know my bias up front)

A compromise
Slings should be normal (like the earlier tables). However, after beating wizard mode (as most tables have one) the table resets win or lose the wizard mode once the table resets the slings become more powerful. This makes it like a new game + which is what most games do they allow you to play from the begining at a higher difficulty. And say you get to wizard mode again beat it and table resets increase the slings even more and with each table rest the slings could continue to increase. Now try taking a table to wizard mode 6 times ---that would be hard and on each "new game +" and slings increase you could also increase point values so that someone who risks going to wizard 3 times could out score someone choosing not to go to wizard and just spam a certain mode. Take the table to wizard 3 times then spam that mode and yikes points galore. This also helps novice players because if they can't take the table to wizard then they shouldn't have to suffer the slings that would kill them when they already die in so many countless ways.

After you "die" a new game starts over at level 1 normal slings and normal point values. You'll have to play another good game to work it back up.

Think pac-man with each new level the ghosts got faster, the power pellets turning them blue timer was shorter, but the point values were higher instead of 100 point cherries you had 1000 point pretzels (or whatever- don't attck me for my lack of pac-man fruit knowledge)

Anyway I think this compromise would make all parties happy. Again I'm on the point 2 side but I think people who support point 1 would like this idea too.

How does this sound as a compromise????

[Trynyty]

A compromise
Slings should be normal (like the earlier tables). However, after beating wizard mode (as most tables have one) the table resets win or lose the wizard mode once the table resets the slings become more powerful. This makes it like a new game + which is what most games do they allow you to play from the begining at a higher difficulty. And say you get to wizard mode again beat it and table resets increase the slings even more and with each table rest the slings could continue to increase. Now try taking a table to wizard mode 6 times ---that would be hard and on each "new game +" and slings increase you could also increase point values so that someone who risks going to wizard 3 times could out score someone choosing not to go to wizard and just spam a certain mode. Take the table to wizard 3 times then spam that mode and yikes points galore. This also helps novice players because if they can't take the table to wizard then they shouldn't have to suffer the slings that would kill them when they already die in so many countless ways.

After you "die" a new game starts over at level 1 normal slings and normal point values. You'll have to play another good game to work it back up.

Think pac-man with each new level the ghosts got faster, the power pellets turning them blue timer was shorter, but the point values were higher instead of 100 point cherries you had 1000 point pretzels (or whatever- don't attck me for my lack of pac-man fruit knowledge)

Anyway I think this compromise would make all parties happy. Again I'm on the point 2 side but I think people who support point 1 would like this idea too.

How does this sound as a compromise????

+1 this idea. And fix the current offender tables while you're at it. There are no tournaments that I'm aware of, so points right now are just internet points. Fix it. FIX EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!