Pinball FX3 New Update Notes

[McLovin]

Good day Pinballers!

We have been listening to your feedback about Pinball FX3, and we are happy to announce our newest update with features and fixes inspired by the community.

The update is live on Xbox, Windows 10 and PSN EU with PSN NA following shortly.

Steam players can expect the patch on April 17.

On Nintendo Switch these features will go live with the performance update.

New Features

General

The number of players participating in the actual Matchup league is now displayed
See a new popup notification when you unlock a new mastery reward
Local high-score leaderboard added to the pause menu
My Collection screen has a new virtual group: Weekly Matchup Tables
In the Newsfeed, a “New Matchup Season Started” category has been added
A separate Superscore leaderboard has been introduced for Classic Mode

Quick Play Features

New Quick Play category Random Play has been added
New Quick Play category Tournament has been added
New Quick Play category Matchup has been added

Tournament Features

You can create new tournament with shorter lengths between 1-8 hours
New “Permission” filter has been added that shows private games only
“End Tournament” in-game notification added to alert players
Tournament has a new game mode: Real Classic Without Perks
You can set number of starting balls and turn on/off extra balls in the new Classic Tournament mode
Players may set the maximum number of available play attempts
Players may sort tournament by default or number of participants / time left

Matchup Balance Issues

More players will be promoted to higher matchup leagues
You now won’t advance to a new league with 0 Victory Points

Bug Fixes

General

“Table Upgrade” message text has been improved
Mastery Screen’s completed filters are improved
You may change Quick Play pages with the carousel indicators on Steam
Fixed mouse-scrolling speed issue in menus
Table purchase issue has been fixed on PlayStation 4 that returned you back to table trial screen after purchase
”Unknown Error” message at table purchase has been fixed on Xbox One
Error with Steam overlay screen has been fixed
Changing table groups on My Collection screen has been improved

Tournament

Official Tournament’s font highlight issue has been fixed
Fixed name of Tournament’s display in screen headers
Fixed leaderboard screen bug for Tournaments that displayed false player information
Tournament’s end screen congratulatory text has been improved

Matchup

Table purchase function will redirect to the proper pack
Fixed season end screen bug that showed wrong player statistics.
“Calculating Season” message will appear on the main menu Matchup button during season changes
Fixed bug that caused the game to switch back to the main screen after a matchup

Other Improvements

Increase your level cap to 50 with new background and frame rewards
Search by Name can handle multiple players with the same name
Tournament’s “Apply Filter” button has been improved
“Game Mode” information added to the Result screen
Promoted Tournament winners will receive newsfeed notifications
In My Collection screen, you can now use “Add to Favorite” with touch control

Thank you for your feedback, ideas and support!

The Zen Team

[cantankerous--]

Sighhhhhhh I can only hope each level in the new level cap requires a million points per each level otherwise we waited all this time to see a difference in each of us to show our dedication to the game and what's likely to happen is upon update we will all be level 50 and the entire point of increasing the level cap will have been missed.

[tfhfony]

I can't find this bug in the "solved" list:

https://forum.zenstudios.com/showthread.php?17700-BUG-PS4-Slowdowns

Does this mean that after more than half a year, this problem still hasn't been solved?

[MuddyWolf_Beta]

Good work!
I’m happy for everybody who has been waiting for these changes

But please Zen, consider adding more achievements per table. The game is dying on Steam because of the lack of them. It has almost disappeared from my activity feed. Zaccaria pinball, The Pinball Arcade and even Pinball Deluxe Reloaded (a 2d pinball game with only a couple of tables) are taking over. This is the age of achievement hunting and one achievement per table is just not enough.

Personally, I’m also still hoping for a speedrun mode. There’s still not enough incentive to really go for the missions and complete the Wizard mode. Which is a real shame because the game’s got some of the coolest missions of any pinball game I’ve ever played.

[tfhfony]

I can't find this bug in the "solved" list:

https://forum.zenstudios.com/showthread.php?17700-BUG-PS4-Slowdowns

Does this mean that after more than half a year, this problem still hasn't been solved?

And indeed. The bug is still there. I just had a go at Pasha again in View 3. Hit the spinner a few times to activate the ball lock. The table turns dark and the genie lights up and the problems start.
This problem only happens on a few tables (Jaws, Paranormal & Pasha) and only in view 3 and also only under certain circumstances. But at these moment you guys are asking just a bit to much from a standard PS4 and the framerate drops.
It's all nice and stuff that you guys are solving these issues on the Switch, but the PS4 version has been having this problem for over 7 months now.

[Louise Superstar]

I play on xbox, normally with the other half or my daughter and when it's their go I used to click B to go back back back to switch player but now that doesn't work nor is there a way to close/exit the whole game other than via the big X on the controller then quit from the xbox home screen? Even more frustrating is having to sign in twice, all just to swap player! Am I missing something...

[granzat]

The only new feature I’m waiting for is the split screen we had in the previous game. FX2 is still played more than FX3 when partying with friends.

[tondagossa]

My favorite thing about the new patch is random play! Finally! I've been waiting for this feature for so long (love it in other pinball games).

However, I have one suggestion. Can you please add an option to choose what appears when I choose random play? So maybe for each mode - regular Single Player, Classic Single Player, and Challenges - have the option to toggle which ones show up after hitting Random Play. Sometimes I can't decide which table I want to play (I have all of them including The Last Jedi ones), but I know I only want to play Classic. Or sometimes I only want to hit some random challenges. Or other times I just want to play regular Single Player AND Classic, but no challenges.

Thanks for your hard work on this. I've been playing since FX2 first appeared on Steam and the game just keeps getting better.

[shogun00]

My favorite thing about the new patch is random play! Finally! I've been waiting for this feature for so long (love it in other pinball games).

However, I have one suggestion. Can you please add an option to choose what appears when I choose random play?

Agreed! I'm happy that we finally got a random select for the tables, but I wasn't expecting it to randomly select the game mode as well.

[DepecheM101]

I don't know if this is related to the new update or because of the new tables but notifications are appearing at the botom of the screen, right over the flippers again on Xbox one.

[JaySTeeY]

Must be the update. I popped an achievement on the Ep IV table on 4/16, and it was over the flippers. I laughed and said to my wife: "Uh oh, gonna be some mad pinballers!" Eh, doesn't bother me, I just pause the game for a few seconds...

[Louise Superstar]

Yes it happened to me last night on Dr Strange (xbox one) and I paused until the notification went then when I unpaused the timer didn't restart and I couldn't finish the tournament (5 minute) and I got a ridiculous score of over 200,000,000 which I ended by leaving the tournament. It was Mintcream123's tournament, which also happens to be my daughter! I was on view 3 which I hate but its the only view on Dr Strange that nearly shows me all the table without needing binoculars...

[DepecheM101]

Being admin for Pinaholics Anonymous club on Xbox I sometimes can get quite frequent notifications, so being at the bottom can get quite distracting on occasions.

[Rechelino]

Thank you guys for listening to the players feedback and installing some new features.

I love the new Classic-Superscore. On the one hand I like to compare my efforts with other players over all tables, so I am a fan of Superscore. On the other hand I generally prefer the Classic-Mode, because it feels more "honest" to play with the same rules, as to push the button in the right moment to double your score. On PFX3 I mostly played "Normal"-Mode though, because Classic wasn´t counting for Superscore. So thanks a lot for this new feature which I (and a lot of other "old school" players) appreciate a lot.

I have two huge wishes for future updates.

1. I don´t get why the levels are still capped. Of course you could ask if there is a need for player-levels at all. But when you have player-levels they should have some value. When all players are level 40 there is no value for levels at all. Raising them to 50 isn´t the solution. In some weeks all regular players will be at Level 50... I guess what the players want to see, are complete open levels.

2. I would love that the score that you get in tournaments (when the rules are "classic" or "normal" without modifications) would count on the regular leaderboards. I would play more tournaments. But the thought, that when I reach a real good highscore in a tournament, it will be gone when the tournament ends, frustrates me.

[PinballVirtual-Victor]

Thank you guys for listening to the players feedback and installing some new features.

2. I would love that the score that you get in tournaments (when the rules are "classic" or "normal" without modifications) would count on the regular leaderboards. I would play more tournaments. But the thought, that when I reach a real good highscore in a tournament, it will be gone when the tournament ends, frustrates me.

The scores that you get in tournaments... mmmmmmm... they should never count on regular leaderborads.

Players who did not participate in that particular tournament, because they started playing later or because they did not want to do so, would be at a disadvantage compared to those who participated.

I think it's fine as it is now, in FX2 it was wrong and in FX3 it has been fixed.