Battle of Mimban update 09.14. Friday - Scoreboard reset

[DepecheM101]

Thanks for your understanding, those bumper were a bit high.

Should be good now, and Classic was not reset.

But did you remove the scores of players who had the table loaded in and were playing the same table at the time of leaderboard reset?. Also could Zen tell if the scores came from version 1 or version 2 of the table?.

Am I just being over suspicious or are the current leaderboards legit ?. Maybe Cantankerous could shed more light on this as he knows that one of his scores is not legit and whether it has been removed yet.

[cantankerous--]

But did you remove the scores of players who had the table loaded in and were playing the same table at the time of leaderboard reset?. Also could Zen tell if the scores came from version 1 or version 2 of the table?.

Am I just being over suspicious or are the current leaderboards legit ?. Maybe Cantankerous could shed more light on this as he knows that one of his scores is not legit and whether it has been removed yet.

On ps4 things are okay now unless someone has left their game on since the update and not installed the updated version, but I have a bogus score on the survival mode and see other bogus scores. They need to reset the scores again.

[SiggR22]

Agreed, they need to be reset again for fairness' sake.

But then again, which scores are totally legit anyways? What's 'fair' and what's not?
Can you exactly pinpoint the difference? Where does cheating start?
By simply saving a game? Or by copying a save file? Or loading it because the old one got lost? Or got "lost"? Every action seems innocent enough in itself.
Is spamming multiballs "fair"?
Is banging back? In RL pinball tournaments it's banned.
Possessing an analog controller? A bigger screen? A cabinet?
Is simply dedicating more time to a game distorting competition?
The more you go into detail, the difference between legit and non-legit scores becomes blurred, with many shades in between.
I think you just cleverly stretched your scoring possibilities by playing at the exact right time... Sadly the non-tournament scores cannot be taken serious anyway.
Basic discussion is needed, and has not been sufficiently or satisfyingly been tackled since.

Public arcade pinball machines, being basically gambling machines, with all its monetary implications, are challenging by their very nature.
Now home pinball is free of charge, taking away that kind of pressure when playing. And everyone can play pinball however they like. It's their own game after all.
Yet still both arcade and home share the spirit of pinball, which is, in general, playing "well".
Unfortunately, the only remaining measure for a "well played" game is that final score figure (unless you recorded it), just one single number to represent your whole effort, no matter how hard or cheap it came to be. We wouldn't even have enough time to check every full game, so the score must do.
And that's why, when it comes to public leaderboards and tournaments, there need to be at least a very strict frame of rules in place to protect scores.
If that's not provided, fun and serious sports is ruined. Then it's, yeah, one of *those* games.

[cantankerous--]

Agreed, they need to be reset again for fairness' sake.

But then again, which scores are totally legit anyways? What's 'fair' and what's not?
Can you exactly pinpoint the difference? Where does cheating start?
By simply saving a game? Or by copying a save file? Or loading it because the old one got lost? Or got "lost"? Every action seems innocent enough in itself.
Is spamming multiballs "fair"?
Is banging back? In RL pinball tournaments it's banned.
Possessing an analog controller? A bigger screen? A cabinet?
Is simply dedicating more time to a game distorting competition?
The more you go into detail, the difference between legit and non-legit scores becomes blurred, with many shades in between.
I think you just cleverly stretched your scoring possibilities by playing at the exact right time... Sadly the non-tournament scores cannot be taken serious anyway.
Basic discussion is needed, and has not been sufficiently or satisfyingly been tackled since.

Public arcade pinball machines, being basically gambling machines, with all its monetary implications, are challenging by their very nature.
Now home pinball is free of charge, taking away that kind of pressure when playing. And everyone can play pinball however they like. It's their own game after all.
Yet still both arcade and home share the spirit of pinball, which is, in general, playing "well".
Unfortunately, the only remaining measure for a "well played" game is that final score figure (unless you recorded it), just one single number to represent your whole effort, no matter how hard or cheap it came to be. We wouldn't even have enough time to check every full game, so the score must do.
And that's why, when it comes to public leaderboards and tournaments, there need to be at least a very strict frame of rules in place to protect scores.
If that's not provided, fun and serious sports is ruined. Then it's, yeah, one of *those* games.

True, but you cant save on 5 minute or survival so I consider those scores, other than mine and the one on 5 minute (can't remember off hand the guys name) to have been done during the previous version and not scores that are currently achievable. I have a handful of #1's that I worked hard to get and lose and win back and so on and don't want to have questionable scores of mine posted that I did not work to achieve. Online, integrity is everything.

[cantankerous--]

Did'nt read your post to it's entirety before responding. Bang backs are totally fair. In a real world situation bang backs depending on the severity can damage the machine, not so in the digital world. Spamming? Hell, ya, fair. Anything is fair short of modifying the leaderboards or your systems core files. If it can be achieved during game play its fair with the exception of loading saved games which I see as totally cheating. For one its disingenuous and another only those with ps+ can do it. Some of us will have advantages over others for whatever reason, skill, better controllers or monitors or maybe physical limitations, but that's the real world.

[SiggR22]

Hehe PS+ not even required. Any old USB stick with a few MB free space will totally do.

[cantankerous--]

Hehe PS+ not even required. Any old USB stick with a few MB free space will totally do.

Oh, thought cloud save was required. I only ever did it once to see if it worked or not.

[JaySTeeY]

I'm glad I'm at the low-end of the leaderboards, don't have to worry about my scores.
just playin' to have fun, and be competitive with my small circle of XB1 friends...

[TuttiDeLeon]

Did'nt read your post to it's entirety before responding. Bang backs are totally fair. In a real world situation bang backs depending on the severity can damage the machine, not so in the digital world. Spamming? Hell, ya, fair. Anything is fair short of modifying the leaderboards or your systems core files. If it can be achieved during game play its fair with the exception of loading saved games which I see as totally cheating. For one its disingenuous and another only those with ps+ can do it. Some of us will have advantages over others for whatever reason, skill, better controllers or monitors or maybe physical limitations, but that's the real world.

You find loading saved games unfair? A lot of Zen's tables are so easy, I can play them for hours, which can be very draining & tiresome. This is in stark contrast to real tables, which are usually brutal, leading to short, but hopefully eventful & satisfying games. Why do you think it's unfair to save a digital pinball game? why must I sit rooted to the spot for ten hours straight?

[cantankerous--]

You find loading saved games unfair? A lot of Zen's tables are so easy, I can play them for hours, which can be very draining & tiresome. This is in stark contrast to real tables, which are usually brutal, leading to short, but hopefully eventful & satisfying games. Why do you think it's unfair to save a digital pinball game? why must I sit rooted to the spot for ten hours straight?

No, saving your game and continuing it is fair and I have high scores that have taken 12 hours to complete and saved multiple times. I'm talking about loading a save state which is different. It allows you to save your game in progress and then load that saved game. If you do bad, you just reload the previous save. If you do better you overwrite your previous save and you can basically do that forever without consequence. That is something I rarely talk openly about on this board, but I assume most know, but that is what I consider cheating.

[cantankerous--]

I played one game on a real life Bally space invaders table that took over two hours. It was in a club while I was in the Marines and I was drinking and needed to urinate often so I would either have someone hold down the flipper while I had the ball trapped or tape it to complete the game. Played asteroids for so long I would amass the maximum 10 free ships before running to the bathroom. Punch out had no way to save or any lengthy enough cut scenes and although I did over 300 matches the bathroom break was my downfall.

[TuttiDeLeon]

No, saving your game and continuing it is fair and I have high scores that have taken 12 hours to complete and saved multiple times. I'm talking about loading a save state which is different. It allows you to save your game in progress and then load that saved game. If you do bad, you just reload the previous save. If you do better you overwrite your previous save and you can basically do that forever without consequence. That is something I rarely talk openly about on this board, but I assume most know, but that is what I consider cheating.

Ah, my mistake. I actually didn't know of this scummy practice, doesn't surprise me one bit though.