Flipper Skills

[Cloda]

After watching a few PAPA tutorials and skills videos, I thought I'll give the tricks a go in the game. I specifically looked at the Theatre of Magic tutorial in anticipation of the table being released and the point was made that it is essential to be able to do a live catch on the right flipper if you want to get anywhere on the table. Well, for the last couple of days, I have been sacrificing playing decent games to rather see if I can get some of these skills down. I haven't been able to do one live catch (mostly trying on Attack from Mars when the ball comes out of the stroke of luck hole) and something seems odd with drop catches. In the Attack from Mars tutorial video, Bowen pulls both skills of the whole time as well as many other i.e. flick pass (my controller is not sensitive enough to do it). The odd thing I noticed in the game is that if you do a drop catch, you do prevent the ball from bouncing, but rather than it first rolling up the flipper a bit like in this Drop Catch video, the ball immediately rolls down towards the middle like in this video below. The first attempt is the best I have had so far and the second is what usually happens.

Compared to what should happen as in this video (1min15).

It is basically then not worthwhile to do as it is too risky and doesn't really give you an advantage and a dead bounce ends up being more rewarding.

What is your guys experience with these skills? Is it possible to do them in the game and do they work like on a real table? I have been watching quite a few gameplay videos since the Williams tables has been released and I don't see these skills being pulled off even by players adept at the game (e.g. LUP's club guys). If anybody has any video evidence of these skills working in the game (other than the pre-release video from Zen), please share them.

[cantankerous--]

After watching a few PAPA tutorials and skills videos, I thought I'll give the tricks a go in the game. I specifically looked at the Theatre of Magic tutorial in anticipation of the table being released and the point was made that it is essential to be able to do a live catch on the right flipper if you want to get anywhere on the table. Well, for the last couple of days, I have been sacrificing playing decent games to rather see if I can get some of these skills down. I haven't been able to do one live catch (mostly trying on Attack from Mars when the ball comes out of the stroke of luck hole) and something seems odd with drop catches. In the Attack from Mars tutorial video, Bowen pulls both skills of the whole time as well as many other i.e. flick pass (my controller is not sensitive enough to do it). The odd thing I noticed in the game is that if you do a drop catch, you do prevent the ball from bouncing, but rather than it first rolling up the flipper a bit like in this Drop Catch video, the ball immediately rolls down towards the middle. It is basically then not worthwhile to do as it is too risky and doesn't really give you an advantage and a dead bounce ends up being more rewarding.

What is your guys experience with these skills? Is it possible to do them in the game and do they work like on a real table? I have been watching quite a few gameplay videos since the Williams tables has been released and I don't see these skills being pulled off even by players adept at the game (e.g. LUP's club guys). If anybody has any video evidence of these skills working in the game (other than the pre-release video from Zen), please share them.

I watched videos and he was live catching left flipper, not that it matters for your point, but why not just let it bounce to right then pass it back? Ball catching is near impossible to do as a technique to be relied upon in pinball fx3 at least I'm unable to do it.

[Cloda]

I watched videos and he was live catching left flipper, not that it matters for your point, but why not just let it bounce to right then pass it back? Ball catching is near impossible to do as a technique to be relied upon in pinball fx3 at least I'm unable to do it.

In the Theatre of Magic video at 26min15 he makes the point of the importance of live catch on the right flipper for the table. Either way, the reason why I want to get it right is because Zen showed in one of their first Williams videos that real life skills should be possible to pull off with the new physics. The ball is unwieldy so the faster and more precisely you can bring it under control, the less chance you have of getting a bad bounce and losing the ball. Zen physics is so predictable and it is so easy to cradle the ball that it was never needed to master these skills.

Pity to hear you are also not finding it possible to do. I wonder if Zen changed the physics engine after posting that video as I don't see any advanced skills / tricks being pulled off (apart from accidentally) in online videos, even by top scoring players?

[cantankerous--]

First, I was wrong. He is catching it on the right flipper. I was recalling a different video, but had also seen this one and was trying, just as you to figure it out. I have a friend part of one of the pinball communities on ps4 that posted a video on facebook. I watched it and I doubt he was actually catching it from what I saw, but I will try to find it again and post it here Cloda.

[cantankerous--]

Ok, just watched your video again, and that shit aint possible no way or I'd be doing it on fish tales.

[LadyDyna]

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[crazyflipperfingers]

I haven't been able to do one live catch (mostly trying on Attack from Mars when the ball comes out of the stroke of luck hole) and something seems odd with drop catches. In the Attack from Mars tutorial video, Bowen pulls both skills of the whole time as well as many other i.e. flick pass (my controller is not sensitive enough to do it).

What is your guys experience with these skills? Is it possible to do them in the game and do they work like on a real table? If anybody has any video evidence of these skills working in the game (other than the pre-release video from Zen), please share them.

I was very excited when I saw the video they put out prior to the official release of Williams where they showed all the flipper "tricks" but, like you, I've found that the reality is really lacking.

It IS possible to do live catches. I've done it a few times but it definitely does not seem like real life. IRL, I am able to pull of live catches in about a third of my attempts. Let me clarify though. Normally a successful live catch will deaden the momentum of the ball enough that you can get a trap on the flipper. Most of the time though, the ball will bounce a little. If you watch "skills" videos, they always show a live catch where the ball "magically" stops completely dead on the flipper. It's not usually that graceful. In FX3, like I said, I've done a few (let me stress, very few) live catches, but they've always been of the "magic stop" type. It seems as though you either get the full stop or nothing. Look at Fish Tales, off the plunge that ball will bounce half way up the table on a botched live catch off of the left flipper. In general, the ball speeds seem a bit fast, and the flippers seem way too bouncy to do live catches.

Drop catches are a different story. I've never pulled off a drop catch in Classic Single Player mode. I have done loop passes, where you drop the flipper as the ball hits it after a complete orbit and it takes some of the momentum off of the ball as it bounces to the other flipper, like in Attack From Mars or Medieval Madness, but never a drop catch. I'm not sure if it's possible. However, in Single Player mode (Zen physics) I HAVE seen drop catches. I was not trying for them on purpose, but during multiball in Junkyard, I've done them "accidentally". I've seen that happen several times. My guess is, again, that in Classic Single Player the flippers are just too bouncy, but in regular Single Player they are dead enough to allow it to happen. I need to purchase the newer packs and experiment some more, but the drop catches aren't happening for me at all with what I've got.

Tip passes (flick passes, whatever) may be possible, but I haven't pulled them off. I have a feeling It might just be down to my controller though. I'm using the bumpers on an Xbox 360 controller. If I do it just right, I can see partial flips of the flipper, but during play when I have a ball rolling towards the end of the flipper, I'm never able to just do a soft flick to get it over to the other flipper (try this off the plunge on Junkyard, ain't happening for me). Again, seems possible, but I can't do it and it might just be down to the controller. Does anyone have a suggestion of a better controller to use where this works?

Finally, cradle separations. This is the one flipper skill where I'm pretty happy with Zen's implementation. Cradle separations completely sucked in TPA. You would always get a full strength flip and the balls would all go to hell. In FX3 they work pretty good. This is another reason I believe that tip passes might be achievable.

I really hope Zen has another go at a flipper physics retune. To be fair, physics are MUCH better than TPA and I'm thankful for that, but I'm going to keep offering constructive criticism in the hope that they eventually perfect them.