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It's really hard to identify all of the small improvements in the tables from FX2 to FX3, but they are all playing better, and feel like they are achieving better frame-rates. I'm looking forward to future tables on this platform.
I have the game running in a home-built cabinet based off of the VirtuaPin cabinets, using PinballX as a table launcher, and other than the lack of the ability to configure my digital plunger within the game I have only positive things to say about the gameplay experience. Outside of the pinball itself though, the shell around the game is awful for cabinet users.
From a top level my suggestion and my frustration come from the basis that all menus on a pinball cabinet should be executable with the left and right flippers and a launch button. Without this basic affordance it really feels like cabinet mode was an afterthought.
My cabinet does not(/yet) have an equivalent of the xbox b button, so as soon as I finish a table with a new highscore I am faced with a menu where the only thing I can do is hit launch to enter a blank name into the highscore list. The initials entry window in FX2 was a perfect time tested interface for pinball high scores.
After the highscore interface I am shown that I've unlocked table upgrades, which I also can't apply without several controller buttons and a d-pad. While I think that traditional table progression is enough of an incentive to play, I'm open to these new progression features, however if I cannot navigate the menus then it's just an annoyance, and the popup every time I launch a table where I haven't enabled any upgrades is a further annoyance. In lieu of a way to navigate these popup menus, it would be better to have a checkbox in the settings to disable these messages.
The challenges and other new things in FX3 look like they might be fun to familiarize myself with the new tables, but if there is no way to actually navigate to them in a cabinet setting I'm unlikely to try them.
The always online thing is a bit annoying as well for a cabinet user. I really would like to leave my cabinet setup in the house where my kids can play it whenever they want, but doing so causes steam to try and kick me out of another game or program I may be trying to run elsewhere. Because I have programs I use at work purchased through my steam account this may force me to uninstall FX3 from my cabinet. Steam has changed their family sharing settings, and If I to sign into steam on the cabinet with a separate user account I have granted family share status to, my library is compleetly locked out on other PCs. This used to only lock out the specific game being run.
Overall I would greatly appreciate it if someone at Zen would re-evaluate what the current cabinet mode setup should look like, because none of this is sitting together well.
THX
I have the game running in a home-built cabinet based off of the VirtuaPin cabinets, using PinballX as a table launcher, and other than the lack of the ability to configure my digital plunger within the game I have only positive things to say about the gameplay experience. Outside of the pinball itself though, the shell around the game is awful for cabinet users.
From a top level my suggestion and my frustration come from the basis that all menus on a pinball cabinet should be executable with the left and right flippers and a launch button. Without this basic affordance it really feels like cabinet mode was an afterthought.
My cabinet does not(/yet) have an equivalent of the xbox b button, so as soon as I finish a table with a new highscore I am faced with a menu where the only thing I can do is hit launch to enter a blank name into the highscore list. The initials entry window in FX2 was a perfect time tested interface for pinball high scores.
After the highscore interface I am shown that I've unlocked table upgrades, which I also can't apply without several controller buttons and a d-pad. While I think that traditional table progression is enough of an incentive to play, I'm open to these new progression features, however if I cannot navigate the menus then it's just an annoyance, and the popup every time I launch a table where I haven't enabled any upgrades is a further annoyance. In lieu of a way to navigate these popup menus, it would be better to have a checkbox in the settings to disable these messages.
The challenges and other new things in FX3 look like they might be fun to familiarize myself with the new tables, but if there is no way to actually navigate to them in a cabinet setting I'm unlikely to try them.
The always online thing is a bit annoying as well for a cabinet user. I really would like to leave my cabinet setup in the house where my kids can play it whenever they want, but doing so causes steam to try and kick me out of another game or program I may be trying to run elsewhere. Because I have programs I use at work purchased through my steam account this may force me to uninstall FX3 from my cabinet. Steam has changed their family sharing settings, and If I to sign into steam on the cabinet with a separate user account I have granted family share status to, my library is compleetly locked out on other PCs. This used to only lock out the specific game being run.
Overall I would greatly appreciate it if someone at Zen would re-evaluate what the current cabinet mode setup should look like, because none of this is sitting together well.
THX
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