Williams™ Pinball Update Release Date, Price, Free Content and Remastered Versions

[McLovin]

I'm hyped and excited like some kid on Christmas eve for the new realism! Everyone here probably is!
It's also a paradigm shift, away from catering video pinball casuals and easy accessability to also appeal to the more serious, hardcore pinball fans.
It will be difficult to keep both happy, but there should be enough tables to cover both tastes and everything in between.

However, my main concern is that this will be just another cover for the many underlying issues of pinball fx3 which havn't been resolved since release. Bringing this to your attention again may probably sound like a broken record, dear Zen people, but rest assured my nagging is well-founded and only aims to fx3 becoming a much better, and thus more profitable experience. The worst problems are, in short:

1) Table-related bugs. They are numerous and not a single one has ever been fixed. To the point that half of the collection is almost unplayable, because of some really silly and easy to fix programming errors. I got the impression you're not even tryin to fix any at all!
2) There's no game mode to play! Match up (lowball) being a hot mess since, tournament scores not counting towards leaderboards (imagine running WR on an Olympiad but it doesn't count just because!), single play ruined by load'n save. Random play is just a gimmick to help decide, as different challenges require different upgrades. So only 5 minute and survival challenge are decent, if you don't mind time pressure, that is.
3) Leaderboard imbalance. One of the most exciting and important aspects of pinball is simply corrupted to the core.

Now i'm kindly asking, what will the new realistic approach really do other than distract temporarily? Like all the other new brilliant tables piling up and up? What are they worth when they're still embedded in a poor system? What *could* they be instead? Really don't wanna be the party pooper here but once you invite the hardcore fans to your party they'll also notice the flaws and demand *working* tables, game modes and leaderboards as well. With the Williams addition, fx3 claims to be more than a video pinball fiesta but a proper simulation! So please make the right first impression and step up to the expectations of the new crowd. Now is the time to get everything right. The stars align, and will shine even brighter when polished to perfection.

Hi SiggR22,

1) Not sure what you mean here, we updated lots of tables to fix bugs that were persistent. Both Battle of Mimban and Calrissian Chronicles received very fast fixes with the most recent Solo pack. Could you give me an example of an unplayable table because of a bug? Maybe we could revisit some of them.
2) Match up requires some tweaking I give you that, but it has been improved and worked on since it's first version. Also, a lot of the top leaderboard spots are occupied by players like Pinballwiz, or the LupsClub guys or members of the PSN Pinball league, or the Pinball Family on Steam who regularly post full playthroughs of their games and prove that their scores are legitly as big as you see. Glad you like Survival and 5 Minute challenge though!
3) Which leaderboard are you referring to? As I said in point 2) a lot of the top scores are proven to be legit, and we make an effort to investigate potential cheated scores.

Thanks for the encouragement! We are always looking for ways to improve both tables and the game they are in.

[cantankerous--]

2) Match up requires some tweaking I give you that, but it has been improved and worked on since it's first version. Also, a lot of the top leaderboard spots are occupied by players like Pinballwiz, or the LupsClub guys or members of the PSN Pinball league, or the Pinball Family on Steam who regularly post full playthroughs of their games and prove that their scores are legitly as big as you see. Glad you like Survival and 5 Minute challenge though!

Can't speak for SiggR22, but I think he means what many of us have been asking for, and that is If the same rules apply during tournament play as a leaderboard scoreboard our scores during tournament should post on leaderboards if we surpass our leaderboard scores which I have done numerous times. Zen tournaments should rotate more. I recall at least four spider-man tournaments and no marvels women of power: champions............not once.

Just a side note: The last spider-man tournament swag was awesome and I see most people showing off the spiderweb banner and such. Keep that up. Hell, I photo shop. Give us here in the community the dimensions of banners and let us design some. I bet there would be an outpouring of submissions.

About match up. I havnt played match up forever and because I didnt play it allowed me to retain my position for whatever reason. Last match up I played once and because my score sucked I went all the way back to bronze one?

Mimban still needs a reset. Look at the scores. Some, including myself were still playing during the last reset and as such still had the benefit of super scores.

[SiggR22]

1) Not sure what you mean here, we updated lots of tables to fix bugs that were persistent. Both Battle of Mimban and Calrissian Chronicles received very fast fixes with the most recent Solo pack. Could you give me an example of an unplayable table because of a bug? Maybe we could revisit some of them.

Thanks for the reply!
Calrissian Chronicles and Battle of Mimbam got fixed so fast, i was baffled by the speed it happened. Well done.
Unfortunately all other tables never got any love. There's a dedicated bug report thread on this forum. It's not my job to verify them, neither do i possess all tables or all platforms. So i'll just give few examples of broken PS4 tables, and from my small point of view, they're the worst offenders:
El Dorado: Skillshots impossible. Statue not locking.
Son of Zeus: HERO rollover lanes not rollin over.
Adventure Land: Bonus multiplier does not calculate.
Mars: Kickbacks kicking saved balls straight out. And take ages to do so.
Might of the First Order: Table so steep that the ramps cannot be reached up. Table mocks about it.
These bugs are so blatantly obvious it's mind boggling they even got through playtesting, and i reported them months ago, and are so easy to identify verify and fix. But they never were for real. Maybe it's not important enough?
Yes, technically, all bugged tables don't crash and thus are still 'playable'. But are they really?

[SiggR22]

2) Match up requires some tweaking I give you that, but it has been improved and worked on since it's first version. Also, a lot of the top leaderboard spots are occupied by players like Pinballwiz, or the LupsClub guys or members of the PSN Pinball league, or the Pinball Family on Steam who regularly post full playthroughs of their games and prove that their scores are legitly as big as you see. Glad you like Survival and 5 Minute challenge though!

Matchup has been improved slightly, yet it's still completely pointless. Doesn't even deserve its very name. It's not "Match up" as in "compete against other players", but rather "lowball" as in "avoid topping your previous scores". For fresh ideas and suggestions, there's a dedicated thread. Community can be resourceful.

3) Which leaderboard are you referring to? As I said in point 2) a lot of the top scores are proven to be legit, and we make an effort to investigate potential cheated scores.

I'm also not talking about great players like LUPsClub or pinballwiz, who i hold in highest regards. They are honest and loyal Zen supporters.
Again, there's already a thread "Cheaters: kthula, Ardenwulfe and !!!!!!" for details. Their illegitimate scores infest the top 8 of almost each leaderboard, utterly ruining pinball's competitive spirit for everyone else. I mean, at least the 5 minute challenge and the survival leaderboards should be kept clean on a regular base, right, as they are integrity's last resort? The other ones will always be subject to scum-saving tactics anyway, as long as there's a save game option in place.
Sadly, the real issue here doesn't even seem to be the cheaters, but Zen's inability or unwillingness to deal with them and cheating in general. It's as if bending the rules was almost encouraged...

[hyundai]

The game is very interesting. Thanks

[hunter328]

I’m so stoked for these and so happy that they’re releasing on Switch the same as the others. These will be my first tables that I’ll have purchased for Switch and I can’t wait to start playing pinball on it. I’d hoped Switch would be my replacement for my Vita for FX3 but since that’s not possible with it not getting the Marvel or Star Wars tables I haven’t been using it for pinball like I had planned. At least it can be the home for my FX3 replica tables now. Bath time is about to get much more intense!

Great job as always to everyone at Zen! I can’t stress how awesome it is that these tables are now in the hands of the people whom I honestly believe are the absolute best in the business.

[stefb]

Hi all , i'm waiting this 9 October ! I play in a pincab and like only real tables
I found that fx2 and fx3 are good pinball games, nice physics, and nice optimized graphics, but i never tried a lot (just demos) because there was not real tables.
I use visual pinball and the pinball arcade on my pincab for real tables and i really hope those williams table in fx3 will a mix of the the best of all.

Do you plan to add more packs like this in the future ? and maybe from others manufacturers (bally, gottlied .... )

thanks for reading

[zaphod77]

sigh. need a report button. @#%$# spammer.

[Tech101]

sigh. need a report button. @#%$# spammer.

There is a report button. I'm on mobile and its the little triangle on the lower left. I reported them.

[steven120566]

Thanks for the reply!

El Dorado: Skillshots impossible.
Adventure Land: Bonus multiplier does not calculate.
Mars: Kickbacks kicking saved balls straight out. And take ages to do so.

Mclovin, these three are really annoying and I can confirm that they are real lol. In Adventureland, it is really annoying that the multipliers do not work. And I have played ElDorado like 5000 times across platforms and I think I got that skill shot like twice

[SiggR22]

El Dorado Skillshot is finally fixed now!
Erm yesterday it was working at least. Pretty sure it was, as it was the first and easiest to test! But currently no longer. How strange!
At least the statue seems okay now, no picky eater anymore. It's sooo much more enjoyable to play right now, thanks Zen!

Might of the first Order doesn't seem to be as steep as before, so that's well done, too! It makes all the difference now!

Mars kickbacks arn't kicking the ball directly out, and they're also doing it in the same location each time, so i guess they're kinda fixed too. The right kickback, however, hits now the left slingshot, which then randomly (about 10%) slings it back to the drain from where it was just saved. So some nudging is required here, as that very kickback won't kick in twice in a row. All in all, a much needed improvement.
The Pyramid multiball is still unplayably difficult, though. And i'm really not a bad player at all and do know quite some tricks.

Hopefully more tables will get revised soon, Zen's on the right track now.

[steven120566]

El Dorado Skillshot is finally fixed now!

That fast?

[SiggR22]

Patch 1.09 did change something, but right now, it seems the El Dorado Skillshot is back to square one again. See the bug report thread for the issue, which i described in detail there.

[cocothetrain]

Hey Mclovin,

Any idea when we will get information on other Midway tables coming to Pinball FX3? Or at least what `Volume 2` will hold?

[Cloda]

El Dorado Skillshot is finally fixed now!
Erm yesterday it was working at least. Pretty sure it was, as it was the first and easiest to test! But currently no longer. How strange!
At least the statue seems okay now, no picky eater anymore. It's sooo much more enjoyable to play right now, thanks Zen!

Might of the first Order doesn't seem to be as steep as before, so that's well done, too! It makes all the difference now!

Mars kickbacks arn't kicking the ball directly out, and they're also doing it in the same location each time, so i guess they're kinda fixed too. The right kickback, however, hits now the left slingshot, which then randomly (about 10%) slings it back to the drain from where it was just saved. So some nudging is required here, as that very kickback won't kick in twice in a row. All in all, a much needed improvement.
The Pyramid multiball is still unplayably difficult, though. And i'm really not a bad player at all and do know quite some tricks.

Hopefully more tables will get revised soon, Zen's on the right track now.

Mars Pyramid multiball is what it is On FX2 it was one of the rights of passage along with Ultimo (Ironman).