Pinball FX3's bewildering new identity crisis

Games
1
It’s a very confusing time for some of us fans.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2018/10/11/pinball-fx3s-bewildering-new-identity-crisis/
2

But do you get achievements for playing on the harder difficulty???

3

Brooski brings up a great point Tom, Mr. Why-Would-I-Play-A-Different-Difficulty-Level-If-The-Only-Incentive-Is-That-It’s-A-Better-Experience? :P

4

Just wait til they add some true Williams classics to their lineup. Fish Tales is very good and Getaway is alright. The other two were never favorites of mine.

It definitely explains why you liked Pinball FX so much. You had never actually played real pinball?

5

I hope Gorgar becomes available soon. And there was another one based on a licensed property that I enjoyed a lot, I think it was maybe Addams Family? Or maybe it was another one. All those licensed ones based on TV and movie properties run together in my head.

Did they ever release the Twilight Zone table on Pinball Arcade? Wasn’t that one supposedly a classic in real life?

Edit: I found a list of the best selling tables of all time online:

Unfortunately, it doesn’t say which of these is Williams.

6

Addams Family is excellent and one of the best licensed tables of the time.

Twilight Zone was released on Pinball Arcade, yes. I own it. I pretty much bought all the packs before they were removed because I don’t know how well they’ll do getting things into Pinball FX. Licensing is hard.

7

There are a lot of potential licensing issues with some of those other tables. Don’t hold your breath for Addams Family, Twilight Zone, etc. I mean, it’d be great if we got those. But stuff like Pin-bot and Gorgar are the safe bets.

Yes. Also xp.

Each mode has its own leaderboard. I mean, maybe you don’t want to be on the One True Leaderboard, but that’s on you.

I’ve played pinball pretty much all my life.

-Tom

8

OK, that’s cool. I guess I don’t understand your reaction then? Pinball FX has always been a mess of wonky physics that had no relation to actual pinball physics. It could be fun sometimes, but it always seemed cheap and fake to me long before they brought the real tables and the new physics into the mix.

I would expect Addams Family and Twilight Zone, tbh. Pinball Arcade from Farsight got most of the best tables that had licensing with other properties. No reason to think they can’t get that stuff for Pinball FX too.

9

I want them to do the new physics options for all the old tables just so we have more options.

10

I don’t think the old tables would work with the new physics options. Not without adjusting some things, probably. Anyway, it would be more work than just putting in new physics, I bet.

11

Tom, I’ve played Medieval Madness. I know Medieval Madness. Medieval Madness is a friend of mine. Tom, Epic Quest is no Medieval Madness.

Yeah, but FarSight had to have Kickstarters for each table due to the large number of expensive licensees. Maybe Zen has more resources than FarSight, but I’m not sure they will want to go to all the trouble, especially with existing versions on the market.

I pray to God I’m wrong.

12

“No relation to actual pinball physics” is awfully harsh. And it can be fun all the time if you’re not the arcade equivalent of those rivet-counters who killed flight sims! :)

I wish, but it’s not that easy. Mel Kirk at Zen Studios talks about it here:

What level is your gear in Medieval Madness?

That’s what I thought. :)

But, yeah, I just need to spend more time with it. I will say none of Medieval Madness’ jokes can hold a candle to “Bat country? We need to stop here!” But there’s a certain retro charm in turning off the “remastered” animations so the Medieval Madness dragon just sits there immobile, which is how pinball machines actually worked back in the day. Oh god, I’m turning into Dave Long!

-Tom

13

Don’t think it was mentioned but Arcade mode is the new real physics. Tournament is also the same physics but the table is adjusted for steeper incline and tournament setting that include no extra balls. So that’s why that setting it so fast and difficult. These are under classic mode.

Regular single player uses the floaty fx3 physics. Ball feels like it slows down as approaches flippers.

I’ve never been a big fan of Zen pinball and preferred Pinball Arcade since like the real tables. However they never added ball spin and didn’t do best job with the tables. The Zen versions of these tables are amazing and this is on initial release. Pinball Arcade had so many bugs that never got fixed.

Looks forward to all the upcoming tables. Really only cared for the Williams/Bally tables in real life.

14

Then you damned well better get hit points, too.

15

Okay, now I’m even more confused. So when you play the game, it’s using the regular Pinball FX physics that we all know and love, even on the Williams tables, right? But when you choose classic mode, which turns off all the unlockables and bonuses, you’re playing with their new physics no matter what you choose? And if you choose Tournament, you’re just making the table steeper? Is the idea that Arcade is a shallower incline to make the game more forgiving, and Tournament is the incline the tables were built for?

-Tom

16

Yes.

That I don’t know. But I’d like to because I want to know which mode most people are going to play in for the leaderboards (anyone who’s playing on the Switch, please send me a PM with your friend code or post it on the QT3 gamer tag doc).

I also don’t know if hitting the “effects” button (B on the Switch) that—in the case of the immortal perfection that is Medieval Madness—turns on the sparkles and flames and moving dragon turns off the new physics while in classic mode. But I don’t think it does?

17

I can’t imagine that it does. I’ve messed around with that on/off button a fair bit and it looks like all it does it add/remove whatever action figure or dollie the board has, along with the flame and sparkle stuff you mention.

So I take it the framerate hitches with the Switch version are gone? You’re happy with the performance on the Switch? Are you using the vertical mode at all? I recall not being comfortable with button placement in vertical mode.

-Tom

18

FlipGrip will be ideal for this in vertical mode… I’m in the first bunch of orders for that so when it arrives I will post on Qt3. It’s pretty self-explanatory though and would alleviate Tom’s concerns with button placement I think.

As for the modes, I still haven’t been able to try this, but I’ve read a lot in the pinball thread at ResetEra and my understanding is that classic mode is most similar to the default physics in The Pinball Arcade while Tournament uses those same physics but increases the table incline and removes the chance of getting extra balls.

All pinball tables can be adjusted, sometimes in countless ways, to increase or decrease difficulty. If you bought the PRO versions in TPA, you could mess with some of that stuff. I think the “effects” button only turns the effects back on while not messing with the gameplay. You should be able to tell IMO.

Anyway, hopefully I can get to try this on the weekend.

19

I haven’t played the Switch version a ton at this point, but I haven’t seen any hitching in either docked or vertical handheld mode. And, yes, the buttons for vertical handheld are terrible, which is why I backed…

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fangamer/flip-grip
HOWEVER. I realized the other day that the button layout appears to be locked to the face buttons of the joycon at the bottom of the screen (right joycon with screen at 90 degrees, left joycon for 270 degrees). That is, I tried to remap the buttons, but I couldn’t figure out how.

If you can’t, then the standard horizontal controls won’t work when using the FlipGrip. I’ve been meaning to write Zen about this to see if they can address it before the FlipGrip gets here. More folks requesting that feature would probably help.

Yeah, I actually tried playing Zen physics on MM after I posted, and the difference was immediately noticeable. A nice touch by Zen to allow graphical bells and whistles with more realistic gameplay.

20

Hmmm… that’s kinda bs if that’s how they’ve set it up. I have a HORI stand that I use for vertical gaming on the Switch right now and I detach both JoyCons when I play that way. Maybe if you detach them both before you flip to vertical it’ll know what’s up?

I’ll try this on the weekend. BLOPS IIII is coming today but I’ll download this and try FishTales. They’re running a tournament for that at ResetEra too.

I’m interested in trying this on PC so I can compare the graphic quality with TPA in DirectX 11 mode, too.