Nudging (and other settings) in game challenges

[Scotty VH]

Folks have raised good points about the fairness of ‘game of the week’ challenges.  Although these are intended primarily as good fun, it is a good idea to be very clear about the rules — especially when prizes may be involved.  The question about nudging is the point of this poll

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[Jesperpark]

Okay I’m confused, so are we talking about death saves with no tilt warnings?  I’m all for nudging, but I also have a tilt bob installed on my cabinet.  So basically i can nudge no harder than my normal pins will allow me.  Never thought about it any other way i guess

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[Dodger]

I agree. Why should normal style nudging not be allowed?

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[bord]

Nudging is as much a part of pinball as flippers. Just no funny business disabling the tilt.

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[Thalamus]

I have set my pin with a very sensitive tilt bob and of course I nudge during play. In recent version of VPX they have added the old shitty VP9 alternative back in. I mentioned this to Scotty and he made it into a poll. I’ve seen some rule bending going on over at vpf so I have no interest in competing over there any more.

I had real fun up until I noticed and I’m that kind of guy that changes completely when I’m competing. If rules are not met, I get mad and it destroys all the fun.

One thing that works for me though is beating them without telling

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[freelunch]

Before this existed, I made this as a table testing technique. Nudging can certainly be abused depending on your calibration! With different hardware input approaches, I’m not sure there is a way to standardize fair nudging. Personally I have no cool toys, so I’m just using the default settings for digital input nudging. I hardly use it, though beyond seeing the ball is headed for the outlane, nudging, and the nudging being too weak to have a chance of altering the ball’s course lol.

I don’t know how VPX determines its tilt sensor for analog nudging, but if there are literal in-game physics-determined parameters that we can leave at default settings, I don’t see a problem. Otherwise, I agree that nudging should be removed as a tactic.

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[Al]

Not that I compete, but I would suggest someone cheating with their nudge settings could find a heap of other ways to cheat irrespective, and i don’t think I could play being me without subtle nudges as I play !

Cheers,

al.

 

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[Thalamus]

There is no doubt very easy to cheat in VP. Some tables it is as easy to edit a text file. I applaud Freelunch for recognizing that on Capersville, it doesn’t really start from scratch in between rounds if there are trapped balls from the previous. What I believe to have noticed is that a few taken a copy of their nvram where the jackpot has been maxed out. I’ve also seen adjustments to F6 options that clearly has an advantage. Stupid settings like – extra ball if you manage to beat your own crappy high-score.

Only by posting the new table with very specific rules and urging people to download the exact copy of the table ( provide link ) to it – so, they by accident have made a small adjustment and forgotten about it isn’t a issue will we come closer to fair play.

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[freelunch]

Thalamus wrote:

There is no doubt very easy to cheat in VP. Some tables it is as easy to edit a text file. I applaud Freelunch for recognizing that on Capersville, it doesn’t really start from scratch in between rounds if there are trapped balls from the previous. What I believe to have noticed is that a few taken a copy of their nvram where the jackpot has been maxed out. I’ve also seen adjustments to F6 options that clearly has an advantage. Stupid settings like – extra ball if you manage to beat your own crappy high-score. Only by posting the new table with very specific rules and urging people to download the exact copy of the table ( provide link ) to it – so, they by accident have made a small adjustment and forgotten about it isn’t a issue will we come closer to fair play.

I agree with the sentiment of leveling the playing field and encouraging fair play, but I’m not so sure people cheat intentionally. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people forget they changed their ROM settings from factory in a game-affecting way, such as installing Add-a-Ball. They may have done it so long ago they forgot they’re not using factory settings. Since I used TPA is a gateway to VP, I was surprised to learn what this “Replay” thing was and why I wasn’t getting more Extra Balls lol. Call me an optimist, but I just don’t think there’s enough prestige in beating a handful of internet friends at a weekly pinball high score if you didn’t really earn it. However, I have not seen all, so perhaps you have have evidence or reasonable suspicion to the contrary.

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[Thalamus]

I don’t want to point to the specific cases, but, I would say I have evidence. Clearly not everyone is as optimistic as you :) But, I prefer not debate this any further.
It shines through how I am when we’re talking about the subject and this is why I will play – but, not post my scores. I can tell you though that your in the front of me on Capersville .. but, not for long ;)

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[horsepin]

I got an expected result after voting..

I have mentioned before on VPF that I’ve been developing a high score system for VP, couldn’t care less for FP (for now anyway). I’m mainly aiming for Pinmame & P-roc and maybe allow screens/videos to be posted for other simulators.

I started this a few months back, maybe around April and developed the guts of the system and just a simple UI to login, create players for your “User machine” and post scores. This was just tested myself and then shelved because I got so busy at work.

I’ve spent a good portion of the last fortnight working on this again and the first part will be released as a B2S plugin. This is still ok for desktop users but maybe they’ll want a way to post scores without using a directb2s.

Edit: On further investigation I think this is ok for desktops to run the B2S server. Just uncheck or unset “Error if no backglass”.

You are greeted with this UI before the table starts. (Which ideally should be fullscreen and controlled with flippers and start). Add and select your players (up to 10 per users machine).

Before ramble any more about it I just wanted to tell you how the VP part of it will work, because there’s some answers here saying you can’t lock everything down. VP is the least of my worries now, it’s more on the Pinmame where it’s a bit harder for checks. I think there will be a way to do some legit checking in the end, but not focused too hard on that right now.

Edit: This will be used to check mame adjustments.

Basically it’s just a matter of getting the originally posted table and run a CRC check. This then gets patched using the VP version it was created with and everything is locked and CRC’d. There are some checks in the script. This checks global variables and making sure you are running the VP version the table was intended for. The checks are kind of pointless now I realise after you lock it, the options actually disappear. I didn’t want it to be that way because the user should be able to change some of those variables.

Each table file will have user submitted patches. Example: If you need to change the views or some physics which makes the table play better then submit a patch and it will be added. Scores for  a machine could be shown then filtered down by table release version and patch.

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[jbg4208]

I have to nudge. Its the only way I can get half the score of the top scorers. 

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