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Play Expo - Pinball Battle

Wayne J

Wayne J

Site Supporter
Joined
Jul 22, 2011
Messages
2,842
Location
Walsall
Alias
WWJ
Following on from the tournament over the weekend I'd like to put forward my views, as well as invite comments (which may be ignored if I don't like them )

There was a bit of concern over the fact that a comp would take machines away from the general public - hence where possible those machines which were duplicated were prioritised to be put in the comp.
The next criteria was to try and ensure that games were included from other eras, hence Black Jack and Eight Ball in qualifying, as well as Circus and Eight Ball Champ in the finals.
Likewise with not having all of the games available through the lock in.

I hope these worries were allayed?

The format of qualifying is tried and tested in The States, but being the first time in the UK there was concern that the unlimited rebuy style would not go down well, I think it worked well.

£4 per entry seemed about right?

The finals format was tweaked a little on the day, particularly when it got to head to head play. I think it worked well.

I haven't watched any of the streaming yet, but heard very positive things about it. I'll watch it over the next day or two.

All of the machines were donated, hence some of the minor issues with the games, not necessarily being spotted until too late into the competition . There's no way I could change the tilt on TZ, or fix the side ramp on Tron halfway through the comp without compromising earlier people's entries.

Ideally there'd be more time to thoroughly check the machines beforehand, but with late substitutions or no shows (like Metallica) this wasn't always possible. Volunteers to assist beforehand would be helpful, outside of the NLP gang who are already too busy.

The real question is, do people want to have another comp like this again ?
 
for sure Wayne it was spot on - best part of the event. I made some feedback in other thread, I think you covered most of it see below. in my view the machines were available to all if you coughed up 4quid and it was perfectly priced. in the streaming commentating having folks who know the games is very important I think and both Dan and Craig (of the stream I listened too, were very good).

--------------------------------------

Just some feedback on the tournament and I know it was all lightweight and for charity but all meant to improve so please take positively.

1: Outstanding organisation - been to a couple of the big US tournaments and this was as good if not better, all the folks manning the tourney area where on the ball. Really Really well done folks.
2: Helpers very helpful in answering any questions etc.
3: Streaming coverage easily the best - well done Tim (@strobey ) and co. Craig's (@roadshow16 ) commentary during the finals was the best I've ever seen on a tournament, really good to have a player who knows the rules of thegame; and how the players will play well.
4: Format - whilst the format was a real pain in the **** I think its was superb, so hard to be consistent around three different plays and quickly shows those who can really play well. I must have done about twenty entries and if I'd played consistently I'd have been just out of the finals, a pinballers favourite excuse LOL; need to spend more and more time learning how games play but I loved it.

Things to consider:

1: Game choice - ok - but nothing that was made in the last couple of years - I think tourneys should always have something new. I know this might be just what was available on the day which I understand - the early SS games were fantastic, 8 Ball was freaking hard but a cool set of play rules. For me it was like doom as I really didn't know anything about the games on play. Thanks to Sarge though I figured out how to play WW during the lock-in and the next day nailed a great score on it.
2: Quality of games - Variable, the Simpsons, Avatar and Transformers were spot on. There was a few games that needed better levelling and a few that had problems and that tilt on TW! Again maybe limited by the choice you had. I will commit to making sure that there is a new game there next year from my own games.
3: Environment - I saw a few players who where waiting; disturb players who where playing who seemed to be ok with it; whilst some folks might not mind that I think have a sign with some of the dos and don't to remind folks would be good not a huge issue but something to consider. With the format hard to have a players briefing before hand.

Overall though I loved the tourney for me it made the show so much better than last year. Would be so good if we could turn the whole event into a pinburgh like event but realise thats very tough with getting machines.

Hope you run it again next year please and If I can help with anything please let me know.

Cheers,
Neil.
 
I think it was ace, start to finish. Any concerns about multiple ticket purchases are hard to worry about given that the idea in a non-charity event, the prize pot would grow, and for a charity event, who cares!

Personally I thought the machine choice was great. No good for me, personally, but I know what the difference is between good selection, and stacked in my favour :D

I thought the TZ was actually well balanced with the very tight tilt. It's a game that you REALLY shouldn't be out of control while playing it, and it provides so many ways to feed all the flippers that having the tilt set really punishing was a great way to offer a 'pure shooters' machine in the line up. If not to player taste, well, there's 9 other machines in the list... and some with some loose tilt bobs! That's the beauty of the machine-selection qualifier format... every other player on that machine has to deal with the machine as it's dealt in just the same configuration as you. Either play better than others in the conditions, or put another game on the ticket!

Honestly I couldn't fault any of it. I'm still new to competitive pinball but I know my way around gaming tournaments and this one hit all the marks for me. Very fair, included play-offs for rounds losers instead of just thunking players into the places below 4th based on random criteria (or qualifier) instead of letting people play off for their final place, balanced selection of play styles represented in the games, EMs given a chance to prove that they're just as great as any newer game, Dracula and Iron Man to perform the fast kills... lol

Would I like to see (and enter) this format again? Unequivocably yes, and for next time I will ensure my F14 is available to be the next tournament's 'fast kill' game.
 
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The TZ titled without moving the machine - just shouldn’t be the case. But it was the same for everyone! However you might say those playing later got an advantage in knowing that the machine would tilt from all the cry babies (like me) going on about it :)

Cheers,
Neil
 
Hi ya Wayne,

I thought you handled the comp superbly well! The few problems that transpired were all dealt with correctly, placing fairness first is always the best policy in my opinion. Unless you can get more help in advance of the event to go over everything with a fine tooth comb, issues will happen. Having said that, you will benefit greatly if in future you are able to select the tournament machines in advance. Maybe even invite pledgers to step up and pledge a particularly good example for the comp specifically. There is still a very good chance of having a double in the main hall as there are plenty of machine pledgers that tailor what they bring anyway.

The pricing was fine and layout/desk was great. If possible, a big ass sign with "PINBALL COMP IN PROGRESS" and "registration this way" with a big arrow might just steer wanderers from walking up. Or maybe a row of chairs, backs out to properly block the comp area off. This may not be what the NLP will want of course, inclusiveness is key (get Gary Flower to come up and rustle up public players to join in)
:popcorn:

I like that you had a mix of Era's in the machine choices, (even if it may have cost me) I think it is hard putting a brand new machine into the comp as there is less likely to be two of them, but if there is then great!

Format worked well, I would possibly have kept the qualifiers in groups of four over 3 games (as its double tgp), rather than any other round, but I know time is concern. What do you expect the tgp to be? (Sorry to blind some you with WPPR technical chat)

I would love to offer help, but will likely have the family to entertain as well.

I hope you are able to sit back and feel the satisfaction of a job well done (one machine delivery aside) :rolleyes:
 
Thought it was the best run competition i’ve seen in the U.K. to date. A lot of effort has clearly been put in! Kudos to Wayne

I do think general public got in too much disturbing people, but that’s no’s fault. Maybe next year get some solid dividers like the consoles area

Qualifying was brilliant and exciting near the end

Loved the streaming and the live scoring on the TV’s etc

Overall a great success and hopefully we’ll see more comps in this style
 
I think it was a very well organised event so thank you to all who made it happen.

Game faults. Bad levels. Dodgy tilts are all part of Pinball. Yes, in an ideal world this could have been ironed out but it did not bother me. I spotted that fish tales had a dodgy captive ball shot. So I focused on playing the game, shooting the captive ball during the ball save period and qualified second on it as I knew that many folk would get low scores on it.

I am happy to offer to help level and set them up, fiddle with tilts etc for another tournament in the future if that would help.

For me so many pros and one con.

Pros
  • Quick to participate in the qualifiers
  • Easy to understand what was going on
  • Nice to see some old titles, EM games in the qualifiers
  • Means you can include some volatile scorers for folk to take a punt on (8 ball, and that blackjack based em .. )
  • Leader board moving around as high scores came in made a nice dynamic
  • The score registration system was superb
  • Did not tie up too many machines
  • Looked very smooth and efficient to organise
  • There was not a scrum of folk standing about, trying to find playing partners, waiting for machines - so it looked welcoming to someone that might have stumbled across it
  • It was all very, very smooth
  • Folk seemed happy. I did not see the violence metered out to machines/ guys losing it that I have seen at others.
Con

The only Con for me was game selection in the finals. And noone will ever agree on what the games should be

If you are having eliminations based on one single game, I think you ought to avoid brutal games that can produce very short ball times - like Zacc Circus, 8 ball champ. For me these games would have been better for the qualifiers or during best of threes
 
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Matt Vince said:
Format worked well, I would possibly have kept the qualifiers in groups of four over 3 games (as its double tgp), rather than any other round, but I know time is concern. What do you expect the tgp to be? (Sorry to blind some you with WPPR technical chat)
:rolleyes:
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I've just submitted results.
There were 18 'meaningful' games - 3 single player games in qualifying, a 4 player, 3 player and best of 3 heads up in first round, followed by a 4 player, 3 player and best of 5 heads up in final - then add on 12hrs for unlimited qualifying.
I think it will be close to 100%

There were a lot of players unrecognised when submitting, some I corrected due to spelling mistakes, but others I couldn't identify. These may well be new players who have never entered before. Please go to the ifpapinball website to check see your final position, if you don't see your result correctly attributed to your profile let me know and I'll get it fixed.
 
I enjoyed the Comp. It's not the best format for me in terms of progressing as I'm not good enough consistently. I prefer Head to head in that regard, because I can fluke a good game every now and then, so if it's one on one I can beat some of the best players occasionally, but I guess this format highlights the quality of the players more.

I liked the fact that you could see the scores online, so everyone could look on their phones to see how they were getting on or which machines they had the best chance of doing well on. (although I only found that out on sunday, so most of saturday I was standing by the screen waiting for the scores to cycle through. )

Machine choice was varied which was good. It's always good to have some games that everyone knows but the odd-ball games that no-one knows very well add to fun for the not-so-good players like me as they are more of a lottery, and I can get up near the top scores on those. ( because no one chooses to play them ;). )

I'm guessing it raised quite a bit for charity as well, so hopefully it will become a regular feature for NLP @ Play Expo.
 
Wayne J said:
There were a lot of players unrecognised when submitting, some I corrected due to spelling mistakes, but others I couldn't identify. These may well be new players who have never entered before. Please go to the ifpapinball website to check see your final position, if you don't see your result correctly attributed to your profile let me know and I'll get it fixed.
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I'm guessing I'm checking too early as I can't see the tournament results themselves.
I figure there's a bit of manual power turning the cogs on that site because I submitted my player profile details + photo on Sunday and it hasn't appeared yet.

EDIT: Yep, I just gotta be more patient! https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=20372#
 
As someone who was heavily involved with the planning and running of the comp, here's my thoughts:

1/ The qualifying format was possibly the best I have taken part in. For decent but not top level players like me, there was no option to just do 1 entry and expect to qualify so the pressure was there to get that good entry done with 3 decent games in 1 go. For the purpose of a charity comp to encourage people to repeatedly enter it was as success, I think entries per person ranged from 1 - 12. Having the live leaderboard available to see places change was great, especially when it got closer and closer to the end of qualifying.

2/ I thought the machines were setup quite fair. Yes the tilt on TZ was incredibly tight but if you looked at the outlane post position (set as easy as possible) it needed to be to stop games lasting too long (and I didn't stop me getting the top qualifying score either :p). I only had 1 person all weekend having a moan about how they were setup (you know who you are!) :rofl:

3/ The running of it for adding players, adding players, submitting scores and queuing people up (bar the first hour) went very smoothly. We had an issue with the wifi when all the punters arrived, I can only assume down to how many peoples phones would have been setup as wifi hotspots causing interfearance to our comp wifi. Tim was able to fix this fairly quickly plus 4G seemed better than previous years to submit scores online via a smart phone or tablet.

4/ There was an issue with people not taking part wandering in and playing games early on. In hindsight we should have closed off the entry area much quicker although some people were oblivious to anything and everything. I saw one guy duck underneath the barrier and then say 'oh, I didn't realise this area was cordoned off' when I told him about the comp going on :cuckoo:

5/ The streaming put on by Tim and Dunc was absolutely world class. The amount of effort those guys put into setting the camera rigs and their computer equipment should be commended by everyone and it is a huge asset to the UK pinball scene. The amount of kit of each camera rig was mind blowing and could have probably been used to launch a shuttle into space! I've watched some of the stream back too and the footage was excellent, the commentary (bar me) very good, especially between Craig and TIm for the finals. Absolutely top job to all involved in this! :clap:

6/ The finals format was enjoyable and the choice of games fine. Yes Circus might have been better being replaced with a better playing EM but you don't know that until it's tried in anger. The ramp not registering on Tron caught me out for a couple of EoL jackpots but it was the same for everyone. At least it was spotted fairly early on.

All in all I think it was a great success for a first attempt with this format with the added extra of it being streamed live. It is greatly appreciated being given such good feedback and thanks for being a part of it too. A personal thanks from me to everyone involved in the planning and running of it all. @Wayne J and Julie, @Wizcat, @ailsaclunie, @teachp8, @DanLewell, @strobey, @Dunc, @roadshow16 and those who helped fix games during the comp too, @replicas, @Pudsey pinball, @Poibug

All being well a lot of money was raised for TCT with the 200+ total entried being submitted and 80+ people taking part. Well done to all those who qualified and in particular to @robotgreg and @DAD for making the final, it was great being able to watch it on the screens provided.
 
Not sure about the dislike for Circus, seems to have been regarded as a dud (including on stream) but I thought it was a good choice. It brought in the classic spinner-fetishism that EMs are known for with scoring, the slingshots were super-tall and steep angled which was a minor nightmare. But that kind of single-shot game is not super-fun to watch I can appreciate. There are other EMs out there with that same feel, but offer more to see and do before it becomes a case of trying to hit 88mph on the spinner. My favourite EM in the range was definitely Blackjack and I used it to qualify - it had a lot more shot variance going on I thought at first - but the only bad picks in a tournament setup for finals and qualifier - at least in my opinion - are ones that are too similar and don't give something different.

And I say that having lost in the head-to-head rounds at the hands of Circus! Also Dracula killed me but ordinarily I love that game - that's just the nature of that swingy-as-hell game.

Also everyone raises a good point I that I didn't mention - my freshness to UK tournament pinball shows, but I absolutely agree that the American-style tournament format is great for a reason. It provides tension all the way through, gives people a very fair shake to get up to speed and prove consistency at their own pace in the qualifiers, and kept games going solidly in the finals. It was miles better than the tournament at Arcade Club I went to, which required gathering groups of people out of a crowd to scrum around a public-play machine. Lots of dead time there as people had to wait for machines to free up, for people to show up, for long-running games to conclude... contrast to the qualifiers last weekend where people could slam out their games as needed, and people needing a break don't disrupt anybody at all.

Just immaculate. I'd been salivating at the idea of entering this kind of tournament for ages... I'm used to the unlimited-tries score attacks from Pinball Arcade tournaments haha.
 
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Although I sucked in the tourney, it was very well done.

Echo all of the above. Well done Wayne and look forward to losing in the next one.
 
Great to hear so much positive feedback. There will always be things we can improve, but for a first attempt I feel pretty good about how it all turned out. Love to hear more thoughts though.

For those not aware, qualifying results were always online at: https://neverdrains.com/nlp2017 I had a redirect to this printed on the scorecard, and on flyers around the venue... Maybe we could have done more to make it obvious, but it's a really great resource for seeing your standing and preparing strategy. Again, the strategy behind the format is not something we explained in detail, but I'm sure some of you enjoyed figuring things out.

I'll get the finals brackets and scores onto the ukpinball website when I get chance

For info, I think the person that bought the most tickets clocked in at 13 tickets (and you can use neverdrains to check that it was infact you Dan :wave:). 100% of everyone's ticket prices goes to charity, and we'll get the total announced soon

Lastly a huge thanks to everyone involved. The co-organisers and helpers, the scorekeepers, the players - everyone. You're all wonderful and your help and generosity is very appreciated :thumbs::thumbs::thumbs:
 
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I agree with everyone else that the tournament was very well-organised. It seemed to run really smoothly. I was only there on the Sunday, but it was certainly more spacious and less frenetic than any tournament I've attended before. Was it busier on the Saturday?

I enjoyed how 'brutal' the format was, with you needing 3 consistent, good games to qualify. I think some consideration should be taken into the unlimited entries aspect. Newer/Casual players might get a good score on 1 entry, but are less likely to maintain this over multiple entries. Allowing top players to have unlimited attempts to qualify will increase the likelihood that the same people always qualify for the finals. This will not encourage newer people to compete in the future, and won't grow pinball in the UK. You don't want to foster a massive barrier of entry to keen newbies.

On the flip side, it raised more money for charity which is great, especially when people who had already qualified were going back for more purely to try to knock other people out. Also, if funds in future were to be for prize money you might attract interest from quality players overseas.

I was worried beforehand that having a competition at NLP would detract from the friendly, non-competitive nature of the normal event. In the end, I don't think that it did and I don't think it removed too many machines from public play either.

Thanks to everyone who made it happen, it was a success.
 
Quokka Man said:
I enjoyed how 'brutal' the format was, with you needing 3 consistent, good games to qualify. I think some consideration should be taken into the unlimited entries aspect. Newer/Casual players might get a good score on 1 entry, but are less likely to maintain this over multiple entries. Allowing top players to have unlimited attempts to qualify will increase the likelihood that the same people always qualify for the finals. This will not encourage newer people to compete in the future, and won't grow pinball in the UK. You don't want to foster a massive barrier of entry to keen newbies.
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A fair observation and something I was initially also worried about, but as a newer tournament player I think this qualifier setup is better than the alternative of getting through to a playoff round by luck, and then getting embarrassed in front of other players who have better consistency live on stream - which also doesn't make for an engaging tournament. The qualifier setup provides people with a bit of anonymity if they want to just come along and have a go, and the big telly on the desk kept track of each table's scores - so even for new players there was the potential glory of being able to say you smashed everybody at a specific game. But it also means that, even if unlimited retries are technically possible, you still end up with players in the final that have enough rules knowledge and consistency under pressure especially when on the final game of a good ticket, to score big.

The competitive sort of player will be attracted by the presence of regular competitions, more than anything. And lots of people (in fact probably most) just like pinball for the sake of it - for those, there were 105 remaining machines at the show!

In fact, my appearance into the pinball scene at all was caused by watching PAPA finals on YouTube, and reading about the qualifier format, which was like this one!
 
Yeah I liked the tournament format. The staffing and streaming was really great, the scores screen updating so quickly was nice to see.
Was also good to be able to play the tables after the qualifying had finished too.

Speaking to other people, some didn't bother entering the tournament as they felt that they wouldn't make it into the top 16, and I can understand that too. I know I didn't expect to make it into the top 16 either, but I really wanted to try.

Maybe a way around would be to increase the size of the cutoff, but the ones in the bottom half/third/quarter to face their own knockout round before they get added to the rest of the qualifiers. That would then still give good players motivation to enter more times to get into the top qualifiers.
 
Smraedis said:
Maybe a way around would be to increase the size of the cutoff, but the ones in the bottom half/third/quarter to face their own knockout round before they get added to the rest of the qualifiers. That would then still give good players motivation to enter more times to get into the top qualifiers.
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I love that idea but it's an additional time demand to resolve...
 
I didn't participate in the tournament but liked the look of how it was layed out, and to be honest given the chance again i'd have probably entered despite not being what I consider a good player.

It was also nice that it didn't seem to have much impact on the number of people waiting to play on other machines. I don't know if this year was actually any quieter than last year but I just didn't seem to have to wait more than a minute or two to get a game and the Sunday did seem noticeably quieter to me than the Saturday was.

Was impressed by the streaming stuff too. Very cool and another thing which can hopefully increase the spread of awareness of Pinball.
 
Firstly, just want to say how amazing I think all this positivity towards this format is. The planning and thought that had gone into it was superb and I agree with all the positive comments, the tournament was a huge success and testament to the organizing team for gauging the difficulty at a level that would encourage more people to play.

I remember saying to @Wizcat on Sunday that the amount of time and effort put into the slickness of the running of the tournament and the professionalism of the stream deserves more participation from players. If this tournament had been run in the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark you would have had 200+ players. Saying that though, 83 players or whatever it was in the end is bigger than any other UK tournament and for the first one is certainly a platform to build from and should be commended. I just wanted there to be queues of people waiting to get on to machines with a competitive rivalry between more players.

SO (In my extremely biased opinion) what would I like to see going forward in order to encourage more play/competitiveness/rivalry. A bigger cut line makes sense to me, make it 32, but bring in byes (1st-4th get 2 byes, 5th-16th get 1 bye) and incentivize the top positions. Put a cash bounty on top qualifier. Allow those top qualifiers to have choice of machine in the finals (ooooooh, I know we don't like that in the UK, but if a PAPA style tournament can be successfully received then maybe the times are a changin'.....maybe not ;)) Basically just put in place more reasons to play so that every machine is being played non stop! Incentivize the top 8-10 players to want to keep on playing, rather than just sticking with their entry that they know will get them in.

Personally I don't like the (just don't come last) format that was used for some of the finals. It encourages cagey play (of course I like the strategy involved with this too, but not as much) and doesn't incentivize winning enough, but I completely understand and respect the reasoning why all the decisions were made as they were. I like the PAPA finals scoring system far more.

I'm sure Wayne, Paul, Ian etc thought about all the things that I have said. And as the first go at it, it was definitely important to not try and run before you can walk, but now it has been proven, lets F***ing Usain Bolt it out of the park.

Great job guys, so good to have something positive happening within the competitive UK scene :clap:
 
Great tournament.

My perspective from a 'crap' players perspective;)

The way it was set up means that anyone ( including me ) could have 3 decent games good enough for top 16, especially with multiple attempts.

Knock out stages. Having just watched them, it does seem possible for a rank outsider on a good day to come through and win.

So, the question becomes, are people happy with a tournament that is pretty open or do people want it altered to favour the better players?

Being highly inconsistent, having huge problems with actually hitting the shots I want, and not knowing the rules on tons of games, I like the fact I have a chance, even if it is a very slim one:D

If I was a top player, I go with Craig's suggestion;)
 
At the end of the day, no matter what format you use, the cream always rises to the top. Look at any UKCS round and it's always won by those who before the day you would expect to the there or there abouts. It's the same with anything where there is a large element of skill involved.

However there is often an underdog story in such comps where a newer player can go far, heck in my first UKCS round I made the semi finals after only playing for less than 6 months (when I hit the Andy Foster brick wall) :rofl:

The way we structured the qualifying as only 3 games of a bank of 10 was intended to get non pinball players to take part as it would be much less of a time commitment for them than if it was say 5.

I did notice a lot of 'Joe Punters' seemed to leave the area very quickly after they were told it was for a competition. They were told the format and the low price of entry but most seemed intimidated by prospect of taking part in something official. Maybe it's worth having some sort of a novice award for those who haven't taken part in something like that before. And while I also agree with perhaps increasing the cut off point to make the playoffs, based on the type of event the comp was hosted at, there would be a big risk of a large number of people not actually attending the playoffs, either due to not being there that day or not even being aware of making the cut. I think for the 16 we had this time 2 were not at the playoffs, with an increase to 32 I think that number would be much higher.
 
windoesnot said:
I did notice a lot of 'Joe Punters' seemed to leave the area very quickly after they were told it was for a competition. They were told the format and the low price of entry but most seemed intimidated by prospect of taking part in something official. Maybe it's worth having some sort of a novice award for those who haven't taken part in something like that before. And while I also agree with perhaps increasing the cut off point to make the playoffs, based on the type of event the comp was hosted at, there would be a big risk of a large number of people not actually attending the playoffs, either due to not being there that day or not even being aware of making the cut. I think for the 16 we had this time 2 were not at the playoffs, with an increase to 32 I think that number would be much higher.
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Very good point, I forget that not everyone is completely obsessive like me!
 
I have no idea what points I have got.

I don't give a rat's **** how many points I have got.

But others do care. They really, really, really, really, really care.

They want tournaments structured to give max points and give the best players the best chance of gaining those max points.

More open tournaments where new punters have a chance of winning are diametrically opposed to these interests.

Most folk think that new entrants are a good idea.

Having 32 finalists where top players can crash out after one game ain't gonna be popular with the points brigade.

Old hands probably own a few machines. They can make tournaments happen. New punters may not own a single game.

Incongruent goals a plenty. No simple answer. No right answer. No way to please everyone.

Given the cacophony of incongruent demands I think this was a really good, really well run tourney. Well done @Wayne J & Co
 
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