custom settings for pins in home lineup

pudluther

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i wanted to get some general opinions on changing some settings on your pin to better suit the home environment. i realize at the end of the day it's an individual choice, but just wondering what you guys thought or if you had any suggestions.

for instance, on my gilligan pin i was looking through the setup today and decided i'd try two changes and see if i liked them. the two changes are as follows:

1) changed the replay award to an extra ball

2) changed the special award in the lagoon to points (could have chosen extra ball there as well, i believe)


i mean, let's face it, in the home environment you have no need for a credit being awarded for a replay because you're playing the thing on free play anyway...thought about going that route with the special lagoon bonus too, but opted for points (it's only set to award, i think 3% of the time - it's the default setting).

thoughts on dishing out extra balls? thoughts on the awarding of points? and i should point out that neither of these two things happens very often on my gilligan pin....i've gotten pretty good at it, but for those not familiar with the scoring, you aren't gonna get very many replays unless you complete all the objectives and defeat kona...there just aren't that many addt'l points out there.



thanks.
 
I usually set mine to points and extra balls. I don't see the point in awarding credits for home use on freeplay and set everything accordingly.

I alternate between 3 & 5 ball settings based on the mood of the day.
 
I guess it depends. If you want to know how you'd stack up "in the wild" then I would leave it factory.

Particularly since most home games, especially if owned by "players", play very well. Good flippers, rubbers, etc. That's already a big advantage vs. games out in the wild.

I played a Funhouse at pin a go go that was from a home collection and it played super good. Got 15M on my first ball and two extra balls. Finished with 23M after some choking on the rest of the game.
 
I guess it depends. If you want to know how you'd stack up "in the wild" then I would leave it factory.



yeah, i totally get that.....i figured there was probably some unwritten rule about offending the pinball gods by changing the settings anyway. LOL.



but seriously, i don't know if i'd do it for any other pins....or maybe only select few. for instance, i'm getting a star wars and a twister within the next couple of months and i've played both of those extensively.....i'm not sure if i'll change their settings because there's a decent amount of scoring anyway (but hell, after owning them for a while, maybe i will...who knows).

with gilligan though, there's so little scoring a lot of times and it really is a single-objective based game...i figured with the way the scoring is set up and the infrequency of attaining the replay anyway, that changing it to an extra ball wouldn't matter that much. of course, as soon as i did it i knocked my high score out of the park.....but i got all that on the first ball anyway (just one of those games) so it wouldn't have mattered on the settings.
 
bumping the thread to see if i can get some more responses...curious about some of our posters with a large pin lineup and what they think about tweaking settings: minor tweaks vs. major changes. giving some type of replacement award for replays since everyone is on freeplay. etc.

thanks.
 
I leave mine on 3 ball, factory settings. I don't award extra balls or points for specials. I want it close to factory as possible. But it doesn't really matter that much, I'd rather have the games harder than easier. More challenge the better...
 
I leave mine on 3 ball, factory settings. I don't award extra balls or points for specials. I want it close to factory as possible. But it doesn't really matter that much, I'd rather have the games harder than easier. More challenge the better...


thanks.

in most cases i tend to agree, which is why i'm still kind of undecided on the whole thing. obviously, the scoring is all relative, but at the same time i don't want any of my pins to become outrageous score-fests and uber-easy/boring.
 
I use factory settings, with a short-medium ballsave, and score specials as EBs (including a fixed hi-score special). You still have good and bad games, but it is extra motivation to get deeper into some games with wizard modes, etc. Having a pin at home means you can have longer playing times, so why not? (OTOH, I keep my pins at 3-ball settings.)
 
Still too much of a beginner on this hobby to say, but I'd rather leave everything at the hardest difficulty. On my MAME i set the difficulty on as many games as I can to the hardest mode.

If you're getting free plays, make it difficult! ;)
 
The thing about location play is the replay is just an exercise - the high score (and my initials) is really the goal.

For example, on Creature from the Black Lagoon, I'll spend my first ball (or two) mainly going for the Move Your Car mode. If I complete that, it almost certainly means a replay.

After that, I focus on multiball.

At some point, replay doesn't really mean much once you learn a machine. But getting the high score is always a challenge!!
 
Factory settings....except specials or replays= extra ball.
-Mark



yeah, i haven't changed any other settings...i don't plan to either. not sure if i'm gonna keep the "replay = extra ball" setting or not. one positive is that it gives you something else to shoot for other than just a new high score.

and the only reason i opted for "special = points" on my gilligan is that it is part of the lagoon bonus pool...there's already a bonus ball award in there and i thought adding a second extra ball award would be too much (even though the default % for awarding a special is only 3%).
 
Factory settings.

I will also do the typical home stuff like minimum volume override, GI power saver, free play, and such. I don't like going to 5-ball settings because I want the games to be challenging for a very long time. I usually open up my outlanes to either the widest or second to widest setting. I rarely use ball savers, I turn timed plungers on, and I keep specials and replays as replays. I like my scores to be as close to "official" as possible, and I want to feel like any wizard modes I achieve are a result of me playing well rather than the machine being tuned to favor casual play.
 
i wanted to get some general opinions on changing some settings on your pin to better suit the home environment. i realize at the end of the day it's an individual choice, but just wondering what you guys thought or if you had any suggestions.

for instance, on my gilligan pin i was looking through the setup today and decided i'd try two changes and see if i liked them. the two changes are as follows:

1) changed the replay award to an extra ball

2) changed the special award in the lagoon to points (could have chosen extra ball there as well, i believe)


i mean, let's face it, in the home environment you have no need for a credit being awarded for a replay because you're playing the thing on free play anyway...thought about going that route with the special lagoon bonus too, but opted for points (it's only set to award, i think 3% of the time - it's the default setting).

thoughts on dishing out extra balls? thoughts on the awarding of points? and i should point out that neither of these two things happens very often on my gilligan pin....i've gotten pretty good at it, but for those not familiar with the scoring, you aren't gonna get very many replays unless you complete all the objectives and defeat kona...there just aren't that many addt'l points out there.

thanks.

Leave all settings as location or factory settings. Why? If you have specials or extra balls converted to points, you inflate your game/scores versus everyone else. We knew some local folks who set their replays to extra balls, guess what happened? 15 stacked extra balls... games that wouldn't end... etc...

I understand that a home environment is different, but I still like shooting for or building up replays/credits. Hearing a knocker smack is great even if I didn't drop a few quarters in the game to play.

Wade
 
Leave all settings as location or factory settings. Why? If you have specials or extra balls converted to points, you inflate your game/scores versus everyone else. We knew some local folks who set their replays to extra balls, guess what happened? 15 stacked extra balls... games that wouldn't end... etc...

I understand that a home environment is different, but I still like shooting for or building up replays/credits. Hearing a knocker smack is great even if I didn't drop a few quarters in the game to play.

Wade



i'd never do it for a pin where i could stack an inordinate amount of extra balls on top of each other...or have an uber-long playing time. totally agree with you there.

like i said earlier in the thread, i'm getting two more pins here shortly and i have no plans to alter the factory settings on them at this point. the only reason i messed with the gilligan is because the scoring is so different....there really isn't much scoring unless you complete the end objective. and it's hard to get a replay without getting to that point in the game.

good points though...appreciate the response. i may wind up changing my settings back...i haven't played it long enough with them like they are now to be sold on it one way or the other. and i have a ton of games in with factory settings and enjoyed all of them.
 
ok...i tried it...didn't like it.........kinda felt cheap.



i've now switched it back to factory settings and that's where it will stay. i'd feel guilty if i blew a score out of the water with a few extra balls...especially if i couldn't get close to it again.
 
ok...i tried it...didn't like it.........kinda felt cheap.



i've now switched it back to factory settings and that's where it will stay. i'd feel guilty if i blew a score out of the water with a few extra balls...especially if i couldn't get close to it again.

Well you know, they're your games, and do whatever works for you. I can tell you though that if you do convert replays to extra balls and such, eventually someone will take major advantage of it. :) FWIW, I'd rather a game be harder than too easy... harder games keep me coming back for more, easy games get dismissed. That's just my preference though.

Wade
 
Well you know, they're your games, and do whatever works for you.



agreed. i think i'm sold on factory settings now that i've tried it the other way though...it just wasn't for me. i'm not even sure why i fiddled with it to begin with...wild hair i guess. :)



the only thing i may try in the future though is when i have get togethers, i may up the percentage of multiball on my gilligan....the only way to get multiball is to get it as a random award from the lagoon. as you know, most folks love multiball....and with the low scoring (only one jackpot shot for a million and it's hard for casual players to get before draining) of the game and multiball, it may make it more fun. but i dunno....i may decide just to leave it alone.
 
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