AC/DC (LE)
Stern, 2012
AC/DC (Premium)
Stern, 2012What a game. My best ever by far. Got to Encore for the first and only time and didn't really do jack. Disappointed, because Encore looks fun and getting there took me 18 months. Gotta ask this, because I'm insanely proud of these numbers...anyone do anything like this? I'm on factory settings with closed outlanes and one earnable, score based EB.
That's a ridiculous score.
I have 4 scores over 1 billion, but you doubled up on that.
I do not have any score based extra balls, but still...that score is ridiculous.
You have every right to be proud of it, even with the score based EB.
Same regarding the Song Jackpot. I know some top notch players who haven't scored that high. Hard to believe actually.
Glass on. No gimmicks. Even got robbed once because my cannon hangs a little low sometimes and it caused a right drain I thought wouldn't otherwise happen.
About a year ago I started a thread called "I hate ACDC", because I had a 150M song jackpot opportunity with 3x going and missed it. TWICE! Haven't come close to a jackpot that high until last night. The game just kept giving. Funny too, because I played a handful of games prior to the big one and didn't score over 10M. My scores lately are in the 200-300M for the most part, with a handful of crappy games along the way. But nothing was working last night, until everything was.
Quoted from RobT:That's a ridiculous score.
I have 4 scores over 1 billion, but you doubled up on that.
I do not have any score based extra balls, but still...that score is ridiculous.
You have every right to be proud of it, even with the score based EB.
Same regarding the Song Jackpot. I know some top notch players who haven't scored that high.
On the old code I got 1.2B once. Have had lots of nice scores in the 500-700M range while owning the game. But this was one for the ages.
Quoted from McCune:Was the glass on ? Insane score with a insane song jackpot
Used your Hells Bells strategy on the big Song Jackpot Jimmy. Waited until I had plenty of VIP built up and a decent jackpot already built and switched over to HellzBellz. Also used Thunderstruck early in the game to rack up a solid base score.
Quoted from RobT:That ball must have lasted forever when you got the 400 million jackpot.
Definitely. Had a couple really long balls during the game. One thing I've noticed is that deeper into the game it seems you can change songs a lot quicker. Is something happening in the game the qualifies them faster or is it just that you're in such a zone that you don't notice you can change the song until it's allowable?
Wow ! NICE job Awesome score 
question: what do you mean by closed out lanes? I just looked at mine after reading and I see the posts set in the lowest of the 3 holes is that what it means ?
Quoted from McCune:That is unreal, you cashed in a 147 mil song jackpot with 3X running . Wow .
The cannon always seemed loaded for something as my jackpot was growing huge. Loop bonus, target bonus, collect bonus, whatever. Everything but Song Jackpot for the longest time. My hands were sweating and I was just like "make this one the song bonus, please!". I was worried I'd lose the 3x too, by the time I lit the FIRE for Song Jackpot. And then it was there. And I nailed that fucker!
Quoted from TecumsehPlissken:Wow ! NICE job Awesome score question: what do you mean by closed out lanes? I just looked at mine after reading and I see the posts set in the lowest of the 3 holes is that what it means ?
Yes. Outlane post in the bottom hole, making the outlanes smallest.
Quoted from TheFamilyArcade:And I nailed that fucker!
So Jealous! Congradulations !
Quoted from TheFamilyArcade:My hands were sweating and I was just like "make this one the song bonus, please!"
No pinball in the world makes you feel like AC/DC does .
Quoted from TheFamilyArcade:You were right.
Did we just become best friends? Yep !! ( Step Brothers movie )
that's soooo cool !! ..... man I want to go play mine again now .. I need to play/practice more for sure and this post is inspiring
Quoted from TheFamilyArcade:The cannon always seemed loaded for something as my jackpot was growing huge. Loop bonus, target bonus, collect bonus, whatever. Everything but Song Jackpot for the longest time. My hands were sweating and I was just like "make this one the song bonus, please!". I was worried I'd lose the 3x too, by the time I lit the FIRE for Song Jackpot. And then it was there. And I nailed that fucker!
Quoted from McCune:Did we just become best friends? Yep !! ( Step Brothers movie )
Hey Derek, do you know what's good for shoulder pain? 
Quoted from McCune:No pinball in the world makes you feel like AC/DC does .
Right on & Roger that!!!!!!!
Call me a dick if you like but This one seems a lil hard to believe. The Hells bells strategy doesn't work well if you are trying to get to encore since you basically have to bypass changing the song. You could always bust out a camera and prove me wrong though. Any score over 1bil and I'd retract my statement.
Quoted from smassa:Call me a dick
Dick!
Outstanding score! I have no clue how you guys get these massive scores on AC/DC. I'm still trying to break 200 million when I play and here's over ten times that.
Quoted from smassa:Call me a dick if you like but This one seems a lil hard to believe. The Hells bells strategy doesn't work well if you are trying to get to encore since you basically have to bypass changing the song. You could always bust out a camera and prove me wrong though. Any score over 1bil and I'd retract my statement.
I don't go to Hellz Bellz until I've got half a dozen VIP passes. I had a pretty rockin' score and blew through a number of songs before I ever got to Hellz Bellz.
Here another one for ya. As I was draining what must have been my longest ball of the game, I noticed I spazzed the blinking outlane for the Double/triple bonus. I was pissed because I knew I must have wracked up some nice bonus...and was hoping I'd already doubled it and was mad I didn't triple it. Turns out I didn't do either. I had to settle for a straight bonus of 89 million. I'm as likely to do that again as I am beating my SJ or total score.
Believe what you want. I was there. And it was epic.
I was proud of my high score of ~200M before reading this, I suck, I know.
Congrats, that must have been one hell of a game
Quoted from starbase:how the hell did you get to Encore mode ?? 23 months and think the closest I have came is like 2 songs left. Amazing score tfc!
Encore is the most elusive wizard mode ever for me on a game I've owned. To think I almost sold this game during the summer! My buyer backed out and I decided to keep it. I've even decided the translite is ok. Used to hate the ugly old men on it, but it's actually a nice looking art package.
A brief run down of my strategy, which seems good for a few million points or more when playing well:
Start with Train or Highway and work those ramps for combos and lighting Jam. You can play Jam of you want, but try and change songs to a mode that benefits from balls bouncing around (LTBR or Back in Black. I save TNT for when I have album lit). Thunderstruck is best if you have more than one MB lit.
I'll ideally play Rosie or Shook Me for Tour MB because that gets the balls up to the top and keeps it there. I prefer playing Shook Me and War Machine once I've jacked up the pops/spinner scoring to something good.
Play HB when you have stockpiled VIPs. Don't use VIPs to prologue a MB unless it's a high scoring one (stacked or with multipliers) or unless you've drained out period and can save the ball.
It's very important to get the combo EB, so if you're raking the ramps good, keep working them and crank up those combos, even if you start a Jam MB when you'd prefer not to. Go with ramps when that what's working for you to get to those 25 combos.
Quoted from starbase:how the hell did you get to Encore mode ?? 23 months and think the closest I have came is like 2 songs left. Amazing score tfc!
Combo's and MB.
May not be the most fun way to play the game but the best chance of making Encore is getting good at combo's (as a combo shot scores progression of a song) and try to not play a MB if you are close to or have completed a song. Change to a new song before doing the MB. By getting real good at hitting the ramps (even just back handing the left ramp repeatedly) and live catching a left loop shot on the right flipper Jam and Tour can be fairly easy MB to get. When in MB don't focus on scoring, focus on collecting song request until the jukebox is lit. Then go for scoring. Like I said, not the most fun way to play the game but the easiest way to get there 
OP - Great score. More than doubling my best of 800 million. On that game I got a drop target reject on a 75 million song jackpot with 3x going. Wound up collecting it but 3x had timed out already. Was a bit frustrating but still fun.
Great score! Like you, I've only made it to Encore once myself. My final score, however, was only something like 1.2 billion.
wow! that is some score. My honeymoon is over for my newest machine (METLE). Of the 5 I now have, I think I play them all about the same (except for my poor old LOTR!). I think the 2 newer games (AC/DC and METLE) compliment each other very nicely. Very different game play and yet both are outstanding machines. So depending on my mood, I think I have a choice of playing 2 of the best games ever made. Now if I could only figure out how to use my VIP passes….lol
Quoted from Newsom:Sounds like it is time to open up those outlanes and turn off the EB for score.
Eh, probably right about the EB. The outlanes are otherwise brutal. Game is a lot less fun with them open.
Are people doing anything that makes Encore more attainable without making the game way too easy?
I start the game with encore in mind, but I always get sidetracked by big song jackpots.
Very nice score!
Quoted from TheFamilyArcade:Are people doing anything that makes Encore more attainable without making the game way too easy?
Set song requests required to light jukebox to 6 instead of the default 8 in feature settings. I have my location game set this way with a note above the instruction card letting folks know.
Quoted from phishrace:Set song requests required to light jukebox to 6 instead of the default 8 in feature settings. I have my location game set this way with a note above the instruction card letting folks know.
After I made the arrangements to sell my game, I thought I only had a few days left to play it and try for Encore, so I did exactly what you recommend. I found that it really changed the flow of the game. Only hving to light six songs for a change seems too easy. It seemed that you could change a song way too quickly. Maybe 7 is the magic number.
Actually 8 is probably the magic number. Having to light 8 songs puts you in all sorts of different decision making situations wit regard to scoring and progression, whereas 6 songs basically just implores that you change the song, because you really haven't done anything else worth thinking about at that point.
Quoted from phishrace:Set song requests required to light jukebox to 6 instead of the default 8 in feature settings.
I wonder if a setting like this could change the tournament strategy.
It was HTH, now it's HB, next is ???
It would be cool to see everyone change songs more.
Quoted from TheFamilyArcade:Eh, probably right about the EB. The outlanes are otherwise brutal.
Put it to "factory"!
I made encore once that way, and close several times.
You really have to focus on changing songs, but it can happen.
After owning the game for 1.5 years (pro version) I just very recently got to encore for the first time. I also managed to just barely finish encore. I ended up with only 857M. For you to get both 2B and get to encore in one game is super impressive, congrats. In my game I was purely going for encore and passing up all dangerous cannon shots/etc. I also closed my outlane posts up and am at factory settings. I never actually played for encore much before as I don't find it too satisfying to work towards it but then fail over and over near the finish line, and I'll still probably rarely go for encore.
A day after this game I put up a 2.3B playing just thunderstruck (my previous best had been 972M). I had a very similar experience to you, a killer long ball where I just seemed to have every cannon and super jackpot you could imagine lit up, taking them all out with 3x running. Indeed this is the best pinball adrenaline-like feeling of any machine I've ever played.
My ACDC goals had always been to finish encore, and to have a 1B+ game. This is why I had the outlane posts closed. The game will be more fun if you actually have a small chance to reach the wizard mode/etc. instead of pretty much no chance at all. After I achieved this, I moved my outlane posts to the middle position where I'll shoot for 1B again before I move them to wide open, and so on. Also cleaned the playfield (Novus 1) as I always do any time I open a machine up. Now in the dozen games I've played since I did this I am usually completely sucking. The game is crazy fast and the ball spin from I guess the Novus residue makes things so unpredictable. My playfield wasn't crazy dirty before but it sure makes enough of a difference on a game this fast to make or break your performance. Now I'm not really sure what to think of my ACDC skills. A couple more dozen plays and I think things should settle down a bit, might be years before I hit 1B+ again though.
Quoted from DNO:It would be cool to see everyone change songs more.
Steve Ritchie designed AC/DC to be played how ever the person playing wants to play the game . That is one of the features that makes AC/DC so appealing to so many people.
I don't think your opinion is wrong because AC/DC is designed to make everyone right . 
Quoted from TheFamilyArcade:Actually 8 is probably the magic number. Having to light 8 songs puts you in all sorts of different decision making situations wit regard to scoring and progression, whereas 6 songs basically just implores that you change the song, because you really haven't done anything else worth thinking about at that point.
When I play AC/DC seriously, I decide beforehand if I'm going for points or going for Encore. For me, both require very different strategies. When going for Encore, you never need to make the primary shot on the song you're currently playing. Better to make safer shots. Multiballs almost get in the way. When playing for points, everything revolves around the multiballs and the current song you're playing.
8 songs requests puts Encore out of reach for too many people. If you compare it to Super Hero on Spidey, Encore is much harder to reach. May be the hardest wiz mode on a Lyman game. The contrasting strategies also plays a part. Going strictly for Encore is usually a low scoring affair. If it's low scoring and ridiculously hard to reach, why go for it?
Quoted from RobT:You have every right to be proud of it,
Meh
Quoted from TheFamilyArcade:closed outlanes
Just messin FA, awesome score!
McCune said-'Steve Ritchie designed AC/DC to be played how ever the person playing wants to play the game'
Yeah, maybe I should say "nice to see everyone play different songs, instead of the same one" (hells bells @ expo, and HTH before code change)
--Don't get me wrong, It's a great tourney game. But almost forcing, or tempting players to change songs more often would be nice. I get tired of hearing and watching people play the same song at a tourney.
Quoted from DNO:I get tired of hearing and watching people play the same song at a tourney.
I get that for sure, Make Hells Bells a non qualifying mode . Nah...
Did the game have a tilt bob? is it on sliders?
Even with the outlanes tightened up, the evil canon drains or the real killer.. the exit from the pop drains would have to eat into a game like this.
140 million song jackpot BEFORE multipliers? You must be avoiding lighting fire and setup to never drain.
Quoted from DNO:McCune said-'Steve Ritchie designed AC/DC to be played how ever the person playing wants to play the game'
Yeah, maybe I should say "nice to see everyone play different songs, instead of the same one" (hells bells @ expo, and HTH before code change)
--Don't get me wrong, It's a great tourney game. But almost forcing, or tempting players to change songs more often would be nice. I get tired of hearing and watching people play the same song at a tourney.
Easy fix. Disable the bell magnet on the premium/LE and nobody will play hells bells all day.
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