Unobtanium is so high only in final battle. Where the value can be increased by making outlanes! No risk, no fun.

Ahhh, maybe that's the hang up. In other Stern games I'm used to (Rolling Stones for instance, similar ruleset) the add-a-ball is always first. Thank you for the clarification! Time extend is more important in Avatar with how the modes work, particularly if you bring Navi into multiball.

Hitting the outlanes during the final battle will raise the value of the Unobtanium target. You can collect the value when you have met the switch requirements, then ball saver kicks back on and you try to do it again. I want to say that the outlanes only light after a certain point in the FB process, right before the Unobtanium target lights. I'm not 100% sure though.

Woa, I leave this thread for a week and come back to a clinic, nice work gents.

Today I upgraded my pro to an LE.

Nr 062/250! Funny thing is I once had an LE (nr 061/250) sold it but missed it so much I bought back the pro.
Today I had the oppurtinity to buy a minty LE half an hour from where I live. I pulled the trigger and now I'm having the LE and pro in the gameroom (pro will be for sale of course).

2 extra differences i've noticed:
-rails toward amp suit center target are guides on the LE, where on the pro (first run) these were wire guides.
-extra logo on the translite on the le

Back in the club also! I bought NIB LE #27 2 years ago, sold it & missed it. Picked up a mint HUO Avatar LE yesterday. Really a great pin that is way underrated!

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Zampinator, this is funny we had almost the same history and experience within 24 hours.
What's your new number?

mine loosened up on the extra balls after a few thousand plays. maybe 4000 but don't hold me to that. we have about 5300 HUO plays on mine.

Yes, pretty crazy! It's #228

Just to share for others interested in doing the LE figures mod:

Here's my (for sale as i bought the LE) Avatar pro with jake, neytiri, tsu tey and the banshee as on the LE:

https://plus.google.com/photos/111203100741846968973/albums/6155029289655079713?authkey=CJS1-urN_B-gE

No not all, European market is quite active. Will be picked up tomorrow normally.

Are there ramp protectors for this machine (pro)?

Do people normally fit a post to stop this happening? Happened to me twice today.

20150623_222505.jpg

I haven't had that happen yet, although it did get stuck on the Ampsuit once. It was kind of funny.

It happened to me on my previous LE, pro and current LE.

However with the LE figures it is less common then on the pro. It's caused by the ramp entrance posts and their rubbers making the ball jump.

Yeah thats whats happening. How are you supposed to stop airballs off posts? I know well that bending standup targets forward and replacing their wornout foam prevents airballs but what can you do with posts? Replace the rubbers? They look fine though. I get a lot of airballs from the posts on my TOM and they arent the little rubbers but the full length cylindrical rubbers.

I'd really like to find some ramp protectors too as mentioned above, I waxed the playfield yesterday and now The Flash wouldn't be able to keep up with balls on this machine, a bit worried about that ramp.

By making the shots.

Seriously though, I actually have no idea.

*edit:

Actually, doing some thinking, there could be a few things you could try.

1. Try some silicone rubbers. The Titan non-competition post rubbers are pretty spongy and might help mitigate airballs.

2. If your game is flat, raise it up a bit in the back. That'll slightly slow down the momentum of the ball as it's going up the playfield, which should mitigate airballs a bit.

I actually get very, very few airballs on my game and I do miss a lot.

We had over a 1,000 plays on our previous Avatar LE, I never seen it trap a ball there, & our current Avatar has never done it either. I'm wondering if you slide up the rubber ring on the post (so that the ball makes contact with the rubber ring North of the pinballs "equator"), if that would help keep the ball from going "airborne".

Sounds good in theory except the post has a groove the rubber sits in.

Then I would replace the post & the rubber ring, its setting too low. Cheap & it should fix it.

Not sure if anyone else feels this way, but I kind of like the simplicity of this game's playfield layout. If anything, it makes the game super easy to shop. A basic cleaning can be done in about a minute, and if you really want to spent more time, it only takes a few moments to take the ramp off. Can't really say that about too many games in the last 25+ years now, can you?

So I officially left the club on Thursday (but not all is bad, I replaced it with a TSPP!). I definitely do not regret owning this machine and I feel it's a pretty solid game. Great music, great sounds, good light shows, fun multiballs and a wizard mode that really forces you to prepare for it. Believe it or not, but this was the game that got me into pinball back in 2011 and so it was great to revisit it years later in my personal collection.

That said, it is shallow compared to most Sterns and in a tiny collection like mine things get stale and so I am pretty much forced to rotate games out unless something truly grabs me. I really wish Stern went all-out with the code on this thing as while the game is nice as-is, there is so much more that could have been done to keep the replay value up in smaller collections. If there was ever to be an update (which there never will be, so this is all hypothetical), here's what I would want to have added:

1. Have a mini-wizard mode for collecting all of the characters. Currently, they do nothing. I actually think they aren't even required for the Final Battle. Much like the cannon modes on AC\DC, these do nothing (maybe they add a *tiny* bit of bonus or something, but that's not a good reason for the inserts to be there).

2. Flesh out some of the modes a bit more and have them be a little more methodical. Banshee actually gets interesting by the third time you access it, but chances are most people probably won't access it that many times in a single game (it forces you to make shots other than just the ramp). Bomber Battle is good as-is (forces you to alternate between the orbits and the targets), but I feel Navi Multiball should have been made a little more intricate, possibly epic, and worth more points for the amount of work it takes to get to it.

3. There should be an alternate wizard mode for fully completing each mode (insert is flashing). Currently there is no incentive for completing them--the Final Battle is still the same whether you complete the modes or not (stock/default machine settings). Having multiple wizard modes for varying player skill levels would have really spiced things up a bit, much like Iron Man (Do or Die, Jericho, and then Do or Die Multiball) or Rolling Stones (Encore, then Encore Multiball).

4. "The Bond" hurry-ups should be worth more points and they should build in value the more you collect them. Currently, 250k is too little a value to take the risk (unless it happens to land on a shot you already planned on making anyway). Even doubled at 500k, you probably have something better going on that's worth the same amount of points or more.

5. There should have been a diverter on the orbits to mix things up. It's nice how the left orbit loops all the way around, but it gets old always having the right orbit closed off and feeding the pops. Like in TRS or the Sopranos, it would be nice to have some modes force the ball all the way around both orbits, while in others the ball feeds the pops.

I'd like to say, these ideas are not in any way meant to downplay the existing quality of the game. I think it's a highly recommendable machine, particularly in a large collection. I just think that making it more of a dynamic game could have really made it one of Stern's best in the same category (Iron Man, for instance). I just wanted to share my parting thoughts, I suppose.

Never had a ball trap there but my game has a different post at the ramp entrance.

image.jpg

I still love my avatar but I can see that in a small collection you want to rotate. If my small collection would consist out of one game, I think it would be avatar though

However the navi inserts have a big function! You need all characters to start navi multiball which is needed to start the final battle.
Make the bond (inlanes) lites one shot briefly for a navi character to collect. Or you can shoot the navi target bank to start navi scoring. In that hurry up mode you must try to shoot the unlit characters. Once you got all characters, shoot the navi targets for navi multiball. A nice multiball that when played completely is really really great. The final shot at the unobtanium target is worth something but especially the call outs are the best (jake's speech when gathering all the clans for battle). Give me goosebumps everytime

I sort of see it the opposite way, of it not really being a big function. So you shoot a shot in Navi scoring, and it lights an insert? Cool, I guess.. but if you look at it as, "I just need to make six shots in Navi scoring to qualify Navi multiball," it doesn't really even matter if the inserts are there or not. I just wish they did something more with them.

That's really interesting and it's a detail I never realized while playing. Sometimes I would start Navi scoring and some of the shots would be missing (as opposed to all six being lit), and I suppose that's from having picked up a few from completing "The Bond" hurry-ups. Generally speaking, I would just go for Navi scoring with one ball and knock out all the shots in one go (adding time about halfway through, or bring it into a multiball to make it easier).

It's not a huge function for the inserts that's correct. But it's good to check from time to time to know what characters are left to shoot for when making the bond (if you only need one character you need to pick the right side to complete the bond otherwise the unobtanium target is lit but shooting it just gives some points)

I always thought it would be cool that neytiri would shout sometimes "make the bond!" or "tsahelu jake". The quotes are in the rom file though.

Dude, that's sweet! I have never seen that mod before. Very nice.

They took the avatar out of the bar I used to play it at an i really miss it, there's not to many games I miss when games get rotated on location but have to say this is one of them , unfortunately not in the market at the moment but thought I would jump back in this thread to get my avatar fix. Cheers to an awsome game, must be patient an hopefully one day have my own!!!

Where can I find a Avatar topper?

Actually I talked to Gary about what would happen with Avatar when the 3 new movies will be released in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
But the answer was "we'll see".

On a sad note, the well known composer "James Horner" of the movie soundtrack score has died some time ago in a plane accident . This is the music that is used in the game too.

That's sad to hear, I think Avatar has one of the best sound tracks to any pinball ever made, the day I finally have own one im going upgrade the speaker system no questions asked..

so a sub woofer does not do much?

What sub does everyone use?

For those Avatar fans, I replaced one of the pinballs with a Navi ball which I believe the Avatar LE has. I used to have a Twilight Zone, and understand how different a ceramic ball behaves. If you want an additional and inexpensive mod, add a Navi ball to your Avatar Pro, it will make a world of difference and lots of fun. You can get them from Pinball Life, or Marco.

Played an avatar in the wild today. Rocked it for 213 million and 75 million in final battle. So fun! Didn't know what was going on while in multiball frenzy. Always thought this game was under rated. Now I am sure.
Would like to play an LE!