Pro.

Seems similar to the TNA issue where the posts where the art goes right under them is the problem.

Anyone else getting dinged up balls from the upper playfield feeder ramp? In only 50 games they look like crap. My ball keeps hitting the side and front of it. I even put a 1/16 inch weatherstrip on it and I still hear the metal clanging. Seems like they should have anticipated that issue. Anyone make any adjustments there?

The machine where I use to play on location has that problem.

Myself and another LE owner both had this issue... easy fix and higher scores !!

As a follow up, played a BK on location (and beat my home high score on the first game..DOH), and that machine ALSO had the target issue. Seems like a definite theme!

Had a ball get stuck up behind the shield. The ball finder did nothing to help. This was a glass-off situation and reset my game (oddly it launched two balls at the same time after the ball finder failed)

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I didn't had that issue with the Black Knight target, but I noticed the upper playfield Light Locks Target was touching the rubber post. I moved it to the center using the 2 screws on the light locks plastic but it seems after a couple of games, it's starting to lean back toward the rubber post. Still, it's not touching yet. I noticed some screws holding the whole thing located Under the upper PF. It might be worth investigating, maybe they aren't tight enough.

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I noticed that my game has some "lifting" Under the war lane posts.

What's the best way to fix this? What were the clear washers that was used?

I spotted theses, would that be usefull?

https://www.pinballlife.com/narrow-post-playfield-protector.html

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thanks. I’ll be sure to check this, too. I do feel like a lot of times I hit that target and it hasn’t registered. Maybe that’s why.

I’m surprised you could move it via those two screws above it, at all. I’d think it would be the screws mounting the target from below, like most targets.

I’m imagining this is a huge pain to access the below ones though, since this is on the upper playfield?

Nice,probably one of the only newer stern/jjp that i really want,the knight is one of the coolest toys in pinball history

I agree.

That also made me think of a question about something that is, while obvious, not something I thought about before.

The BK on BKSOR has two devices in one toy that interacts with pinballs: his flail and his shield. I’m calling the BK *one* toy because it would not make much sense for a standalone flail and/or a standalone shield to exist on the game without someone wielding them, thus creating two toys. I’m also not counting the standup bash target as something that interacts with the ball as part of the BK toy because it is not a “device” made more or less exclusively for one particular game.

Also one “device” may actually do more than one game-affecting thing in and of itself, but it still counts as only one device. For example, the flail can spin in both directions as well as stop in open or closed positions. I’m still counting it as just one device. The shield can be bashed and used to slam the ball back at you when down, or raised to shoot behind it, but again it’s just one device. But both devices are part of the BK toy, so the BK toy has two devices in one toy.

Rudy on Funhouse is one toy with one device: his mouth is either closed so you can bash it or open so you can shoot into it. Yes, Rudy’s eyes open, close and follow the ball around the game, but they do not affect your gameplay (well, as long as that doesn’t creep you out so much that you can’t focus.) In other words, if Rudy’s eyes stopped working, no shots on the game would be affected.

With those definitions/parameters, what other games have “one toy” that has more than one device which directly affects gameplay? I’m not saying there aren’t any; rather I’m looking for help to think of others so I miss as few as possible.

Most "toys" do only do one thing which is another thing that makes the knight such a great toy but rudy does have a hideout in the back of his head and the open and closed mouth situation so rudy is pretty damn cool,another amazing game as well,Ill scratch my head about toys cause now you got me thinkin..

Rudy is incredibly cool - no doubt about that. But I’ve never considered the hideout to be a part of Rudy since a head is not something that would realistically have a “hideout.” I’ve always considered the hideout to be a secret place that Rudy goes to when he feels he needs to, but for obvious reasons never actually happens during the game ... the player just stumbles upon it with a skill shot or slow rolling orbit shot. A flail and a shield OTOH are two things that would quite often be used together by a knight and thus it makes sense that a knight toy could, would and now does have both.

The closest thing that’s crossed my mind so far is the castle on Medieval Madness. I’m specifically thinking of the drawbridge and the gate/portcullis. On the one hand, you have to open both before you can destroy the next castle; if either or both are not working, you cannot shoot into the castle (I don’t own the game nor have I seen it happen, but I presume the game compensates when either or both are disabled.) OTOH, they both protect the same shot, so their effect on gameplay isn’t really different even though their opening and closing motions are different. I don’t count the collapsing towers as a device for discussion purposes here since again they don’t effect/alter the actual shots in the game.

Way too tired to think more about it now. Time to sleep on it.

The knight is great, one of my favorite pins ever but so far Rudy is still the best.

And I think a big reason for that is that Rudy has a large mechanically expressive personality whereas the knight looks and speaks at the player with LEDs. I'm not knocking the knight for this - I think that choice was perfect given what the team was creating (imagine if instead of the flail and the shield we had a knight's big head on the playfield and you bashed his face piece to open it and shoot into his helmet = why? + ugh! + WTF?)

Rudy is a classic ventriloquist's figure. Rudy's head is a 100% faithful replication of how an actual ventriloquist's figure's head looks and how its jaw moves. Shooting a ball into his mouth to (at least temporarily) shut him up makes total sense. And given his personality, he makes you *want* to do that. Perfect. (This is also why I was not fond of Red and Ted in Roadshow - while it was great to see two physical "Rudy relatives" on a game, I had no desire to bash them with pinballs or shoot pinballs into their mouths to temporarily shut them up ... well, OK: not until after I played it a few times.)

But back to BKSOR:

- Eagerly awaiting more details and updates on the topper

- Anyone heard anything more about what's going on with the side armor? The photos of the ones that were posted a while back look like Stern phoned it in. While BKSOR themed, IMHO they didn't complement the game very well at all and they were something I would definitely NOT purchase if released like that. Hopefully they went back to the drawing board (literally) and are working something much more worthy of the game and our dollars.

I never saw a response to my question. Isn’t anyone else noticing this?

I've seen it mentioned before that people are getting pretty short life out of their balls on this game, specifically the factory balls from stern, as people say they are generally lower quality than what people are replacing with. Mine are looking a bit dinged up so I ordered some shiny new balls for all my machines from ball baron. Side note - this was my first time buying from ball baron and the entire transaction was great. Would highly recommend him to anyone looking for balls.

Pro. 4/26/19 maybe? If that's what the sticker inside the coin door means... Can't get to the back right now.

Yeah, I changed mine too for Ball Baron, just remember to order the Carbon Steel balls because of the magnet.

I have one center post with "bubbling", and one war lane post with "lifting".
[Premium April 2019 Canada]

Think my mods are all set for now until something else fun comes along. Have not installed the quiet fan yet since it involved more than I had hoped, after reading the instructions.

Unseen are flipper Fidelity 10” kit and shaker

Speaker lights
Orange plastics
Orange flipper buttons
Yellow start button
“Wooden” flipper toppers with gray bands (going for a catapult look) on the two main
Lightning bolt and orange band on the upper
Lockdown bar accent addition
Printed cards
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Looks awesome

Are they the one from PBlife? I want to order them too, but the shipping is Killing me. (37usd to Canada....Seriously)

u left out incredibly creepy. Rudy's best character attribute.

They are. I think the orange looks fantastic on this machine, which is why I went with them. Shame that shipping is so crazy to Canada.

That kinda goes without saying (so I didn't) as I think all ventriloquist's figures are incredibly creepy.
But Rudy most certainly tops them all.

Been on the fence for a while about this pin. Finally got LE 135 yesterday.

It's interesting how you listen to all the negativity even though you know most of the negative comments are off the mark and I know to always just get what I like. Not sure why this game isn't quite a success as it should. It's the best game I've played from stern in quite a while. And first LE purchase since GB. I think the haters just need to "play better!!!!!"
Couple of q's
Is the code getting any more major updates or is it done?
Topper?
Cheers

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I’ve got bubbling on my LE under both posts on either side of the BK target and under the left lower sling post My first Stern with playfield issues. Going to notify my distro and make a report to Stern to document in case it gets worse. Right now it’s not a big deal. It’s down the road that concerns me.

Thanks for the reply.

Pics? I went over my.LE and it seems fine. It's a gel cc. The lifting (which is barely even visible) I have around some of the posts to me anyway is not a concern and falls well within the boundary of what I expect. My distro explained Stern doesn't consider it grounds for replacement.. and I agree. I was told if it ever cracks or breaks etc then its a new populated pf....

Does anyone know how to order or the part numbers for the upper playfield enhancement for the ball to bounce to the upper flipper like in sterns last video?

https://www.pinballlife.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=511-1942-43

Already got mine. Stern requires you to go through your distro to get replacement parts. The kit is free. Just call your dealer.

I’ll post some next time I have the glass off. Not a big deal in its current state. Those posts get hit hard though. Can’t imagine over time it’s not a problem. I don’t really care either as long as it doesn’t chip. If they replace with a populated playfield when that happens then I’d be happy as a clam.

FYI their part (although “from stern”) is totally missing the new hole for the post. You have to estimate where it goes and drill it yourself. Also it doesn’t have the washers you need to prevent it from cracking when you torque it down. Luckily I had them handy. I also got the drill location almost spot on so mine is working decently.

I just called them directly and they sent it with no issues. Figured I’d get the real deal since I had to drill the PBL part myself.

Are supers coded in fully yet? eg super lanes etc.

Had to deal with Stern Tech Support directly, my distributor did not had the parts.

Yeah, I don't really care for the bubbling/lifting too, since it's barely visible. But if it chips over time, I'm gonna be really offended.

https://www.pinballlife.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=511-1942-43

Any word on new code? Hope they add some more multiball modes.

I've spent quite a bit of time with my Black Knight (Pro) since buying it. I hope there are more code changes in the works and thought I'd post a few things I see as bugs or feature improvements.

Bugs
--------------

- Extra Ball lit / Extra Ball awarded play out of sequence. If you get the ball into the lock behind the shield before the extra ball is lit animation plays, it will play the extra ball awarded screen first. In this scenario it doesn't make sense to play the extra ball is lit animation at all, but at a minimum they should play in the correct order.

- On occasions the game will add a second player on a single press of either the start or lockdown bar buttons.

- On occasions during multiball, the ball can drain on the left side while the ball save insert is lit and not serve up a ball (despite the insert lamp then switching off).

- Lights off for mystery award during multiball. Not sure if this is a bug or something to be improved, but the lights off for collecting mystery during multiball makes it very easy to lose track of the balls in play. You could argue it adds some challenge, but it feels more like a punishment for collecting mystery during multiball - especially when you're potentially only getting 250K or 750K in some cases.

- On occasions the auto launch coil will fire to launch the ball moments after I've lanched it by plunger. I haven't seen anyone else mention this, so maybe it's specific to my machine.

- Average Scores audit value continues to show 00, so this is never updated.

Improvements
-----------------

- Soft call outs drastically minimised and/or ability to switch off completely. These happen way to much. They start at only the third realm. I almost want to list it as a bug since they are so frequent at this point. It's still a few boses away from the castle yet the Black Knight becomes incredibly soft only mid way through the journey. I don't mind the idea of them as a bit of an easter egg or joke right at the end. But it completely kills the bad ass image of the Black Knight to be cracking so early and so fast.

- Better awards for mystery. The 250K and 750K awards feel worthless and need to be boosted. Some additional ideas: Advance Triple Knights ball lock, fill sword power, extra ball.

- Two monsters per realm to increase variety. This is a big ask as it means additional graphical and audio assets along with additional monster "behvaiour" during the mode. But since the playfield inserts only reference the realm name, an extra monster could be added per realm and have it choose one at random to face without it feeling out of place.

- Open up some forgiveness on the left/right drains straight off the central and light lock targets. If I drain from a missed shot off a post, then that's my fault. But so many times I hit the central knight target or the light lock target only to see the ball drain down the left/right side within half a second, I've got no chance to counter it. You could say "get better", but it happens so fast I feel punished for playing the shots to advance the game. Give me a health bar or something that to help counter those immediate drains off the targets.

- The point reward for a sucessful magna save is only around 550K I think. I'd like to see this bumped up. Maybe even a high score screen for number of saves per game.

- Display the Triple Knights Challenge lock status on the main screen. I think you can view it within the instant info pages, but it would be nice to see it on screen in a small section somewhere the can be viewed at any point. It would only need to display 2 small orbs for the lock status (no need for a third since that starts multiball).

- A smaller 2 ball multiball mode. Something where you're encouraged to go all out attack on the Black Knight for 30 - 60 seconds. Unlimited balls. Attack the flail, Knight and shield as much as possible in the time limit. Orbits / spinners to increase hit value, etc. Perhaps a shot to extra boost sword power for the next monster.

There are probably a few more things that don't come to mind at the moment. I haven't reached the second Knight retro mode or faced off against the black knight, so can't comment on improvements for those modes. I would like to see a little more done with the first retro mode in terms of scoring / rules. Not sure what exactly though. Spelling Knight twice feels like a huge ask (I think my best was 1 letter short). I think there is more that can be done with the game. It's a lot of fun though and has me coming back for more punishment almost daily. I hope Stern are willing to continue making it better

So I don’t know if this has already been noted as a problem but my optos in front of the shield stop working at certain points during gameplay. It’s not a hardware issue as each time it has happened if I start a new game it starts to work again. Definitely a bug in there. Sorry if this has already been mentioned.

I've called for it to be an adjustment ever since it was activated and released in the latest code. Some people like it, some people don't. Both are fine. In fact, as someone firmly in the latter camp, I'd love to be able to switch the setting every once in a while to make some of my more frequent player-guests do a double take ala "What did he just say?"

But IMHO and from the overall perspective of the game and the Black Knight character I grew to know and hate (love!), Mr. Ritchie making the Black Knight wimp out at any point in the game is like George Lucas making Greedo shoot first.

I hope they introduce an adult setting to the knight taunts

I would love to see a second monster for each realm. I am guessing (and just a guess) that was planned, at least in the beginning. Otherwise it doesn't make sense that they labeled the inserts with the realm name instead of the monsters name. That said, I realize that is a huge undertaking and am not holding my breath. Sure would be cool though since the character designs in this game are freaking awesome...I'd love to see more.

I'd also like to see RANSOM be a little more obtainable. I have gotten all the way to Rage multiball by defeating BK, yet was still less than half way to a second KNIGHT spell out. That doesn't seem right. Retro is just right...can see it almost every game. Black Castle is also just right. The Knight is hard to defeat...but that's not a bad thing. I would like to see a health bar added for him so you have some idea of progress. If there is an indication now, I missed it in the heat of the battle.

I would also love to see one more multiball mode to help make up for the pro losing catapult. I still think catapult could be added by simply assigning a light lock/lock function to a different shot (I would use the left orbit-VUK since it's kind of catapult-ish, and then you have to think about the timing strategy because of supers). But if not, some sort of quick two ball mode would be cool. Maybe make one of the battles a multiball (like Quills Quest)...maybe Hydra since it has multiple heads and each need to be hit twice, so it would make thematic sense?

These things would be great icing on the cake...but I'm very happy with the game as it is. The extra ball lit/collected animation order is all that really needs fixing, and a "coward level" setting for those that do not like BK getting nervous would be nice. Oh and tweaking the magnasave strength if possible. I have gotten pretty used to anticipating when to use it, but it's still way weaker and less reliable than the old games. I'm hoping Tim still has a couple surprises up his sleeve for us though!

I think they could just add a "level 2" of the same monster. Changing his color and a bit his appearance and then re-render the animation.

I've seen the second player bug a couples of times.

Also the extra ball award callout, and then extra ball is lit callout.

I hope they introduce a setting to shut them off completely, adult or not they will be bad, that might even make them worse.