Lloyd was dead on with this. Pinheads will surprise you. The first thing I did when I saw your first post was to look at your location. Because a lot of the things you will need to learn doing this are just easier to show you. If you can find someone that knows how to break down and transport a game, it just goes easier. And pinheads are (generally) a pretty helpful bunch.

Normally I agree. RCT needs extra hard settings to make it fun... most of the time. However, it is John’s first game. And that changes things. Just playing pinball in your house is the rush. No need to turn it into a tough game to keep interest. That all comes with time.

Most games have settings to change how difficult it is. From old EMs there would be liberal and conservative holes where you could slightly move posts to make the ball drain easier.

SS games had those, plus electronic settings for things like extra balls being on or off.

Modern games added a ton of settings. For instance, on RCT, the Handyman target at the top right. Normally that is up at the beginning of a ball and you can plunge right behind it to start a mode. But on extra hard, it is down at the start. And to light it you have to hit targets, and to light fun, and then hit the ramp to raise it. So instead of an easy run to Park Tycoon through modes, it is a struggle to get through a few.

All modern games have these. On easy settings maybe you hit a target twice to do something, but on hard it needs 6 times. As you own games longer, easy ones tend to get boring quickly. They are fun at first, but beating it over and over gets old. So you start speaking out the challenge of tougher games.

But for now, I wouldn’t worry about that if I was you. I think you should do a factory reset on the game. That will get rid of any odd settings, it will remove any high scores, and you will be ready to rock on your first game. Then later, if you feel like you are just beating up the game, start making it tougher.

It isn’t against etiquette. Don’t worry about it at all. When you first start getting games there are tons of questions as you learn. Keep asking them, and people will keep answering them.

Novus 2 (It’s a cleaner). When you buy wax, make sure it doesn’t have cleaners in it. Just pure carnuba wax. And most Pinball era prefer paste wax.