Thats not really a valid argument. Pinball is not binary win or lose.

Now that I think of it ball save timer is cheating, you guys are already getting 5-6 balls on most games (counting all your instant drains).

Why don’t you just take the glass off and get your GC scores.

I’m only joking, if you seen my scores you’d know I’m not that good. But don’t feel like restart a game is making me happier about still having bad scores. I’d rather just have a bad score and say at least I earned that fair and square.

What’s your excuse if you restart and still mess up on the 2nd or 3rd ball? Play better.

Never, you can always have a great game with 1 bad ball

I don't either....I like the argument made by the other Pinsider about about getting deeper in the game where otherwise it might not happen. Besides, it's about enjoyment..if you like it do it...5 balls, Tiltbob removed etc...as the owner you're in charge of your game. Enjoy

Everyone knows that if you push your hot wheels around your living room carpet clockwise you're a stupid asshole cheater. Be a real man and push them around counter clockwise. Why even own hot wheels?! Don't even get me started on the people who don't make the appropriate engine noises.

The Rick and Morty machine has several different scenes that let you know what a loser you are for restarting the game. How do I know. . .I have been that loser, until Rick and Morty taught me to be better.

No, but if I have two I might let the third drain. Sometimes I will make it a "practice" game and work on my flipper skills.

Can't say I ever have, but I've had that urge to do it. One great thing about my single player EM is I can just hit the coin in when the ball gets near the bottom and it resets just fine. No high scores are saved though...so that's a downside.

I'm guilty of sometimes restarting games after a bad ball one, on my own damn game in my own damn basement. So what?

Dunno why anyone should care one way or the other.

I will say, though, that more and more I start a second player instead, to see if me #2 can take advantage of me #1's shitty first ball and build up a good lead. Then me #1 tries to pass me #2, and so forth. Hey, I found someone at exactly the same skill level as myself to practice with!

I used to do this all the time but realized it wasn’t helping at all. It only feeds frustration and doesn’t help. I now play with a “1 ball is all it takes” mind set. My two cents.

Plus one!

I don't ever interrupt games when I play for fun but this weekend I have been trying to get footage for a Home ROM I am about to release and for a youtube video a first ball that sucks, just sucks. On several different System 11 games, I have had some of my best games ever starting on ball 3 with a consolation EB lit. Finally on my toes, one two great balls followed by more EBs have earned me many a spot in the top 5. And the satisfaction that I showed the sucky b*st*rd machine who's boss.

I wouldn’t have guessed what someone does casually playing their own machine in the privacy of their home would generate heated discussion and have words like “cheating” tossed around.

I mean who cares? (Well I guess some of the people here *do* care)

Now if you are qualifying in a tourney and try to pull that quick restart nonsense as if nobody is watching, then yeah, you are a bozo.

Enjoy your personal game how you choose. Enjoy your life.

For normal games, no.

If I'm trying to achieve a very specific goal or practice a specific shot (i.e only leveling up a turtle on TMNT) then yes, sometimes.

I never reset games... that 1 ball rule goes a long way..... I got 6 mill first ball addams family last week then 288 by last ball..... pinball is about relieving stress not causing it... getting into reset habit I think starts you off on a stressful playing path.

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That's genius! I should do that. I had 2 friends over the other day. They started 4 player games on both pins, got bored and moved on. So annoying. Haha.

No. Play the game.

Thinking of pinball as a sport, I’ve gotten myself out of the bad habit of restarting first poor ball drains. When teeing off in a game of golf and the first shot is bad, should I just re-hit another ball before advancing down the fairway? And then put down another ball if the next shot is poor too? When bowling should we hit game reset when the first ball happens to be a gutter ball or only hits one or two pins?

No, it’s a big part of the sport to see how well we recover on the next ball shot. Same applies to the game of pinball, imo. No difference, as pinball is a ball and bat sport on a regulation size PF. Objectives are different on each game, just as golf courses have different layouts and objectives too. Only consistent game setup is bowling, but hitting reset because of a gutter ball could get expensive, lol. So I’ve dumped that bad habit and greatly improved my game of pinball, just like I’ve done on golf and bowling.

What the hell are blathering on about? Can you throw in a cargument as well. If you own the golf course and bowling alley, and are not competing against others, then yes, rebowl or redrive. You people that think it’s cheating are on crack.

Cheating schmeating. Just play the game.

Bad first balls are part of playing pinball. As is the joy of a comeback due to a great 2nd or 3rd ball.

If you can't understand what he is saying, stop and reread it. It is okay if you disagree with it, but it makes more sense to me than resetting a game because somehow the fact your first ball wasn't amazing riled you up.

Exactly. Just play the game.....however the hell you want to.

No, and my games are not set up for that. Case in point today playing Woz had miserable multiple games but was going to play another.

First 2 balls crap my score was less than 20,000, third ball just as bad but I hit the Toto save shot to stay in the game. Next ball was over 200,000 and earned extra ball (game set on Eb's based on scoring) 125k, 300k, 500k, 800k. also hit 10 YBR shots to qualify for another EB.

Ended up with over 770,000 and along the way earned one diamond for ECMB, had chance to melt the witch. I also set my games to reset high scores at lowest level like 200/250 games so the 770,000 was the new high score. Very satisfying.

Have a nice Thanksgiving.

It cracks me up when people post pics of the “games played” screen in a for sale add and you see that they restarted 30-50% of the games played on the machine. Some of my highest scores have been due to only one ball. Sometimes it’s the first and sometimes it’s the last....

BSD. I have a poor ball 1 and ball 2 game. All of a sudden I have stacked triple multiball going in ball 3 and make a high score.

I guess for some, ball 1 needs to be perfect or the game is meaningless.

A shame to miss out on the feeling of a ball 2 or ball 3 comeback.

That’s funny!BSD was the specific machine I was thinking of when I posted. Love that game!Sometimes it stomps on you but then the next ball you can blow it up and get a high score. My first pin purchase and probably my all time favorite.

Yep. If ball one is not absolutely perfect, I start over. If I miss the skill shot on first plunge, start over.
Don’t complete all the modes, start over. Use one of my tilt warnings, start over. Ball 1 needs to be perfect. I’ve never actually played a ball 2.

Damn straight! Perfection is everything.

lol

Meh, I still don't agree with those who think the object of pinball is to have one good ball.

When I'm trying to beat my own high scores, it's a lot more likely to happen after a good ball one than after a bad one. My call, I paid enough for the dammed things.

You can do whatever you want with your pins. Take a hammer to them for all I care. However, restarting to get that perfect first ball is cheap. I don't think it's a legit score if you keep restarting. It's like playing an old school video game with save states. It wouldn't be allowed in any competition setting. If you're just playing for fun you won't be restarting after a bad first ball, and if you are playing seriously, you shouldn't restart the game after a bad ball either. You should just do your best and let that high score come.

That's how I see it. I don't care either way, but logically it makes no sense if you're taking it seriously or casually playing.
To me it just devalues the score. Some don't see it that way, they see it as a complete restart of the game, but I think it's cheap.

Hell, I don't even think home scores are legit unless you film it. Not because you have unlimited plays on it, but because you could easily cheat. I value my high scores on location more than any home game scores people post on here. Picture or not, I don't know if it's legit. Even if it is, I paid for each of the games I played and I have other people playing the game.

It depends on my goal for that game. If it's just to practice technique or fool around, no. If it's to get really deep into the game to play a hard-to-achieve level, then yes, a restart saves time.

Sorry, when a game I own screws me on ball one, a cheap restart is exactly what is called for. That's a perk of ownership. No way would I restart a game I had to dump quarters into.

I can't wait to get my R&M (this week?), so Rick can berate me when I restart! I'll be like, "F.U. Rick, I own your ass!"

My wife will do this as she likes to start off on a good foot and it if she has a bad first ball it ruins the rest of the game/experience for her. I don't complain as I like it when she comes and plays in the game room with me, so if that's what it takes for her to have a good time as well, then so be it.

You keep saying you don't care but you kinda do, right? Or else you wouldn't be writing about it..

I’m just discussing the topic of restarting games on a bad first ball. The thought process. The pros and cons.
I didn’t know detailing my view on it meant I was that invested. Im just bored and looking to exchange ideas man.

Having played the vast majority of my games on a coin play basis, I consider restarting after one or two bad balls a bad habit I don't want to pick up (like smoking except affecting my bank account/cash on hand instead of my lungs/heart/etc).

Yep, it’s just like smoking. Restarting a game after a bad ball one will lead to poverty like smoking leads to bad health.

I gotta little secret for ya, I sometimes restart on location too, and not coincidentally, I live in a van down by the river.

All my first balls are bad
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Let's see if there is some life left in this thread

Here's an example of a really excellent game beginning with a disastrous ball 1 and a mediocre ball 2. It felt very satisfying kicking the machine's butt after those first two balls...

looks like a fun game, I've never played it before. Was that a power ball and was there a ball saver on for a long time at start of ball 3?

I never restart after a bad 1st ball.

The games are free.
It only takes one good ball to put up a new high score.
In fact, all of my record high scores are done with a single ball. The other 2 balls dont add much.

Jungle Lord is a great game. The 5-bank of drops on the upper playfield where you cannot trap the ball is the best! It's very underrated and therefore cheap, but the original rules are a bit annoying in parts.

And, yes, the white ball is a power ball from TZ. I call it "Tiger Ball". The game recognizes when a Tiger Ball enters the playfield, as indicated by the flashing green 2x lamp between the flippers. Since the Tiger Ball is ceramic, the Magna Saves on the outlanes don't work for it, which makes it hard to keep. For some reason, multiball with a ceramic and a regular ball is a blast.

But, no, there is no ball saver in this version. Multiball in Jungle Lord is a timed mode called Stampede, with unlimited balls, so maybe that's what you are seeing. If you tell me the time stamp, I'll tell you what's going on.

100 percent of the time at home!!!! Why not? Old games best you can do it before ball 2!!!

Nope. It only takes one great ball, might be the second or third or some extra ball. Besides there is always another game to play or another day.

When possible, almost every time. Instadrain first balls annoy me to no end.

I've also found over the years, I only have 1 good ball when I play. Even if I get 2 extra balls, those will pretty much score nothing and drain.

I finally broke 100M on my R&M last night. Half on ball one, half on ball three. Point made.

I also want to point out that R&M is funny when you press and hold Start to start over. It really razzes you. It also doesn't immediately restart, it spits out any locked balls and returns to Game Over, so you have to press Start again.

For whatever reason, I don't restart R&M very much anyway. It's not because of the razzing, or the time consuming method used, since I figured out it's quicker to pop open the coin door, and enter and exit the menu. Same result (Game Over) quicker and minus the abuse. (Exiting their menu doesn't continue a running game like Stern.)

Don't tell them over on the R&M thread, though! Eric (the programmer) might decide to have fun with that, too!

On location recently: a fellow competitor and I found a (Stern) TMNT with a two player game, with ball 1 of player 1 having already been played/plunged. He takes player 2, I take player 1. I put up a new grand champion score with only two balls in play.

Son comes home from college for Christmas, knocks the parents scores off the new machine.

A few weeks later I start a game with two lame balls and then blow it up on the third ball and knock him off the number one spot. You never know when your best ball is going to happen.

No, I never restart a game after a bad first ball. Instead, I usually let out an F bomb that's loud enough to set off my car alarm.

All these anecdotes about one monster ball are irrelevant. No one was denying they happen.

Two or three monster balls are better than one. No one can argue with that.

Extra balls aside:

Your odds of a second monster ball are best if the first monster ball was ball one. No one can argue with that.

Your odds of a second monster ball are cut in half if the first monster ball was ball two. No one can argue with that.

Your odds of a second monster ball are ZERO if the first monster ball was ball three. No one can argue with that.

That's all I'm saying.

If I restarted after a bad first ball I would never complete a game.