I would be interested to see how easily your games are playing. I set mine up to be difficult from a physical/ hardware point of view. I have a FH and a TZ and getting LitZ is a very rare occurance. I have not tired the million plus carry over, but getting more than one mirror frenzy is a very rare occurance as well.

I will say that I know of a few people who prefer the tour the mansion strategy, but once again, if the game has big yellow rubber bumpers on either side of the chair and the swamp kickout, this may not be the safest way to score points on the game.

you can also check out the PAPA tutorials that Bowen does (I believe he has done a tutorial for all 3 tables) and see how he relates to each deck and the adjustments that have been made to them physically.

i can tell you that my FH and TZ are fast, steep and my TZ in particular has no posts by the outlanes and the rubber on the left hand side of the inlane/outlane is removed.

Talk to you soon!

Great discussion, I look forward to learning from the experts.
-mof

I love the topic and the discussion that has started. I would enjoy hearing about other games that are more/most balanced like the FH the OP described above.

@caucasian2step: just because a game is set up difficult (steeper slope, wider outlines, etc) doesn't change the dominant path theory, it just makes its harder to do it. Correct?

See....I enjoy my T2 and the satisfying ramp combos, going for the right orbit (which is a strategy I learned from caucasian2step..love reading your game reviews BTW), and going for the super jackpot. But the super jackpot skull strategy just overwhelms the rest of the game point-wise. If there was a way to balance out the scoring on it, I believe the T2 would be ranked much much higher for its overall flow and smooth game play. Even Steve Ritchie, himself, has said in interviews that T2 is one of his personal favorites to play when it comes to the fun factor.

There is an argument for getting to Tour being the dominant strat, though if you are playing for big points, getting 30M each in search and seance is not trivial. The modes in TAF are pretty balanced with MB and Tour. A good MB in Addams can score more than tour. Maxing the graveyard and the side ramp is not a bad strategy either - 30M for two shots.

In regards to LITZ, MB is the dominant strategy in TZ. One or two good MBs will certainly dwarf LITZ and will light gumball (and in the process powerball manias).

On a long game of Addams, the strategy becomes advancing bonus X, but on TZ multiball always reigns supreme, as massive jackpots are possible and a MB can net a player as much as half a billion or more.

All three games offer fun and very lucrative stacks - frenzy/super frenzy with MB, spiral with LITZ, It with Mamushka with MB, TS Madness with many lit battle the powers, etc.

This is a great post, and I'm looking forward to the responses.

Like newsom, I disagree that LITZ is the dominant strategy. If you've mastered right ramp, left ramp, piano...why not take a few shot detour to start multi-balls? It's two extra shots for the lock multi-ball (or three, if you want higher jackpots), and worst-case four extra shots for powerball multi-ball (depending on where the powerball starts).

Before owning the game, I would see multi-balls as something that happen on the way towards LITZ - now I see LITZ as something that might happen along the way as I cycle through as many multi-balls as possible.

As for TAF, caucasian2step proposed thicker posts on the chair shot. Making that shot a threat to insta-drain would absolutely tip the scales towards going for multiball...unless you also made starting multi-ball harder somehow.

I do agree that modes are mostly ignorable in TAF, but they're definitely not in TZ especially The Camera (and "Collect Bonus" in particular...especially if you've gone through a powerball multi-ball already) and the ability to bring in a mode (or two, or three) into a multi-ball.

I understand making the games easier for the others in your family, but I would get sick of TZ too if I was regularly LITZing 2 to 3 times per game. I wonder what the fastest thing you can do to switch between easy/hard...close the outlanes entirely with a rubber?

Generally speaking, the "easier" a game is set up, the longer the time you can spend on the table because play that isn't precise isn't going to be punished as frequently or as harshly as it would be in a tighter setup. This means that your whole mental outlook on the game will change. A game that is set up in a more challenging manner will require more accurate play as well as a higher sense of risk vs. reward.

There are a number of simple things that you can do to your game to really make you play at a higher level. I put together a string about this a while ago and am always interested in hearing about the creative ways that people modify their games to make the play more challenging.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-do-you-properly-nastify-or-modify-your-your-pin-decks-to-be-more

Nice to see something like a philosophical discussion on here. Excellent topic. I'm not a sophisticated pin player, so I can't add too much. I can say Funhouse does at least feel very balanced to me, so I know what the OP is getting at. Never has felt like a one shot or one goal game and doesn't depend heavily on the a multi-ball rinse & repeat, which is the case for a lot of games. I think that's why it is one of the few games that has limitless replay value to me. I haven't spent enough time on TAF to comment. On TZ, the shots & modes do feel balanced, but I don't know enough on scoring breakdown to comment.

Your dominant strategy hypothesis does apply well to video games, I can relate this to when a task, glitch, trope, or exploit reveals the "gaminess" of a game for lack of a better term. In classic games, unintended design loopholes are essential to exploit in getting a high score. In Burgertime & Donkey Kong, you can control the response/movement of certain objects in a way the designers didn't intend and have become dominant strategies (ingredients & barrels, respectively). These 2 examples were actually designed to make the games more difficult.

In modern games, the more realistic the game, the more jarring the "gaminess" - Even Call of Duty has an unrealistic dominant strategy: constantly moving and using quick draw, quick fire weapons. Running around shooting like a crazy person is probably not effective in an actual battle... Getting constantly stabbed at close range also reveals the "gaminess" to me. Historically, sports games were the huge offenders of dominant strategy (like using Bo Jackson & running plays in Tecmo Bowl) or skating dead on with the puck into the goalie of NHL 94 to score a goal (if anyone remembers that, hehe).

Anyways, sorry for the tangent.

If you are touring the mansion or getting lost in the zone 2 or 3 times per game something is wrong with the way your pins are set up.

That is, the games are set up too easy for your skill level. You've kind of defeated the risk/reward system set up by the game's designer if you can reach the endgame multiple times per game. If reaching LITZ were just an occasional achievement, you might find more variety and strategy is then at play.

Just so I am clear, OP when you speak of carry over being off in FH, does this mean that jackpots are always 2M?

I find that FH on default settings is very dominant strategy oriented.
But I have no problem with that as long as the strategy is enjoyable (as is the case with FH).
Many games only offer one main path to huge points - T2, FT, WW, MA, MB, Creature, BSD, Whirlwind, etc.
Yes you can possibly grind out big points on these games, but if you want massive scores in a reasonable amount of time, you go for the millions plus, super jps, monsters of rock, or triple MB stack, etc.
I don't have a problem with that as long as that "one path" is fun.
In the case of all the games I mentioned, I find the path fun.

When the best strategy for big points becomes timing everything out, such as on RCT or ST, then I begin to question the code.

I've seen Bowen do videos/talk about/just play TAF and TZ showing the multiple strategies people use in tournament play. All are valid and have varying levels of risk/reward. The factor that usually determines what strategy most people go with? How that particular game that's in the tournament is playing. No joke. Like for TAF, if for some reason the chair is hard to get(yellow conicals or not), people tend to go for the multiball jackpots and all but disregard the mansion modes on the way to a tour.

And trust me, once the outposts are removed and the extra balls turned off, whatever game you're playing turns into a WHOLE different ball of wax! It took me a while of playing with the PAPA setup on my TAF to get the point where I was putting up scores that were close to what the last finals on TAF were. And those were my GOOD games, these pros were playing mediocre games and scoring that high!

I also feel the extra ball settings have a significant impact on these decisions. On TAF, each Mansion Tour also gives you two extra balls, so if you can make 6 rooms per ball, you're going to play for a very long time. Take away the extra balls and things get hairy: what if you don't make it all the way to Tour? There are other ways to score, such as multiballs and side-flipper shots, and those points can defeat someone dashing for Tour who doesn't make it.

On TZ, I don't see many players going for LITZ in competition. Multiballs are high-value and relatively easy to reach, so that tends to be the way it's played.

I agree with the concept that the best games don't have a dominant strategy, and that's what can make a game especially fun to play and fun to watch.

Great thread!

LITZ does not seem to be as dominant a strategy on TZ as just going for Multiball and Powerball Mania, at least judging by what I see in PAPA videos

Iron Man is the obvious game to include here, because you could say that the dominant strategy is to start double-scoring and nail Do-Or-Die for 60-70 million. But that's sort of like saying that the dominant strategy for becoming independently wealthy is to win the lottery! Once the outlanes are opened up, things like Bogies and stacking multiballs become much more important, and you're certainly not going for the IRONMAN targets. I guess I'm saying that one way to fix the dominant strategy problem is to make its risk/reward high enough that other strategies can't be ignored.

Great topic, by the way.

I always think this way too. LITZ doesn;t garner enough points.

Not in exchange for the amount of time it takes to get, no. A good LITZ session typically nets 350-450 Million points as where a standard multiball can get you 65-75 million points per jackpot. And as long as you have good ball control, you can keep cashing that in over and over. The lock process to get to multiball is much easier than trying to get to LITZ for a tournament game.

What is the factory setting for this? On or off? What about tournaments?

I enjoy reading this thread, I am back and forth as to which is my favorite strategy playing TZ.

This is why I sold TAF. Seriously did not like the game then bought a nice one and loved it. Then got to the point of almost completing the mansion twice in a ball and it was not fun anymore to me.

Great games but maybe need a score redo for mansion completion value.

I like your write up and feel it is well thought through good discussion.

I took it to mean that the jackpot always starts as 2 mil after the 1mil mouth shot. Some versions have the jackpot leave off where the previous ended. So if the 4 mil JP was reached, the next MB would start off at 5 mil etc.

After a few grinds, and even dismal sequences of 1 or 2 JPs, the JP value could be substantial. Having it reset allows for more of a benefit to the player who can sustain a multiball, but does not cripple a person who is "behind" on jackpots in a carry over scenario.

Edit. Yeah, what Jack typed, only faster

My best games on TZ have come with a combination of great multiballs and at least two LITZ's, so both would seem to be good ways to score a lot of points.

Well things get a little grey here, because if you've got a sweet slot machine kickout for an easy dead-bounce to the other flipper, or live-catch/drop catch to the initial flipper, then LITZ is perfectly valid for tournament play especially since the powerball mania bonus is added to the LITZ bonus if obtained on the same ball. Obviously with a bad slot machine kickout, multiball is best.

Ah, ok. I have never played FH where the jp value carried over between MBs.

If FH is on default settings and the jps are 2M, 3M, 4M, etc., I will always go for MB exclusively. Maybe stack a super frenzy with it if the opportunity presents itself.

This topic is timely for me as I played TAF on location today. I haven't played this machine a hell of a lot. For my first few games I was flailing around a bit, just shooting for whatever. For my last game I aimed for the ramp, then straight into the chair off the left flipper for mansion awards. Rinse and repeat. Didn't go for any points in the modes except for Seance. Got to tour the mansion 3 times and got the grand champion score of 1.9b. I'm certainly not a great player but that long ramp shot is pretty easy, and I kind of mastered the chair shot off the left flipper, getting probably 7/10. Picked up heaps of extra balls which of course are given out rather generously and are another key to big scores.
I thought to myself afterwards that I'd get pretty tired of this game if I owned it. On the other hand I do own a TZ and find it more balanced in what to shoot for.
I guess there is a difference when we are talking about on location or tournament games where the objective is to get the highest score, compared to a home machine where you can afford to try for different goals.

How were you getting the ball to the left flipper after shooting the middle ramp? On mine, there isn't a reliable way to do this...the ball comes down the right inlane too fast to cradle, and too slow to roll off the right flipper and transfer over to the left.

The chunkiest LITZ I can remember was my brother scoring around 700K...which is a goddamn ton.
If you get a good MB going, one or 2 clock modes during seems much easier to me.
Plus Gumballs are easy points, and lead to Powerball MB which also can get a bunch of points.

This is just talking home games really...in a tournament you're most likely not going multi-LITZing.
Once you get left ramp, right ramp, piano, dead pass to left flipper, lock...that's the way to go IMO.

The element of randomness in Funhouse is Rudy's face. If it weren't for the mirror re-light being a bash toy, it would be the same as TZ or TAF.

Think if TAF made you re-light the chair by shooting the train shot, a shot analogous to Rudy's face. You'd choose a different strategy right? Some TAFs still train-drain nicely into the swamp though. So you might choose to play modes on those machines, but the ones that send the ball across the playfield, multiball may prevail as a better strategy.

That's the beauty of pinball, especially competitive pinball. You need to understand a machine so well that when one path of success is obstructed you know what changes to make to succeed.

I believe all the WMS DMD games suffer this fate in home. The wizard mode is the obvious over-arching strategy that just pukes points at you, but as Keith Elwin showed us this week, Star Trek's 3rd Prime Directive mode is now the prevailing "best strategy". Before that it was Jorian's double scoring 2nd tier super warp ramps. Before that it was time out to get to Kobayashi Maru.

You get the idea. But the strategy on each of those games changes depending on the person you're playing against, the machine you are playing on and the ball you're on.

If you could accurately quantify the risk per shot and compound it by the number of times you need to shoot it, you could get a data point that displays the numerical calculated risk of that strategy.

Say you make the left ramp 9 out of 10 times. And the right ramp 9 out of 10 times and the piano 9 out of 10 times. You've got a (.9 x.9 x.9 =) 73% chance of getting to the first mode without missing a shot. Now the chances of you getting to LITZ without missing is 0.72 x 0.72^11 (12 modes right?). Roughly 2% without missing. There are other factors, like what is the chance you save a ball when you don't make a shot? The 2% is only the chance you get there if every single miss accounts for a ball drained.

Then you have to calculate the opportunity cost of other points lost! Powerballs, multiballs, lucrative modes, etc.

TL;DR: It's not just that simple when you are playing against someone else (even if the machine plays friendly, because then they can get to LITZ/tour the mansion too, so it's moot).

Somebody's machines are set way too easy if your touring the mansion 3 times and getting in the zone like nothing leg levelers must be flat.

Ah, looks like there's a problem with the diverter where it was allowing the ball return to the left flipper; haven't played this machine in ages so didn't realise the ball was supposed to return to the right flipper. Makes it much harder to do the ramp/chair combo.
Damn, kind of invalidates my big score...

TAF is all about two shots, center ramp and chair. If you can consistently hit those two shots there is no reason to do anything else. If the chair is made more difficult/ dangerous to hit, the multiball becomes a viable strategy. But a machine set up like it left the factory, dominant strategy is all about touring the mansion. I find TAF to be boring and repetitive.

TZ is similar in the sense that if you can consistently hit the ramps and the piano you can rip through the modes and get to LITZ to put up a solid score. I feel like it is a more balanced machine than TAF. Put three top players on the machine, one going for LITZ, one going for the regular MB and one going for the powerball MB. I think that all three have about the same chance to win which makes TZ more balanced than TAF.

FH is heavily weighted towards MBs as a dominant strategy. Modes will get you points, but nothing like getting multiple trapdoor jackpots.

I suspected as much. Particularly because this just happened to my machine on location. When the switch at the top of the Bear Kick ramp is out, it thinks that every shot up that ramp is actually a shot up the side ramp. The shot value builds upon itself by 1 million each time, and it returns the ball to the left flipper - making it really easy to loop and/or take safer shots at the chair.

Basically this. I mean, you can grind out 15 - 25 million points by working through the mirror modes and playing out multiple frenzies/super frenzies, but 25 - 50 million scores on Funhouse are only going to be achieved by proper multi-ball play.

Reducing TAF to two shots is rather simplistic.
The side ramp is worth going for - 1M+, up to 10M.
Double and triple jps are worth going for.
When you have gotten to tour and played out tour, the ramp and chair won't do too much for you. Time to hit some side ramp, start MB, get combos and things, max the graveyard, etc.
When many rooms and bear kicks have been amassed, maxing the bonus is huge.
Quick MB and thing hurry up MB can net a player some big points.

Also, The two top players playing for MBs on TZ will be playing almost exactly the same way.

TAF is a MUCH better game with EB turned off. Then there is no dominate strat.

to be honest, the quickest and safest way to big points in TAF if you have good shot accuracy is the 4 way combo.

Center Ramp return to R flip, through the pops to upper R flip, left Ramp to mini L flip, into Swap, catch out of swamp and repeat.

Interesting - how much is that worth? Sounds terrifying, two of those shots (though pops, and mini flipper to swamp) are quite dangerous when you miss. In the PAPA tournament footage I've seen, it seems like most top players refuse to even take the mini flipper shot. They hold the mini flipper extended and let the ball roll out over the left sling.

I must suck at pinball because the chance of me pulling that off once in 50 games is next to 1/100

Thru pops shot is in no way an easy shot.

Yeah there's a lot of back & forth on this thread if we're talking home use or tournament. I've never seen anyone go for a 4 way combo angle.

You've never played a TAF with a PAPA setup, then. Have you even seen TAF played with the PAPA setup? Completely different game altogether. If you regularly get 700M+ scores on your home TAF set at Medium settings, I can guarantee you will have a massively hard time even breaking 100M with the PAPA setup and the Hard settings with no extra balls.

Creature from the Black Lagoon is a game with only one strategy to get insanely high scores, and although it's possible to do it rather quickly, it's both insanely difficult and infinitely rewarding. Plus, jackpots and super jackpots grow without limit. No complaints there at all.

White Water is possibly multiball-centric (especially 5x), but to get to vacation jackpot or to advance rafts toward Wet Willies (and higher jackpots), you have to travel all over the playfield to hit all different shots. I think that's great!

I think it is worth 20 mil? Maybe more? I think you get awarded 3 way combo and then 4 way? It will also advance X and earn towards thing bonus starts at the same time. At the same time you also get the 5x swamp points from the mini flipper shot which can be substaintal.

I actually find that the through pops and mini flip are much easier than the upper ramp shot when the ball comes screaming through the pops.

I can hit this combo 5/10 times if that is all I am going for and I am a pretty crappy player most days.
Maybe I will do a real life comparison someday to see point difference. IME the 4 way shots are all much safer shots then chair scoop with a miss. Miss the pops alley and no big deal as you typically hit the pops which builds swamp (nice for 5x swamp from mini flip). Miss the left ramp from upper R flip and no big deal as the ball returns to lower R flip. Miss the mini flip shot and you could be in trouble, but that is always worth going for if you have already done the 3 way since you are turning it into a 4 way AND getting swamp points.

PAPA 17 A division final four scores on Addams Family:

Josh Sharpe: 47,206,380
Cayle George: 196,115,170
Zach Sharpe: 134,156,500
Joshua Henderson: 32,912,580

Other scores from the first round of A division finals:
Group #1 first place: 53 million
Group #3 first place: 205 million, second place 63 million
Group #4 first place: 97 million

Four way is worth 5M (three way) + 10M (four way) + 5*(graveyard value) + a star + bonus X + thing letter + millions plus.

If you can actually do this 50% of the time this is a decent strat. I will go for the thing ramp - side ramp - swamp before I go for the combos.

That actually makes me feel pretty good! Best I ever got in the couple weeks I had it setup to PAPA specs was 145M!

Always easier not under the hot lights

Love this thread! Played TAF and TZ *some* but not much nor studied strategy. FH I play like a fiddle. 85M best. The concept of dominant strategy is new to me but makes perfect sense. Been doing it, but didn't know what it was called. Thanks, OP, for broaching the subject. FH is quite balanced I agree with you.

I sold my TAF because it was too easy and it was on factory settings. I started touring the mansion on most games and a few times twice in one game. As others have said, it's a 2 shot game. I like TZ best and its also why I like RBION, which has a similar set up, deeper game and more shot variety.

That said, there are times I miss taf and its callouts and mb light show are just fantastic.