I'm not one to bitch -- well actually I am who am I kidding? -- but MetzelMODS should only have to work on MODS for the game, not have to correct an obvious Stern design flaw.

It's a shame, really.

I'll patiently await the herd to come in and blame you for wanting to buy the game in the first place, and recommend you wait several years for Stern to perfect the manufacturing and testing process before buying GB.

Getting salty eh?

no need to worry. As I stated in another thread. These rails do not have the butterfly flair at the end. On rails like that, sure it will chip out the wood. These do not have that.

The way you can tell if wire guides are flaired (or butterflyed as I like to call it), is by looking at the area where the wire is put into the field. If it has a dent on the top and bottom next to the wire, then it has a butterfly. If it's perfect, then it's just a smooth piece of wire, that you can easily take completely out if you want, without damage.

I've taken metal rails out of at least 100 playfields. I know this as fact. You will not damage the field on GB by pounding the rails up from the back slightly.

Yes- lets do it SunKing! Ready..set... go!

That's hilarious.

Well the standup causing the airball is an easy fix at least. Bend it downward and put something behind it to keep it that way - like we all had to do with TZ's scoop target back in the day.

But these design problems may be due to the "get out a game every four months" policy at Stern that so many people here seem to like.
Kinda a double edged sword... yes you get a new title promptly and constantly but a LOT of things don't seem fine tuned. Thank goodness for you early adapters out there

I'm surprised there's so many issues with the stand up drop targets, they work phenomenal in mustang - same design, same designer.

Worse case, disable them in the adjustments? They don't seem to be a game breaking feature.

Hmm...don't know enough aboot the rules yet to know how that would affect things.

I dont know if they are the same as in Family Guy, But I shimmed out with a couple washers and Targets dropped at a touch, where it was Brick City.

I'm just testing the functionality of having a plastic there. The color and shape was something I had laying around.

I'm so over all this GB hype, it's not that great of a game IMO. I'm gonna put some more plays on it tonight but the handful I played already was just OK, multiball was really hard to get, I don't think I even got it once. Obviously I need more time on it to learn the shots but it didn't really have that wow factor for me. I'm actually looking more forward to playing The Hobbit tonight instead.

Have fun tonight.Jack!

BEFORE the new code it was hard to get to...and a let down when you did. The update made it much harder..ouch.

I will Peen!

Hopefully Dwight will fix it. Lots of complaints about the game being too hard to get a multiball going for casual players, especially seeing there's literally one main multiball besides Mass Hysteria, which the reversed flippers won't really be something many players enjoy. Really looking forward to seeing Dwight polish this thing over time.

I don't understand why people are saying it is harder to start MB. I played last night on 1.04 and lighting the Storage Facility at the captive ball still kept it lit through locks and draining until I started multiball. It was pretty easy to get it going and worked just like it did before. Maybe that is not the default setting but I don't think anything was changed from factory after the update.

The extra ball at ~50 makes Mass Hysteria and We Came We Saw a reality for mortals as well

I have a ghost busters pro in the house here. The software is really good and feels complete. There seems to be more to do than GoT, at least at first glance. The ball times are pretty short so doing those things in ghost busters is way harder.

There are a couple annoyances in the software I hope will be addressed:

1) Animations are long and cannot be double flipper skipped. None of them.

2) The left scoop fires the ball out in an evil manner often. Since the right saucer has a ball saver, I hope the left scoop can have the same ball saver. It's basically the same situation.

3) When a mode is running, and then the two brothers modes stack and the drop target pop ups come up, during the other mode, you are pretty much cock blocked from making the shots for the mode by the brothers. It would be nice if say the original mode timer could be paused while these drops are up. The result of this is you feel its a bummer to have the brothers pop up during a mode - but it should be the opposite. Mode stacking should always feel fun and rewarding not frustrating.

Of course these are just my opinions. The rules are fun, the modes provide decent variety. The lighting effects are very well done. The game is beautiful. Dwight is impressively fast for getting this much done back to back on GoT and then GB. I'm definitely getting a premium.

there isn't a setting for skipping animations in the adjustments?

The animations on the pro I've been playing can be skipped.

Should be. Location games probably don't have it enabled.

i'm sure they dont' but markmon is playing at home.

I wonder how many hours a game in it's final form gets play tested before it's sent to the production line.
There always seems like there are obvious issues that pop up on games as soon as they ship that should of been caught in play testing.

Animations are long and cannot be double flipper skipped. None of them.

Since I can skip them on the Gb pro I've played on location I wonder if there is a software bug that prevents skipping in freeplay? The manual doesn't say anything about it on the adjustments page.
Maybe try going to factory default settings and see if you can skip them?

Not true. There is a small delay still until the post releases the ball but you can mash both flippers and cancel out of the "OK Who Brought The Dog?" callout and initial animation for example. Try it!

I played on factory 1.04 so maybe there is a setting to skip them faster or something but seemed to work by default.

I'm constantly button mashing both buttons during all animations. The dog animation is shorter than most. The extra ball can't be skipped and is super long. The one in the left scoop that pages through possible awards can't be skipped. I button mash that over and over. I have yet to find one that can be skipped. I'll check the settings but I've never seen a setting for allowing to skip animations in any game. It's usually just a function of double flipping to cancel. Why would you ever want to force someone to sit through an animation? That's why I wouldn't think it's a setting.

Ok I just poked around and here are my findings:

1) there are no adjustments for animation skips
2) The double flipper skips always skips the mode start adjustments but nothing else
3) None of the other animations are skipped by double flipper other than mode start. Consider this. You plunge, you hit skill shot that starts a mode, you start double flippering, but you're sitting there for 3-5 seconds waiting on the animation for the successful skillshot to go away, then another second or so after the mode start animation starts it can be skipped.
4) The left scoop is the worst for delays. I hit that and had a bunch of stuff queued in there. A mode to start, a bunch of those book images, and an extra ball. I must have waited in there about 15 seconds.
5) The left scoop ball saver request can be ignored because there is a left scoop power adjustment. This is really cool you can just tweak that until its perfect.

I'm sure they'll add that, Mark...many Stern games have launched out of the gate without an animation skip option...but then it always gets added later.

You're probably right.

Hmmm, first world problems much?

Yes, but we're on a first-world forum, discussing first-world games.
The man's allowed to discuss what he'd like to see changed in future code updates.

so when can I expect the for sale threads for your tz's, tom's,pin2k's, cv's should I go on? Don't like animations, I have a nice Bally Space Invaders you can play.

You can skip on CV with the home rom

Got my toppers prepared!!!

image_(resized).jpeg

this game is going down the TZ road. Back in the day TZ was the, "how much shit could I possibly cram into this game" type of game.

also tz failed on location as it was too brutal. I think gb may have the same fate. Now will that eventually get it all time top 5 status??

yes, but back then, on route mattered as it was 97% of the sales. today. 90% of sales is private home buyers. So it doesn't matter as much for the success of a game based on it's ability to earn on route.

A decent amount of sales still goes to people who operate, maybe this is more the case out of the US though. For recent Stern games in New Zealand I would estimate that over half maybe up to 2/3rds of games are going on location for a time. This is more the case than it used to be here because interest in pinball has grown and the exchange rate and stern price increases have bumped prices of NIB games by almost 50% in the last couple years.

GB is a tricky one for me as I am worried it is too hard for a location game. Heck I have heard people complaining that GoT is too hard. The only way I would pick up a GB now is if I could make it a bit less brutal and stern fixes slimer so it can stand up to location play. Killer theme for location but it needs the rest too.

What works on location is not the same as what pinheads want. I'm a bit worried that Stern is listening too much to pinheads and not considering new location players. Good location games are simple to understand (e.g. bash sparky) with visible goals (go around the munchkin hut, bash in doors of the castle or prison, etc) and doesn't brutalise a novice player. As much as I want to buy one it isn't quite there yet. Maybe if they rework it a bit it will be.

If the game is too brutal on location then perhaps lower the price to play to balance short game times. Or set it to 5 ball. Honestly, it's no more brutal than twd or iron man. The left outlane is probably the most brutal aspect.

Being difficult has not hurt TWD or IM.

Guess those are options but I like to keep games consistent pricing wise so I wouldn't do it. I don't want to have to explain this to a customer either.

I am less worried about the cheap drains as that seems very fixable, there are things you can do with TWD. Slimer is what worries me the most, seems to either be too sensitive or not sensitive enough. They need to fix that. I may well pick one up still but I will have to see if there are fixes or not. Location is very different playwise. I want all my games working 100% and I would not site a game that required the same thing to be adjusted every week or so. I have had flaky games before and getting a txt that the game you just fixed is broken again really sucks. I get rid of those games fast.

A game that is "brutal" in the sense that it is difficult is fine. The problem can come when the game is so deep in the ruleset that the player has no idea what to shoot for without taking a university level class in understanding the rules.

Just a little anecdotal evidence. I went to Pub 340 in Vancouver they have a GB and 10 other games. Every person played GB but quickly moved on. The only reason I went was to play it but the cheap drains and lane jumps sour it quickly. If your an operator with several games in a location it's probably great because it brought people in and they spent money. I was just surprised how little money GB got. In a one pin set up I think it would not earn well at all.

if they just got the thing and it doesn't have more than a couple hundred plays on it, its totally gonna be a drain monster. Mine was brutal the first week or two, and i was starting to regret my decision, but now it seems like a lot less BS happening and a mere mortal can play it for a while without cheap drains.

I played both gb pro at m brew and marvins when they were brand new ,they were super brutal and now they both play way better after they have been played a bit

Also, mines been waxed twice in the last month. It'll be noticeably faster after the wax, but still not draining like it was on day 1!

I thought Operators like quick games? no money in a game that can be played for 20+ mins on $1

Customers don't like games they think are F-ing with them and gives them no chance in hell to accomplish anything. That's the "magic sauce" of game design melded with code that's really hard to balance. That's why Iron Man and Tron are great...they DO in fact kill you quick...but you always feel like you're on the cusp of an accomplishment...one more try will do it! If people are getting frustrated over cheap drains, airballs, and outlane bounces - they feel like there's nothing THEY can do to do well at the gam...they feel the game is unfair....they move on and don't spend more money on it. That's not what an op wants.

You just described GOT as well.