I doubt this will change - however - Dwight, if you're reading this - please add a settings option for "Mode completion on/off". If off, and you lose the ball or time out a mode - the next time you start a mode it will be the next in the ladder. This game's physical design is way too hard for mandatory mode completion - it kills the fun when a player can only see "We Got One" 5 times in a game. Dwight programmed STTNG - imagine if you had to play the Asteroid mode to completion before you could see any other modes? This roadblock is doing the game a huge disservice...it's still going to be a very difficult challenge no matter what - but blocking out 80% of the content from ever being seen will make players not want to play it. There has to be appeal to casuals, and for Ghostbusters the appeal is the characters, situations, and humor. If it's impossible to experience any of that, what was the point of putting it in the game?

If later modes are much more lucrative points wise than earlier modes (don't know if they are I have only played 10 games or so on GB), then you could have people deliberately timing out or even letting balls drain to get to later modes, and makes it much easier to get to "We came we saw". I like it, it just might not be simple to implement without causing some sort of imbalance.

To be fair, that's like, every mode-based pin, but most incentivize it by making the sub-modes in the wizard mode worth more when you've actually done work on the modes getting there. I actually didn't know you had to finish every mode on GB - do you have to totally restart, or just pick up where you left off? Imagine having to hit all the GREED targets on TZ before you can move on.

Difficulty is fine and a variety in modes are welcome. If you look at games like ST, AF, Indy. they follow this formula. Personally its refreshing to play a different mode everytime to pick up and play. GB has a roadshow approach where you move up the ladder. it would be sweet if could switch it up.

Maybe a separate mini wizard mode for actually completing all of the modes and a different wizard mode path if you just go through them without completion? I don't know, but I agree with Rarehero on the progression.

Brian

That's stuff tournament players care about. If this was an option, non tournament players could set it for fun.

What if there's a massive bonus or multiplier for completion? Then there's an incentive not to time out.

Did people time out sttng? Indy? Shadow? Every 90s game? This was never an issue. You can't force tournament style gameplay on players if it makes the game less fun.

It works in Road Show though since the game is physically easy. And has continues. No one has ever complained about not being able to see the West coast in Road Show.

Umm this video gives me serious pause when it comes to scoring balance on GB. I mean 8 Billion in 12 minutes? Yikes. And spinner is worth 3k, haha thats like half a penny. What a joke. Looking like a 3 shot game--left ramp, orbits ignore the rest.

You also don't have to complete the modes, thankfully, though Red will insult you if you do nothing. What's the end-of-tour payoff in GB? Road Show also has way, way more callouts, and the modes are really "present" when you're in one, which I think kinda helps get over the linearity fatigue.

lol, I was agreeing with you, just pointing out that it might not be as simple as adding an option to the settings. Things like potential scoring loopholes/imbalances have to be taken into account when making a change like that. Maybe the decision by the game designer is "f-it, let tourney players just turn it off", but it still has to be thought out.

They could always put in a "Novice" mode with separate high score tables, etc. These were fairly common in the 90's back in the Sega days. Novice mode could put in the "Slimer Multiball" that some people have been requesting as well as randomize the modes and add additional ball save time, etc. to make the game less frustrating for beginning players to play. They could even make it so that "Storage Multi-ball" is lit automatically on the 3rd ball like most DE games did in the 90's. There could be a lot of value for people with young kids or guests that are inexperienced players vs. the playing the more difficult "standard" game. My 2 year old loves playing "Super Game" on Judge Dredd on Pinball Arcade because it allows him to start off with multiball and is more exciting for him.

For me its about having fun, I dont care about points. If i score 8billion or 800 points. But if the ball drains in 8 seconds thats no fun. For an experienced or novice player. Yes you get a ball save but it kinda wrecks the flow of the game.

Im going today to play some games, on 1.05 see how it goes.

Yeah, that scoring by hitting the left ramp repeatedly is just stupid. Dwight needs to clean the code up big time. Brutal gameplay with huge gapped flippers and scoring being so unbalanced is going to wear on me quickly when my LE comes in. Looks like the best way to look forward to getting a new score is working on playfield multipliers and sitting back and just hitting the left ramp over and over.. pretty lame

I have RS and Indy, I love the randomness of Indy500 every time you hit the start button.

The mostly linear nature of RS is fun for a while but its not a game you can play hours on end, over and over again. I play it a bit and come back to it days or weeks later.

I'm not interested in GB being RS oriented and the scoring seems very unbalanced at this point.

Make us want to play it non stop, I'm not buying GB to be a "filler pin", not at $8k.

Levi, absolutely not. Just for the record, Levi you are not on my ignore list. I know you don't really care for the game and that's OK. It's not for everyone. But calling Trudeau an A$#hole and telling him to f$%k off just because you don't like the flipper gap is just asinine. He is an amazing designer and a genuinely nice guy, and the ones shouting insults at him just have no class whatsoever.

Or maybe people should just move on and not play it if it's too much for them? I am having a little but of a hard time understanding why everything has to be made to suit the complaining voices. Pinball can be hard, always has been that way, always will be. Come play my FG and you'll be dreaming aboot GB. I think GB is hard, real hard. And to be honest it isn't a ton of fun. But trying to cry to the designer to make it easier...I don't know just seems week sauce. Don't like it dont play it. Too hard, play another game. Just because you jerk off all over the theme, doesn't give you some weird childhood right to have the game suit your needs.
My 2 cents surely not to over too well

I'm also not referring to crappy scoring and obvious issues that need be fixed

TWD was "real hard". Took months to break it in and beat it and it was a ton of fun along the way, still is.

For the average player, a hard pin takes a long time to tweak and YOU make it easier by "practice", yeah man, "we talkin bout practice"!

"Easy" pins get boring fast. Still can be great fun like Ac/dc, SM and Lotr, just not play it over and over again fun.

TWD is true genius to me. I hope they make a pin I want to play as much as i did that one again!

I don't listen to the "too hard" nonsense after TWD. Does it have the potential to be great? Can Dwight deliver?

Maybe GB will just look great and suck overall, but it won't be because its too F ing hard.

I love that GB's is a hard pin, I'm not really interested in the theme but that fact that poeple are complaining its almost too difficult, even if thats due to some poor design makes me want one.

There's my players out there!

I mean I just hope we're not going even deeper down the weirdness scale were it will be "I spent 8 goddamn thousand dollars on this you better make it easier so I can like it!" Strange times getting stranger.

Ain't that the truth. $8k is a joke to begin with but it better kick your ass for that much.

However, if it kicks your ass and its no fun then we have a problem! Need potential for greatness nowadays.

Borg and Lyman get it. I have faith still.

Don't mind the gap at all if anything it's just going to get me better at nudging and make other games easier, the outlane ball is BS fortunately there already is one solution pbu kit, slimer seems fixed and there is a fix for the Scoleri brothers. Perhaps it's unfortunate that a hard game came out with some design problems but there seems to be a solution for just about everyone and I'm sure more to come. CAN'T WAIT TO LEARN TO PLAY BETTER

I swear, Trudeau could design a game with baby lightning flippers gapped 3 feet apart, and people will still say 'Play better'

Pinball is about FUN. Having a good combination of game coded rules, and a layout which is fair but punishing if flailing and making bad shots, but there needs to have a balance: too easy shots, game becomes boring. Too hard shots, game is frustrating. Too hard shots, with super wide flippers= super frustrating. Hard shots with normal flippers=TWD which is a great balance and as iceman44 said, Borg/Lyman get it.

Right now as it stands, the layout is extremely punishing and design flaws can equal some unfair drains that takes away from the fun factor, and weigh it a lot to the frustrating factor. Scoring imbalances and the way Dwight programmed modes, makes it where GB is questionable about what it will be known for in the long haul: awesome theme, art, sound- but cheap and frustrating gameplay and lackluster coding? Or will Dwight be able to optimize the code to better fit the layout?

At this point 3rd parties have done a pretty good job throwing out fixes and other tweaks that Stern's play "testing" and JT didn't catch. That's great. But ultimately, the balls in Dwight's court to make this game stand the test of time and not be a pinball pump and dump that scored them big profits off the theme, and the game ultimately becomes known as a dud later on.

Until then, I'm cautiously optimistic Dwight has some tricks up his sleeve here still..

Sorry, this game is just not that hard for all of this hate. I can see it having some frustration. Overall it's decent design and fun with challenge. The flipper gap is not that big of a deal. No different than CFTBL or BSD with lightning flippers.

Yeah I don't get it. I played it a bunch, it's really not that hard and was a blast to play with a center flipper post. Really strange how polar opposite opinions on this game can be, but I guess that's the nature of pinball. Just goes to show don't bother with reviews, go play the game yourself and form your own opinion as everyone sees things differently and in the pinball case, sometimes very differently.

Those games did not have be content this game has! BSD has 3 multiballs and a video mode. That's it. The lighting flippers are PERFECT for that style of game. Not one with a butt load of story based modes. And on the topic of lighting flippers - they used the lighting flippers after testing showed it was too easy with normal flippers. Did GB testing show it needed a huge gap? No. JT just did it to do it. Would have preferred a normal gap and those who wanted it harder could have changed to lighting flippers.

My issue is less with the flipper gap (annoying but work-around-able) and more with the sparse gameplay.

So, put on different flippers then it will be easy for you and you can stop whining about the gap.

You played GB with a center post and are saying it wasn't "that hard". I'm going to have to say your opinion is void because of that modification as I'm sure it helped save the ball a few times for you

Yes: 2 ramps, 2 eject holes, 2 drop targets, 2 captive balls, bash toy, 3 rollover lanes, double inlanes, outer orbit, inner orbit, etc, etc, etc = sparse gameplay.

I assumed he meant that someone made a modification and screwed or drilled a center drain prevention post into the playfield right between the flippers.

My 6yr old just got Storage Faucility Multiball for the first time and was so proud of himself. Hes been scoring 100 million average on most games. Game isnt that hard for a little boy to have a ton of fun on.

Cool video (well shot, well played game!) but this makes me wonder how good this game will be for home use. Linear modes with completion requirement for progression seems unjustiable these days (i.e. we really really should know better than to do that) and IF you do decide to go that route, you need one hell of a game to overcome that handicap.

But just as worrying as that was I have not seen that much repeated loop action since I beat on my Earthshaker ramp relentlessly. And ES does not even tie the ramp into apparently 90% of the big scoring opportunities. Some of that comes down to playing well and setting up your shots well, but a design that encourages players to just hammer on "mode start + ramp" most of the time seems really boring.

And yes, I know you can choose not to play that way. For example in STTNG I generally don't shoot for Final Frontier, I go for warp factors and then do other "stuff" as it happens as I find that to be more fun (and makes Final Frontier a treat when I do get it).

But at 8K with today's design knowledge I would expect not to be making mistakes that should have been figured out 25 or so years ago!

LOL, yeah, if you're playing a GB with a center post that prevents SDTM drains from the usual playfield suspects, you just might not have the same impression as people playing a stock GB.

...naaa, I had fun playing it. Played it enough to know I wanted it in my game room. Been playing it a lot since I got it home. GC score is 2.9 billion. Mass Hysteria multiball is a hoot.

But - to each his own. I don't fault you for not liking it - it's just pinball man!

Seriously man. I'm going to close off the outlanes with rubber bands and get longer flippers that almost touch, then come on here and tell everyone how the game isn't hard at all

dont be focuse on the Erno video, as this guy is a German hardcore player, and that game was just perfect (for that congrats to him of course)

than GB is not just to get the PF X6 (which is not easy) while making ramp (you need to be in loopin' mode) for collecting super jackpot (which must be more than constructed to be so high)...

its the same as watching Keith lately playing on (for example) GOT, you can't say : this pin too easy, can you !?
(well, for him it is, but not for 99% of the others guys)

I had a blast playing Ghostbusters Pro. I really, really, REALLY doubt the validity of the claims of the people who are saying they played it and oh, it's the suxxxxxor.

I know it's just opinions and all that but like KPG said, pinball is about fun and GB has it in spades. So you can get a bijillion points by spamming one shot over and over; you can hit the middle ramp as the Lannister family all day long on GoT and make beaucoup points, but that's a fun machine somehow and GB isn't?

Just played this yesterday again. on 1.05 code im actually digging it. I put about 18 games on to the machine, I think the key is to have the machine dialed in properly. So stupid stuff like the scoop outline inst firing directly into the drain. These are tweaks of course, the game is still brutal drain wise but you cant help that. You add carrot flippers or a center post if its too much trouble

I think you have to play the game a little differently, i know first time around i was trying to trap the ball. Which ended up it bouncing around too much. I tried alot of dead flip instead which helped a ton. Also playing it with the mentally of "i want multi ball" is brutal and will get you in trouble.

Im actually considering buying this game now.

Who sells these "carrot" flippers? Never heard of them until this thread.

Haha. No you can't. If you hit the center ramp all day on GOT you will never score well, and there is only one mode that kind of rewards you for hitting that ramp a bunch. (Stark mode)

Whoa. Are these the ones that were on the PZ in NOLA at Kebab? Those things were monstrous.

Just crazy we have to mod, add upgrades and fixes just to make this pin enjoyable.

GB... FAIL

Oh... I thought it was Lannister. But in any event, that mode DOES reward you handsomely for spamming one shot, right? So, I mean... it's a thing. Just like cranking one shot in just about any game will eventually give you a high score. Pinball games are getting a lot closer to videogames in as much you're trying to get to the "end", and that's where - IMHFO - a lot of the fun is in GB.

We can't all be pinball wi... we can't all be PAPA champions. Some of us are happy with making a lot of pretty lights blink.

Overly dramatic. I really hope you've played the game and formed your own opinion.

Nope, have not played it but reading through this thread things don't sound real promising...