Fleshing out the game with the missing modes / polish > implementing playfield multipliers.

It will all come in time. I’d rather have new stuff than a way to make the existing stuff worth more points.

I like the Little Nellie mode, it's cool to progress through the Q/Bond video when you complete the different weapons/shots... Haven't made the briefcase yet..

No you can’t.

Making those shots during a mode do not progress you toward attaché. And If you don’t do it one ball, you have to start over.

Here’s how how I’d make ALL of these Q modes work. You know what's a great game? Godzilla.

Copy Godzilla:

Shoot the right orbit three times to light Q modes.

Shoot thE VUK which is lit for Q mode.

CHOOSE your tier one Q mode (slot, attaché, or radioactive) Upon completing it, you can choose another Q mode. People LIKE choosing modes, it's interactive, keeps things from getting too samey, and builds a little suspense. And gives the action button a purpose.

If you don’t finish a Q mode, which is likely considering the amount of shots required, you can continue the mode after lighting it again.

And finish it. After “tier one” you can shoot the right orbit another three times and relight Q. This time, choose Nellie, the multiball, or another "tier 2" Q mode.

This would make Q a lot more coherent and a lot more fun.

I played several games where I did nothing but “shoot the rocket” and never lit Nellie. I’m guessing I’ll never see it the way it’s currently set up. I managed to light spectre 4 times In one game and never lit Nellie.

Again, I would model this all after Godzilla. The current system for Q doesn’t really work. You are NEVER going to shoot these shots when it takes so long to light these modes. Makes more sense to just keep going for multiballs and henchmen / villain modes if you actually want to score points and have fun.

Did they change the number of shots to qualify the old modes as well? I swear I used to get the Q branch stuff all the time, now hardly ever. If it's all hitting the same shot multiple times in one ball, did they change things recently or upped the number of shots? It all feels so weird that it's simply hitting things an absurd amount of times.

Can't do them during modes/mb? What a waste. And all in one ball? Again, this isn't fun and it's making the gadgets just a bunch of tedious work that you have to focus on just to do now instead of earning over play time

These new Q modes are fun ONCE you qualify them. Actually qualifying is ZERO fun. It is the true pinball definition of chopping wood and is a total grind. I am hopeful they will read the feedback here and this gets addressed in the final polish rounds this code will go through.

Love that they are finally adding some more modes, but I literally laughed out loud last night because still…

STILL

STILL ALMOST HALF A YEAR AFTER LAUNCH

STILL this game drops the ball from the right up post with ZERO warning mid clip. It’s such an easy thing to add a flasher and a sound, but by god, they seem bound and determined not add it. Why??

Anyone new to pinball is like…….. what just happened?? It’s pinball design 101 to communicate a held ball is being released back into play.

It’s not so much the obvious missing flasher and sound that really grinds my gears, but the lack of attention it indicates. ANY CODER WHO ACTUALLY PLAYS THEIR GAME WOULD BE LIKE … oh right, this needs to flash *clack clack clack*. DONE!

Would hope so, they made things easier like jetpack MB to qualify, but then oh hey all these playfield modes? Yea super tedious and difficult to start. The risk/reward aspect of it makes doing the Q modes not even worth it. Let me sit here trying to bash this single shot over and over when every other mode starts in like one or two shots

I still haven't found the Top Secret skill shot. Looks like the new Commander Bond skillshot is the left orbit/jetpack shot? Interesting that it flashes purple at ball launch but the others don't light up until you hold the left flipper.

Thanks for the replies fellas, that’s not great news, too many multiballs in this game now just “end” in the trough.

Personally it feels disjointed and it’s uneventful just having your flippers die on almost every multiball now and you get a ball launched in the shooter.

Friend told me it's hitting the tank target. Think you gotta hold the left flipper as well to qualify it?

This is probably true of the briefcase (which I think they’ll change to save progress between balls, since six non-mode shots to the right orbit in one ball is pretty rough), but the other three Q modes will come up naturally in longer games because you’ll just happen to hit the pops or spinner or rocket enough times to qualify them.

I doubt it but I guess we'll see. How many EBs you guys getting in these games?!

Cause a 3 ball game, with EB turned off, well, I played 5 games and never saw the new modes and gave up and went and played 30 minutes of Stars.

I hope the reason these MBs “die” with ball drains is that it will eventually be timed with a rotating set of video clips showing Bond kill an adversary… that would be a way to make use of the theme and how it’s play is distinct.

It certainly "works" when you complete BJB and you get the introduction video clip...

Ok. I’m obviously not a great player because I’ve played about ten games in the new code, hit 200-500M most games but never got more than four right orbit shots on one ball and without any other mode or MB running. I got radioactive reconnaissance and Q’s Ring but no other gadgets. So, yes, I agree this is a tedious way to play. In my last game I activated four henchmen and five villains - without even really prioritizing them. Which brings me to the head scratcher with this 0.90 update:

One would assume getting the wizard mode multiballs after activating all henchmen or all villains would’ve been the coding priority… not some tedious and peripheral Q modes… but I guess this is how they build the game’s playing experience.

Levi Nayman has some great ideas. I hope GG is listening. 3 R orbit shots should light each Q-branch mode. ‘Nuff said. EACH Q-Branch mode should result in a 2-ball multiball when completed, but should never simply drain out to restart single-ball play. That’s LAZY coding. Roppish. And those multipliers change risk/reward on everything else, so they should have been coded from the start. And what’s with “hit the dildo a dozen times” to start anything? WE ALL HATE CHOPPING WOOD. You people are pinball designers. You should know this by now. JFC, people. Get with it.

The good news is the rocket hits don't reset between balls, so I'll have a better chance of getting Little Nellie. Or at least I would if my rocket was adjusted right. I was testing with the glass off because I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting any progress and realized I had to slap the dildo around to trigger hits. Felt dirty.

Does it actually show progress anywhere? I received zero feedback either in game or in instant info having anything to do with Little Nellie.

as far as I know, there is no little nellie code in this recent update. That's what I got out of playing 5 games.

But you guys say it exists so I guess I'll have to believe you.

Maybe I need to do a switch test on the dildo and see if it's working.

Yes, you should get screen updates. It also qualifies a currently useless Bond girl multiplier. I would check your rocket adjustment, maybe it is out of whack like mine.

Observation: I have had more balls bounce out of the trough and back into play than on any other pin with my Bond Premium. This is without trying to do a "Bang Back".

I kinda like how the flippers just die at the of the "Bond...James Bond" mode. Makes ot more excitng to try and get all.th3 shot in before its too late. Reminds me of Capcoms Kingpin.

Once things are adjusted I'll have to play more and test it out. I don't think 20 rocket hits in one game is out of line. If all you are focused on is starting that particular mode it is grindy, but you'll probably get that many in a decently long game. If the 6 orbit shots were per game, or you could also get them during modes it would feel less choppy as well.

Unfortunately there aren't any adjustments in the code yet to control how many hits to start these things, hopefully that will get added soon.

Yeah I like JBJ as it is. Trying to "beat the clock" is vintage Bond.

That code update was great.

This one probably shouldn't have been released. It wasn't ready.

Though maybe (hopefully) they'll find some of this feedback useful.

I watched the Deadflip stream of the new code last night hoping to see the 2 new Q modes but he never got them. If a player as good as Jack can't get them after almost 3 hours of play I don't think I'll ever see them LOL.

This. It would be great if in addition to playfield lights (blinking solid etc which can be confusing) the screen was more informative and had status updates of whats unlocked how far things are etc.

I feel ya, I may never see them... but my 13-year old got Little Nellie 3 times last night and completed it (achieved the multiball) on the third try...

I'm not a fan of any non wizard mode where the flippers die. That's not fun. Come on Stern, get creative.

Must be your set up. I haven't had this happen at all. I have mine set up pretty steep at 7+ degrees.

Has anyone actually figured out a way to adjust the sensitivity of the rocket triggers? Mine takes a pretty seriously solid shot to trigger, and I've looked underneath the playfield but really don't see how you could adjust the rocket or optos to change sensitivity. There are two different optos one for each "plane;" one of mine triggers easy enough, but the other only does with a pretty extreme movement.

With the big red flasher right next to the post, it seems logical to blip the flasher when it's letting loose. I wouldn't be surprised to see this added in a future release.

Do that, and don't have the ball release until the clip ends. I think the post dropping is just on a fixed timer, regardless of clip length.

With all the modes in this game, wouldn't it be interesting to be able to stack villain, henchmen, and q modes?

My machine has been showing a service warning that the opto on the rocket is not functioning. My pinball tech and I studied the matter, discovering that the opto does work if you move the rocket far more than a pinball ever could. So, yes, it seems the issue has to do with how sensitive the switch is - and it isn't sensitive at all. I think this is a hardware issue on these machines (obviously mine is not the only one).

I really want to be able to stack MBs with modes better than it does now. That seems like something that can be adjusted by the "easy. medium. hard" difficulty settings if not by each MB or mode.

That’s not always the way to go.

jJP games tend to stack EVERYTHING and it’s love it or hate it for folks.

Kind of feels like they designed the modes but kind of just, tossed them in for a code update, but didn't really think of properly integrating them into the flow of the gameplay

I just had to move my game and I forget what pitch it should be at

Mine is set to 7.0 fwiw

Anyone in Canada - Dollarama has these Spectre - 60th Anniversary games for $5. Picked up today at lunch!

20230421_123808 (resized).jpg

I heard waiting on the code updates on those board games is murder.

It's like Red Line Multiball on Hot Wheels. Frantic play to beat the clock then everything stops.

Yep, just scored it. Must be on a lower switch count or timer than the other lit skillshots. With an immediate hit off the plunge, it scores. If you go off the slings or anything else, it doesn't seem to.

So who knew the rocket actually did stuff? I spent some time fiddling with it when I was installing my ball trap kit.

In my case, the rocket was never triggering from a ball hit. There are two optos, Rocket opto 1 at the front, opto 2 at the back. I could get opto 1 to trigger if I pulled the rocket forward by hand, but couldn't do anything to get opto 2 to trigger. Lifted the playfield and blocked the opto with my finger, and it triggered, so no problem with the opto itself.

As Nicoholastree pointed out, there really isn't much mechanically you can do to adjust this, at least as far as I could see. The optos are screwed onto plate mounts, the rocket doesn't seem to have any sort of back/forth adjustment.

What I ended up doing was cutting a piece of thin foam weather stripping and positioned it on the rocket so that when the rocket rocked back far enough, the foam would block the opto triggering the hit.

Trickiest part was getting the foam in the right spot so that it wasn't so sensitive that nudging would set the rocket off. Seems to work okay now.

Total junk yard fix, I am going to send Stern support an email to see if they have any better suggestions or if adjustments were made later in the run for this. I have a first run Pro so maybe it was addressed late on.

I might get some hate for this but I just want this game to be amazing, Bond is a top 3 licence for me.

But we are now at .90 and is anyone really feeling all that confident at this point?

I’m starting to think Stern and George should really bring in some other coders to help get this game on course. A month or two with Elwin/Naegele on it could make a huge difference. Some fresh eyes are needed as it feels like the current team are out of ideas and struggling to make the game fun, repeated shots to the same orbit over and over is classic Lonnie.

I thought it turned the corner at .88 but I think .90 is mostly a nothingburger

Feeling pretty underwhelmed by this update. Get the frisking basics done before all this multihull nonsense. Lit q and it still was radioactive recon. Do t get me wrong it's the best thought out mods in the entire game but still nothing on the girls or coherent lighting of the film inserts.

If that test fails, remove from nightstand and perhaps change the batteries. ;>

Right now, you qualify different Q modes by different shots. Radioactive Recon is pop bumpers, Q's ring is spinner, Attache case right orbits and Little Nellie rocket hits. So if you are always seeing Radioactive, it is because you triggered enough pop bumpers first.

http://tiltforums.com/t/james-bond-007-rulesheet/7893

That’s not how it works.

If you brought in a new team to “help out” on code, they’d need to start from scratch. And that’s not gonna happen.

We must live in a world of reality. And our reality is the current team working on the game needs to finish it up and hopefully get it where it needs to be.