What would you say is the worst designed part on any game?
Out of all the games I've worked on, I'm going to say the left ramp on Williams "Diner" takes the cake for me. That thing has to be absolutely perfect to function...
(Topic ID: 86883)
Linked Games
Addams Family, The
Bally, 1992-
Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, The
Data East, 1993
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Attack from Mars
Bally, 1995
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Batman (The Dark Knight)
Stern, 2008
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Congo
Williams, 1995
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Corvette
Bally, 1994
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Diner
Williams, 1990
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Fireball Classic
Bally, 1985
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Portland, OR
Vancouver, BC
Unknown
Always the hardest one to find a replacement.
But seriously, most every game will have that one damn part that was a mixture of too complicated, high friction(poorly designed), high impact location or highly used. Unfortunately they usually put them in the back or under a ramp where they are hard to reach.
Quoted from SealClubber:Unfortunately they usually put them in the back or under a ramp where they are hard to reach.
I am finding out the magnet core on Dirty Harry is such a case. Easy to get a replacement, but not so easy to replace. Especially if it will only come out the top. Everything must come off. When I get it back together, I will find out if it was worth it.
Melbourne
The TZ at Knoebels has the original clock still working strong!
Quoted from PEN:555 bulbs in recent games GI. What was the reason for that? Multibulb mode anyone?
Amen, brother
Funny...
This is the first thing that came to mind...and the Hulk
Quoted from ExtraCredits:The tesseract in the middle of the Avengers.
Quoted from Captive_Ball:Taxi spin out ramp....game is lost without it. Should have been made stronger to take a beating.
I agree (as a Taxi owner) that it's a poor part, but I don't think it would be nearly as bad if someon (ANYONE!!) would make a replacement!
Seriously, there has to be some $$$ available out there for this individual who will be immediately hailed as a pinball rock star.
A few I've encountered:
The center neutral zone target on ST:TNG bugs me big time with how poorly it registers even when you smack it dead center.
The time expander on Dr. Who jams, strips and always needs help, not to mention the self-activating switches.
Suprised no one mentioned ''Mick on a Stick" yet.
However, I'd say this one is the worst: VUK on Haunted House -- Not too many parts can actually set a machine on fire like this one!
Quoted from Gnatty:Williams system 3-7 board set. Yuck!
Yeah right.... besides the interconnect 3-7 issue, it is clearly the superior design. Beats Bally, stern, gtb from the same era.
add the wolverine bash toy to the list. I've seen a number of them with arms broken off and bases cracked
The piece of plastic behind the VUK in The Shire in LOTR. A ball comes screaming down that left wire-form and will occasionally jump off the ramp and crash into that plastic (does that make the ramp a poor design then)? I have seen many broken out there!
AFM SOL hole and MB mosh pit. Lack of $5 worth of metal causes a huge blown out hole in the play field in less time than it takes for the game to begin getting dirty.
The WPC driver board was also terrible for many reasons. Game resets being a big one.
The need for flat blade screwdriver on old Gottlieb games is quite frustrating.
IJ - Path of Adventure.
Can't be adjusted to go too far right, or it hits the ramp. Too far left, and it hits the guide at the side of the cabinet.
I'm not going to complain too much, though...IJ is still my favorite game, and the first game I ever owned.
(Actually, though...it's the HULK. Ball traps all day long, and it is a HORRIBLE design. It would be an easy fix, too...if they just let you set his arms a little bit higher so the ball would roll underneath freely. Ugh...did anyone playtest that game???)
Pete
The lost world Jurrasic Park snagger..
but the worst was the end of the Judge Dredd ramp.. find one of those not broken off!
Quoted from balboarules:but the worst was the end of the Judge Dredd ramp.. find one of those not broken off!
Mine is perfect! But, I put a cliffy on it just in case. 
TAF "bookcase" assembly. In fact, I'd argue that this is the biggest oversight in all of pinball, Here's why:
1.) The color. Solid blue? In a playfield covered by beautiful artwork you've got a brittle blue plastic circle with a brittle blue plastic rectangular structure jutting out from it that sticks out like, well, a big blue turd in a sea of awesome. The only thing that sticks out more on this machine is Thing's hand when he grabs your ball. But who knows, maybe the brittle blue box will fare well, it's not like it get's bashed often.
2.) Oh yeah, it's a brittle blue plastic bash toy! In order to start multiball you have to bash this brittle blue plastic obstruction 5 times. Splendid!
3.) Now you've got a broken bookcase assembly (if you can even call that disgusting blue box a bookcase, that's the biggest stretch of the imagination in pinball right there actually) because the assembly wasn't exactly flush with the play field and a stray soaring ball somehow managed to land on the plastic bit. Why are there speeding metal balls traveling across a 1/4" thick piece of plastic anyway? Couldn't they have just used a clear coated thin piece of circular wood? I mean they obviously cut a perfect size hole in EVERY single Addams Family machine ever made. Somewhere out there in a pile of scrap wood are a bunch of perfectly shaped wooden substitutes to this stupid blue plastic base.
4.) Great. You've got to replace the plastic base now because it's cracked and the ball bounces erratically all over the place when it hits the crack. All you need to do is follow the simple instructions below to disassemble and replace the piece of plastic. I'll wait for you below the image...
addams family bookcase assembly.PNG
So what route did you take? Did you remember to move the bookcase manually in the diagnostics menu before you took it out from under the play field? Oh sorry did I forget to mention that? That's right! The "bookcase" has to be not in either of it's two stationary states to get to the screws underneath it. It has to be in a quantum superposition between open and closed! HOW CONVENIENT! Just go ahead and reattach it and try again, I'll wait, AGAIN...
Alright, now that you've got the bookcase apart-wait... What's this...
The optos seem to be a bit too bulky to go through the top of this mechanical monstrosity-err "bookcase". Here's where it becomes a "choose-your-own-adventure" for replacing this piece of plastic. Do you unsolder the board from the top optos and pull the wiring harness out through the bottom? (Go to part A) Do you cut the wires and splice them back together somewhere farther down the harness because you're not completely confident with your soldering abilities yet, and when you started this you figured, "It's just a bit of plastic, how hard could this possibly be to replace?" (Go to part B) Or do you unpin the molex on the harness and pull it through the top of the assembly? (Go to part C)
A,B and C) You forgot to label the lines and accidentally reassembled them incorrectly. After putting everything back together and starting it up you are welcomed with a bookcase opto error (START OVER)
Now, you've managed to fix the mistake, the replaced bit of plastic is installed, and the assembly is functioning as intended. Congratulations! Do you want to play now? Surely it was just a fluke, I mean what are the odds that the 1/4" thick piece of plastic is going to be cracked by the speeding steel bearing, twice?! That's got to be, like one in a millio-... Dammit.
Quoted from dgoett:wow, do you have a distaste for the bookcase? lololol
Hahaha well I can look back at it and laugh now (hence the lengthy sarcastic diatribe above), but I spent hours trying to replace that stupid broken base and properly apply a decal so I didn't have to look at it anymore. There was little to no info on it, and honestly, that post probably explains in tongue-in-cheek detail how to replace it better than anything else I found.
A total mess. Absolutely brilliant idea for the machine! Just a terrible execution. Hope you enjoyed the rant though!
How about pop bumper lights? Why in 50 years has no one come up with a better way to light a pop bumper? If the skirt breaks, which they often do, it requires snipping the line, removing the socket, and then later soldering to fix. If you designed them with larger leg "holes", you could have connectors on the end. Parts that can easily break should require basic tools only to fix. At least, that's my operator biased opinion. 
Also, that jurassic park switch doesn't work in a lot of them because the bracket becomes loose. Jam something underneath it and it'll work again.
Quoted from CadillacMusic:How about pop bumper lights? Why in 50 years has no one come up with a better way to light a pop bumper? If the skirt breaks, which they often do, it requires snipping the line, removing the socket, and then later soldering to fix. If you designed them with larger leg "holes", you could have connectors on the end. Parts that can easily break should require basic tools only to fix. At least, that's my operator biased opinion.
Also, that Jurassic Park switch doesn't work in a lot of them because the bracket becomes loose. Jam something underneath it and it'll work again.
I think we have a winner.
Quoted from 320Gigabytes:TAF "bookcase" assembly. In fact, I'd argue that this is the biggest oversight in all of pinball...Surely it was just a fluke, I mean what are the odds that the 1/4" thick piece of plastic is going to be cracked by the speeding steel bearing, twice?! That's got to be, like one in a millio-... Dammit.
This is freakin' hilarious from start to finish.
Pop bumper light sockets are a never ending battle. But I would say design-wise, the kicker assembly in front of the goal on WCS94. The solenoid is 3" away from the centerline of the pivots so it pulls the non-replacable bushings at some horrible angle. Brilliant
Quoted from CadillacMusic:How about pop bumper lights? Why in 50 years has no one come up with a better way to light a pop bumper? If the skirt breaks, which they often do, it requires snipping the line, removing the socket, and then later soldering to fix. If you designed them with larger leg "holes", you could have connectors on the end. Parts that can easily break should require basic tools only to fix. At least, that's my operator biased opinion.
Also, that Jurassic Park switch doesn't work in a lot of them because the bracket becomes loose. Jam something underneath it and it'll work again.
Quoted from Erik:Stern fork microswitches like in lotr and tspp
That is a good one.
Here is one that bugs the shit out of me.... Early SS Bally high voltage section. When the transistors short(happens often) it pumps +50v more dc voltage to the displays than intended. This severely reduces the display life and makes burn spots. Operators probably just ignored it until all the displays cook. A home owner not paying attention could easily overlook this too if they don't have much to visually compare the displays too.
It took classic stern 4-5 years to fix this design, and bally never did fix it all the way through 1984. Over the years this has ruined countless numbers of plasma displays.
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