Might have been an unaddressed broken coil stop. Super common on Sterns, and robs a lot of power.

Just played at Enterrium Schaumburg and the game still feels very floaty and the flippers here did not feel snappy. They feel and play just like the Toy Story that is right next to it. Bummed out, I hope it is just not setup right but the Floaty feel I am not a fan of. Foo fighters is also here and plays much faster.

Other than that the game is fun to play.

If it's floaty, the playfield pitch isn't high enough ask the location to crank the back leg levelers a couple turns. Flipper feel should be similar to Toy Story 4 - they both have the new driver board. GnR and back have the older board.

The JJP flippers are certainly better than before but still not good. Play Godfather, then right after play a new stern and you immediately can feel the difference.

Fade/heat build aside, I think the flippers just feel different. I remember when Stern was regarded as trash when B/W was the common pin out there. Now Stern is the dominant pin brand in the market, it's the mental standard and reference point since that's the widest exposure people have on location.

I will say, however, that the place Stern has a clear advantage is heat management in flipper hold. Indisputable. They're the market leader by a mile in that department and deserve all the credit. Premium work with the sub-ms duty cycles no one has matched for YEARS.

^^interesting point ref Sterns heat management in flipper hold.
Now I wonder if JJP programmed GnR to stop you cradling the ball during songs for that very reason.

Somehow, Williams perfected flippers decades ago. What was JJP's problem?

I’m guessing it had something to do with the fact JJP system is basically a slow computer and Williams had their own dedicated system. You turn on a JJP game, it takes forever to boot up. Williams boots up in a few seconds.

Speed of the computer is not the issue. The JJP computer is much, much faster than the Williams MPU.
I believe flipper behavior is related to electrical behavior driven by HW on the driver board and software algorithm.

Bally/Williams machines still had fade issues in olden times. The games were just much shallower, and few people had them in homes.

Like I said before, I remember when B/W was still a thing, people used to look down on STERN'S flipper feel. But now it is the dominant maker, so it's flipped around. It's about what you're used to feeling, I think.

May be an attempt to keep the balls moving, but JJP uses dual wound coils (Stern does not) specifically so they have a low-power hold winding to (allegedly) address heat build in hold over time. But it doesn't really work and JJP, Spooky, AP, and to a lesser extent CGC have some of the highest temps over time for their flippers. I really think Stern's sub-ms duty cycle approach is the correct answer for managing heat in hold. I have NO IDEA why Multimorphic, JJP, AP, Spooky haven't adopted it, especially since JJP and Spooky have recently released revised driver boards that COULD have had the change.

Agree with that last post. The key to Stern's snappy flipper feel is very high power for a very short duty cycle, and as a byproduct that also leads to less heat buildup.

As for why the other manufacturers haven't addressed it - I'd guess they just have more important things to spend their limited time and effort on, than redesigning flipper parts and behavior for a niche detail that's only noticed by expert players in hourlong game sessions.

Question - what, physically speaking, actually makes heat result in less flipper strength? Does the coil's resistance increase for less power to flow through it? Shouldn't that be made up for with a longer duty cycle before the EOS engages after the same amount of physical travel? Or is there something else to it?

The duty cycle only really helps on the hold. The initial pulse (flip) has to be full power.

Yes, it's physics. More heat makes more resistance, which requires more power to do the same work, which makes more heat, rinse, repeat. If more power isn't available to overcome the resistance to the same level, you get less work for the same power - i.e. flipper fade.

There's an interactive demonstration of this here:

https://nationalmaglab.org/magnet-academy/watch-play/interactive-tutorials/heat-resistance/

I am uncertain they really changed that much. I think they changed the games so that the flipper crapness is less obvious. It's not just the flippers though, its generic across the mechs.

Yeah, it's not a HUGE change, but there is a change that's probably some software adjustment to go with a hardware change. The driver board changed a little with Toy Story 4. Definitely different. The coils still get hot, but the fade doesn't seem to feel as severe as GnR or jjPotC. I haven't temp tested Godfather yet to put a number or timeline to the heat/fade, but I expect to find temps high but moderately less than GnR.