you can get a bruise in your hand without even getting a tilt warning on a game with a moderate tilt.

Exactly. And I'm sure his game looks no different then before he pushed the start button.

I encourage nudging in my hose. If you cant have a good game then nudge better.

My only rule is don't nudge past the tilt

"I have the tilt mechanisms removed on my own games at home" - Gary Stern

gary-stern-of-stern-pinball.jpg

I know someone who thinks that cradling the ball is cheating.

He's also a moron as it turns out.

Soft tender hands

A slap save is a form of nudging and is absolutely required on center trainers!

That because he don't know how to install it.

It is better to have nudged and lost, than to have never nudged at all.

I'm all for nudging, for me it's an essential part of the game.

But I do have a friend that arguments that tilt warnings are the same as yellow cards in soccer and the tilt itself id like a red card. Then he goes on arguing that yellow cards are given for doing something wrong, so nudging is wrong.

The only thing I don't like is people kicking and shoving the machines out of anger AFTER the ball has already drained.

So it seems like most of us are in agreement that nudging is an integral part of the game. How do you guys feel about a hard sideways shove to save a SDTM drain? I do this on my machines all the time. I can often save the ball with this technique, but it usually results in a double tilt warning. To me, this is a perfectly acceptable move, but I would be hesitant to do it on someone else's machine.

Flawed analogy is flawed, because broken logic is broken.

A more correct analogy would be a tilt warning is like getting hit by a turtle and going from super Mario to regular Mario, then a tilt is like getting hit again and losing your Mario.

You didn't do anything wrong. You made a mistake(exceeded the tilt tolerance), too many mistakes and you loose your ball.

I have had a couple people tell me this is cheating ...

We are venturing into the gray area, if they have their tilts set liberal on purpose then I say its fine to do so.
However if they don't have their machine appropriately set up, or are ignorant of such settings, I wouldn't.

If they have some phobia about nudging and have house rules about it they need to set their tilt conservative as hell with no warnings and problem solved. Good luck when multiball sets it off on its own

You cannot play a proper game of pinball without the nudge.

I would argue that your not getting full enjoyment out of playing pinball then.

The flipper was not introduced until 1947, till then the only way to manipulate the ball was to nudge and bump. Next to using the flippers, nudging is listed second in the playing techniques section on Wikipedia. The owner/operator can say don't nudge my machine by tightly adjusting the plum bob, learn to nudge playing with a tight plumb and you will get really good at it.

I apologize in advance if someone has already pointed this out

Nudging

Skillful players can influence the movement of the ball by nudging or bumping the pinball machine, a technique known as "nudging." There are tilt mechanisms which guard against excessive manipulation of this sort. The mechanisms generally include:

a grounded plumb bob centered in an electrified metal ring – when the machine is jostled too far or too hard, the bob contacts the ring, completing a circuit. The bob is usually cone-shaped allowing the operator to slide it vertically, controlling the sensitivity;
an electrified ball on a slight ramp with a grounded post at the top of the ramp – when the front of the machine is lifted (literally, tilted) too high, the ball rolls to the top of the ramp and completes the circuit; and
an impact sensor – usually located on the coin door, the playfield and/or the cabinet itself.

When one of these sensors is activated, the game registers a "tilt" and locks out, disabling solenoids for the flippers and other playfield systems so that the ball can do nothing other than roll down the playfield to the drain. A tilt will usually result in the loss of bonus points earned by the player during that ball. Older games would immediately end the ball in play on a tilt. Modern games give tilt warnings before sacrificing the ball in play. The number of tilt warnings can be adjusted by the operator of the machine. Until recently most games also had a "slam tilt" switch which guarded against kicking or slamming the coin mechanism, or for overly aggressive behavior with the machine, which could give a false indication that a coin had been inserted, thereby giving a free game or credit. This feature was recently taken out by default in new Stern S.A.M System games,[citation needed] but can be added as an option. A slam tilt will typically end the current game for all players.

Have no idea, but part of the enjoyment is saving a ball from an outlane etc. I guess I just don't believe you did that without any nudging. Unless it's on 5 balls and easy difficulty.

Exactly, that's what tilt is for. Set your tilts tight if you want, I have no problem with that.

The difference between nudging and a tilt is the word EXCESSIVE. That's why you have adjustment mechanical or through software for this basic feature that is the essence of pinball.

Do they allow nudging in all the major pinball circuits and leagues? Yes, so it's not cheating according to all the organizations that matter. Case closed.

As far as I know flippers are either on or off. They don't work like a gas pedal or something like that. While you can take some of the power off by cutting the "on" duration short, I don't think there is any way to add power.

Yes. It's on or off...and not how you hit the button but WHEN. Timing is everything.

Agreed, I do think pulling your hand completely off the buttons and slapping them back into the buttons is inefficient and harder to time though.

I'm fricking awful at nudging and would probably do better if it weren't allowed as I screw myself with it so often.

That said, of course it is part of the game.

See "Theres No Place Like Home," and "The Path of the Dead."

When playing with my wife, she says I'm cheating when I nudge. lol
She knows that's not true, she's just frustrated that she isn't strong enough to do it effectively.

Your friend's analogy is almost perfect actually. The only thing he needs to be corrected on is that any nudging that doesn't result in a warning (yellow card) is perfectly legal.

The *tilt* is the penalty. The *tilt warning* is the referee coming over and telling you that if you are any rougher, you'll be getting penalized.

I guess his point is that i hardly ever make it through a game without at least one tilt warning...

My problem is when I'm at his place it's extremely difficult for me to watch the ball drain without nudging. In the heat of the battle I also sometimes forget his rules and just react (nudge) without thinking.

I didn't nudge very much before last year. I saw some pretty good players playing my Metallica at CAX last year, and they were slapping the crap out of it. I have since tried to emulate their play, but my scores are still terrible. I do have more fun playing though, so there is that.

This is most likely because when you hit the button hard you're actually moving the machine (ie nudging) as well, so the force on the ball = force of the coil + force of the nudge. Similar principle to a slap save; hitting the button harder doesn't make the flipper longer, it just moves the flipper closer to the ball.

I'm a player that enjoys pinball. I don't aggressively nudge, slide or beat on games (my own or anyone elses). I'm especially respectful of other pinhead's games. If I drain 3 balls... I simply hit the "start game" button.

I own quite a few games (25+). I've put on many pin parties / events. I really enjoy sharing my collection with friends, scouts and soccer teams (6 years as coach). However, I'm not happy with people who abuse my games. I've had people shake them so hard its gouged / wrinkled my new cabinet decals

On party events; I've placed small signs on lock down bar "Please enjoy my games / don't Shake them". I also tighten up the legs bolts and tilt bobs... it only takes one hard / aggressive nudge / shake to do damage. I had a guy shake my White Water *so hard* it wrinkled all 4 legs. I just completed the restoration just 2 weeks prior.

I love watching good players dealing with a tight tilt and still be able to nudge when necessary. Living on the edge...

No need to be a dick about it. Don't nudge all you want, just don't invite me over to play.

Put the right protection on your legs. Spending that kind of money and not doing the metal 'inserts' for 15 bucks is a mistake imo.

Last time I nudged I heard

Cheating makes baby Jesus cry!

When I would play machines that had extremely slow bonus count scoring, sometimes I would purposefully push the machine just hard enough to tilt after draining a bad ball so that I didn't have to wait through its whole end-of-ball sequence for a pathetic amount of points.

I say if they are not yours and the owner doesn't like it then ease back and suggest they tighten the tilt.
Nudge the damn things for god sake.
Pinball without nudge = hotdog without sauce.

My tilts are set properly, beat on my shit and your games will be short. But please, employ proper pinball skills and nudge all day. You'll be fine I promise, so will I and my pins.

If they weren't meant to move there would be no legs at all, they'd be all cabinet to the floor like VG cabs are.

If the decal wrinkling part worries you, why are you not using some kind of leg/cab protectors, just in case someone is a bit over-motivated? Actually, after some years in this hobby i've never met anyone not using protectors.

My machines are usually either re-decaled or have very good original decals. The pins are nudged, slap saved and even slide saved heavily and there is no sign of decal wrinkling at all.

I also don't use any kind of casters under the legs as they kind of "stick" the legs to the floor shifting the complete pressure from nudging from the leg/floor connection to the leg/cab connection. The legs need to be able to easily slide on the floor, otherwise you are unnecessarily stressing the leg/cab joint.

Speaking about nudging,has anybody ever hurt or gotten a sore side or pulled a mussel by nudging up a modern heavy pinball machine

Very true.
I also think that if the joint is firmly bonded with the leg screws that there is virtually no movement of the leg against a decal. It would certainly be worse for games where the legs are loose and rubbing on the cabinet to wrinkle a decal. I've seen many old games with original decals and no "protectors" that are are not wrinkled.

Nudging is WRONG! Don't do it!!!

PS: please play against me for money

Nudging is for amateurs. Sliding is where it's at. Much harder to master the slide without tilting. When I play in local tournaments, I always take note of the floor surface. Smooth tile and any polished surface are ideal for sliding. You just have to make sure that you don't slide into the game next to you. I've had some pretty epic slides in tournaments that didn't tilt. You also need to know what game you're playing. You don't want to tilt BSD on ball 3 when you got 50min on bats during ball 1.

That being said, I would never go to someone else's place and slide (or aggressively nudge) their machines...unless they do it first.

My elbow gets sore quite often from pulling on my tftc... My muscles don't get sore but the tendons in my elbow do. I have rubber shoes for the feet on my machine and it does not slide or move.