A few people I know do this and it always amazes me that they don't tilt more because that bob has to be swinging the entire time they are playing.

I just press the flipper buttons in too hard, especially during multiball. I never shake the machine from it, just hurts my hands after doing it all day.

ah well, these people physically shove the machine forward EVERY TIME they flip. It isn't violent or anything but the backbox is always wiggling from it.

Bumping, nudging and slide saving are part of the game. I think it's comical when someone has no tilts on their games and then yell at me for shaking the game too hard. The whole point of the tilt is to control the amount of nudge. If I'm really getting into a game I will keep testing out the tilt by nudging harder. I'm not trying to abuse someone's machine. It's just how you play the game. Punching, kicking anger tilting is uncalled for though. People that do these things just look like complete morons. Why take your tilt off anyway?

haha. That's like those people that used to play Nintendo and thrust the controller up in the air every time they pressed the jump button like it was going to make them jump higher.

Another bad habit is holding the flipper in when I am attempting a long accurate shot. I get bounce back drains that would've dead bounced if I just would've let go of the flipper after hitting the ball.

I agree with this! It's only pinball, the ball WILL go down the center or down an outlane at some point, Yes, sometimes way too soon, get over it. It is really annoying being next to someone in a league setting or even free play that does this, interrupts your attention and affects your play. A recent poll on how to get women in PAPA brought out many discussions around player etiquette being a reason many women don't play in a league or tournament.

I watch how people play before inviting them to my house. Also pretty clear about my expectations and don't hestitate to let someone know if they are going over the line.

To those who abuse machines, keep doing it and no one will bring their games to shows or invite you to play.

I don't hold back on the slap or slide saves, I nudge constantly. I'll put up the good fight to keep my ball alive. But I almost never get tilts. But, I am always shocked by how much rougher some players are out there are. Always. The angry jerks that throw tantrums make my blood boil. It makes me Hulk angry. I just have no tolerance for people that have no respect for other people's property. I would love to try to get into putting pinball on location, just for run really. But I just don't think I ever could, exactly for that reason.

I would never treat a game that I owned that way, and most certainly would not come close to doing that to another person's property (including an already beat up game on route). Basically I always treat other people's stuff better than I would treat my own (not just pinball games, but rental cars, houses I've rented, whatever) and I've got no desire to damage my own stuff (or even come close).

But then I'm also the fool that goes out every morning, and cleans up litter around my neighborhood while walking the dog (pissing and moaning the whole time). But that pisses me off less than just seeing all the litter laying around.

Wow I'm so guilty of that too.
Messes me up even more when a game has an extra flipper on the upper playfield.

Seeing that you have a funhouse, I bet you get a lot of your backhands you try to hit up the left ramp end up hitting the bottom of the upper flipper like me haha.

So consensus seems to be that as a whole the tournament players are the biggest abusers.

Yup! lol
Banzai Run too, has that wonderful upper flipper on the right side.
If only I let go quicker lol
Then of course I give the machine an elbow drop to teach it a lesson lol...jk

Probably, but they have more at stake than a casual game between friends, so it's understandable why they'd get more worked up when they lose a ball or work harder to try to save it.

I don't mind nudges, but pointlessly rough handling of my games is not tolerated.

Right, because most people are intently observing non-tournament players, right? Observer error. Almost everyone I've ever seen in the TPF tournament area is far more respectful of the games than people that are out on the floor......never seen anyone pick up and drop a game in the tournament area there, as opposed to what several people told me was done to my Space Shuttle the first year I took it, lol.

Even on location last week, I saw someone doing the ol' PALM SLAM ball launch on a brand new TWD, it's like yeah, you moron, you know there's a spring there for a reason right, and it's not to protect your hand.

I think people playing routed pins are bad too. They see that the bar doesn't even own the pin, so they just abuse away. I have had bartenders/owners tell me to lift up the machine and slam it down to free a stuck ball.

I have since gotten the contact info of the op to personally email him when there is an issue with the machine. I have found contacting the op directly keeps the pin that is on route in much better shape.

Don't shoot the messenger Frax....that just appears to be the consensus. Not sure what there is to disagree with. By far and away the most aggressive players I've come across have been the tournament players......and this thread appears to confirm that.

Lol, Banzai Run gets me all the time w/ the upper right flipper. God damn you yellow beard!

Well I would agree that "routed" pins take the most abuse by far. But we are talking about "Expo" pins here. Peoples private collection pins getting abused at events.

I'm not, but I don't think that casual players are being watched nearly as closely, which probably leads to a vast disparity of seen vs. unseen behavior. I don't hover over all my games at TPF, I'm in the tournament area or playing pinball.

Oh yeah, my bad. Kind of got off topic. Then yeah, the tourney players seem to be the ones to shell out most of the abuse. I guess they have more at stake, but the over the top rage nudging is just absurd and uncalled for.

Absolutely we are. I move the machine quite a bit, nudging, palm slamming, slap saves, Detroit slides, outlane shimmy, occasional rage tilt yada yada.
Pretty basic that you'd get more "abuse" (A term I don't think most of us would find concensus in defining) in an event that "means more" than just playing with your buddies for fun.
Make the after ball bonus worth more and that will stop some of it.

EDIT: I don't bang back anymore though...that's a bit much...and cheap.

So maybe the solution would be to have games like DM, IJ, and others that can have massive end of ball bonuses as tourney games. I don't have any experience with tournaments, those might be too easy for tournament goers.

Also, are people seeing any machine abuse in the classics division? Those Early SS games are very bonus heavy.

No, the solution is still to have a tight tilt.

Guarantee you that if someone had shoved a game hard enough to bend a leg at TPF, they would've been removed from the gameroom and disqualified from the tournament..

That's my point...no one does it in classics because the bonus is the whole damn game. You wanna see some "kid gloves," that's where to look.

TS is another example. Most games can be set up hard enough to make them not "too easy."

Agreed, but I assume what everyone is really complaining aboot is rage shaking...which happens after you tilt anyway. If I move a machine 4 inches, and it doesn't tilt and it's a great save, I earned that. <-- that actually just happened in a tournament I was in...double warning and all was good.
Players love that stuff...I wonder if everyone around here would be disgusted by it

I say no tilt, no issues. Assuming there is a reasonable tilt sensitivity set on the machine. The legs should never leave the ground, and the glass, coin door, or lockdown bar should never be bashed. That is just crybabies whining about their ball draining.

Agreed on legs fo sho. Lockdown bar is continually smacked my players all the time, I don't see an issue with it unless it's the fist on the bar...which is probably what you meant anyway.

But I still do that time to time...not cool frustration. Only seen 1 glass broken that way though, whcih is 1 too many

I'm a cronic lock-down-bar slapper. I don't wear rings or anything, but it's a habit I learned, and I can't shake. I'm quite sure nothing harmful is happening at all to the games I play, but I do this. I just slapped Astorpin's A13 a couple times last Sunday. That stupid bitch of a game!

I would be interested to hear any unusual displays of frustration that people have done themselves or seen others do. Take for instance, I never bash or rage shake the machine obviously, but I tend to slap the ball of my right foot on the ground, and belt out a PG made up cuss word (my seven year old likes to watch me play). Pretty weird I know haha.

People that can't contain themselves, especially repeatedly, need to be ejected, end of story. Also, a tighter tilt may cause them to tilt-through on the next player, which is definitely an automatic disqualify anywhere that's respectable. Nobody's perfect, and yeah, sometimes extremely tight tilts don't behave as expected. At most I would give these people one warning, and that's assuming they did no actual harm to the game.

That said, my wife will shake the crap out of Metallica and I've very literally hurt myself on the games I have at home (AND the games laughed at me as I did it....completely undamaged.) in frustration...have yet to have ever damaged them, so I really just don't get these mongoloids you guys are talking about. I'm a pretty bulky dude and if I've never even so much as dinged a lockdown bar...these guys must be freakin' Hercules to do stuff like bend legs!

I tried to do a bangback once on my STTNG, slammed my palm into the raised edge of the coin door instead of the lockdown bar or the cabinet...

Have security walk around with a old car antenna for a smack to the back of the neck.

See rage shaking regularly (you know whom I'm talking aboot Gravitar )
, I don't do it too much anymore but from time to time I do. Heavy swearing, yelling, hat throwing, all things I see from many players, sometimes kicking a leg.

Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks. All depends on how relaxed your tourny/leagues are. Leagues are more relaxed so more shit gets let go; eXpecially since everyone knows everyone.

You also have the thing of tournament players knowing what the outcome of something is. What do i care if someone shakes their tilt away, it's not going to hurt the game. gets put under 100 more stress moving the game to the location.

But umm yeah....how you bend a leg I don;t even see how that's possible. Pick up 3 legs and push the whole machine back? That's one big hombre` there.

"So consensus seems to be that as a whole the tournament players are the biggest abusers."

I've only been to the Denver show and a few owners' homes, but the worst stuff I've seen was from people in non-tourney games generally. Some reasonable nudging and even slap saves with no jewelry or rings on doesn't bother me. But seeing people kick, hit, or do other violence to any pinball machine really gets me riled up. I generally do only a little gentle nudging when it's not my game especially at a show or a house setting.

Yeah, all good stuff I agree with. I hate seeing unnecessary abuse/rage - basically anything physical done to a machine that is not doing anything to keep the ball in play. Don't like seeing bang backs either even if they do keep the ball in play, this is something I'll just never even try to learn.

I think there was a point for a couple of weeks in my pinball life where I started pushing my machines out of rage upon draining when they were being repeatedly nasty to me, but I realized it was pointless and stupid. I also saw some other players doing this after every single ball drain and realized what tools they looked like. So instead of getting mad I now redirect my emotion to disappointment on ball end and hang my head in shame to save the machine the abuse.

It's funny to read the wedding ring slap save comment as well, as I pretty much took my wedding band off for good once I brought some machines into my house. Even without the slaps I just worry it will scuff the machine (and the band) up eventually. I always treat other people's machines better than my own as well, and even with my own I am very mindful to do nothing to them that will actually cause cosmetic damage, even a small scratch - I like to keep everything minty.

It's actually taken me the couple of years of playing to work the courage up to regularly slap and nudge and even slide a machine around hard enough to have some success in tournaments. If you are playing opponents in a pub with loose tilt on a tile floor and everyone is slide saving and it seems to be accepted behaviour, it's just something you have to do to keep in the race and there really isn't any harm in it. At these same pub tournaments I've seen operators treat their machines WAY worse than I would ever treat a machine to free a stuck ball, etc. Their machine, so their choice, but in general the on-location pub playing crowd that likely doesn't own a machine of their own that seems to treat the machines worse around where I play.

I was also just watching some expo tournament qualifying coverage and saw some strange behaviour I'd never seen at any other tournament. It seemed many players who were going to have a void result would intentionally tilt the machine before walking away. While I don't think the machine is suffering any damage from this, it sure seemed like an A-hole thing to do to the next player up to leave the tilt bob swinging like that, perhaps to gain a competitive advantage. Just curious why this was rampant at expo, and I didn't see this happen once at two other circuit events I played at? I hope it's not some kind of new trend.

Yes, a new trend to maximize one's standings.

Really?

I mean, we do it at home as kind of a F YOU to the game itself after a really brutal drain, but....lol @ the idiot intentionally losing points in any way in a tournament....would never even occur to me to use that to get the bob swinging to screw with other people. Unreal.

And that's the point of this whole thread, really.

Yes, putting your hand through the glass or kicking the legs can cause damage.

But hitting the lockdown bar? The thick metal thing attached to some other metal things? That's supposed to be a problem?

Really? Exactly what damage do you think that'll cause?

Same question for sliding a game on tiles--what problem do you think this will cause?

I think the reason you see operators of routed games move the game around more or 'abuse' them more than home owners do is that they understand that pinball machines aren't made out of paper. The wear-and-tear from these behaviours just isn't relevant.

Just because someone puts plastic plates in their china cabinet doesn't make them as fragile as china.

Agree.

Well my point is, if a meat head hot head slams his fists on the lockdown bar, let's say he doesn't hit it on the front and hits it closer to the glass. Boom. Shattered glass. The point is, it's uncalled for, and just a crybaby move that has no place or purpose. Nothing good comes from it.

Of course it doesn't, that's what they're designed for.

Doesn't matter if you're voiding the ticket.

But like Excalabur said, they'll always be 2 types of people; Players, and diaper rubbers. I totally get knowing you're environment and having respect. If I go to PMWolf's party, I am certain(t)ly mellow as can be, and kid gloves are on, because that isn't how he roles. And if you're in the general gameplay area at ashow, you should for sure be nice on machines, cause people are going out of their way to help the hobby.
That being said, tournament playing is not a hobby, it's a sport; and tempers flare in all sports. Don't put your machine in the tournament area and expect it to not be played & played hard.

Somebody Detroit slides a machine and it's a crime....Bowen does it on a video and everyone thinks it's awesome.

When I have a few too many drinks or get way too involved I move the game too much or slap the side too hard

I instantly feel like a doucher & scold myself personally

After I look around & say "shhhh I didn't mean that" to any witnesses

99% of the time I'm a perfect angle tho

Crazy, would hate to see that kind of abuse on mine, but it's not going to get hauled to a show any time soon. All my tilts are tightly set, I bet a gentle nudge may cause it to tilt.

Tim

Not sure how bad tournaments are but Thanksgiving at my house with 15 kids from 5-16 running around the basement with cups of soda (which they're not supposed to have), smacking the flippers as hard as they can with hands that haven't been washed since Halloween...
Do I sound anal.

Among the mostly non-tournament players here, yes that seems to be the consensus. Doesn't make it true.

I find it amusing that moves like bang backs and kick saves are considered especially egregious examples of abuse. Rick Stetta does the smoothest bang backs you'll ever see and never damages games. If you saw how smooth he does them, you wouldn't mind him doing them on your games (like he sometimes does on my games). I once saw Neil Shatz do the smoothest kick save I've ever seen. Neil's a soccer player and he was getting kinda bored of the location game, so he did a kick save. It took very little effort and didn't leave as much as a smudge on the leg. How little effort it took and how stupid easy he made it look was ridiculous. It was a showoff move, like a bang back or death save, not abuse. Neil did it out of boredom. Can't recall the title, which seems about right.

Yes, generally speaking tournament players are going to push the game more than casual players. That's kinda the deal. Test the tilt until you find the limit, then stay just under that. The really good players 'cheat' a lot more stealthily than mid-pack players. Besides the Stetta and Shatz examples above, watch any Bowen tutorial where he does a death save. He's very good at them. Bang backs, death saves and even kick saves aren't abuse if done properly. Worth noting that all those guys cut their teeth playing on location. A better generalization than what I quoted above would be to say location players 'are the biggest abusers'.

That's pretty fair. Tons of players started location playing becasue the "new breed" younger players are still coming up. Just think, all the tournament tops will be diaper rubbers in 20 years mostly playing HOU...a term i never heard until I came here.

Has anyone seen glass break from being smacked or hit? I'm not talking about intentionally trying to break the glass, but the end of ball "rage" smack that some do. It sounds bad, but it seems it would take a lot to break tempered glass in this manner. I still think it's a dick move if it's not your pin, but these are commercial machines.

Moving the machine is part of playing pinball. I've noticed I tilt quite a bit when I play games on location or at other people's houses. I must have my tilts set pretty liberally.

Back in the late 90s we were playing in a league and my brother slammed his fist on the lockdown and the glass shattered. The guy running the league came over to talk to my brother and he was shit scared...no one ever saw something like this. My brother said
"Dude I'm so sorry I didn't even know that could happen."
"That's OK, things happen, but unfortunately I'm going to have to give you a zero on this machine....go ahead and play the next one."

And in fact I already said that.

This thread was about peoples personal machines getting abused at EXPO's. That's what I was referring to. A lot of discussion had to do with angry reactions to losing the ball, not your typical "slap, nudge, slide action you see in tournaments that does not fully tilt the machine.

Did it knock the coin mechs out?

(Too soon?)

Juuuuust right.