Technology is fantastic. I think this will be very interesting to see how this grows into the hobby.Sharing legitimate high scores captured from the machine and competing from home is right up my alley.
-Mike

It would be really neat if you could have an online leaderboard like they do with The Pinball Arcade (when it works). Only issue would be how to prevent playing with the glass off...

1 drop of oil on a spinner would mean that two machines don't compare. But the ability to get inside the machine remotely will be good and i can see a lot of other things may come from the technology.

This topic has come up a lot over the years, and we always rehash the same arguments.

My fundamental feeling is you can't compare games. Even the same machine can play differently from week to week. Dirty and needs a shop vs freshly waxed alone is gonna play differently.

I understand the appeal, but to me at least if you want to compete with someone you gotta be there, on the same game, playing at the same time. Anything else just introduces so many variables that kills the legitimacy of the competition for me. You want to do it for fun and don't care? Hey cool. But it seems somewhat pointless to me really.

But maybe I'm missing different possibilities, I'm open to learning more. Just feels like that basic "compete over the internet" part is built upon a shaky foundation, whether it's my machine vs your machine, or me vs you on the same game on location but at different times.

No chance any "high scores" are taken seriously. The tech aspect of retrieving information from the game remotely can be helpful, but the leaderboards will be choked with bogus scores and nonsense...

Glass off anyone?

I think there is room for both. I surely love to play against people on location but I’m not always able to. When it comes to home games I tend to think people take care of them and maintain them well. The incentive of beating others can also be a good drive to wax and clean and put the best chances on your side.

For locations, it also triggers my excitement as I’ve always wanted to confront my skills with a wider group than my local peeps.

The best analogy I can find is Street Fighter 2, I thought I was really good at it, used to beat pretty much everyone at my local arcade. Then Capcom brought it online and started worldwide tournaments, I took a huge slap (well my ego surely did) playing against people in Japan and went back to training sessions in a (somewhat desperate) hope to beat them.

All together there is a new spark in pinball and I see initiatives like the Scorbitron as a good way to spread our passion and make pinball great again.

That's not the issue. Game to game to game, they don't play the same. It's not about being maintained, it's just the nature of the beast. Have you ever gone to a location or someone's house and played their Pinball Party or WOZ and it feels different? The kickout of a saucer doesn't go where you thought, or the pitch is a little different, it's faster, or has more side to side action, or the flippers feel a little weaker, that ramp shot you usually nail is harder? Some games play easier, some play harder, even when they're not set up that different. And realistically they probably are set up different, everyone like to tweak the pitch and settings.

I play a lot of Street Fighter myself. When I play people, online or offline, we're playing the same game. I don't have to worry that they have faster frames, or that their DP comes out a little slower or anything else. When there's one sided lag though? That sucks, and it's no longer a fair fight, and sucks the fun out of it. That's the concern. When things aren't equal they aren't really competitive any longer.

Anyways, I'm talking to one of the devs in another thread and it sounds like this aspect isn't maybe their focus. Curious to see where it goes, that's just my concern when I hear this stuff.

I agree with you on differences in games, but there is already a scoreboard on Pinside and people post their scores on a daily basis, so getting that more automated is definitely a good idea imho. We’re not talking official tournaments and critical ranking there, but removing the relative solitude of a pinball player at home has some charms.

Completely agree. Compete over the internet is a fundamentally flawed reason to have pinball machines have internet access. People cheat and it would just turn into a massive cheat fest because legitimate players would just get tired of it and stop competing online.

I'm a little concerned about the final cost of the product; which they aren't being forth coming about. The initial deposit is a reasonable $25... which makes me think the final given the number of ports on it will be north of 250. I'm going to wait for some real pricing and maybe even some reviews before signing up.

That said; for me, this is more about keeping score - long term due to firmware upgrades and block parties. I'm not really interesting in internet contests... just maybe a website with high scores for my friends to keep track of their progress.

That would be neat.

Algorithm needed to snuff out potential cheaters. Still not bullet proof.

Meh

I think it’s a good idea.

I think it would be cool to see your highest scores, lowest scores and averages. I would also like to see an achievement based system like Xbox, PS, steam etc. it could give you something more to play for at home.

If someone needs to cheat to be on top of an online pinball leaderboard for some self esteem, let them.

Using the system for fun and friendly competition with friends is a lot easier.

There won’t ever be a system that would make playing a pinball machine against someone on another machine fair. Even if it’s not online. So let the cheaters cheat and don’t use it for anything serious.

It depends on the stakes. Professional sports all over the world compete. They establish a standard framework, then expect the teams and referees to carry out that framework. Events happen in a wide variety of conditions, some even offer home court advantage.

So in a sense I agree but if your definition of "differently" is sufficiently narrow then every competition ever has played "differently". I think in a broader sense the question is can we make competitions on different machines in different locations 'same enough' to have a meaningful competition. I think the answer is yes but it may require changes to how we hold competitions today.

Can you name one example that works like this, I can’t think of one.

All physical sports are head to head that I can think of, same play field. Closest example I can think of is maybe bowling side by side lanes?

All eSports have level playing fields, same conditions for all players.

Really can’t think of where your thought applies.

It’s one of the things that makes pinball a difficult thing to grow competitively, there really isn’t much in the way of true head to head play. It’s you vs the machine in the end.

Every high score

C585F4E5-2245-4C30-8929-A16882F48045 (resized).jpeg

Nearly every organized competition. NBA, NHL, even non-sports like baseball and golf. They have a common framework used to compare events in different arenas, players, referees, weather conditions. Every organizing body sets a common framework in their rules, knowing there will be differences in many factors.

A cheap device , and some clever coders engaged, this device can monitor many parameters to eliminate cheats.

https://au.rs-online.com/web/c/semiconductors/sensor-ics/accelerometer-sensors/

High end gear

https://www.microstrain.com/content/3dm-gx5-15-vru

They are used in equipment I work with and can assure these devices are incredibly accurate.

Detailed background coding is required though.
lrd (resized).JPG

So NBA teams play each other over the Internet from different arenas? What's next? Linking pool tables or ping pong over the Internet?

Seriously I can see maybe for operators to remote monitor, diagnostics, tournaments, software updates, etc. But not for home use; at least not in my home.

All playing at the same time in the same place in the same conditions though. Not really relevant.

NBA events are held at more than thirty different locations throughout their season. Only about thirty of the five hundred or so players are in the same place at the same time.

You seem to have a rigid view of what constitutes a competition. As the capabilities of our equipment change, the nature of our competition may change too. Time will tell.

Imagine playing at home with your game that is connected to stern’s internet. You have an amazing game, and at the end of your game, instead of just a match sequence, you now also get a special message. It says congratulations, because you have done so well on this game you’ve been invited to play in the pinball tournament in your local area.

Ok I’m just dreaming... there’s lots of problems with connected games. I doubt it has anything to do with game play or high scores. My assumption is this would be used by operators to diagnose problems remotely

To me, this is where I see this being exciting: getting tournament play at a single location streamlined. Imagine a high-end pinball location where a bunch (or all) the machines are setup for streaming beforehand and players (1,2,3,4) are assigned beforehand with the scores updated real-time to their players in the system. Seems dreamy to me.

LOL. You are completely not getting his point.

Maybe a better example could be cycling in a velodrome. The buildings location (height above sea level) depends how well athletes do as much as the surface material of the track. That’s why there are multiple record times, depending on the venue that you trained in. (A record in building “a” is not comparable to a record in building “b”, but a good showing in any building will get you invited to a bigger competition)

But once you reach the Olympics all the competitors race on the same track, regardless of where they trained.

This is exactly what scorebit does. Along with seeing the 4 players that are up, their scores will always be shown and the current players score will update in real time. No more wondering what the current scores are.

Pindigo already exists and is a fabulous app I use during League all the time!! It keeps track and shows you a very cool chart of your scores. You can use that to analyze your skill and make notes of each score you obtain.

I’m not their spokesman, I just like giving credit to people who are constantly working to make pinball better and who have released such an amazing app with constant updates. I believe their next goal is league integration so you can setup tournaments and leagues and have plays imputing scores directly and uploading it to IFPA.

I encourage everyone who’s excited about online leaderboards to check it out. It’s everything you wanted in pinball, and the best players with the highest scores typically have streamed proof of that score.

I don’t the the ifpa will ever sanction events that aren’t in person with direct play components.

I meant that kinda like now, how you can be on the IFPA mobile website and upload scores during each heat at an event, using Pindigo you could do the same thing which might be easier for each player

Still not sure what you mean. Do you have experience with Matchplay? It’s been used for players submitting their own scores and results for tournaments for years.

Do you enter every score or just new high scores?

I'm just glad to see that Ed Cheung is still around in pinball. That dude is the bomb, for everything he did for Space Shuttle owners over the years, before things like repro playfields and shuttle toys were available.

Won't be IFPA. The whole reason that 'selfie leagues' were removed from official rankings sanctioning would be more than enough to justify not accepting internet scores for tournaments. You have me play your game on a game you're bad on, then enter your initials. You do the same for me on a game I'm terrible at. We both get to go to finals, and agree to split the prize if one of us wins. People just can't be held accountable in situations like these, and WILL find a way to exploit it.

One thing I like about pinball is that it's kind of old tech. I know there is lots of technology driving the game but largely it's a batting around a steel ball into switches. Other people's high scores don't mean much to me. Like others said, games can play so different and there is a lot you can do to change how a game plays like pitch, removing tilt bob, changing game settings, opening/closing outlanes, glass off, and more. Even if you could control those factors, you can still block the outlanes or have a faulty switch that awards points erroneously.

Selfie leagues are still sanctioned. They just only generate WPPRs for the finals portion, the selfie part is used for seeding.
https://www.ifpapinball.com/menu/ranking-info/

Can you slice that truffle a little thinner, I can't see through it yet..lol...

Seriously though, you know what I mean. While seeding can offer a small-or-not advantage in a tournament, those scores aren't being used to determine actual matches, just as you wouldn't use scores from tables that could be set up any which-way to do so. Do I think IFPA would allow use of Scorbit in the same way selfies are? Sure...because it's still confined to one location, where the finals will presumably take place (is that kosher or not to have finals elsewhere...seems shitty to me to do that...but people.) but do I want to be seeded against Joe Schmoe that took the glass off his LOTR at home and 'got to Valinor'...nope. ifpapinball chime in, this is really interesting.

Absolutely pointless tech. It can only work effectively for virtual pinball and even then you won't get anywhere near the top 20. Some people are beyond competitive and post scores you can't even dream of. At least at home you can feel good and be a winner. Online you'll only ever be a loser.

Yes that’s what I was talking about. As far as I was told at a tournament, matchplay is directly linked with IFPA? They even use your IFPA number to record the score and you can do the same on Pindigo. Matchplay doesn’t have an app but Pindigo does.

Just found this thread from months ago.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/scorbit-official-thread

Matchplay generates & tracks ratings independently from the IFPA. Two totally separate systems. Matchplay uses the IFPA API to pull your IFPA number and associate it with your Matchplay name so when the TD submits results they are less likely to have to look up a bunch of player numbers. Matchplay's website runs in a browser so there is no need for an app.

I don't know what Andreas had in mind with the Matchplay ratings. The IFPA system has its weaknesses, maybe he's just generating data to see how he might improve them?

I use Pindigo to track what machines I've played. It has a lot of functionality besides that and I think it's a great app.

To be better and more easily understood than the IFPA ratings which weren't really an exact science. I think the ifpa ratings have been tweaked since then too.

My point is, what are you hoping that pindigo will do eventually that Matchplay doesn’t already do? And why does it matter if an app is used or a website?

I can’t wait to see where scorebit goes. I’m told it should work hand in hand with Matchplay to give tournament viewers a much better experience.

I had no clue Matchplay had it's own ratings.

Hey, I'm in the top 100. That's awesome.

or people put carryover on Dialed In and make their score 5-10 times higher than typical.

when the cubs play the dodgers they both play on the same field, LA does not stay there to play their half of the game.