Quoted from Capper96:One of the biggest gripes about the big three mm, mb, and AFM is that every lane is a jackpot in multiball.
I don't think so for MM and MB. I'm not familiar with AFM as I've never played it more than a few times. But MM and MB have some pretty deep rulesets involved with their multiball modes.
MM has a few multiball modes. You have Castle Multiball where you need to hit the Dragon and Peasant ramps a combined five times to light a Super Jackpot at the lock shot and trigger an Extra Ball light. When castle multiball starts only the ramps count for Jackpots and not the orbits, catapults, or castle shots. That extra ball light award for castle multiball is critical if you are going for BFTK wizard mode.
MM Madness Multiball also only lights super jackpots for the madness modes that are activated. So if you only activate Catapult Madness then you won't get bonuses for hitting the other shots on the table. Carrying a multiball into trolls is also extremely useful for trying to get those ten troll kills necessary to complete that objective. So there are relatively deep rulesets to multiball modes on Medieval Madness. It's not just "get into multiball and flail away hoping to hit any shot for an equal jackpot".
Also in Battle for the Kingdom as long as you are in multiball the timers don't expire. Once you go into single ball play then shots are timed. Including the insane ten second shots to the castle gate with the trolls up if you don't have troll bombs. So it is always important to keep two balls in play when you are in wizard mode on MM.
Monster Bash has special shots in its modes as well. Mosh Pit mode has an add-a-ball feature as well as a Mosh Pit super for hammering away at Frank's ramp (personally never seen it done). Bash rewards you for hitting all of the monsters and then shooting at the center lane to score a super jackpot. Rock encourages hitting each monster once to score Monsters of Rock. Not to mention that multiball modes on MB stop the timers on the regular modes which is often necessary for getting into Monsters of Rock. So if you drag a few modes into Frank or Bash you'll be looking to complete those before you drain into single ball play.
Once Stern actually completes their codes they are on par with most other modern DMD machines in my opinion. The thing with Stern is...if and when they complete the code. I find it embarrassing that they release games with such unpolished codes. But they still sell out the LE versions pretty early so it's not like it is hurting them (at least in the short term). Hopefully JJP's WOZ machine has incredible code and pushes Stern to improve their approach to coding.