*** Can't Hit Tunnel Shot to Save My Life! ***
I'm a novice player. I bought TWD because I'd read how fabulous it is and because I'd enjoyed playing a hundred-or-so sub-twenty-million-point games on one at my local barcade. Now that I own one (my first pin of any kind), I'm really struggling to be play it well enough to actually advance through the game.
In ascending order of difficulty, I rank the shots as follows:
6. CDC
5. Barn
4. Riot
3. Arena
2. Woodbury
1. Tunnel
Tunnel, as you all know, is a "Borg" shot. It has no margin for error, as even grazing/activating a pop on the way by deflects the shot. You can't "rattle" your shot through there. It has to sail through without touching a thing 'til it finds the corner at the very back/right of the PF, etc. I first experienced a shot of this kind on KISS, and I thought it was absurdly hard there, too.
I hit Tunnel by accident far more often than I do aiming for it. When I aim, I hit it perhaps once in twenty attempts. This is a problem. To help me avoid total frustration, I have set the game to settings that allow me to make at least *some* progress toward scoring goals. I still find it murderously hard. (Believe me, I don't advance all that far, despite all the gimmies!) I typically spend most of each ball trying to clear a single bank or drop targets to earn a shot at starting a mode. I rarely get to the mode as I more often just drain trying to clear the target bank. Clearing the target bank keeps you down near the deadly slings, and once the ball gets to ricocheting around between them, it will all too often find its way into the outlanes in a flash, etc. Still, on rare occasions, I have actually started Horde. (I count four times at this point.) Being resolutely unable to hit Tunnel, this a problem, as it's just a matter of time before I'm "bitten" by an advancing walker on the middle-right. Really, my skills are not up to Horde in general, but in particular because I can't hit Tunnel.
Oh, if you're thinking my pops have switch gaps that are ultra-tight, making them ultra-sensitive, I actually got in there already to *expand* those gaps to make the pops *less* sensitive, as all that pop-bumping on every plunge was driving me bananas.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
J