I think the post right before yours summarizes potential solutions to plunger issues, although some of them are auto-plunger too. I got a NIB Pro yesterday and I have the same problem. Auto plunger mostly fine, manual plunger very low percentage of reaching the loop. The Stern adjustment definitely made it significantly better, but it still isn't as reliable as I'd want. I'll probably try to bend it more this weekend and tinker with it.

I was referring to this:
https://o.pinside.com/2/d7/6d/2d76d16f8452308eab945aa48cd745cc10f1e3de.pdf

Thanks to everyone else for all of the advice. In my case, the auto-plunger was almost always making it. Manual plunge almost always hit the extra ball target. After the adjustment above it certainly got better and now manual plunger does make it sometimes, but I think I still need to tweak. It has enough power to make it around the orbit when it does go through, but it seems weirdly inconsistent. The feedback on the "wedge fix" sounded promising, so maybe I'll try that after checking the easier-to-fix things.

Anyways, this thread has plenty of things for me to try, and it is close enough that I'm pretty confident one of these approaches will get it the rest of the way there. Unfortunately, I'm more addicted to playing it, even with this imperfection, than fiddling with the feed. This game is fun

Who isn’t a Funhouse fan? It’s a classic!

A lot of the things you describe I feel are general things Pat Lawlor is known for. I always felt Iron Maiden resembles Twilight Zone a lot, another Lawlor, only much faster. All are amazing pins.

I have not done it personally, but I've gotten to 8 tomb treasures a number of times and I know what I failed at to miss my opportunity each time -- it isn't always the same problem for me. I know you said streams don't count, but Karl's stream on YouTube clearly shows it being done on an IM pro. It just requires a lot of execution, and some amount of planning.

FWIW, I just got pinmonk flipper fans because I was sick of getting close to RTTH and dealing the flippers getting a lot weaker. It got noticeable usually before starting Number of the Beast for me, and unless you have all your level 2 Eddie cards already, failing the beast is a big deal in terms of your RTTH chances. Hopefully this means I will successfully get to RTTH soon, but we will see

To your question about there being more shards available on the premium, I don't believe that is true (even with insider connected granting Can I Play With Madness access for pros). You can't get a soul shard or tomb treasure from Can I Play With Madness. What the rulesheet means is that it replaces one of the Tomb Treasure awards (3rd one). As far as I can tell, it doesn't actually help your RTTH chances in any way. (Unless you turn the extra ball from it on, but it is factory default off I think)

You can also tell both which soul shards you have and also how many tomb treasures you've collected from the status report menu when you hold your flipper up.

Also, it is an important detail that you can collect a soul shard from a level 3 mystery award, so all is not lost if you've played Rime of the Ancient Mariner for the 2nd time and failed yet again on those stupid starboard shots!

Edit: fixed typo pro->premium

Here's an example:

(And if you haven't watched this whole video before, I'd definitely recommend it if you want to see how someone can get to Run to the Hills)

Good point. And I completely missed that a random L2 card could be a mystery award! That's huge considering tomb treasure #9 also spots a random L2 card. Time to practice sweeping the drops

On my machine if it comes out slow, like when starting a mode, I usually have to dead bounce it to the left because it is closer to the tip of the right flipper. If it comes out with some speed, like after hitting right orbit or mini loop, it is almost always drop-catchable on the right flipper. I think my machine is level.

To anyone that is on the fence about getting Pinmonk flipper fans, I’m happy to report that it absolutely makes a noticeable difference for those long runs where the right ramp and the right flipper pharaoh shot start getting difficult.

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1145BAA9-A03A-4C73-9F99-0A0ABA7ECDBC (resized).jpeg

I’d like to say I handled getting to RTTH with a quiet dignity, but really my son and I were jumping up and down screaming like banshees. The last couple right orbit shots were pretty nerve-racking. Weirdly enough this was without a successful 6-way combo.

Thanks PinMonk

Only the bottom 2. I don't think I really notice any problems with the upper 2.

That's good, and if you don't notice anything then I'd think it's fine as is. I'm sure climate and specific machine matters. To clarify, for me it never got so weak that the shots weren't makeable. But the fade was a noticeable factor that I had to gradually account for in my play, and I don't need to account for that anymore after cooling. (e.g. right ramp "spot" on the flipper gradually got closer to the tip.) I bought mine NIB and it has always been this way for me.

I think I've tried most things, and at this point I do have it working fine, but I don't fully expect it to stay that way and I expect that I'll have to tweak it again in the future. From my experience though I'll say a few things that I hope might help. (And these aren't my original ideas, they are from this thread...)

The ball guide screw is the first thing to look at. Not only making sure it is in the right place, but also that it is tight. When my plunge shot got extremely inconsistent, it was because this screw loosened over time. The last time I had to tighten it I had to use toothpicks/woodglue to get it to grip properly.

More importantly though, as someone else said before, if the guide is completely relying on that screw to be held in place, I think you'll eventually run into problems. The best adjustment I found was to completely remove the rail and adjust it out of the machine. (The adjustment screw plus 2 screws under the level is all that's necessary to get it out, so it isn't as hard as you might initially think). Once it is out of the machine, it is easy to bend it a bit to get it into the "correct" state without completely relying on the adjustment screw to fight the tension. It might take a few iterations of taking it out and putting it in, but I had much more success with this method and it felt more permanent. Plus, it is way easier to file down any burrs at the end when it is out of the machine.

Lastly, I do think swapping out the auto-plunger coil for something slightly more powerful was a nice change. More consistently goes around the whole orbit, and gives you more headroom to fine tune power adjustments in software. Maybe not strictly necessary, but I definitely have no regrets about doing it.

Hope this helps, good luck. No question the most frustrating issue I've had owning an IM

I think a lot depends on how reliably you can live catch the feed from the right orbit. I find that when I hit the big loop, the return is too fast for me to catch reliably, so I leave that to last. But if that's not true for you, probably putting both loops early in the combo would make sense. Almost always mini-loop first, since it's the most difficult shot and really difficult with the ball at speed.

mini-loop->left ramp->right ramp->right orbit->left-inner orbit->big loop is what I normally do, but I don't think it is ideal.

If you are aiming for RTTH, I'd highly recommend just reading the rule sheet. I don't think you're really spoiling anything if you don't read about what you do in RTTM itself, and there is some information I think you're much better off knowing. (e.g. it is important to wait on collecting the 2MTM jackpot to get a 2x jackpot, since that is how you get a level 2 eddie card)

Rulesheet:
http://tiltforums.com/t/iron-maiden-pinball-rulesheet/3787

I'm not sure what you mean about Mystery->tomb treasure. You can collect a soul shard, which will light a tomb treasure, by collecting a level 3 mystery award after completing 2MTM. You can only do this once, and it is not strictly necessary. But if you miss collecting a soul shard on a mode, it can make up for that.

Yeah exactly. I feel like it definitely would be better to put big loop earlier in the rotation. But for me, failed live catches on the really fast big loop return caused enough drains that I got sick of it and changed my approach.

Then again, the only time I've achieved RTTH, I did not get 6-way combo, which seems kind of silly. So maybe I should be practicing that fast live catch more to make things easier.

I own both. I own Rush because I love Rush the band. I own Iron Maiden because I love the game (and maybe now I love Iron Maiden the band too)

Just my opinion of course, but I could never imagine getting sick of IMDN. It's so fast and open, layout-wise. It has deep rules with various levels of challenges for different skill levels. A lot of replayability

Rush is really fun too, but it shoots quite differently. To me, it feels more closed off and not as smooth. The rules are good, with a lot of layers to them that you can pay attention to or ignore. More snowbally than IMDN I'd say.

I do personally like IMDN more than Rush. But I'm not trying to be negative about Rush. I like it and own it. My main point is that I don't think you are going to get sick of Rush because it is similar in any way to IMDN.

I believe they have been. I know the show near me popped up with one of the last updates.