Quoted from mof:What is Flow?
You must mean "Who is Flo?"
She's the girl who works for Progressive Insurance.
Quoted from mof:What is Flow?
You must mean "Who is Flo?"
She's the girl who works for Progressive Insurance.
Quoted from tamoore:I think it's largely uninterrupted shots that flow back to flippers.
This
Quoted from tamoore:I think it's largely uninterrupted shots that flow back to flippers.
Would you call it flow, when you hit the ball to the ferris wheel in Cyclone, and wait about 10 seconds to shoot again?
What does "uninterrupted" mean to you?
Back to Cyclone -- is it flow (for you) when you hit the Dracula shot, and wait 10 seconds for a prize on the backbox, and the ball comes back via the scoop to the flippers?
I'd say in that case the ball is "held hostage" for 10 seconds, and I can't interact with the ball. I'd say the same thing for the Ferris wheel ramp. My "action" is held hostage for the sake of an amusing toy/ramp/mechanism.
-mof
Quoted from mof:Would you call it flow, when you hit the ball to the ferris wheel in Cyclone, and wait about 10 seconds to shoot again?
-mof
That is a flow restriction. Still flow IMO
I consider DE Star Wars to be a game that has a few good "flow shots" (the left orbit which feeds to the flippers and the center shot that loops and returns pretty quickly to the right flipper. Also flows when you hit the death star or right inner loop and through the habit trail it returns to your left flipper. All of those add to the flow of the game and are good flowing shot.
There are also places in that game that stop to give you awards, which slow the game down quite a bit. So while there are shots with good flow, hitting the left scoop can keep the ball for serveral seconds, show you a frame on the DMD, give you the ball back. Not really flow. Or if you hit the R2D2 right orbit the ball is send into pops, which slows the game down and doesn't help with flow at all. The worst is when you get the X-wing award and have to watch a long movie that goes nowhere. Yikes, that's the opposite of flow.
My 2cents
Dan
Quoted from mof:Would you call it flow, when you hit the ball to the ferris wheel in Cyclone, and wait about 10 seconds to shoot again?
What does "uninterrupted" mean to you?
Back to Cyclone -- is it flow (for you) when you hit the Dracula shot, and wait 10 seconds for a prize on the backbox, and the ball comes back via the scoop to the flippers?
I'd say in that case the ball is "held hostage" for 10 seconds, and I can't interact with the ball. I'd say the same thing for the Ferris wheel ramp. My "action" is held hostage for the sake of an amusing toy/ramp/mechanism.
-mof
No. These 'held hostage' shots are not flow. They're things that stop the flow dead. They may be OK, but they contribute to the overall feeling of whether or not the game has "flow" in a general sense.
To me, uninterrupted means what it means. Don't stop the ball. If you do, you've interrupted it.
Quoted from tamoore:No. These 'held hostage' shots are not flow. They're things that stop the flow dead. They may be OK, but they contribute to the overall feeling of whether or not the game has "flow" in a general sense.
To me, uninterrupted means what it means. Don't stop the ball. If you do, you've interrupted it.
But the Ferris wheel never "held" the ball like a scoop or ball lock does, it always moves.
Help. This flow stuff is t-r-i-c-k-y.
-mof
Quoted from mof:But the Ferris wheel never "held" the ball like a scoop or ball lock does, it always moves.
Help. This flow stuff is t-r-i-c-k-y.
-mof
Not tricky at all. To me, that it an interrupted ball. It's slowly moving toward me. Too slow.
Also, the ramp on Hurricane is a flow killer. WAY TOO LONG AND SLOW.
Ramps shout return the ball smooth and easy to be considered a flowing ramp.
Quoted from tamoore:Not tricky at all. To me, that it an interrupted ball. It's slowly moving toward me. Too slow.
So it sounds like "velocity manipulation" is a factor for you.
-mof
tamoore, you have mousin'. How do you rate it from 1-10 as a flow pin. 1 sucks, 10's great. As far as sys 11 goes, it must be one of the top? I sure think so anyways.
no doubt about SeaWitch, nice FAST ball flow. very nice resto (and video) going on there too mof.
games that stop the ball too often and long can get tiresome-tedious-boring for putting the adrenaline on hold.. I do think its relative terms in that regard.
Quoted from dozer1:tamoore, you have mousin'. How do you rate it from 1-10 as a flow pin. 1 sucks, 10's great. As far as sys 11 goes, it must be one of the top? I sure think so anyways.
For system11 games, it's a 10 for sure.
Diner is a great game with some flow, but I'd put it closer to a 6 on the flow continuum.
Quoted from zizzlemeplease:no doubt about SeaWitch, nice FAST ball flow. very nice resto (and video) going on there too mof.
games that stop the ball too often and long can get tiresome-tedious-boring for putting the adrenaline on hold.. I do think its relative terms in that regard.
Thanks -- I'm starting to think that my favorite flow games are simply 4-flipper games (pre-DMD) where you are almost NEVER more than 1/2 a second away from having another action available to you (flip/nudge). What I can't explain is why I don't "feel" like Black Knight has great flow, perhaps it's the "way" the ball feeds abruptly to the lower flippers, and not-gracefully to the upper flippers. Perhaps the frequent ball locks takes away from the "feel" a little bit. It's REALLY tricky to lock a ball in GL, and there just isn't a ball lock in Seawitch. The ball travel is very graceful from lower to upper PF in GL since it's on one level.
I don't have this flow stuff "all figure out" yet -- I'm taking stabs at trying to figure out when games "feel" like they have flow and which ones don't -- and trying to see what traits they have in common to make sense of it all.
-mof
Quoted from mof:What I can't explain is why I don't "feel" like Black Knight has great flow, perhaps it's the "way" the ball feeds abruptly to the lower flippers, and not-gracefully to the upper flippers.
I think Black Knight can have good flow, but it's unlike other traditional "flow" games in that the flow comes from the smooth transitions between the upper and lower playfields. I notice it most during multiball where the upper lock shot doesn't hold onto the ball and multiple balls are flying up and down the three ramps. If you are not hitting those ramps the gameplay is more stop-and-go.
I think Tamoore nailed it when he said there can be aspects of a game that have great flow and other aspects of the game that are more stop-and-go. The relative percentage of each aspect determines the overall feel of the game.
Take JM for instance. Yes, the glove, crazy Bob and rollover lanes into the pop bumpers can stop the ball, but if you are hitting the ramps and inner and outer orbits it is one of the fastest and flowiest (new word) games out there.
Another example is High Speed. Hitting the right or left orbit makes for great flow because the way the ball feeds to the flippers allows you to continue hitting the orbits on the fly which becomes increasingly difficult as the speed of the ball increases. The rest of the shots in the game are more stop-and-go.
Another aspect of a game the leads to a feeling of flow is smooth curving shots, even if the shots don't lead to 3 shots or more combo possibilities. For example, hitting the left ramp on Black Knight where the ball snakes around to the upper left flipper then hitting the lock shot. Very satisfying, very smooth, nice and flowy.
A game with shots that can continually be made rhythmically or without any stopping - ie. Fishtales boat ramps.
I like flow, in fact love it. However I also like a game like TZ that for all the stop and go also has some shots that flow like the right then left ramp. Integration of combos in games is great as well.
I have come to really love the balance between flow and ball stoppage. The genius is balancing the time and variance of shots so that this all becomes symbiotic. My no fear is non stop return to each flipper with not much break in between, it's almost a flow overdose if you will, again I find real long term playability in a good mix of flow vs holding and picking your shots. Lately I've been digging deep into taxi and it hits that perfect mix for me at least and I love it. What I don't enjoy at are games where the ramps are replaced with a vuk into usually a habatrail, that small stop and go just drives me nuts. Freddy is a good example of this, gross man just bad.
I didn't read other responses. Flow for me is
the property of geometry in the pinball game that has major shots that connect fluidly one into another without slowing down the ball significantly or stopping it or putting it into underplayfield channels. This kind of game actually adds velocity to the ball over its route and requires player to time the shot accurately in a kind of pinball-aikido so that you don't interrupt its motion but use it's energy to hit something that is usually difficult to do without speed. It gives you a pleasant feel in the navel because you just used chi to play pinball. Such game usually awards combos to encourage players to use this way of playing. Should you miss timing and flipper position it is drain time.
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