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Having not played in very much competition (so take this with a grain of salt); but whenever I play a game that I know nothing about, but have a wingman spotting me, I can blow a game up like no other. So my vote goes to gameplay/rules knowledge being the most important key factor. If you don't know what to shoot and when, it becomes very easy to drain out.
Quoted from Nokoro:So I was just watching one of Bowen’s tutorials and noticed that he doesn’t take an unsafe shot. He plots and thinks about how to get to where he wants to go by taking safer shots that are less likely to go SDTM. I wish I had that discipline and accuracy.
Wouldn’t taking safe shots and avoiding risk fall under gameplay knowledge rather than accuracy?
Quoted from spinal:This is a very key point you make as I never understood “Gameplay Knowledge” to mean that. To be specific:
Gameplay Knowledge A:
Rules of the game like what shots score the most points, how to progress through modes, what modes to avoid altogether because they don’t score well, stacking multiballs or multipliers, whether bonuses are important etc.
Gameplay Knowlege B: Stuff like: Safety due to probablily of shots leading to drains (sucker target shots that are often designed to lead to drains). This is knowlege that can be be very specific to how the ball travels on some examples of this pin and not others. For example, on some examples of a game, hitting side of game while ball rolls down outer loop to push ball away from sling as ball comes to flipper. Knowledge like which shots are better/easier to backhand either to increase shot probability or reduce chance of side-to-side which can lead to outlane drains.
Although you could read about A or B and have it benefit your gameplay to a great extent, usually B is the knowlege you might pick up only from watching pro videos because it can be more subtle and change from one example of the game to another. B is the type of knowlege one would gain after owning a game for an extended period of time or what an pro would look for and understand much more quickly since their understanding of these subtle aspects is much deeper than a casual player such as myself. This includes all the ball bounce dynamics of the table including how the ball reacts hitting different parts of slings at different speeds, how and when drop catches, dead bounces will work effectively, nudging to get a lane or shake out of outlane and tons more.
So my main point is that up to this point I thought the poll’s “Gameplay Knowledge” referred to only A and not B. If the voters are including B as well then I am much more inclined to agree that it is very near the top.
It’s a good point made by Eskaybee and worth discussing.
What did you voters think of when you you read “Gameplay Knowledge” in the poll? Is there a name for Knowledge type B in our hobby?
To a certain degree I thought of it as both; rules being the more obvious. But, the ability to watch an opponent play and pickup on the games’ awkward bounces, setup, and nuances and apply it to your gameplay would certainly fall under gameplay knowledge I would think. Which is why I brought it up 
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