So Gameplay Knowlege is the #1 reason voted for why top players are better? So if someone just studied the rules more they could be best in the world? It is an important reason but seriously, I mean c'mon now , I mean you can't be serious - maybe skills play a much larger part.

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?

As a starting point it’s good to learn some tips on -how- to play when you practice. You also don’t see pro golfers taking group lessons but that doesn’t mean that taking lessons is a waste of time. The not-asking-basic-questions stage comes after you have the answers not before. Knowlege of all kinds is needed when starting out and I’m definately in that camp so have learned some things from this thread.

Everyone entitled to their opinion of course but I find this hard to believe. I’m not saying that it’s the number one trait but my feeling is that nudging is absolutely crucial to top players. Nudging at a high level can be very subtle and almost invisible on streams but I see it as something top players are constantly doing as they play. Not rarely but constantly.

For example, you will see top players nudge to help low dead bounces make it to other flipper, if they use the flipper tip to touch ball to other flipper, to guide the ball to one lane over another etc. Slight nudges to influence the ball trajectory just slightly away from slings as ball travels down loops to flippers (see Bowen MM tutorial for example). Never mind for saves like slap saves and nudging out of outlines or out right shakes out of the outlane. Every tiny nudge that influences a ball away from the outlane IS an extra ball - that’s how important nudging is.

One aspect I haven’t heard much is multiball skills which I find quite different from single ball play and must be very important to score big scores. Not just trapping up and all the various skills like cradle separations etc but having the periferal vision skills to manage all the balls intelligently. Multiple play fields going on WOZ and TSPP for example. I sometimes feel like there is a much greater chance for me to loose all balls during multiball than to loose just my single ball so sometimes multiball feels more dangerous than single ball play to me. This is my current shitty skill level than I’m trying to improve upon.