Maybe Robin needs to address this, the minimum amount of karma may have been set back when you were awarded way more karma for posting, the amount of points you get for posting and thumbs up went way down.

i haven't even noticed the high scores section, but i agree it sounds like a fair thing to address. thresholds were probably set based on prior karma award values, and just haven't been revisited recently.

You sure it takes 1m karma? I don't have that much, but my scores show up...

seems like a weird feature anyway ... i mean i am fine with submiting scores on the honor system, but even then, every machine plays differently. how can you possibly make meaningful comparisons? just a general question about the feature i guess.

Not to sound rude, but who cares? I mean, I can make up any number I please and enter it, so aside from using it to track your own scores, like a digital whiteboard, it seems pretty useless as a feature. So if you can see your own then you're set.

Your #1 score could be totally legit or utterly made up, I couldn't care less either way unless you come to my house and put it up on my machine.

pinchamp 807,996,060 2014-03-25 home 3 factory wide normal 1.51
“40 minute game. Rocked all 4 CIU modes. Never made it to EOL. Only factory change was extra ball instead of free game.”

I see six scores under your name.

well, I suggest you get interested in either virtual pinball such as TPA (it's not "real" pinball, but at least everyone is indeed playing identically-performing versions of each machine) or get involved with a pinball league and/or tournaments, which are a total blast. personally, I wouldn't compare my score on my STTNG in the basement to other players on other machines .. there are just way too many variables for the comparison to have meaning to me.

Thanks for your post. The threshold was part of an older system that has been replaced by a more general distinction between old and new users. You are no longer such a "new user", so your scores should be visible on the site. I made some changes today to remove the old text about required karma and make this all a bit more clear!

If you check https://pinside.com/pinball/archive/metallica-le/scores (even when logged out) you will see that your score is in that list.

I'm guessing the OP cares...or else he wouldn't have asked. I personally like the high score feature as a general gauge for how good my own personal scores are (although I have yet to post any of my own scores). If you don't like it, you don't have to use it.

--Luke

You could technically put up a bogus score on your own machine by playing with the glass off right? And yet you don't and thus the high score list on your machine is not rendered useless. Its the same idea with the Pinside scores. While its possible someone could cheat the vast majority won't so the feature works just fine. Its not like anyone thinks its a definitive list anyway.

This is why scores on the Internet are pointless.

You've put "factory settings" yet it's changed to "extra ball". That's not factory. Factory is as it came out of the box (or code update) except changed to "free play" if required.

The amount of people who claim factory settings then I play their machines and there's extra balls for replay, extra balls for special, extra balls for getting extra balls, extra balls for having two balls (!), extra extra ball for having three balls (!!!!) less shots for modes, less shots to qualify features, etc etc etc.

Not having a go at you Pinchamp ... Just the pin world in general. Although I know we've discussed it before.

rd.

The Pinside scoring feature is only meant to be a gauge for how good your own scores are, nothing more, nothing less. You don't get karma points for your grand champion scores, you don't get any rewards.

The basis of this feature is to keep track of your own scores on a game. The "sharing" of your scores is optional (you can also set your scores to "private" in settings) and only meant as a fun feature to see how your score stacks up.

That's why I said it wasn't aimed at you. Lots of people say "factory" when it's not the case.

rd.

Dble post

For what its worth (yes, very little indeed) I think it would make more sense if setting the machine to freeplay changed the replay award to extra ball automatically. It makes a lot more sense than awarding a free game on a game that's already free.

Anyway, since that will never happen I think we could help this inequitable score issue by adding another drop-down menu item for game settings to indicate "Replay Extra Ball" when people post scores. Not that it would make a huge difference but at least it would allow people a "full disclosure" option for a game that is all factory except the replay extra ball award, which I think is a common adjustment on home games.

It doesn't make sense to set replay to extra ball.

Might as well set the game to 4 balls instead of three.

You are just giving yourself a free ball on any halfway decent game.

I think it lame. Same with specials set to EB.

Some people set their games to give out EBs like candy. I don't get it

That "knock" when I hit a jackpot or something and hit the replay score is reward enough.

I've heard the justification "I set my games on 5 ball, and to give out 32 EBs a game because my wife and kids demand it!"

No they don't.

So I take it then you're in favor of disabling extra balls completely and always playing with more of a tournament setup? That's reasonable, if you're going for complete fairness of competition and scoring game to game. I can see why people would like it that way.

However if extra balls are enabled then why wouldn't it make sense for replay to award one? Other extra balls are awarded making certain numbers of shots or completing modes and sometimes even less meaningful things like random awards. Isn't reaching the replay score level at least as relevant as any of those things?

Nah. I'm just against going full-retard.

I like the games set on factory. Tournament isn't as fun for me.

People can do whatever they want with their games. But of course I'm entitled to my opinion as well.

It's my opinion that setting games to give out EBs like candy is stupid, boring, and pointless.

Can't imagine a better way to speed up getting sick of your games than setting them on completely handicapable.

And like I said - the reason I'm against setting replay for Extra Ball is because replay is gonna happen if you are having any kind of a decent game. It's just a freebie - you are artificially inflating scores.

The main problem comes on games with a "fruitful" wizard mode.

Like Twilight Zone for example. Or Metallica as mentioned in another thread.

The extra balls enable you to get the big points at the end, like in Lost in The Zone or maybe 2 or 3 Crank it Ups in Metallica, rather than only one.

So in a game like TZ, you could have say 400m on 3 balls, and the "replay" extra ball gets you into LITZ which gets you to 800m. Effectively it's a 400m ball.

But, as Levi says, your game, do what you want with it.

rd.

I can respect that. I haven't liked it when playing some location games that gave 4 replay extra balls, sometimes when they were on 5 ball play to begin with. It made it way too easy to make it to the final modes and it was anti-climactic. For whatever reason though 1 replay EB has always felt right to me when the game has other extra balls available, I guess its just what I'm used to.

Nothing matters one way or the other when weighing in scores from separate machines in my opinion. Even with all the same settings, shopped machines, they still play like apples and oranges. Some people align their bats with the holes, some with the guides (me), some wax, so do not, some clean a frequently (me, and this keeps them angry!), different types of cores in pinballs, different angles, LEDs that can be harder to track the ball, all these things can make gameplay completely different.

Hell, I've moved a machine across the room, levelled it out, and it still seems to play different no matter after.

The scores section is a nice touch, but just because person A scores 25% better than person B this is not indicative of anything really. People that don't shop machines generally have higher scores I find, as the game is not as brutal.