That's interesting . . .

I'd toss this over to the IFPA Directors to vote on. I could see them going either way on it.

The idea about "punishing players for excessive cradling" makes it sound like cradling isn't an integral skill in playing pinball, which I believe it is, so there's a delicate balance here when you push something into not really being "pinball".

If you actually wanted to try and do something like this though, let me know and I really will post it to the Directors to discuss.

I get it, and have played in some of the old Gauntlet style events that Bowen has run, and they are TONS OF FUN!

At some point though I take it to the golf analogy. On the PGA Tour they run many styles of tournaments, stroke play, match play, skins games, best ball, etc . . . but I've yet to see Speed Golf as one of the formats. The day they start to sprinkle in Speed Golf events on the tour, maybe we'll consider it for pinball

I remember the first time Shepherd taught me how to query something, and I had to call him and told him I messed something up on the "My S-Q-L" (I announced each letter) page.

He just busted out laughing telling me it was pronounced "Sequel", and that I'm now an even bigger dork.

It would . . . NOT under the current rules.

Haul-ass factor eliminates the format from being endorsed by the IFPA.

http://www.isfpapinball.com for the International Speed Flipper Pinball Association is available! Jump on it!

Shepherd to the rescue with his S-Q-L Sequel skillz:

image(1).png

It's on the list

I have no idea what the means lol

If you add the numbers from 5 events plus all the numbers to the right of it for each year, you'll get that total of players competing in 5+ events per year.

Nothing to talk about at this point, or else everyone will beat the horse to death before it's even born

That's definitely a question for Shepherd

Pro or premium (walker bombs make a HUGE difference)?

Focus on trying to stack a mode and either MB (obviously if you can drag in Blood Bath to all of it you're doing fine at that point).

I'll typically try to get the multiball to 1 shot away and then try to start the mode first - mostly because it's easier to start the mode you want without balls flying all around the playfield.

I'm a big Tunnel guy because you can rack up points all around the playfield. Just don't shoot the tunnel shot after you shoot other shit or you'll end the mode prematurely. If you can get your 2X playfield going, you're talking about over 10 million a shot around the playfield. Add in the inlane multiplier and you have the potential just blow things up if you're able to execute well.

Second favorite mode is probably Barn, followed by CDC . . . with Arena being okkkk, and Riot currently being a "fuck, I didn't want to start that". I'm sure the Riot scoring will be adjusted at some future point to account for the difficulty of that shot.

With the way Lyman has worked in the Multi-kill scoring (5% of your mode points that you've earned throughout the game), there's additional opportunities to just keep cashing in around the playfield. If eventually becomes a loaded craps table if you're starting additional modes, scoring well, keeping your 2X playfield going, etc.

It'll be fun to break it down with Nate tomorrow night. Game is a blast. My only wish with the Walker Bombs being added was that there was a way to just put an LE lockdown bar on a PRO and it would 'recognize it', because the strategy behind using those effectively takes the game to even another level.

Yup . . . it becomes "X+1" sets of drops to light your next mode, so IMO it's best to try and make your Prison progress BEFORE you start your first mode. Nothing worse then needing to complete 2 sets of drops to light your second mode when you're getting close to stacking a mode with a Multiball, BUT you're far more likely to bring in Blood Bath at that point assuming you were clearing your drop target banks efficiently. By the time you're lighting mode #2, you'll be through 3 sets of drop target banks, which should have Blood Bath ready to go on the next set (assuming you cleared through the Food, Supplies and First Aid efficiently). Huge risk/reward opportunities are around every turn.

So you're supposed to be able to enter the top 0.3% of ranked pinball players (top 100 out of 33,000) overnight?

How quickly should a rankings system allow someone to move up from 'not playing' to the top 0.3% best in the world at anything (not just pinball)?

There seems to be this "top 100" thing where everyone feels like it should be easily attainable for someone to casual make their way to that level. Unfortunately you can't have more than 100 players in the top 100, so at some point the 100th ranked player is REALLLLLLLY GOOD (like even right now). Even looking at players in that 90-100 range, you're talking about people that have dozens of tournament victories on their resume.

IMO the WPPR system does a great job allowing someone to move up the rankings EXTREMELY FAST just by getting out and playing. One of my favorite people to track is our lovely C2C pinball host Mr. Nate Shivers. His competitive pinball "career" really started in January 2014. Here's his progress up the charts:

Jan 2014 --> ranked 12,816th (finished 65th/70th at INDISC Main and Classics)
May 2014 --> ranked 4723rd (finished 51st at Midwest Gaming Classic)
July 2014 --> ranked 4036th (finished 25th at Southern Fried)
Nov 2014 --> ranked 3945th (finished 90th at Pinball Expo)
Apr 2015 --> ranked 1943rd (went crazy at Texas Pinball Festival including a 14th place finish in Vintage)

Nate's at about 18 months into his journey, and went from an unranked player to someone that's ranked in the top 6% of players in the world. Not bad at all for someone that still feels like he's getting better as a player. I guess the question to ask is should Nate be in the top 100 based on his performances? What kind of player SHOULD be in the top 100? etc . . .

That's the fear we live with . . . let's look at the facts and see where our "attitude" has taken us to this point:

2015 --> 1455 players average playing at least 1 tournament a month
2014 --> 1364 players average playing at least 1 tournament a month
2013 --> 843 players average playing at least 1 tournament a month
2012 --> 546 players average playing at least 1 tournament a month
2011 --> 406 players average playing at least 1 tournament a month
2010 --> 310 players average playing at least 1 tournament a month
2009 --> 203 players average playing at least 1 tournament a month
2008 --> 119 players average playing at least 1 tournament a month
2007 --> 71 players average playing at least 1 tournament a month

I'd add additional commentary to those facts/figures, but damn that's shockingly impressive. I'm just going to let those numbers speak for themselves on the health and growth of competitive pinball.

If only we could find a way to have all of the 1455 players out there playing consistently all ranked in the top 100

That's probably why this stat exists

Keith Elwin --> 8
Josh Sharpe --> 0

(number of Major Championships won)

We do the best we can to not make changes during a season, but unfortunately sometimes it happens and believe me it's for 'greater good' of the accuracy of the system when we do it (even if a large group of people think that's not the case).

Just to again keep things in perspective, I pulled up your profile to analyze what the change did you personally. Unfortunately you did take a bigger hit compared to most, so your frustration is not lost on me at all.

Currently you're ranked 2570th with 16.80 WPPR points.

The change cost you 3.51 WPPR points, which would have had you at a rank of 2292nd.

At the State level, you currently sit in 7th place. If these changes didn't go in, you would currently be in . . . 6th place.

If that 10% drop in your world ranking, and 1 spot change in the Georgia SCS is a big enough issue that you no longer follow the system AND stop playing competitive pinball in general that's a big problem for me. If you stop following the system but still play in your Atlanta league and some of the other local events, I'd be far less disappointed in simply losing you as an 'interested WPPR person'.

We're not asking you to have any sort of faith in the system. We're not even asking you to care about the points. We just want you playing competitive pinball for any reason that gets you playing. For some the WPPR's help, for others it doesn't matter.

I'm not going to try and convince people that the changes we make go through EXTENSIVE testing, because we know it rocks the boat each and every time we do it. People feel like we wake up and I call Brian Shepherd and we have the following conversation:

Me - "It's a beautiful Wednesday morning . . . what do you think about hmmmm, I don't know, let's take away 10% of the points from tournaments that didn't use a game my dad designed, because we all know those games are the BEST."

Brian - "Yeah, I can do that . . . I'll have it up later today."

Let me just brace you well in advance. We WILL have changes to the system for 2016. We HOPE to not have any more changes made in the 2015 season (confident we won't but you never know the exploits that people dig up). Some changes will totally irritate you more, and some changes may benefit the tournaments you play in.

I get it David for sure . . . it fucking sucks.

The good news is holy crap do you guys have a ton of stuff going on in the Atlanta area. Between the H2H league, the NGPL and Southern Fried coming up, I could think of worse places in the world for you to be with respect to access to tournaments near you.

You'll have to shoot me a PM and let me know where you end up at the end of 2015, because I'll definitely take the under on getting back to 2300 in 6 months (especially if you plan on attending Southern Fried).

I know that Greg Dunlap had created a WPPR Nerdery page where you could view your rank and points earned over time . . . but can't seem to find that link (or if it's still active).

While I don't have the time to query everybody, I'm sure there's enough Pinsiders that wouldn't mind seeing your rise up the ranks since you were a young Whysnow pup back in 2012

We archive rankings/ratings at the first of every month, so it's not as detailed as it could be, but here you go!

3/1/2012 1414
4/1/2012 1466
5/1/2012 1504
6/1/2012 1550
7/1/2012 1591
8/1/2012 1621
9/1/2012 1663
10/1/2012 1721
11/1/2012 1730
12/1/2012 1797
1/1/2013 1847
2/1/2013 1857
3/1/2013 2242
4/1/2013 1544
5/1/2013 1590
6/1/2013 1607
7/1/2013 1649
8/1/2013 1671
9/1/2013 1715
10/1/2013 1517
11/1/2013 1408
12/1/2013 1402
1/1/2014 1176
2/1/2014 1194
3/1/2014 1116
4/1/2014 729
5/1/2014 712
6/1/2014 707
7/1/2014 723
8/1/2014 735
9/1/2014 743
10/1/2014 647
11/1/2014 671
12/1/2014 703
1/1/2015 350
2/1/2015 355
3/1/2015 363
4/1/2015 359
5/1/2015 341
6/1/2015 321