I tilt games on location a fair amount. I've put money into the game, why should'nt I do all I can to save the ball? Same in competitions - if I'm playing to win then you're damn sure I will shake that game to save a ball from draining.

At home though, not so much, I'm a bit gentler with my games unless it is being very frustrating.

There's a reason a tilt bob exists

The real issue is why are you tilting?
If it's because you were trying to save the ball, or send the ball in a particular direction that's fine. The tilt bob is there to let you know that you've gone a little too far and punishes you by ending the ball (or whole game in some older EMs).
If it's just out of petulance once you've lost the ball, that's a definite no no.

All nudging does is wobble the machine. If you calculated the psi force exerted by the ball every time it hits something you would find an impact orders of magnitude higher than the forces imparted by energetic nudging, which causes a tilt. There is 100% nothing wrong with nudging a machine hard enough to tilt it and no logical reason to fear it. The tilt bob is not there to prevent damage to machines, it's there to increase earnings.

I tend to think tilting is overrated. Usually employed when you're trying to save the ball, I feel like it most often ends up doing more harm than good and draining the ball anyway or draining it when it otherwise would've stayed in.

You need to get over this. Moving the machine to bounce the ball tactically off passive rubbers is in the design of the machine. POTD on LOTR is designed to reward nudging. And outlane posts are exactly the same.

I get this, and also don't get this. If it's a pristine NIB Stern that you've put loads of cash into then I get why you would be a bit precious over it. If it's a 20 year old machine that's spent most of it's life in an arcade, why? It probably got loads of abuse sitting on location, that hasn't magically gone away now you own it. Unless you rebuild it or do a restoration.

As they say, "If you aren't tilting - you aren't trying!"
That said, nudging rarely helps me and more often hurts me. So I don't try it very often; however, when you watch a lot of competition videos you'll see that the "pros" can nudge causing subtle changes in ball flow that make a big difference in their ability to establish control. Watch Bowen's tutorial on papa.org for either Ironman or Transformers for quick examples of how subtle nudges at just the right time have a big impact on ball control. I am not talking about shoving the machine - that is a no-no and never works.

Pretty much my philosophy too.

My wife, on the other hand, is brutal. Still....she has never damaged any of our machines, so I guess they can take the abuse.
No problem.

I think tilting is a given and you will often tilt trying to nudge too hard. What I disagree with is mods that affect game play from the original design, I consider this to be cheating. The lane extenders for STTNG, the POTD diverter into the Shire for LOTR, and yes the center post for Ghostbusters are all prime examples of altering a machine to play better or increase scoring. I also do not care for 5 ball v.s. 3 ball. They do not use 5 ball in tournaments and competition so I feel that games should be set to 3 balls for a true game.

Banging and smacking games in frustration is a big no no on someone elses machine but tilting is all part of the game, I set my tilts tight at home and I don't tilt that much even though I nudge a lot.

Are you talking about tilting or nudging? Tilting is neither cheating nor a tactic, since there is no advantage to be gained by doing it.

On my own machines, sometimes on friends I'll shake the pin as the ball is draining (out of anger) but also it helps me to see if I have my tilt set too sensitive or not sensitive enough.

On the subject of tilt mechanism sometimes I'll get two warnings from one nudge which I thought isn't supposed to happen, what do you think that's about?

Tilting is not cheating. Tilting is the penalty for trying to cheat.

Nudging/shaking is not cheating until you tilt, where you surpass the allowance for moving the game, and enter the realm of cheating.

Nudging is part of pinball, it's a skill that will get you further in the game an a much better player, sometimes you take it a little to far by tilting, but it's only because your trying..

Nudging/tilting is all part of the game. I feel what makes a player great is the ability to keep the ball in play and under control to give him/herself as many chances to progress as possible. I also love the tilting aspect of pinball because it adds a risk and reward element to it. Some games you have to be careful because the bonus is significant. Other games, like NBA fastbreak for instance, has no bonus. So i will be more aggressive when trying to save a ball. Great topic to talk about. Love stuff like this

However, the exception that proves the rule is tilting as your score approaches rollover to get HSTD and how ever many knocks it gives out, preferably 3.

I always Tilt on a Demo Man with the profanity ROMs.

A good Wesley Snipes "F@#% you!" never gets old....

Later,
EV

Try playing a game like Flash Gordon without nudging u, can't be done

I will nudgw to guide the ball into an upper lane, but I usually fail if I try to nudge out of the outlanes

I honestly take the tilt bomb out of my machines at home. I love to nudge nudge nudge!!!

Moving a game half an inch over is not abuse. Games are designed around the tilt mechanism. That's why you have wwarning, rubbers on outland posts, and a bonus on the line. There is no way you can be a better player without nudging.

That tactic is called a slide save and it does indeed work. I often use it multiple times per ball playing The Walking Dead on location.

Learning to nudge & slap save will improve your scores. I've seen players walk a ball back into play from the outlane. A well placed slap will change an uncontrolled bounce off a sling into a controlled feed to a flipper.

The games were designed to tolerate nudging. Some tournaments use rubber feet, if any leg leaves the rubber there is a penalty. Software often has adjustable number of warnings before tilting.

One Coast2Coast Pinball episode Nate discussed playing a tournament game where his opponent intentionally tilted hard enough to bounce balls out of the locks on a lock stealing machine. Legal, but only because it's problematic to determine intent. I say that crosses the line of acceptable.

I've heard tilting is a good tactic on Joust.

I do not like this either. My sister says this and it drives me crazy. The game does not decide for you, you decide for it. When you have a ball cradled, is it fate that you missed that ramp shot and it caroms towards the outlane? No, you simply missed the shot and you're being punished for it, the game didn't make you miss it. If ball is going towards the outlane and you give it a precise nudge, you can get it out of that area, or help direct it into the inlane.

Exactly, nudging is part of the game. It's like wearing cleats to play soccer. There's no rule that says you can't wear tennis shoes, but your competitors are going to have a big edge on you with their better footwear. So if you're not nudging and trying to save the ball from draining but your competitor is, they will be that better off than you.

But as far as tilting goes, there's a difference between nudging just a little too much, and shaking the living hell out of the game. If I'm on location, I try to be respectful of the games and I'm not too rough on them. I rarely tilt when casually playing.

That is douchebaggery right there. Shoulda been disqualified.

I thought it sounded like good strategy myself. You have to be pretty experienced to know how to do that.

No, that is straight up cheating. I'm making assumptions here, like the TILT mechs were in good shape and working properly. Shaking the machine enough to get a ball out of a saucer or other lock-staging mech should result in TILT immediately. When TILT appears on the game, that turn is OVER and the player should no longer have his hands on the game. If he continued after TILT he should have been disqualified.

If he heaved the game so hard the ball came out of the lock should fall under "Abuse" and be disqualified.

IMO, but I'm nobody.

the games are designed to be nudged, and literally EVERY good player nudges the game right up to the edge of tilting in competition. you aren't going to hurt the game unless you slam it around well beyond where the tilt sensor ought to be set anyway.

deciding that nudging is cheating is about like an NFL coach deciding that the forward pass is cheating. it's absolutely a part of the game and a necessary component of all successful competitors.

well, a 200 pound person exerts roughly 1000 times as much total force on a pinball machine than a 0.15 pound steel ball (which contrary to popular myth, tops out around 6mph on a fast pinball playfield). yes the steel ball's point of impact is tiny, increasing the damage it can do to an individual plastic, but in terms of force applied to the overall game and specifically the leg bolts, it is not in the same ball park as a human being.

however, your broader point is correct that nudging a machine up to and including tilting will not damage it, because they are designed to be played in that manner. that's why games give tilt warnings. heck, some games even give additional tilt warnings as awards. it's absolutely part of the game.

Nudging and slap saves are the essence of pinball.
If you're not doing either, you're not playing the game right.
A nudge here and there does not mean you are being disrespectful or not "treating the machine like a lady".

Bang backs and other overly aggressive maneuvers, where damage to the machine may occur, are taking it too far.
There's a line and it's not a fine one.

Exactly. You will never become a great player unless you learn the art of nudging. And people who nudge will occasionally tilt. It's unavoidable.

Nudging it is good and fine; totally agree that you won't ever become proficient without learning how to skillfully nudge. Whereas slamming the game and beating the tar out of it is disrespectful and unacceptable. Even with a machine, there should be a spirit of sportsmanship. I saw an interview with Gary Stern who said the machines in his house "have no tilt bobs" and he says "whale away as anything goes..."

Tilt (or anti cheat device) is there to let you know the boundaries of how much nudging you can do on any given machine.

If you tilt once, then you know how far you can push it. Each tilt after that is punishment in it's self as you already know the limit.

Tilting is not cheating as that is the purpose of the mechanism.

I play to the limit that the machine will play. If it's a loose tilt, it gets manhandled. Period.

Nudging the game and beating the crap out of a game are completely different things. Nudging will absolutely not make your playing /scores worse. The number of collectors who are afraid to lightly nudge a game never ceases to amaze me.

If you're not nudging, slide-saving, etc, you're missing at least half of the fun/skill/tactile immersion of which pinball is all about.

I won a tournament because the other players were so rough on the machine they tilted out and lost all the bonus.

Everything in moderation.

Let's say you've already finished your third ball and your buddy is now playing his third. If he starts getting close to your score, then you need to hard bump and deliberately tilt the machine while he's playing to prevent him from passing your score and beating you. It's a solid tactic proven over time.

Oh, that's not what you meant?

Point is this..More damage has been done to more pinball machines, by pinballs, than has ever been caused by nudging/tilting.

DAMN STRAIGHT

You make it sound like he picked it up and kept shaking it till every ball fell out of the lock. That's not how I imagined it. If he gave one good shove and the balls came out, that seems OK to me.

While nudging the machine is without a doubt part of the game if your tilting a game your doing it wrong. If you need to rock a game so hard it tilts for a ball save youve obviously already lost control of the ball and are unlikely to regain control after rattling the crap out of it. In the 20+ years ive been playing i probably dont even average a single tilt per year. I may only see a warning flash on a dmd screen once every 20 games or so. Since joining a league ive noticed its always the guys that consistently tilt that are at the bottom of the pack. I'll go out on a limb here and say if you are constantly tilting machines you probably SUCK at pinball.

True, if you are tilting all the time, then you are clearly doing something wrong. The good players will monitor the tilt warnings, and then ease up once they are close to a tilt.

I brought a restored (new playfield, plastics, repainted cab, etc) Mata Hari to Chicago Expo a couple years back. I purposely set the tilt tight to keep my machine from being abused. It ended up being used in the tourney. I got several comments about the tilt being tight. My reply was to play it clean. I don't mind people nudging, bumping, etc, It's part of the game. But after seeing some of the abuse machines were taking I didn't care what they thought. I saw one machine almost tipped over. Uncool.

Unfortunately, there are some people that will really abuse a machine if the tilt is too loose. When I see it happen on location, I usually ask them politely to take it easy. If they ask me why I care, then I'll lie and say that the machine belongs to a friend of mine. It amazes me how little respect some people have for other people's property. Even if there is no tilt bob at all, that doesn't give you the right to damage the machine.

If you're playing a game like Iron Man where the ball is constantly out-of-control and in danger and you're draining all 3 balls without getting at least one or two danger warnings, you're doing it wrong.