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IFPA state tournies coming up on the 14th. Our's (MN) being held at a private residence this year since we've run through the handful of public locations that have enough machines over the past few years. Since it's at a private location - the owner has been asked not to have any of the qualifying players over before the tournament. Not really fair to those that don't know him as well as others, etc. Other than Creature from the Black Lagoon, I have access to all of his other tables at various public locations. Most of them I've played a decent amount, though some way more than others. Any suggestions for quick/easy points on the following? ACDC Premium. I like the table, but have never gotten into that much and don't really know the rules. I typically just pick War Machine, cause I like hitting spinners and it makes a cool sound. Yes, my "strategy" is that dumb. Jurassic Park Prem . Chaos multiball? Something else? Iron Maiden Premium . See ACDC. I like it. I've played it plenty, but just don't have any actual strategy going while playing it. PinBot and Whirlwind - Anything beyond starting multiball and trying for jackpots? STTNG - Anthing other than taking free locks at ball launch and going for multiball? What's the best quick points mode to start with? Thanks for any tips, and good luck to others that have qualified.
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Jan 8, 2020 21:06
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 13:48 |
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Well, the one table I played a ton out of that lot is Iron Maiden, so let me think what I would go for for quick points. As far as battle modes go, you don't have a lot of choice since AFAIK, tournament Maiden starts at Fear and you can't really choose your mode, just shoot the left spinner and pray. Since Fear is kind of a crap mode, I would suggest starting by hitting the skill shot, then using the ball saver time to rip the left spinner once, hoping for a better mode. Ripping the left spinner on ball save time is generally good because kickbacks are good period. The ideal is Hallowed, which can be big points even without getting a playfield X, especially with the potential for the 3x Soul Shard collect on the center of the Pharaoh target. Aces and Rime are both good modes because hey, multiball. Don't forget that the orb mystery is your add-a-ball in those modes. Icarus is a mode that can either murder you or bring you the win - if you can combo those ramps, go for it, but if not, you might be better off trying to do something like stacking it with Mummy, since the add-a-ball for that has you hitting the two ramps at least once. Fear, like I said, is kind of crap. It's very risky to go for the big points - the biggest I really go for is left ramp, right ramp for the double, and left orbit for the regular spinner. Everything else is asking for it. If you don't care for it, stack it with Trooper. As for multiballs... Mummy, in my experience, needs a really good multiball to make something of it, since it takes a while to advance to the good jackpot. Since it's easily set up to be instantly usable with a single captive ball shot, I like using it for a mode stack, like I said, particularly with Icarus. Trooper is a money multiball if you can keep things going. Make sure you make the most out of your cannon shot you can light from the start and again after every Super - on top of being the add-a-ball the first time, spotting multiple jackpots by getting the 3x Pharaoh target shot gets you to the Super faster, and if you can get, say, two Supers, you're going to have a fair amount of 3x Jackpots. Add in a playfield X, and Trooper can really go far. Cyborg is something you need to watch out for - you have to keep it going to really score, but the add-a-balls for scoring jackpots will be able to keep you going. Besides, you're probably not going to actively go for it anyway, so it'll probably just happen and at that point you're going to take whatever you can get anyway. Also, don't sleep on Can I Play With Madness. If you have a great game and can get some Tomb Treasures, that multiball can give you another 100 million or so if you play it well. If you know you have the third Tomb Treasure lit, go for it! For other stuff around the table, if you can rip the outer loop, Loop Jackpots can do a ton of damage, even more if you can hit the inner loop and bring in a multiplier. The problem is that that outer loop is deadly. Never forget the wise words of Bowen. As for Power Jackpots, I find saving them up for a massive collect to be a fool's errand - either you're gonna miss a shot and collect it anyway, or you'll get greedy, drain and lose all of it. Also, learn how the ball behaves on a shot up the center ramp when you hold up the mini-flipper up top. On my table, it collects the bottom two drops, and a shot around the right orbit with the mini-flipper held hits the top, which can be very useful for lighting the orb for a multiball mode or getting to Trooper. Otherwise, not much there, I think. So yeah, if you want a good floor, just try to get and beat Hallowed, and try to play Trooper. But that's not something you can consistently do. EDIT: Oh, and of course playfield X is big. If you have only one target left and it doesn't seem suicidal, go for it and set yourself up. Training to not blow your load on the playfield X early is important - the best moments are right at the end of Hallowed for the final shot up the middle and the Soul Shard collect, and after collecting your first Super in Trooper and getting the 2x jackpots lit (I don't like doing it before collecting the Super because that shot loving sucks). Or right before doing Loop Jackpots, but, you know, don't shoot loops or you die. TheMcD fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Jan 8, 2020 |
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Jan 8, 2020 22:13
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Tony Phillips posted:This times 100. Knowing going in that if you're going to have a good game that it would take 30+ minutes was really a deterrent to wanting to play. Added an EM at one point and found myself playing it way more often since I knew I could run through 5 games in the 10-15 minutes that I felt like playing for and that that was more what I was looking for. I never got into EMs, but I like the 1980s System 11 games for the same reason. Taxi - still a challenge for me to pick up all the passengers, but a good game would be 10 minutes or less. I like the simple arcade action.
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Jan 9, 2020 02:18
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ACDC - Pick a mode that has shots you like (shots are lit when previewing songs so you don't have to memorize). Don't pick the mode that is just cannon all day (I think it's For Those About to Rock), as it's too dangerous on a machine you don't know. Get into a multiball (any of them will do, but Jam is easy to just grind ramps for). Stacking MBs is typically worse than taking them one at a time. Complete all of the red music note shots while in a MB to get an add-a-ball (the VIP passes you get from skill shots can be used on the action button to spot a shot, so you can use this to your advantage when draining out of MB if you have enough passes). Pinbot - Other than MB, I try to go for vortexes. shoot the left ramp and pray it feeds to the shooter lane. The vortex values are multiplied by the number of times you make the left ramp -> shooter lane, so it can get quite valuable. ST:TNG - Video mode: L -> L -> R -> R -> L -> L -> R -> L -> R/L
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Jan 9, 2020 03:12
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Tony Phillips posted:STTNG - Anthing other than taking free locks at ball launch and going for multiball? What's the best quick points mode to start with? As I recall, the big ups on TNG are:
I haven't played TNG in close to two years so I might've missed something, but that feels pretty comprehensive after taking another look at the table.
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Jan 9, 2020 03:20
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Hopefully these aren’t too simple: AC/DC: three Bell hits is a 2X playfield multiplier, so I shoot the cannon at the bell. It's why you see a lot of Hell's Bells in competition. The problem with it is it's easy to brick the ball off the left TNT standup and bye bye ball. I'm an all day War Machine, too. Pinbot: be sure to be gentle as the first ball starts. You want that flashing shot to open the visor in one try. I make sure I can hit the blue column and wait for it to cycle around. Not sure if you get EBs in a satellite competition, but two open visors is an EB light. You can get that in one ball pretty easily if you hit that flashing shot. I also say don’t sleep on the Energy Value shot if the pops don’t suck. You can stack that up, and rake the left drop targets with a backhand on the way on some tables. If you can spam that ramp, it's a safe place to have the ball and bonus multipliers don’t hurt. It builds the Solar Eclipse jackpot, and keeps feeding the pops where it doesn’t slide off the upper playfield into the middle (building Energy, too). Nothing beats locking the eyeball and being methodical in the resulting single ball play, really. In a competition, the Solar Eclipse jackpot is probably riding the minimum most of the time. If you can spam ramps in between eye locks, you get huge jackpots, but it takes patience and precision. In reality, most Pinbots are beat all to hell by now and none are reliable enough to be that precise on. So it's grab every points you can. God I love that game! bort fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Jan 9, 2020 |
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Jan 9, 2020 04:28
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Every time we had tng in a tourney it was Multiball and video mode. It’s such a blah tourney game.
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Jan 9, 2020 06:02
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Snacksmaniac posted:Every time we had tng in a tourney it was Multiball and video mode. It’s such a blah tourney game.
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Jan 9, 2020 15:37
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tobeannouncd posted:ST:TNG - Video mode: L -> L -> R -> R -> L -> L -> R -> L -> R/L it's the same every time? gently caress
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Jan 9, 2020 18:01
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Yeah, for AC/DC you probably want to start a game on Hell's Bells. Hit the bell three times for 2x, another 3 times while 2x is going for 3x, every bell hit resets the multiplier timer back to 20 seconds, a ball in the dish behind the bell gets you a trip to Hell (the lower playfield) every time you loop the major shots. That's probably the fastest way to start with big points. Hell Ain't A Bad Place to Be is probably the easier Hell start, though, since you get a shot at Hell straight from the plunge. If you're going for survival, don't stack multis. Album and Tour Multis are more lucrative if you're lucky than Jam is, because a jackpot involving the album or tour that the currently playing song was featured on will get you the Song Jackpot as an added bonus to the Multi Jack. So, if you're on Back in Black, and you get the right album from an Album Jack, you'll get the song jack too.
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Jan 9, 2020 19:08
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Snacksmaniac posted:Every time we had tng in a tourney it was Multiball and video mode. It’s such a blah tourney game. Yeah, if you're playing for pure points and ball safety it's really boring. I can't stand it.
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Jan 9, 2020 20:12
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anyone heading to INDiSC this weekend? i'm staying far far away, personally 
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Jan 9, 2020 20:15
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pzy posted:it's the same every time? gently caress There's a ROM out there that replaces the video mode with a flat 25 million. Way better for tournament play, TBH.
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Jan 9, 2020 22:34
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boar guy posted:anyone heading to INDiSC this weekend? i'm staying far far away, personally Oh poo poo, I had no idea this was a thing. Can I just play machines for fun, I am a tournament coward but enjoy the silver ball
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Jan 10, 2020 04:24
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Dre2Dee2 posted:Oh poo poo, I had no idea this was a thing. Can I just play machines for fun, I am a tournament coward but enjoy the silver ball $40 a day I believe
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Jan 10, 2020 05:39
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Dre2Dee2 posted:Oh poo poo, I had no idea this was a thing. Can I just play machines for fun, I am a tournament coward but enjoy the silver ball Not going this year, but went last year. The main room has pretty much any game you could ever want to play on freeplay. It's a good time. I played Iron Maiden in the tournament with Keith Elwin watching me. Probably the most surreal feeling I've had so far playing competitively.
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Jan 10, 2020 07:41
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I hit 1bil on Guardians for the first time last night during league  my previous best was 260mil on that game so I'm pretty loving thrilled. Everything just kind of fell into place, I don't know if I'll ever be able to do it again. Started with Antiquities Shop, moved on to Knowhere, slammed out Groot AND Orb Multiball on ball 1, completed Pod Chase, Sibling Rivalry and Escape Kyln on ball 2, started ball 3 with Quill's Quest, and it was all gravy from there. Got through Cherry Bomb and hit a 560mil super. Fuckin' crazy
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Jan 10, 2020 14:48
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Netsky posted:Not going this year, but went last year. The main room has pretty much any game you could ever want to play on freeplay. It's a good time. Hah, thats awesome. See ya there boys
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Jan 10, 2020 19:03
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Our MMr at work is seemingly-randomly ejecting new balls from the trough in the middle of normal play. the ball auto-launches into the field because of the switch in the channel there, the launcher never fires at the wrong time; but what could be causing the eject solenoid to fire? The wiring seems more solid than anything else in the machine that isn't a plug, and it never fires when the trough is empty or double-fires or gets stuck, anything that would indicate a wiring/power problem to me (ed) All five optos in the trough seem to be working correctly, but I couldn't figure out how to be looking at the Switch Edge test AND cause the eject to fire so I could see how the switches changed, so I used some torn paper Ciaphas fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Jan 11, 2020 |
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Jan 11, 2020 17:59
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Tony Phillips posted:Jurassic Park Prem . Chaos multiball? Something else? hey, hi, hello. ok so gently caress just going for chaos, it is very good points but rattling away at it alone isn't going to build you a good baseline. so how do we build to CHAOS and score points? complete the first dino (1 rescue, trap targets then lit yellow shot), the +200k rescue dino is ideal but really either will do. the real cherry here is that you get access to your first control room mode, which is very conveniently the C shot. so now you've hit it and you've got three modes to pick, system boot is the one you want. three lit blue shots lead to three others, however all of HAOS are mode shots during this. a good system boot can net you 100m+ alone, and you'll most likely be very close to starting CHAOS after it. the first truck/trex mode is trex MB (on default settings), which can also be great scoring. you can start it right away at the trex ramp but you want to build up its value through the other lit amber shots, be careful though because you can actually take too long and have the hurryup run out and not have the MB available to you. once you get it up to something nice (two lit shots is good value, more is better but hey, some of those shots are tight) start it on the trex ramp. you get double scoring if you follow the red arrow sequentially through CHAOS but really you just want to build up to the super, the jackpots still climb as you hit shots. using this basic strat i can drum out 200m+ games with good consistency now, good luck!
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Jan 14, 2020 07:42
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Hi, I'm terrible at pinball but I like to play it, and since I got a vive last month I've really been into PinballFx2 VR, the only real drawback being that it doesn't share tables with regular FX2 and it only has like 10 tables itself and only 3 of those aren't dlc. Are there any other good VR pinball setups that maybe let you use custom tables? If I could play the Marvel and Star Wars tables I bought for regular FX2 I think I'd be happy forever.
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Jan 14, 2020 15:18
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raditts posted:Hi, I'm terrible at pinball but I like to play it, and since I got a vive last month I've really been into PinballFx2 VR, the only real drawback being that it doesn't share tables with regular FX2 and it only has like 10 tables itself and only 3 of those aren't dlc. Zaccaria has VR, but you have to pay to enable it. Beyond that I don't know. Good luck!
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Jan 14, 2020 15:22
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I haven't played around with it, but there is the super open source/custom route of Visual Pinball which has VR tables. I've heard good things but it looked like it was a lot of setup and I've yet to even play the pfx2 tables in vr for very long.
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Jan 14, 2020 19:10
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Yeah I started playing with virtual pinball vr but it seems like a huge hassle to get working properly I wish fx2vr had more tables, its really great
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Jan 14, 2020 20:08
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Kouerson posted:hey, hi, hello.
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Jan 17, 2020 04:22
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Anybody playing in their respective state finals this weekend for IFPA NACS? I played yesterday, made it through to the semifinals which was amazing, then got bounced really quickly and got smoked in the 3rd place playoff. I took the scorecard from the first round where I won the series 4-3 as a memento since it's the first time I've ever won an official IFPA circuit series. I've made states once before but lost 3-4 in the first round, so this was definitely a big improvement
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Jan 19, 2020 16:08
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Tiny Tubesteak Tom posted:Anybody playing in their respective state finals this weekend for IFPA NACS? I played yesterday, made it through to the semifinals which was amazing, then got bounced really quickly and got smoked in the 3rd place playoff. I took the scorecard from the first round where I won the series 4-3 as a memento since it's the first time I've ever won an official IFPA circuit series. I've made states once before but lost 3-4 in the first round, so this was definitely a big improvement Yeah. Fifth time. Ate it 3-4 in the first round this year. Took one on the chin from an insanely tight tilt on Paragon. Bonus up to 17K with a 2x - almost to 20K where it would carry over. 34k in bonus lost on that ball, no carry over since I didn't reach 20 and then lost the match by 16k. Would have been a 4-2 win. Oh well. Not the biggest upset (I was the 6 seed this year) as our #2 seed got bounced 4-2 in an absolute WTF is happening first round match. Cinderella story for MN was the #10 seed making the finals before getting ritualistically slaughtered 4-0 by the returning champ. Don't try to beat top 50 ranked players in a best of 7. Good times though. Nice living in a state with a decent competitive scene, but still small enough where a B-lister like me gets to qualify each year.
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Jan 19, 2020 16:53
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Tiny Tubesteak Tom posted:Anybody playing in their respective state finals this weekend for IFPA NACS? I played yesterday, made it through to the semifinals which was amazing, then got bounced really quickly and got smoked in the 3rd place playoff. I took the scorecard from the first round where I won the series 4-3 as a memento since it's the first time I've ever won an official IFPA circuit series. I've made states once before but lost 3-4 in the first round, so this was definitely a big improvement Nicely done. I got to compete in my first state championship yesterday as the 10 seed. Won my first round 4-2 then got stomped against the 2 seed 1-4. Basically used up all my luck on the one game I won that round. Had a 500,000+ ball 1 on Mata Hari, then nearly GC'd it after ball 3. 
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Jan 19, 2020 20:38
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Tiny Tubesteak Tom posted:Anybody playing in their respective state finals this weekend for IFPA NACS? I played yesterday, made it through to the semifinals which was amazing, then got bounced really quickly and got smoked in the 3rd place playoff. I took the scorecard from the first round where I won the series 4-3 as a memento since it's the first time I've ever won an official IFPA circuit series. I've made states once before but lost 3-4 in the first round, so this was definitely a big improvement  Had a pretty crazy final game on WCS. I was player 2, and I was going in to ball 3 down (880 mil to ~120 mil). I had multiball ready on Final Draw, and took about 3 minutes struggling to hit it. Finally hit it and had a pretty pathetic MB (only 1 jackpot). At that point, I was maybe up to 300 mil. Started Big Goal round, completed, now I'm at ~375 mil. Because of the goals, all of the ultra modes were lit, so I decided to just focus on completing as much of those as possible. Got an EB at some point. Drained at ~550 mil. Because of all the ultra modes, my bonus ended up at ~300 mil. I then had to plunge my EB, sitting at 850 mil. Took the win with 75 mil in bonus on a plunged ball.
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Jan 19, 2020 22:59
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You're all making me feel inadequate, since I'm just the okay-est pinball player in the world. Though I don't much care for competitive playing. I mostly just play as a bit of a diversion from life, and I prefer going for modes more than high score. It probably doesn't help that a good chunk of the people at my nearby pinball place are chud assholes, and the forced interaction with them from participating in the local tournaments is particularly unappealing.
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Jan 19, 2020 23:44
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Inferior Third Season posted:You're all making me feel inadequate, since I'm just the okay-est pinball player in the world. Though I don't much care for competitive playing. I mostly just play as a bit of a diversion from life, and I prefer going for modes more than high score. That sucks to hear. I don't normally do competitive stuff but the pinball group around me has been very welcoming and the TDs actually call people out when they say disparaging poo poo.
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Jan 20, 2020 02:14
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If anyone lives in or around the NYC area, the NYC Pinball Championships just opened registrations yesterday. I played last year and it was a fun, though, I haven't played in a lot of tournaments that I can compare it to https://www.nycpinballchamps.com/registration
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Jan 20, 2020 19:27
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bort posted:You magnificent goon. Thank you so much, you totally changed my appreciation for this game. No worries! I put a ton of time into it because it's in my league. I'm waiting til friday to get NYCPC entry because it's gonna be a pricey tournament (with hotel + travel + entries) so seeing how much cash I get paid to start the road for saving for it in earnest. Found a relatively cheap hostel close to the venue too. Kouerson fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Jan 22, 2020 |
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Jan 22, 2020 07:08
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Kouerson posted:No worries! I put a ton of time into it because it's in my league. It seems like with the updated code that the button now does.... something? It seems to count as a rescue shot in a mode (maybe not...) I've also heard that if you hit the missile shot and then hit the button, it automatically starts chaos. Is there an optimal time to use this?
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Jan 22, 2020 20:59
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was on vacation this past weekend, went to portland for the first time hit ground kontrol, played a few games TNA was out of order, but apparently had been repaired right before I left, bummer. on the other hand, I can now officially say I've played all three black knight tables and that I don't like any of them
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Jan 22, 2020 22:00
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A guy on my league team got Elvira into a bugged state and racked up over 7 B. He said during Happy Hour he was getting 50 million per ramp.
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Jan 23, 2020 01:23
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hexwren posted:on the other hand, I can now officially say I've played all three black knight tables and that I don't like any of them I'm sorry for your bad taste, friend.
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Jan 23, 2020 01:37
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I was never a big fan of the original but Black Knight 2000 is the friggin shizzy. I've never encountered Sword of Rage but I just checked out the release trailer and yep, that's a Scott Ian and Brendan Small score 
McSpanky fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Jan 23, 2020 |
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Jan 23, 2020 01:42
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I'd like SoR more if the ones here weren't both LEs and therefore have the lovely upper field 
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Jan 23, 2020 01:44
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 13:48 |
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I took a long lunch break to play SoR at the bar down the street and set the Molten Fire high score so I guess I'm getting better after all.
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Jan 23, 2020 19:15
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