3.10 - Why is the replay score different from the other day? (Playing Pinball)
Description
This article is from the General Pinball FAQ, by Keith Johnson keefer@access.digex.net with numerous contributions by others.
3.10 - Why is the replay score different from the other day? (Playing Pinball)
All modern games use reflexing to adjust the replay value of a game every so
often to a desired target percentage of replays. Generally, this is set to
about 10%. This means that the game looks at the last x number of games
played, determines the percentage of those games that replays were awarded,
then makes the new replay value higher or lower depending on what the actual
percentage of games won is compared to the desired percentage.
Williams/Bally and Gottlieb games reset their replay scores every 50 or so
games. Data East games ask you to hit start after power-cycling the machine
in order to adjust the replay (or they do it right away if you are using the
menus). Lots of recent Gottlieb games have a bug in them that sets the
replay well out of reach for pretty much anyone. No one knows why for sure,
but there are quite a few machines (SF2s and SMBs, especially) that have
replays in the 9 BILLIONS! Ouch.
Different from the base replay score is the replay boost: Most games will
start raising the current replay score until you run out of credits (so that
it isn't easy to constantly keep getting replays at a set score). Williams
games nowadays typically raise the replay by 50% of the BASE replay score (so
if a replay was 1.2B, the boost would be 600M every time) until you run out
of credits or someone else puts more money into the game (although Johnny
Mnemonic will not allow a replay of more than 10B points). Either of those
actions will put the replay score back to its base (usually). Sega games
boost their replays after a replay *OR* a match! Running out of credits or
putting more money in should reset the replay back to normal here, too. For
older Gottlieb games, you can get a few replays in a row at the base score,
but after that, the score starts to skyrocket. And the boost gets higher
and higher after each game played until there are no credits left. Newer
Gottliebs (starting with Stargte) seem to have adopted the normal replay
boosting system.
Also note that the replay score isn't the only thing that can reflex on a
game. Number of ramp shots needed to light extra ball is a good example of
other reflexing features. Beware of Data East "reflexing," though! Their
games have a tendency to reflex either on or off, not just harder or easier!
(This is a Bad Thing, of course.)
-- Thanks to Dave Stewart <dstewart@eng.umd.edu> for suggestions.
Continue to:
My Books
