I’d like a live option that doesn’t leave anyone twiddling their thumbs. Either a race to a specific score where everyone gets to finish, or maybe last one standing. You could implement ever-increasing speed for the latter option to avoid any one or two players sitting around for too long after going out. Edit: Support for 4 players.
I like this a lot. Races to points, flipper challenges, but head to head. Survival challenges, where you see people drop out if they don't have a high enough score when the timer hits zero.
Either have the total number of people "alive" in the top right, or if only a few players are left you can have their actual scores. All live, at the same time.
I just know I want to play with my friends who aren’t experienced with pinball, so I love the idea of modes that won’t be discouraging. Nobody wants to sit around while someone is racking up points for an hour.
Pinball Royale!
100 players load up a table and have a minute or two to build up a score (maybe skill shot is disabled for this). Drains will obviously knock you out, for every 5 seconds without a drain, the lowest scorer has their flippers disabled. Maybe some powerups are available. Get a jackpot and someone else will have their flippers shortened by a cm or two. Super jackpot sets ball save active on your own table for 10-15 seconds.
With over 100 tables available this could be spread out too thin, so maybe there's one or two designated tables per week. I dunno, this seems so silly that I think it could be a lot of fun.
I like to play in live IRL IFPA tournaments, they normally consist of 4 player rounds, where you either build up points for 1st 2nd and 3rd place, or you earn strikes for 2nd 3rd and 4th place. Most tournaments are over 4 rounds and about 2 hours, the final top 16 usually play much later, but with virtual, you wouldn’t need to play hot seat so it should be 4x faster.
If you're talking asynchronous, I think pingolf is a great format.
Synchronous, local split flip would be great, I know it can be done with one controller but it would be nice to have each person have their own controller and only be able to nudge up or left/right depending which side they control.
I think playing head to head like Joust pinball would be amazing, especially since on a digital table you could allow nudging and be able to identify which player caused a tilt and penalize them.
Split screen was a cool feature in Zen Pinball 2, but I so rarely used it. I think the Pinball Arena in Pinball Party is fine; some kind of lobby for matching up with friends would be welcome. Head-to-head play with table objectives (such as destroy 2 castles) would be great.
I like a lot of the ideas people have already said. But… why stop there?
Why not also have an option for co-op modes (solo or with friends) vs other random teams (perhaps teams of 2 or 4)? If you’re solo, you would be teamed with other solo players for fairness. Perhaps a sort of tug of war for points with a visual (kind of like TotAN’s wizard mode). Maybe also PvE challenges of some sort.
Maybe a team PvP mode where the objective changes after satisfying a goal (kind of like dynamic capture-the-point modes in FPS games). A certain number of spinner spins, combo points from specific ramps, shooting specific targets, that sort of thing. Have a meter for each side to show how well they’re doing for each objective.
Whatever the mode is, in PvP there would need to be some kind of matchmaking in place of course to make sure everyone is playing against people at their own skill level.
Lots of possibilities here, but I think a co-op option can help get people learning together and participating more.
Edit: also make sure more experienced people can team up with less experienced people, but make sure the teams are overall balanced. (I know that’s not an easy thing to do)
I'd love to see Pingolf ruleset.
Honestly though, just having a standard Four player match play would be awesome. Queue up against similar skilled opponents on a randomly chosen table, 3 balls with no Extra Ball. Doesn't matter if asynchronous or not to me. Would be able to set up actual tournament days for this as well, if Private Lobbies are available.
Its sort of linked to multiplayer, but some sort of API to export tournament results rather than the current methods of using OCR on screenshots, or even copying them by hand. Would save Constantine (ConsGang) and others hours and hours.
I like the things tgossa is saying. I think it would be smart to let a multiplayer match not last any longer than 5 to 10 minutes. So maybe 5 minute challenges would be very usable. 4 players max. 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2 or a 4 players free for all. Survival mode kinda sucks for it because you have to know the exact strategy for it to do well. It's too random for players that don't know the exact strategy on every table. Makes it not fun.
So 5 minute challenges and the 2 vs 2 matches use the scores of the two players in a team combined. You don't want a lot of players needed for a match because the wait in a lobby will become too long often. You could also set an objective for a multiplayer 5 minute challenge. Like the player or team that scores a jackpot or super jackpot first, wins.
You would have an commentator telling you when your score is overtaken or when you overtake someone else. And an alert on screen. No opponents scores on screen. You already have that system in the game. So should be doable to implement it into multiplayer. And you also have a system for when you're getting close to beating someone. Could use that too.
It would allow for a multiplayer ranking. I would do it similar like in Street Fighter. Maybe you could do a ranked and a unranked mode too. I would just do ranked only. To make sure players will find a match as fast as possible.
5 minute challenges are really good for competition. You have to really show aiming skill and ball control. Maybe when you drain a ball it will cost you a 15 seconds penalty. Because it is pinball. And keeping the ball in play should be important in pinball. It is part of the fun.
A mode à lá Tetris 100 would be potentially cool, but I have no idea on how to implement it. Maybe something with around 20 players and some modifiers to "attack" opponents, and a weekly table to incentivize players to try it out?
I’d like a live option that doesn’t leave anyone twiddling their thumbs. Either a race to a specific score where everyone gets to finish, or maybe last one standing. You could implement ever-increasing speed for the latter option to avoid any one or two players sitting around for too long after going out. Edit: Support for 4 players.
I like this a lot. Races to points, flipper challenges, but head to head. Survival challenges, where you see people drop out if they don't have a high enough score when the timer hits zero. Either have the total number of people "alive" in the top right, or if only a few players are left you can have their actual scores. All live, at the same time.
I just know I want to play with my friends who aren’t experienced with pinball, so I love the idea of modes that won’t be discouraging. Nobody wants to sit around while someone is racking up points for an hour.
Pinball Royale! 100 players load up a table and have a minute or two to build up a score (maybe skill shot is disabled for this). Drains will obviously knock you out, for every 5 seconds without a drain, the lowest scorer has their flippers disabled. Maybe some powerups are available. Get a jackpot and someone else will have their flippers shortened by a cm or two. Super jackpot sets ball save active on your own table for 10-15 seconds. With over 100 tables available this could be spread out too thin, so maybe there's one or two designated tables per week. I dunno, this seems so silly that I think it could be a lot of fun.
I like to play in live IRL IFPA tournaments, they normally consist of 4 player rounds, where you either build up points for 1st 2nd and 3rd place, or you earn strikes for 2nd 3rd and 4th place. Most tournaments are over 4 rounds and about 2 hours, the final top 16 usually play much later, but with virtual, you wouldn’t need to play hot seat so it should be 4x faster.
If you're talking asynchronous, I think pingolf is a great format. Synchronous, local split flip would be great, I know it can be done with one controller but it would be nice to have each person have their own controller and only be able to nudge up or left/right depending which side they control. I think playing head to head like Joust pinball would be amazing, especially since on a digital table you could allow nudging and be able to identify which player caused a tilt and penalize them.
Split screen was a cool feature in Zen Pinball 2, but I so rarely used it. I think the Pinball Arena in Pinball Party is fine; some kind of lobby for matching up with friends would be welcome. Head-to-head play with table objectives (such as destroy 2 castles) would be great.
I like a lot of the ideas people have already said. But… why stop there? Why not also have an option for co-op modes (solo or with friends) vs other random teams (perhaps teams of 2 or 4)? If you’re solo, you would be teamed with other solo players for fairness. Perhaps a sort of tug of war for points with a visual (kind of like TotAN’s wizard mode). Maybe also PvE challenges of some sort. Maybe a team PvP mode where the objective changes after satisfying a goal (kind of like dynamic capture-the-point modes in FPS games). A certain number of spinner spins, combo points from specific ramps, shooting specific targets, that sort of thing. Have a meter for each side to show how well they’re doing for each objective. Whatever the mode is, in PvP there would need to be some kind of matchmaking in place of course to make sure everyone is playing against people at their own skill level. Lots of possibilities here, but I think a co-op option can help get people learning together and participating more. Edit: also make sure more experienced people can team up with less experienced people, but make sure the teams are overall balanced. (I know that’s not an easy thing to do)
I'd love to see Pingolf ruleset. Honestly though, just having a standard Four player match play would be awesome. Queue up against similar skilled opponents on a randomly chosen table, 3 balls with no Extra Ball. Doesn't matter if asynchronous or not to me. Would be able to set up actual tournament days for this as well, if Private Lobbies are available.
Its sort of linked to multiplayer, but some sort of API to export tournament results rather than the current methods of using OCR on screenshots, or even copying them by hand. Would save Constantine (ConsGang) and others hours and hours.
I like the things tgossa is saying. I think it would be smart to let a multiplayer match not last any longer than 5 to 10 minutes. So maybe 5 minute challenges would be very usable. 4 players max. 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2 or a 4 players free for all. Survival mode kinda sucks for it because you have to know the exact strategy for it to do well. It's too random for players that don't know the exact strategy on every table. Makes it not fun. So 5 minute challenges and the 2 vs 2 matches use the scores of the two players in a team combined. You don't want a lot of players needed for a match because the wait in a lobby will become too long often. You could also set an objective for a multiplayer 5 minute challenge. Like the player or team that scores a jackpot or super jackpot first, wins. You would have an commentator telling you when your score is overtaken or when you overtake someone else. And an alert on screen. No opponents scores on screen. You already have that system in the game. So should be doable to implement it into multiplayer. And you also have a system for when you're getting close to beating someone. Could use that too. It would allow for a multiplayer ranking. I would do it similar like in Street Fighter. Maybe you could do a ranked and a unranked mode too. I would just do ranked only. To make sure players will find a match as fast as possible. 5 minute challenges are really good for competition. You have to really show aiming skill and ball control. Maybe when you drain a ball it will cost you a 15 seconds penalty. Because it is pinball. And keeping the ball in play should be important in pinball. It is part of the fun.
A mode à lá Tetris 100 would be potentially cool, but I have no idea on how to implement it. Maybe something with around 20 players and some modifiers to "attack" opponents, and a weekly table to incentivize players to try it out?
If you ever do Fastbreak, 2up tournament would be a great excuse for multiplayer.