Austin wrote:The reason to have a cap on the Bing scoring is two-fold. Again, there's the fact you can use it to do other things (very important), and two, there's the fact it's *not* hard to start (I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that it is). If the scores kept increasing during Bing without a cap, no one would play anything else in the game, it would be Bing all day for scores and that would hurt the balance in the end. Even if the value was capped at a decent value, it would undermine Underboss, one of the two wizard modes.
We're going to have to agree to disagree on this point, I guess. With BB being a necessity to achieve Boss WM, it's rather important on its own just to achieve. If you're an average player, and you end up qualifying BB after three shots to the left ramp, to be hit by "75 Switches Needed For Multiball" is pretty disheartening. It's a pretty long way there unless you've already got Stugots MB pretty much ready to rock. Sure, 75 switches isn't hard during a multiball, but it's not exactly reasonable for a beginner to be able to achieve that on their own in single ball play (the spinner can be okay, but not *that* okay). I don't consider this to be "easy access", but that's me.
I also disagree that no one would play anything else in the game. Yes, they'd basically try and stack everything for that purpose, but considering the sheer number of shots necessary to get the point value for BB shots to be even half-relevant (considering the 5K per shot raise), the cap is just ludicrous. Its only function is to cut off a player at the knees.
In the same way, it's why later revisions of T3's multiball code make it so much better: the focus is *eventually* taken off of the drop target (after Super Jackpot has been scored), and the player is forced to look around and wonder what they should be doing instead of mindlessly hitting the drop target lane. "Oh, I have to shoot A-B-C to relight the jackpots? What's the machine trying to tell me?" *Exactly*. You should be trying to complete your Max Escape! Or your Payback Time! Or go ahead and use the A-B-C to relight the jackpots, if you think that it's worth that! Bada-Bing Multiball caps for no good reason at all...you should *always* be using it to complete the Meadowlands or whatever. If you can achieve 60 shots during BB multiball, you *should be* accruing 425K (or so) per shot. That's *a lot* of shots, and if you're able to make any multiball last that long, you should be rewarded. It certainly doesn't make any sense for Truck Heist *qualifying* shots to be worth 375K during single ball play, then, does it? At 5K increase per shot, it wouldn't be "Bing all day", or at least it wouldn't for me. Stugots is by far the better bargain to play. Scoring Double Super Jackpots in that makes BB look pathetic and useless, which is what it is for the most part. There should have, at the very least, been a "Hold Ball For Multiplied Scores" use of the ramp during BB multiball. They put a lot of money and BOM into that area of the playfield to basically underuse it.
Would it undermine Underboss? That's a point that could be counteracted with increased Underboss scoring. As it stands, BB gets played by me for A. The journey to Boss and B. As a multiball extender for Stugots. It's a pretty lousy destination on its own.
And that's "The *Immortal* Words of Steve Ritchie".