Luck vs Skill - Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection (2024)

What is more important when you're playing a pinball machine? skill or luck?
I think its more luck than skills.
Of course, a little kid mashing the flippers won't ever reach a hi-score but sometimes no matter how skilled you are, you probably gonna bite the dust.
>=)

Sure luck is involved but most of it is skill. Knowing what to hit at what time and in what order and being able to hit certain shots consistantly is pretty important. If it was all about luck, you wouldn't see yourself improving on tables. After I really learn a table, I can play some very long games. Of course I could still get unlucky but I do believe that skill plays a much larger role here.

I think skill/experience is much more of a factor than luck, and it definitely involves the willingness/ability to nudge the table in addition to just good flipper skills. Think about the patterns that you become accustomed to on a particular table. You'll begin to notice how a ball will roll from a certain area or after a missed shot and when it will have a pretty high chance of draining. Then you begin to calculate how to disrupt the ball's path when it enters one of those draining patterns. Knowing when a ball is about to drain and how to avoid it is, I feel, more important than knowing the next big target to hit to maximize your score, because if you miss the target, maybe you'll regain control of the ball for another chance at that target, but if you lose the ball, that's it. Defeating these draining moments is a matter of instinct, reflexes, and most importantly pattern recognition, so I would put pinball at about 80% skill, 20% luck. (Except when you get to multiball, then, unless there's a juggling pattern, it's 20% skill and 80% luck because of all the ricochets.)

I think 3y3kwah has a point there, in my first tries with Black Knight I couldnt beleive how cheap that table was! I mean, I used to lose the 3 balls in an eye shut! with experience I was able to predict when the ball was gonna try to drain, I mean , at least in this table, it has very fast lanes that if you arent expecting them, will drain your ball in no time.
So, I think its true, sometimes experience is very valuable "value". xD

The luck factor helps to make each game a new experience. Ya never know how its going to go. First 2 balls can bounce right down the middle with nothing you could do, but that third ball can last you to a new high score if you're skilled enough.

deathtank: I totally agree, I really enjoy getting Magna-Save goin on Black Knight, it feels so elite to save yourself from a certain drain with one thumb flick.