- Joined
- Apr 27, 2009
- Location
- the land of snow and maple syrup
Goddess of Love; ok, the bonus triggers if the word bonus lands on reels 3, 4, 5 only...so why does it spin by on 1?
Goddess of Love
The 'spins' are just eye candy... It doesn't matter.
You could briefly see a naked picture of Nifty29 and it would never land.
Press spin, registers with server, server sends back result - relevant reels are displayed.
Agreed though, it's lazy they left that in.
P.S
You were directing this question directly at me based on the above, right?
The 'spins' are just eye candy... It doesn't matter.
oh, I'm aware it has zero impact on where symbols land; just seems pointless to add to the reel though
It's worse than pointless, it raises unfounded concerns that the game might be rigged to block certain symbols from landing as often as they should. Why can't they make the animation out of the actual reelstrip, so that sharp eyed players don't notice such oddities and start wondering what is going on.
It is, after all, a visual representation of an actual machine, which used to be made from actual reels in a cabinet. Although merely a visual reproduction, our brains interpret them based on what we understand a real machine might show if it had a big enough cabinet to hold such a reel. We therefore expect that we are seeing a true representation of the reel spinning round, and that what we see at this stage is the same reel we see a segment of when it is stopped. The shortcuts taken by programmers are not meant to be seen by players, so this was a pretty careless one. If players really knew all the shortcuts taken, it would destroy our mind's eye image of the machine we were playing, rendering it merely a random scratchcard type game with a load of largely irrelevant artwork surrounding a fixed and predetermined win or loss. Mathematically, it makes no difference, but knowing a slot was "faked" to front a glorified keno or scratchcard game would put many players off as they would wonder whether some combinations were not possible, or once won no longer available for that cycle.
but knowing a slot was "faked" to front a glorified keno or scratchcard game would put many players off as they would wonder whether some combinations were not possible, or once won no longer available for that cycle.
What "cycle"?
In the UK, a "rigged" slot is the norm, with truly random slots being something of a novelty. Even some of the newer £500 jackpot video slots are marked as "compensated", the technical term for "rigged"
If I see a "compensated" fruit machine drop over £140 to a player, I avoid it because I know that this has effectively killed my chances of getting any decent prize until the game has "recovered" that £140 plus a bit on top to account for the house's cut. A naive player may see such a payout as indicating the machine is "hot", and so will fill it up again
It could land - which one of these guys is Nifty?You could briefly see a naked picture of Nifty29 and it would never land.
That's not necessarily true, there's a whole family of Electrocoin AWPs that save in the background for a long time for a £140 mega streak, the machine drops this as and when it's ready, it can't be forced out.
However, that £140 is a free win as it's already been paid for upfront. Therefore it's entirely possible to win that £140 (or watch someone else do it), and then take another couple of hundred quid out of the machine with the true skill features (this family of machines has two true skill features).
Here's a £70 Electrocoin AWP going for £390, the free wins here (the invincible three red icons boards) added up to £180, then the player got three lots of £70 off the skill features.
Point being, the machine paid £180 first, but it still had another £210 in it, as the £180 was basically 'free' and didn't affect the compensation.
VOLUME ALERT! There's some horrible karaoke going on!
I remember the old ACE machines doing this, where you could have the streak, in those days £20 to £30, but then get just as much again by knowing how to play the number features, a secondary set of wins based on the reel stops.
This may be true where machines have a streak that can't be forced out, but where the streak can be forced, getting it can kill the machine stone dead. An obvious example was the first "Pie Factory", where doing the force and manipulator for JP + Red Board, would guarantee no-one else would see more than a couple of quid for some while. Vamp it up was more like the Electrocoin, where the top feature could go for between £25 and £50, but then further large wins and Jackpots could be had from the features, some of which needed a bit of skill.
Operators have always preferred compensated machines over random ones. It has allowed them to introduce these streaks into an otherwise boring game limited by regulation to small jackpots compared to stake. When 20p was brought out, we had a £4.80 limit on the jackpot. Manufacturers got around this by upping the variance by introducing the "streak pot" into the compensation arrangements. Compensation also allowed for true skill based features that would adapt to the skill levels of the player by reading the running RTP, and making the features harder to achieve when RTP was too high, and very easy when loads of novice players messed up the skill features.
It could be quite profitable finding a machine where unskilled players had forced the features to adjust to "novice mode". It meant a skilled player could repeatedly complete the skill features, taking a fair chunk of change from the tubes, before the machine started adjusting the features to compensate. I got chucked out of a few places for doing this to the old "skill climb for £2 repeater" machines BFM were the dog's bollocks when it came to these, originally 10p a go, and reworked for 20p/£4.80 Barcrest had a few, and Cash Counter could be quite profitable, even though the feature was harder than on BFM games.
What REALLY pissed me off in those days was blown bulbs in the climb lights, which engineers hardly ever bothered to replace. I even wrote a letter of complaint to Welcome Break on the dreadful state of the machines, where skill features were next to impossible because so many bulbs had blown and never been replaced. They wrote back with a grovelling apology, and asked me to name and shame the offending services (It was Fleet on the M3, and I couldn't "do" the Jackpoteers because of blown bulbs)