If you are good at keeping the balls in play you will have 8 balls on the playfield, if you are constantly draining then yes you will have less than 8 at a time.

There are other ways to discourage trapping up if that is their goal, such as coding that you can only hold the flipper up a couple seconds in that mode, or having the jackpot bonus count down if you are holding the flipper up.
Having so many balls on the playfield that you can't possibly aim your shots certainly does create a feeling of chaos, but it also removes all skill required.

I'm looking forward to seeing some professional streamers play this multiball and see what their strategy is and their thoughts on it. Perhaps they will prove my speculation to be incorrect and will reveal some skill and strategy to use during Dragon multiball. I hope for everyone that they do.

This topper is crazy looking!

https://pinside.com/pinball/shops/shop/1647-vincent-mods/12652-topper-for-stern-pin-dungeons-amp-dragons-the-tyrants-eye

In one of the many streams out there, Dwight and Brian explained the Dragon difficulty increases as your character level increases. They have the ability to code the dragon to fire the balls at specific locations, like the outlanes if they want. The dragon's head will also block more shots as you face it later in the game.

LOL It seems I have made my point

Bring on the D&D gameplay streams.

I'm going back to the JAWs thread to repeatedly bring up how ready I am for the next code update

How about dragon mb starts with 3 balls. If you drain a ball, 2 balls get launched. Casual players will still get up to 6-8 balls and have the fun of a flail fest that better players generally don’t enjoy as much. More experienced players have a reasonable amount of balls to try and control and are punished if they drain by making it harder to control and aim.

May need to make the number of drains and number of shots to the dragon needed higher to give that time to play out but would give both types of players what they want i think.

much love my dude. nearly certain you'll enjoy the ball battle more than you're expecting

It's really cool, but the screens are a turn off for me. Its too different than any other topper I have

Or, make each ball in play a limited multiplier of 0.5x, with a base of 1x for the first ball. Drain 3 balls on purpose for better control and you're down to 2x. Keep 6 going and you have 3.5x.

You sound so much like me I'm kinda wondering if we were separated at birth.

I'm jealous of you and your son. Can you imagine having a dad that has a HUGE warehouse FULL of the latest and greatest pinball and arcade machine! If you adopt me I promise to clean my room everyday!

For me personally, toppers are more about mechanical action (it's why I hate the more recent Stern trend of just layered flat plastics). Game of Thrones topper with the animated dragon was great. BK:SoR knight head is cool. AfM LE with the bouncing martian was also awesome. Putting a screen up there behind a centerpiece item gives you visual energy, but it feels hollow to me.

I think the recipe (for me) is:
main central 3d element (preferably with movement)
some 3d elements off to the sides
backdrop scene, not too noisy. Ideally sculpted but no one is really doing that

Foo fighters toppers as pretty close. Godzilla was a miss.

AFM topper was good. MMR was better.

The Lior Alien topper checks all the boxes. Sculpted backdrop even!

The Evil dead topper is the best I've ever seen.

The labyrinth topper obvioulsy has impressive goblins but there's no backdrop, just 3 heads on a black base, so it's a miss. (maybe I should create a backdrop to go with my topper wall mod)

I dunno, I feel like the recipe is not that hard. I think maybe Stern should have a dedicated topper team and stop letting the various design team do it. At least put someone else on Elwin toppers. Most tragic thing in pinball is that the best designer puts out the worst toppers.

A dedicated topper team sounds like a good idea to me, even as someone who would never pay the ridiculous prices they ask.

Huge code drop this morning!

No patch notes though, which is a bummer.

So they updated the code but didn't say what the update actually did?

If there are no patch notes, how do we know it's a "huge code drop"?

There are a lot of us watching this game and cool new code is a selling point. I would like to think it's worth Stern's time to show off what they're adding in order to get the fans excited.

Even as a huge Alien fan and fan of the pin, I just do not see this as a great topper. I know many do, but it misses a lot for me.

I think it's just assumed that this .82 is the release code. So just like they didn't release public notes for every other build prior to release.

Because Dwight said it was huge?

exactly. 0.2% of you have actually played the game, so why do you need patch notes? You don't even know what was in it before!

0.8, the CES build was really a pre-production code and they've probably added so much since then they didn't bother keeping track, and to go create a changelist would take time away from actual development

My LE shipped today... can't wait for this one!

Yeah, that's fair. A change log would mostly be in order to learn about new modes & stuff, rather than really being about "changes". It's basically just fishing for more teaser bits of information.

Tilt thanks for posting the Video. Do you (or anyone else) know if the machine is shipping with a quiet fan or still the same loud arse fans from the past? I thought I heard someone say that the new machines were shipping with upgrades fans..

I didnt notice any fan noise, but honestly i have been enjoying the game and learning shots. Im learning more and having a blast, but still being a novice player have so much to learn. I havent focused on much as far as gameplay other than starting dragon multiball and trying to learn the cube. But my main focus has been hitting specific shots. Threee are a couple hurry ups that i have had star and one of the shots to advance it is hard for me. Not that the shot is not obtainable, it really is. But i have to learn when to flip it better to hit it consistently. i want to complete some of them.

As for the dragon multiball and people saying i was just flailing on it in my video, which i was, I am now learning and hitting the targets much better during it to beat him and start town celebration. you can do it but using the shield is very important during it to not have as many drain. If you get a chance to play, you have to, it really is fun at the level it is right now. Anyone in central illinois is welcome to come play mine to.

And those that ask about sales of games, its doing pretty well on theme alone, and i think once more geta chance to play it will go up a ton. LE sales are really good compared to other releases and we are almost sold out now. I have i think 3 left, which are in hand and ready to ship now if anyone is looking for an LE

Do they not come with a manual that helps explain how to play the game "properly"?

I'm pretty sure the Meanwell HRP-600-48 with the quiet custom Sanyo fan first seen in Metallica will be the standard for Spike3, so all the pins will likely have it from here on out. Gives 100W more power for whatever Spike3 needs. Bummer Stern went with a less durable bearing or sleeve fan (cost, I'm sure), but they DID finally address the noise, so that's a plus.

Modern pinball machines do not come with gameplay manuals. Jersey Jack puts out a flow chart usually. that's the best anyone does.
Community relies on community created rulesheets on places like tiltforums.

Agreed.

I think some of you are over analyzing this and starting from a false base of this is a multiball like the ones you have played before. Sure, technically speaking, its a multiball. But its not. Its a battle with the dragon. His goal is to get you to drain balls. If you win, it ends with a multiball (Town Celebration). Its a unique experience. Town Celebration needs some rule/scoring love but that's coming.

Its possible to have 8 balls on the playfield at once but its going to be rare. The dragon tries to hang on to 1 ball. Most of the time you will have 5 or 6 balls as balls are draining. The balls being in your way is part of the "battle".

I have barely begun to balance difficulties and we have more things planed that will change the goals and difficulties of the different levels.

PS - I am considering V0.82 the initial release.

Can't wait. GoT is my favorite you've done to date, hoping this can be my new favorite because the theme is great.

And I know I'm resetting the clock by asking (begging?) but is there a chance we'll see your Midnight Madness make a return in this pin? Munsters was one of your best MM theme integrations yet, but not a lot are out there, so people haven't experienced it, and your Star Wars MM got pulled, only existing in one early code version, so it's been quite the dry spell for that Dwight Special.