The design on Avengers is flawed yes, but allot of the issues have been resolved and still stand by my statement that the design of the actual play field is good.
As like most Sterns the Pro plays better then the LE, the Black Widow shot is much easier to hit on the Pro then the LE as I find that since the ramp has the ability to move it tends to rattle which then slows down the ball momentum making the shot harder to hit.
But beside the fact that the shots are hard to hit is the fact that they don't reward you for doing so, there is no big payoff.
I'd have no issues with the tightness of the shot on blackwidow if it was worth the risk, but when I have to shoot it 15 times to get anything to happen (not an exaggeration) it's not worth the risk when there is a perfectly easy and repeatable shot in the left loop.
Making that shot worthwhile is a software issue, not a design issue. Had the black widow shot been used less, or used more effectively I guarantee everyone's opinion on it would change. Say as an example it was used during any of the mulitballs as a super jackpot of some kind then the satisfaction of being able to hit that shot when you needed to would out weigh the frustration that people currently feel of having to hit this tough shot 15 times for very little reward.
It's similar to that of say the hole in one shot on NGG which most people would agree is a very satisfying and rewarding shot. Now imagine if you had to get the holes in on shot 15 times before you even got the hint of a mediocre award, how much fun would it be then?
The rest of the shots flow nicely, I like the little inner orbit shots and the left loop to ramp, back to right flipper works well. The game has a nice, tight, tough, shot map which I enjoy, but I can't be bothered to grind out the actual gameplay, it's not fun to do.
Also there is 100% 0 comparison between MB and Avengers, I don't like MB as a game but Avengers doesn't even hold a candle to the rule set of Monsterbash.
Monsterbash, while I don't like the game because I find it easy, has a much more in depth rule set with regards to the risk vs reward of stacking opportunities. There is much less of a X shot all day exploit that exists on Avengers then there is on MB (Yes you can do CFTBL all day, but that is not an easy thing to do and the rewards for not doing that are greater).
MB is a good example of Shot X shot X time to get X reward, rinse/repeat that does it well. It makes the shots necessary to achieve anything low enough that you get the payoff soon, and hard enough that it feels like you are actually accomplishing something while doing it. Then add in the stacking opportunities, and the brilliant feature of pausing the timer during mulitball and you have a recipe for a game that works well.
Avengeres is missing all of that, yes you can stack in multiballs, but not until you have actually completed the multiball, and then once completed you still have to hit a ridiculous number of shots before you can even bring anything else in, and you can't make any progress towards those other multiballs during the current mulitball you are in. Avengers is an exercise in frustration and what tournament players call chopping wood.
End of the day Avengeres shortfalls IMO all come down to software implementation, had it taken a queue from MB and lowered the shots necessary to accomplish anything and rewarded people appropriately for the tougher shots, Avengers could have been a good game.
Just like X-Men could have been a good game as well had they tried to stray away from the same old formulaic rule set. My biggest issue with Xmen at the end of the was wolverine, that thing is just too big and becomes nothing but a bash target to hit over and over again with such a huge reward. More thought was put into the rules of Xmen then Avengers but it's still just more of the same.
Let compare by example ACDC and Metallica. The rules on ACDC are a masterpiece as I've gone into before, and Metallica already has more depth then Avengers and it's still on very early software. There are design flaws in ACDC as well, that cannon over the entire right in lane/out lane is terrible, but the good out weighs the bad so when people talk about ACDC it barely even comes up.
Both ACDC and Metallica are completely uninspired layouts, Xmen and Avengers are way more unique in the implementation of their layouts and how it all flows together. If they could have taken a similar rule set to that of ACDC or Metallica and put them on the great layout that is Avengers and Xmen, then you would have a game that would rival the best that pinball has to offer.
