A few extra reasons for Power Gem placement choices that you can try out.

Power Gem on Black Panther
An additional reason for placement on Black Panther is that keeping a level 1 or higher Black Panther adds 3 seconds to the combo timer which makes it easier to get your combos and portal locks and makes the other gem modes easier (and more valuable).

NOT using Power Gem on Hulk if you don't like to shuffle gems
I don't like moving around my gems all the time, so I don't place Power on Hulk because once Hulk is level 2 then I don't ever get anymore Hulk Gamma Ray events which IMO are really fun.

Power Gem on Captain Marvel (for Pro)
I don't think this is necessarily optimal, but I tried this on the Pro and it was a lot of fun because you get so many extra Mystery awards and binary hurry ups.
I noticed that having those extra Mystery awards were really nice to have for the extra Add-a-Ball awards for multiballs, extra timed modes, and collecting avenger awards. Definitely something to try for fun sometime.

Another thing to consider is moving the Power Gem around once you get an Avenger to Level 2, usually via "Change Gems".

A long/late game strategy is getting all Avengers to Level 2 at some point in the game, which will give you a trophy for each and generally should get you to Trophy Mania around the time you get to Battle Thanos if you are successful at getting the other needed trophies during the course of the game.

I also will put Power Gem on Capt. Marvel from time to time to build up the multiplier early in the game, but ideally move to another Avenger before Assembling the Avengers so you can carry over any Level build up, which Capt. Marvel doesn't use.

If you are trying to maximize points, but generally don't get far in the game, I would recommend locking 2 balls and getting Iron Man or Thor multiball ready. Thor is probably the easiest since you only have to hit it a few times to start originally.

Choose Reality Gem, which is probably the easiest gem to collect and also has the potential to be one of the highest scoring. Start your multiball and spin the disk as much as possible while hitting Avenger shots. Once the Gem is completed if you still have 2+ balls in play you will go into "Victory Laps"... continue spinning the disk and hitting Avenger shots.

After that you should have 100~500+ million and not even having placed the gem yet.

Thanks, I am picking the game up on Saturday. I am not a novice player but I have played less than 70 games since it's been out, I went to check out the game I'm buying on Sunday and played 3 games to see if everything was working, I was able to get a portal lock (from 4 combos) and to start a mode with Portal lock and bring in Thor and later was able to start Iron Man and play Soul Gem mode. So I am aware of the front side of the code fairly well.

I have never placed a gem (never beaten a gem mode, but that is more due to me not playing very well on location). I was looking at the IC achievements on the app and not a lot of people have beaten gem modes. I don't say that is because they are super hard but more because casual players don't get far, people might just play a handful of games if they don't own the pin. I think a lot of people might give it a bad reputation as too hard code because they don't know exactly how to do things (if they didn't read or watch the tutorial), on the IC achievements only 45% of people have even collected Hulk and only 3% got to Hulk L2. I probably have never got Hulk L2 yet but I'm sure once I own the pin it shouldn't be impossible.

I wanted to give my impression of the game before owning it, as a casual player so far, and reading the rules a few times. I think the basic game (ie. collect avengers and gem battles) is fairly easy to grasp, the shots are nice (some easy and some harder) and the toys (subway, tower magnet are not earth shattering but at least there is some toys).

I think what's is interesting is the deeper code strategy, like the gem placement and the super modes, and the occasional modes like Gamma ray and Binary and trophies that are not the most important, these seems like something that will keep things interesting. I like that it seems like the mini wizard modes aren't too impossible to get to.

Just joined, finally!

IMG_1987 (resized).jpeg

Wow,a nib!! Good job!

It’s a miracle, my first secured coin box!
IMG_1989 (resized).jpeg

I collected my first gem ever today. I told my wife but she’s not impressed so I figured I’d brag here!!

Good and Bad...

New Thanos Attacks! High Score for me! 362 Million and successfully defended 5 Gems!

Kind of a bittersweet mode high score I guess though.

You have to do good enough to have a lot of gems when you get to Thanos Attacks to get a big score.

Having a lot of gems when you get to Thanos Attacks, means you did poorly on Soul Gem and Black Order Multiball...

awesome1 Thanos Attacks! Champion 362 Million (resized).JPG

Welcome to the club. I bought a premium last year and absolutely love it. Fantastic flow, fun modes, great art, ramps, ramps, ramps! My one criticism, likely shared by many, is the voice work. I now have three Elwins and I rank this as 1B to Godzilla which is 1A, mainly because the theme, art, video and audio are a bit better package. Both have fantastic playfield design and software/rules sets that elevate these games to top tier.

I was just trying to figure out when the levels of the avengers resets?

They reset - with higher target levels - every wizard mode (soul gem, BOM, Battle Royal).

When you drain, any avengers you have collected or powered up become collected (ie you lose any level 1 or 2 status). Progress is saved (eg if you only need 5 pops for CA upon draining, then next ball you still only need 5 more)

The power gem overrides all this for the avenger you place it on. I like CA or BP because I find those the hardest to collect.

Oh thanks, it wasn’t clearly explained in the tilt rules.

Great game so far, after about 20 games I've only managed to get above $200M, very fast, very cruel.

Is it common to get rejects from center ramp on 100% clean shots? This has occurred more than a few times. Pitch is at around 6.6

Center ramp? Black Widow or Gauntlet?
Either way, ball should make it up no problem with a clean shot. There are three important maintenance issues for AIQ owners:
1. Make sure your flippers are tip top.
2. Wax your playfield regularly. Don’t just clean, wax it.
3. Consider getting flipper coolers and’/or changing out the Stern plastic bushings with precision bushings ($25 each).

Rejects on the Black Widow ramp from the ball hitting above the top of the ramp are common. Your pitch seems good. Next thing I’d try would be reduce flipper power slightly. If that doesn’t work, I think a few years ago someone made a plastic guard for the top of that ramp that had a shape designed to eliminate those rejects. Maybe keyword search this forum and you can find it.

Edit: here’s a link to a post introducing the mod. It’s a tdiddy mod designed to eliminate rejects from the plastic guard at the top of the BW ramp. Designed it to look like a building.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/official-avengers-infinity-quest-owners-thread-pinsiders-assemble/page/123#post-6197751

If this is the Black Widow ramp, rejects from it are caused by the ball hitting the plastic guard roof, and the root cause of that is the entrance flap is too springy and flexes too much and launches the ball upward. I fixed this on mine by tucking a small piece of cardboard under the entrance flap so it doesn't flex and rebound like that. Same problem and solution also happened on my Jurassic Park left ramp.

Black Widow ramp

Thanks for all the feedback, I’ll attempt to troubleshoot using the previously mentioned suggestions

Anyone want to join the AIQ Club with the lowest cost of entry, I'm selling my HUO Pro for $4,999

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/175523

Does anyone know if there is someone selling a plastics protector set for AIQ premium? Thanks

Sounds like a great deal.

MezelMods sells them. I have bought sets from them before, including for my AIQ.

Thanks, kinda shocking how much they are charging. I got a full set for GZ from a pinsider for like $30. Mezel has a full set listed for over $100.

So there are two different sets sold:

- The "AVENGERS INFINITY QUEST PINBALL PLASTIC PROTECTOR SET" set for $27 that includes four pieces, only covering the slings and inlane plastics: https://mezelmods.com/collections/avengers-infinity-quest-pinball/products/avengers-infinity-quest-pinball-plastic-protector-set?_pos=1&_fid=53521a7f1&_ss=c

- The "CLIP PROTECTOR SET- AVENGERS INFINITY QUEST PINBALL" set for $108 that includes 24 (Pro) or 32 (Prem/LE) pieces that covers ALL the playfield plastics: https://mezelmods.com/collections/avengers-infinity-quest-pinball/products/clip-protector-set-avengers-infinity-quest-pinball?_pos=2&_fid=53521a7f1&_ss=c

So when you say you got "a full set for GZ from a pinsider for like $30" do you mean you got the 30+ piece set, or the 4-piece for slings and inlanes only?

I got a 16 piece set from a pinsider for my GZ. I did see the 4 piece set on mezel mods which is not what i'm looking for, want a whole set.

Has anyone ever seen a ball get stuck here? Took me awhile to find this one
IMG_1998 (resized).jpeg

Yeah getting stuck behind the bumper is actually fairly common on AIQ, happened on mine several times.

It has only happened to me twice but its definitely a known issue for people.

There's a plastic piece sold by mezel mods that blocks that spot:
https://mezelmods.com/products/avengers-infinity-quest-pinball-anti-stuck-ball

Also, some people have DIY'd their own solutions to this, but I couldn't find a link.

Heck Yeah!!!

12 Billion!!!

I've been playing a lot of AIQ lately for the Stern April 2024 Leaderboard and finally was able to really "Blow It Up"!

Hopefully this score will hold onto first place!

12 Billion AIQ Pinball Grand Champion awesome1.JPG

awesome1 AIQ Leaderboard 4-21-2024 Stern Insider Connected.PNG

awesome1 AIQ Leaderboard 4-2024 Activity Stern Insider Connected.jpg

awesome1 : how the hell did you do that?

Thanks!

I started out really hot and then got a bit tight, tired and nervous since I really wanted to get over 7.5 Billion to move into first on the Stern IC Leaderboard. I was doing really good on points, but failed Time Gem and got to Battle Thanos with only 5 gems. I was close to 7B at that point and for the first time ever it took me more than 2 tries to beat Thanos, but I finally did on my last ball and then I completely blew up Super Victory Laps before finally winning Time gem and then had a good Trophy Mania but didn't make it to the second Soul gem this time.

I had a bunch of games clustered in the 5.5B to 6.5B range, so it felt really good to finally bust past that!

These new mode High Scores helped!

Full video uploading...

312 Million Iron Man Multiball Champion AIQ awesome1 (resized).png

2.3 Billion Soul Gem Jackpot Champion AIQ awesome1 (resized).png

3.4 Billion Super Victory Laps Champion AIQ awesome1 (resized).png

Sorry, not trying to spam the group... I'm just pretty excited!

Complete game video of my 12 Billion AIQ High Score:

Spam away! Your enthusiasm for this game never gets old.

... but your scores make us extremely jealous...

(He forgot to add that last part on his reply )

Jesus i was happy with 550 million damn crazy score.

Same.. I've owned the game for two years now and never gotten over 500M.

I might bite the bullet and lower my outlane posts. I've been stubborn on all my machines and never done it, but it looks like even in this video they are in the lower position, so perhaps its time.

I think all AIQs were delivered with the outlane posts in the most closed position. They can be closed up more by installing fatter posts.

Keep trying! Know where all the portal locks are and try to always have at least one for each gem quest. One of these days you’ll have a breakthrough game and multiply your high score by a factor of two or three or more…..probably after cleaning and waxing

My favorite stack (for points) is to start a 2-portal lock reality gem with 2 balls locked for IM MB….first shot to the tower to launch IM MB, second shot to spin the disk, then off to the races!

I’m not a “mod guy” but I do have the cooling fans on the lower flippers which seems to help.

Whoa!! awesome1 what a score!!! Thank you for uploading the video, can't wait to watch that later tonight! That is an absolutely insane score and i can imagine you have the shots down really well on AIQ for a score like that. Congrats!

I did not know that! I got this machine used and just assumed top was the default.

We got a pro at our local league location last season and the OP took the right outlane post completely out and set the left one to it's highest point. He said the game played to easily lol. It's also leaning right quite a bit so I think the vast majority of my drains are out the right side. The current high score for the location is 226,553,500. It's the most difficult avengers I've played but I'm also very used to my premium and I find I play the games I own the worst on location.

I'm in DC area. Which location has that AIQ pro? Ocelot?

I am not sure this is true. All of my NIB Sterns have come with the outlane posts in the middle (or 2nd-lowest) position, including my AIQ Pro built last summer.

I think this is a recent change by stern.
Default NIB post position used to be closed but now the defaults have been moved to middle from the NIB machines i've seen.
But its possible this might be a designer preference.

The first runs were definitely shipped with the outlane posts in the closed position. Mine was, and I recall there being a discussion early on about how outside the norm this was.

I can confirm my outlane posts are in the lower position from the factory and I have left them there. I got my game NIB in November 2020.

Outlane drains were brutal, nudging helps, but they still can be...

My Godzilla Premium I got NIB in April 2022 has the outlane posts in the middle position and I've left them there.

I try to keep factory settings on all my games. I do put DIY flipper coil fans on all of them.

Lost Rhino in Ashburn. I don't think Ocelot has one anymore

I do want to note the fact that this is with the lightweight disc mod on awesome1's machine. For anyone who doesn't know, that lets the disc continue spinning much more, including also that the stud tends to settle in the bottom position to easily hit it again from the upper flipper. Disc spins crank up the shot value particularly for Super Victory Laps and also the regular victory laps that must have fed into that soul gem jackpot. This behavior is very favorable to the player compared to an unmodded machine. I am not intending any disrespect or shade throwing here (I'm sure the other leaderboard scores also involve machines with this and other favorable modifications), just pointing it out for consideration.

I got my score with the lowered posts, i had to with TMNT and AIQ the outlane are just to brutal and im not a good enough player to deal with them.

Dude, you seem like a nice guy and generally trying to help others with your posts, but every time I post a score, you bring up the aluminum disc... Again, my RPM record is with the factory stock plastic disc. Maybe the aluminum one spins a bit more and contributed to some of my score, but it's been this way for a couple years now. I have many mode scores on AIQ that are not affected by the disc, like Soul gem with 76 flips remaining with no Mind gem.

I play on carpet and do have a tight tilt setting, which I would think plays heavily into gameplay and just to point out, you have mentioned your own "mods" when you had AIQ...

I'm not meaning any disrespect either. We all have our own games, probably setup slightly different and I'll admit scores are hard to qualify and compare across different games.

I'm just excited about finally busting past the 5.5B ~ 6.5B I had topped out at and been stuck at for a couple years, all with the same factory game settings (3 balls, Extra balls on), outlane post locations, aluminum disc and flipper coil fans.

I'm not trying to hide anything from anyone. That's one of the reasons I started video recording games... Yes, I have the glass on. I'm just having fun at home.