A thought on handicaps:
As a terrible player (sprint ~1'40" average*), I completely detest the idea of handicaps, for a simple reason.
Sure, I lose horribly when I play on nullpomino (unless I'm playing with a friend).
But it wouldn't mean anything to me if I won with a handicap.
One time today I got 4th in a 6-player room. It felt pretty awesome, because someone actually competent died before I did, so I was apparently actually downstacking decently or something for a few seconds.
I honestly think that playing with handicaps makes the weaker player feel terrible, because it does so for me.
On the other hand... I'm not good enough at Tetris to have really any examples from there, but... here's an example from a rhythm game.
There's someone I've played against online in rhythm games fairly often, and they're much much better than me. (They got an average of about one Great every two songs, the remainder being perfect.) The first time I kept my Perfect chain going longer than they did (and, so far, the only time), it felt amazing because I'd actually succeeded at something that they didn't.
If they'd been playing with a handicap (say smaller timing windows or something), it would just be "oh, the handicap screwed them over again".
Other thoughts:
Allspins. Yes, I'm a terrible player. I still want allspins.
For one thing:
The feeling I get when I see someone doing extremely fast Tetrises and TSDs is "wow, that guy's fast".
The feeling I get when I see, for instance, an SST, is "...how did that guy do that? That's insane."
And then it encourages me to learn more.
I learned about a 180 kick just today because of seeing SSTs in a game:
I think it was this...
[fumen]110@TeC3gbI3hbI3gbE3pbvuj7eBPhBAAA[/fumen]
(16 lines! Disclaimer: the actual occurrence in game was not a perfect clear.)
And honestly, I like the feeling of learning something.
I know a JST->B2BJST setup. I may not be fast enough to do it, and I may be terrible at it and usually fail, but I know how the setup works, I've done it, and it felt awesome.
So to me, at least, even though I'm terrible, potentially hard stuff like allspins is fun, handicaps are not.
Also, what might be nice as a mode for new players: just tutorial-type stuff. Show a setup (start easy, just lines for a single TSD or even a Tetris, but move on to fancy things like Imperial Cross [did it once in single-player finally today, that... what's the word... hurdle double? is so unintuitive, I'd never have thought of that.] or J-Spin Triples or whatever). An automated thing like the Tetris belts might also be nice, as having goals to work towards beyond just "stop losing" or "get better at Sprint" is very nice, and that'd make a real single-player mode that could get people the skills they'll need for multiplayer.
DISCLAIMER: The only claim of relevant knowledge I make in this post is that of being a new player. Anything I said about setups is probably wrong. Does it matter? I learned stuff, if I'm right, awesome, if not, someone here will probably correct me, and then I'll have learned stuff, awesome.
* That thing in 1'40", the 1', means a minute, so that time is one minute and 40 seconds, or one hundred seconds. For those of you who haven't seen times like that in Sprint in the past few years, thought it'd be worth reminding you.
As a terrible player (sprint ~1'40" average*), I completely detest the idea of handicaps, for a simple reason.
Sure, I lose horribly when I play on nullpomino (unless I'm playing with a friend).
But it wouldn't mean anything to me if I won with a handicap.
One time today I got 4th in a 6-player room. It felt pretty awesome, because someone actually competent died before I did, so I was apparently actually downstacking decently or something for a few seconds.
I honestly think that playing with handicaps makes the weaker player feel terrible, because it does so for me.
On the other hand... I'm not good enough at Tetris to have really any examples from there, but... here's an example from a rhythm game.
There's someone I've played against online in rhythm games fairly often, and they're much much better than me. (They got an average of about one Great every two songs, the remainder being perfect.) The first time I kept my Perfect chain going longer than they did (and, so far, the only time), it felt amazing because I'd actually succeeded at something that they didn't.
If they'd been playing with a handicap (say smaller timing windows or something), it would just be "oh, the handicap screwed them over again".
Other thoughts:
Allspins. Yes, I'm a terrible player. I still want allspins.
For one thing:
The feeling I get when I see someone doing extremely fast Tetrises and TSDs is "wow, that guy's fast".
The feeling I get when I see, for instance, an SST, is "...how did that guy do that? That's insane."
And then it encourages me to learn more.
I learned about a 180 kick just today because of seeing SSTs in a game:
I think it was this...
[fumen]110@TeC3gbI3hbI3gbE3pbvuj7eBPhBAAA[/fumen]
(16 lines! Disclaimer: the actual occurrence in game was not a perfect clear.)
And honestly, I like the feeling of learning something.
I know a JST->B2BJST setup. I may not be fast enough to do it, and I may be terrible at it and usually fail, but I know how the setup works, I've done it, and it felt awesome.
So to me, at least, even though I'm terrible, potentially hard stuff like allspins is fun, handicaps are not.
Also, what might be nice as a mode for new players: just tutorial-type stuff. Show a setup (start easy, just lines for a single TSD or even a Tetris, but move on to fancy things like Imperial Cross [did it once in single-player finally today, that... what's the word... hurdle double? is so unintuitive, I'd never have thought of that.] or J-Spin Triples or whatever). An automated thing like the Tetris belts might also be nice, as having goals to work towards beyond just "stop losing" or "get better at Sprint" is very nice, and that'd make a real single-player mode that could get people the skills they'll need for multiplayer.
DISCLAIMER: The only claim of relevant knowledge I make in this post is that of being a new player. Anything I said about setups is probably wrong. Does it matter? I learned stuff, if I'm right, awesome, if not, someone here will probably correct me, and then I'll have learned stuff, awesome.
* That thing in 1'40", the 1', means a minute, so that time is one minute and 40 seconds, or one hundred seconds. For those of you who haven't seen times like that in Sprint in the past few years, thought it'd be worth reminding you.