Design Thoughts

[acemagic]

i would also like to hear honest answer for this question.

hmm. can't really comment that deeply on this one..
but let me just put it this way.

Our company is currently putting a lot of efforts to try to establish as a top developer on the facebook platform..
so that's where you'll see most of the development efforts fruiting.

It doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be any updates on other platforms,
but I would just say for now that you'll probably see the most action happening in facebook
as that's where we have the most amount of users.

But I'm sure if development resources are permitted,
there might be more things to come in the future.

I think it's a little different from TOJ's case,
since I think TOJ moved their focus to flash based games instead of download.

acemagic, if your dream is to play tetris with Michael Jackson, this is how you do it: http://arcade.svatopluk.com/jeil/final_tetris/ .

Wow. This is really inspiring. I'll have to try this game for myself!!!

And I like the game name too.

The final tetris, kind of reminds me of final fantasy.

I have the max upgrades and it is still pretty slow. I honestly don't see much difference its only slightly faster. Autorepeat should be way faster + soft drop. Line clear is pretty good.

Thanks for the feedback!!

I left some room open so that I can hear out from you guys before
introducing the rest of the settings.

sorry for double post, but this seems the more appropriate place.

eh dunno if this is a bug, but at 45+ rank it started to pair me against A.I, which constantly was 18-20 second sprints in sprint 5p. Uhhh i get 2nd everytime? pretty annoying :/

other things:

Items are very expensive, although i guess thats why the offers are there

the handicap is too strong for ranks 30-50 when playing friends, especially when the sprints dont really get any faster

6p isnt promoting me early like the other games, therefore i send 140 lines while guy in 2nd sends 1

Thanks, I'll get our QA team to check this.
and thanks for the feedback about the item prices.
If you can suggest some price points, that'll be even more helpful!!

We'll look into the handicap system again.
Yeah, I'm looking for a better balance. I too agree that Sprint especially needs to be a little better.
If you have some good suggestions let me know.

6p isnt promoting me early like the other games, therefore i send 140 lines while guy in 2nd sends 1
==> sorry didn't quite get this, could you maybe explain this again for me?

All efforts greatly appreciated!!

Well Battle 6P is a strange game.

Here' is my idea on how to play.

Real human's get full targetting.

Replays can't truly target.

So instead, they send fractional garbage to all live humans, and the rest to their chosen target among the replays. That way, human's don't get unlucky death spikes from a group of replays that just HAPPEN to target them.

I actually agree. I'm considering of going back and improving the old design I've designed when I was working in Hangame. The all attack system instead of targeting. Also, recently I was in a way thinking that 6p targeting is a little too much, might be a better system right around 4p as the wait is shorter.

Ohh, nice. Would love if there would (in the future) be stats in real time(like tetris zone), or in the replay so one could se the differences over time.

That's a pretty cool idea too.
I think Bejeweled Blitz used to have (or still does) something like that.

I'd like to see the LPM/TPM and APM overtime myself too.

"There's a very good way to get the fairness of "send to all," but the pace of 1v1: a fractional system."

A 1v1 pace for a several player game is too slow. The length of guideline games is relatively long, slowing it down further only frustrates the dead players. There is no incentive to attack because the safer option of cancelling garbage and downstacking is superior for survival.

In practice, I've encountered several flaws with the garbage division system. It does not achieve the same feel as a targeting system. The garbage distribution might be similar but the timing is different and this creates a very different feel to the game. It gives rise to Tetris DS like tactics where you stack around the garbage hole in anticipation of the next garbage lines, which never appears in TOJ. In a 6 player game, it starts off like super easy Tetris DS -> normal Tetris DS -> ... -> TOJ 1v1.

A better way is to send each attack to the player who has received the least lines taking into account lines sent by each player so that a good player isnt disadvantaged. I think Wojtek suggested something like this, but here is my take on it.

Eg: There are 4 players.
Now it's B's turn to send lines.
B can send it to A, C or D.

How does B decide which player to send lines to?
Does he send to A? Compare the lines A has received, C has received (excluding lines sent from A), and D has received (excluding lines sent from A).
Does he send to C? Compare the lines C has received, A has received (excluding lines sent from C), and D has received (excluding lines sent from C).
Does he send to D? Compare the lines D has received, A has received (excluding lines sent from D), and C has received (excluding lines sent from D).
Send it to the player who deserves lines or to a random player if it is tied.

This way, sending lines does not affect you negatively since your line sends are subtracted in the comparisons. In theory, a system like this should keep the same feel as a 6p targeting game and it would be fair. I haven't thought about it in too much depth though, it may not work at all...

I still believe that >2 player games should be fast. No one wants to wait. Send to all without any divisions or reductions is the best. Waiting times are short, the games are intense, the best player wins the majority of the times, there is potential for other players to win. In short, it is the superb multiplayer that Tnet2 players all know of and love, only guidelined.

=> So in short, since in a counter action system, sending lines as form of attack doesn't have as much advantage... send it to the users who is sending the least?

Hmm.. interesting. I'll have to see how it will work with the current KO system,
but does seem quite interesting to me.

I'll check it out in the future and let you know. (sorry but probably not this month since I have to go to Korea to renew my visa)

From what I observed about the "divide hole change percent" setting, I didn't like it for large games either. I wound up seeing quite a lot of very long, straight, holes. An alternative might be instead to not make it random: make it change, for sure, every N attacks; possibly allow it to change randomly in less than that, but don't allow it to exceed a "tetris" in depth...

As for 1-2-3-4, a possibility for not making combos overwhelming here lies in another thing I'm playing around with right now: mutually exclusive attacks. In this system, instead of adding line clear/spin attack to combo attack to perfect clear attack, it simply takes the highest of these and uses it. In this fashion, the most you would send is 4, and your combo leadup would depend on the attacks used to get it. If they were all singles, you'd see 1, 2, 3, 4, 4... (or 5?); if they were more, you might see something like: 4, 3, 3, 4 (Tetris, triple, single, single).

Hmm.. interesting concept.

It does occur to me that yes, maybe we should have them really do combination attacks instead of just
single-single-single style combos.

I totally agree with you that exploring more options just than giving more lines is probably a better way to dig.
Maximum garbage, or multipliers, or... even garbage hole alignment or patterns might be a good place to start I guess.

I don't believe a great deal of attack comes from doubles in three wides, but you'll note that I did state I am using it in conjunction with a much modified combo table as well, so four wides aren't overwhelming. It's also being used with all-spins. Other factors may need to be balanced, but it is an option to consider is all I am saying.

Edit: I think we're getting off track a little, here, anyway. Remember that the game we are discussing has solid garbage! How does this affect things? Well, messy vs clean is worthless in this case. The only counter to attacks is to attack equally. Nerfing combos is especially important here since you can't use the garbage you receive to help counter them if it comes to that. I also think that, in general, the attacks should probably be on the mild side since, once again, you can't utilize the garbage you've received so the primary focus is on racing to output. This kind of game would emphasize spikes and efficient attacking, so I think Tetrises will get the go-by. Tetrises seem mostly used in TOJ-style play because of the clean garbage, and that won't happen here.

If you want to emphasize Tetrises, I think you really have to make T-spins and combos a lot weaker or harder to pull off. Combos are probably going to be the most effective because they have potential to generate a massive spike that will KO your opponent's ghost, particularly at the  beginning if they are stacking up still.

Actually our solid line garbage system has bombs, so similar tricks can still work in some sense.
(the tf.com version doesn't have it but Facebook Tetris Battle has this)

Does this mean tetrisfriends is going to stop being developed or are you guys going to develop tetris battle and tetrisfiends at the same time.  I really don't care what the answer to this question is I just don't want to spend all my time on a game that is essentially dead when I could be playing tetris battle in order to earn all the upgrades so I can compete at the highest level there.
    Now about tetris battle.  From what I have played so far I think tetris battle may be less laggy than Tf which is a major plus.  That may just be me and the fact I can only afford level 2 das.  The thing I didn't like about tetris battle which was especially apparent in 4p  sprint is that from about level 30-50 the skill level of you opponents was more or less equal.  In fact the fastest guy I faced was level 30 with a 51 second sprint.  On level 50 I was facing guys with over a minute sprints.  I think that is pretty lame.  How can people call them selfs a tetris god when  a level 30 is that much faster.  Tetris Battle 6p and 2p was the same way with 2p being the best.  
     I think this game already has better game play than tetris friends with all added tunnings.  The thing I find frustrating is why don't you guys add all this stuff to Tetris Friends or some how connect Tetris battle to Tetrisfriends so I don't have to do all those surveys and stuff to get all the tunning twice.  Also I hate the idea of two games from the SAME company competing against each other for users.  It don't make sense to me.

I can't really comment on future of tetrisfriends.com as I'm only involved in facebook Tetris Battle app.
But I can just say that our team is putting tremendous efforts to trying to make Tetris Battle better.

Around March, you might see another series of updates which includes more tuning, more items..
and hopefully more modes too.

Yes, I agree it is a little funny how it is right now.
But hopefully we can find a way to resolve those issues for you guys.

Oh, and I do admit, our primary focus until now was on Battle 2P,
and trying to make the realtime gameplay and matching system better.
But after we get that fixed, we'll start re-balancing Sprint 4P, Battle 6P.. handicap & garbage systems and also bring out more modes to the game.

I'm a bit short in hand right now but really trying my best.
Nothing excites me more than seeing our fans happy.

Here's an idea for combos.

Use the current table, but modify it so that half of the lines added by the combo parts only count for defense. If it doesn't divide evenly round in favor of sending real lines.

If your combo step would add two lines on from the combo itself, one of them would only be applied against incoming garbage, and only one would actually be sent to the opponent.  

Combine this with requiring pieces to be places somewhat rapidly to stall attacks, and we might have something useful but not overpowered.

Thanks for the feedback!
Sounds interesting.

[caffeine]

I actually agree. I'm considering of going back and improving the old design I've designed when I was working in Hangame. The all attack system instead of targeting.

[Ravendarksky]

I'd just like to say a huge thank you to acemagic for taking the time to read and respond to comments and suggestions posted here. I'll definitely be checking out your game later this weekend.

And from a developer here in Scotland - Good luck with your changes

[Beastin_Shen]

great responses so far!
[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]
6p isnt promoting me early like the other games, therefore i send 140 lines while guy in 2nd sends 1
==> sorry didn't quite get this, could you maybe explain this again for me?
[/quote]

The other tetris battle modes promoted me to ~20 rank off bat because i was superior to the rank 1s, but 6p mode did not do that.

[XaeL]

I'd just like to say that i have recently played this game more and i like the fact that you can now play against real people instead of replays.

I have purchased all the left/right speed upgrades, however i wish that the auto-repeat was faster (1 frame) however the das is acceptable.

The next step forward for multiplayer would be to have real garbage instead of bombs.

[Kitaru]

The next step [back in the right direction] for multiplayer would be to have real garbage instead of bombs.

[acemagic]

I'd just like to say a huge thank you to acemagic for taking the time to read and respond to comments and suggestions posted here. I'll definitely be checking out your game later this weekend.

And from a developer here in Scotland - Good luck with your changes

My pleasure!
I too really appreciate everyone's efforts here!

I wish I can talk and share more time with you guys..
but with tight schedules and limited resources, I normally get really overwork myself in the week days,
that it's very hard to find the time.

Too bad, I can't invite people for lunch or something like we used to do in the old days.
I think that would be only possible in Seoul or Tokyo where everybody's there.

great responses so far!
The other tetris battle modes promoted me to ~20 rank off bat because i was superior to the rank 1s, but 6p mode did not do that.

I think this is a bug.
I've noticed our qa manager about this, thanks!



Actually, I think asynchronous gaming is just a different design for a different situation.
It's not meant to be better than synchronous type gaming but we're trying to make it as close to as possible to that because it also has great benefits.

(ex. no wait, no critical mass factor.. the fact that you can play multiplayer anywhere anyplace with anyone!)

But I do sense that what you guys are also looking for is a new
product that truly holds to your needs rights?

We are in the process of designing something like that too this year,
so if we're lucky we might be able to release it sometime this year.

We'll try our best, but we take orders too.. so I'll have to see if I can squeeze something like that in our schedule.

[Paradox]

Any chance we will get more upgrades? I still think that soft drop and autorepeat are too slow.

Any other updates?

The new sprint thing is nice

[Blink]

acemagic are you still around?  Can you give us an update on what is going on and future plans for Tetris Battle?  

Also, do you know what happened with PS3 Tetris?  They said it was made for the big screen and all that, but I haven't heard a thing at all about any tournaments for it.  Did TTC give up on competitive Tetris?