Best training for beginners?

[Barneey]

I voted for dig challenge even though it takes a lot of persistence and determination to keep doing it. Definitely not dig race because that includes too many forced restarts after the first few seconds after realizing that you didn't get the perfect piece combination to nuke the whole stack.

I also did not vote for sprint considering how many forced restarts are necessary. Watching a live stream of Paradox he would force restart at least 1/7 times.

That kind of gameplay (perfection or nothing) is just going to frustrate beginners and burn them out.

I don't see why anyone would force a restart in 40 line mode though.
As for why I voted multiplayer, I feel like it's the best option because you'll learn everything you would learn from 40 line mode, dig race and dig challenge simultaneously.
Even though you would learn to downstack better from dig race or dig challenge, I feel like multiplayer is a better place to start. (Assuming you are playing versus players who are at your skill level)

However, if someone wanted to become better at tetris, and asked me for advice I would not give them homework, but I guess that's what they can expect when they sign up for lessons.
To new players:
Step 1. Play Tetris
Step 2. Have fun!
Step 3. You are now better than you were yesterday.

[Rosti_LFC]

As for why I voted multiplayer, I feel like it's the best option because you'll learn everything you would learn from 40 line mode, dig race and dig challenge simultaneously.

For players starting out, sure. For advance players, no.

Practice is always more efficient when you focus it. Just generally playing is never a good way to get better at anything, be it a game, sport, or musical instrument. Sure, you'll improve, but you'll improve at a far slower rate compared to your improvement if you were going about it in a structured way.

The reason I'd say it's different for beginners is that the aspects they should be focusing on (rotating both ways, DAS, really basic downstacking, rudimentary tspin and combo mechanics) are easily practised in multiplayer without going to specific modes to work on them and see improvement.

Plus, above all, training is only useful if you do it, and I'd imagine most players would find 40L boring as sh** compared to multiplayer.

[XaeL]

Well an argument against multiplayer is it discourages "learning new things" to an extent. if you are already rotating one way, tapping like crazy and sending 2 tetrises thus winning without downstacking, why would u want to learn how to rotate both ways/learn das? During that time ur rank will decrease.

More than likely they'll attempt to spam their keys faster than learn more efficient ways to play.

How many gold level players (i.e. they never train they "just play multiplayer forever and never reach the 60L sprint) never learn how to rotate both ways? This carries on to platinum where there are still many players only rotating one way. Why? because their winning with rotating one way, why would u change it if it aint broken?

Little noobies love caring about their rank.

If you stick them in "the cage" they are far more likely to learn how to rotate both ways/learn finesse. An easy example is thetetrisnoob. He trained cage style and i'm pretty sure he is faster/has better fundamentals than all the people who just played arena for the same amount of time.

Next i want to talk about goal setting:

Specific - with dig/40L, easy. With multiplayer, what can you really say? At this level there is a huge variance of skill.

Measurable - this goes with specific :
For multiplayer, because the environment is DYNAMIC, what can u really measure objectively?
Get X tetrises? What if the opponents are hard? Survive X seconds? what if the opponents are easy? You can't play with exactly the same people everyday, and even if you do, if THEIR skill level changes then your goal

Attainable - The "attainability" of multiplayer things are usually going to be HIGHLY dependent on other players skill not your own.

Realistic - N/A

Timely - N/A

[myndzi]

I was pondering coming up with a Tetris "training regimen" some little while ago, where you could play a series of varied exercises etc. I still think it would be an interesting project.

No one thing is "best" since you need many skills for most games. If I had to choose anything, I'd say Marathon if they are true beginners, since it'll help them get the hang of stacking and eventually will put some pressure on them that will motivate them to get better and farther, etc.

After that, driller (dig race?). This will help them learn to downstack and manipulate pieces without the pressure of survivor/dig ... challenge?, the learning curve of vs, or the bad-habit-forming play of 40 lines.

Playing too fast kills your perception and thinking skills, you shouldn't start out practicing making mistakes as fast as possible. If anything, 40 lines should be used as a periodic supplement to hone your technical skills.

The driller phase would be an excellent time to learn about finesse and twists/rotations (for stack fixing, not setups). At the very beginning with Marathon, that's probably the best time to make them rotate both directions (and distinguish the rotations of the S/Z/I pieces too), and possibly finesse but I wouldn't stress finesse if they can't stack a Tetris after all.

Competition against your friends gets a big plus one from me, excepting that if you are their "friend" who is interested in Tetris, that doesn't really work. "Peers" might be a better description.

If anyone reading this IS brand new to the game and wants to experiment a little with me, send me a PM and we can see about coming up with a training regimen and evaluate how well it works