Tetris Friends Online - First Impressions?

[GOOBZILLA]

Well, what did you guys think. The similarities to Tetris Online Japan are expremely evident, such as the 'practise' feature, etc. The game itself surpassed by expectations, yet a more customizable setup would be required to give this game a more competitive edge.

thoughts?

[azn_papirus]

umm, ive only jus opened it a second ago..
but dayum its looking fine....

[meow]

does everyone have beta accounts? o.o

[azn_papirus]

hmmm, im used to the garbage system from multiplayer wer u have to do tricks to make it go down, so i guess its a big change if ur only playing on tetris friends all the time

[Lancet]

Uh wow. This is something diferent. I'm pretty oldschool, having been on TF for a week or two and having been grown up on clone handhelds like this (which I own still):
On a more serious line of thought: I don't like this item thing. I mean what's the point? You can totally render each other's skills irrelevant by, for example, taking away rotation. Or am I just a whining beginner here?
I don't know if the halts (the match sometimes doesn't start and the screen looks like hanged up) are caused by my shitty internet connection or some inherent problem, did you experience that too?

[Rosti_LFC]

I defended it for years on Tetris DS, and I guess I'm going to have to keep doing so - items are not a bad thing. Sure, if you want pure gameplay then you'd want them turned off, but I think they add entertainment and excitement to it.
Not actually played a match with items yet, but I assume they work in the same way they did on Tetris DS (because this Tetris Live does, basically, seem to just be TDS wifi for PC but with a few tweaks). If they do work how they did on Tetris DS (ie you clear the lines with the item blocks in) then the faster players who clear more lines will get more items and therefore the items will work in their favour. They should also be more able to cope with having them used against them. Skilled players should still be able to stack to a limited extent with no rotation.
I think the shift right item is going to be massively overpowered though. Looking through the items it seems by far the most useful, assuming the I-piece one doesn't last too long. Shifting everything to the right means that an entire field of garbage gets transformed into something which can pretty much get Tetris'd away.

I'm happy to see items and targetting. Screw the idea of the best players winning every match. I want to have enjoyable and exciting games, not predictable ones where I just win every time unless I'm playing the top players.

[iphys]

It makes me laugh that they are now calling them "magic items."  Some of them sound absolutely horrible though, like the one where it shifts alternate rows left and right throughout your stack, the one where it swaps your stack with someone else's, and I've always despised rotation lock (especially in combo with speed up).  I like that they are colouring the items red and green to show which ones attack opponents and which ones help you, although colourblind people might not like the choice of colours.

[caffeine]

I'm happy to see items and targetting. Screw the idea of the best players winning every match. I want to have enjoyable and exciting games, not predictable ones where I just win every time unless I'm playing the top players.

Mmk. Just when you do "win" against someone who actually outmatched you, try to forget that you probably won because the luck-factor leaned in your favor (more garbage happened to go to him than you). This way you can still feel like you've earned the win and are actually your opponent's match.

[meow]

1. spam like quadra
2. shift right gravity
3. combo the crap out of everyone

[mzhang]

just tried it out for the first time. impressed! need to figure out the items and such but very enjoyable so far

[Red_Star]

I didn't like the soft drop speed. I want it to be quicker so doing t-spins doesn't feel so slow to me. I am still unsure if I like the combos or not, but I still use them regardless. Items remind me to much of playing Sakura Tetris and watching some gender confused boy in green flipping over my field.

It is not bad, hopefully it brings more people to Tetris. It could be better, but just a beta so I will reserve that til release. My biggest complaint, no Wii balance board compatibility.

[Magnanimous]

I'm pretty happy with the beta, at least: ignoring the fact that a lot of things aren't finished, it's still showing a lot of potential. I was thrown off a bit by the graphics, though... That weird font is almost impossible to read.

[Blink]

The beta exceeded expectations for me, I already knew there wouldn't be any customizable DAS yet but there are other things I'm not really into.  EZ-tspins add nothing, there's like a 2 second delay when sending garbage because you have to wait for the animation to move from your field to the other person's before it adds, slow line clear delay/soft drop speed.  
Also *offtopic* but I still have no idea what's a good way to play with this combo system - what do you guys do?

[Rosti_LFC]

Mmk. Just when you do "win" against someone who actually outmatched you, try to forget that you probably won because the luck-factor leaned in your favor (more garbage happened to go to him than you). This way you can still feel like you've earned the win and are actually your opponent's match.

How likely is it that people are actually going to outmatch me? Not being arrogant, it's just that most people who are actually good tend to shy away from items, and there aren't a huge number of players who I would say are definitely better than me given the number of people who are going to be playing this. Myself and cosmonaut largely dominated 4-player in Tetris DS not because we were the best players, but mostly because we were one of the few good players who played the mode.

Excitement and enjoyment doesn't come just from winning. It comes from matches being close, especially if my rating is far higher and I've got a lot more to lose if I don't win. If people target me because I'm rated higher, or I get unlucky with items, then it just adds to the challenge and excitement and ultimately the satisfaction when I win.

[I_AM_SAND]

i thought the items were pretty cool. much better than blockles.