Tetrisfriends tips? etc

[Sozu]

Hey!
For a couple of months ago, sometime in start of the year 2010, I started to play some tetrisfriends, thought I didn't get enough of it and i thought the game 'blockwars' which is located on a swedish game site was better.
However, the site is closing soon so i wont be able to play that game.
Instead I played some tetrisfriends via facebook and got interest of playing it again.

I remember in an old thread here where i asked what way to rotate the pieces, I got answear i should learn me both ways. And that was I just have done, i rotate them to left and right, to play faster.


However, i just went to the arena in tetrisfriends and in my opinon i play pretty good. I'm fast and so.
It's just that I'm not good in use of these special stuffs.. and idk if everyone is attacking me!?
I played some matches and won, but suddenly more people came and in the previous matches i got total bombed and from first place i came to last place.
I just wonder if people use to attack those who is best in the matches or so?

Myself never look when that marker that shows which i'll attack if i stack down or if i send away those special stuffs (on the V button), comes on.

I'm just playing my best and hope for the best, i never waiting for that marker to come on some person that i wanna kill or so.



I also haven't learned me to use this save thing, (on Z button). Because these thing i haven't had on the other tetris games i played so i kinda didn't know much of them and hasn't learned me completely that one.


Then i also hasn't learned me T-spins and so on. I wonder if these are powerful in arena and other games in tetrisfriends?



Does someone have tips for me how I shall be better?
I thought first of learn me that save thing, but only way i know how i shall use it, is to spare those 'spines'(?) those l blocks.
And then learn those simple t-spins if they're good? (i watched the sticky).

But what more? Shall i wait and aim for 1 target? or should i just play normal and look over sometime if someone is close to die so i can make a KO or something?

[EnFuego]

Tetris friends is kind of unforgiving. If you start doing too well it will handicap you and make it harder to win.


To learn how to use the "hold" feature, I would suggest playing a mode like sprint and try to clear only tetrises. When you come to a piece that doesn't fit use the hold.


For t-spins, I would suggest checking out the wiki and maybe learning 1 or 2 setups at a time. Once you master the basic setups you can go and try for harder ones.

[Wojtek]

tetrisfriends hidden handicap decides if you should win or lose, this is biggest bullshit in this game. unless you play E+ rooms whole game is totally poinless. so my first advice is to play only E+ rooms.

items in tetrisfriends are terrible ballanced and not fun at all (annoying things like rotation blocking and instant win items like block twist). sadly i don't know any game with good items mode, you can try hangame though.

[caffeine]

you can try hangame though.

Not really, unless he has a Korean social security number.

But yeah, non-e+ mode is a joke. Non-1v1 mode is a joke due to targetting. You're not going to get a good feel for how much you've improved when playing these games since it's very luck-dependent. You'll win, you'll lose, but  not always because you played better or worse.

[Spirale]

Not really, unless he has a Korean social security number.

But yeah, non-e+ mode is a joke. Non-1v1 mode is a joke due to targetting. You're not going to get a good feel for how much you've improved when playing these games since it's very luck-dependent. You'll win, you'll lose, but  not always because you played better or worse.

what? the good player still manage to win most of the games in FFA rooms. I've never been in any room where targetting was a problem.

[caffeine]

what? the good player still manage to win most of the games in FFA rooms. I've never been in any room where targetting was a problem.

Sure, in the long term the better player should win more games. However, the relationship between his skill and his win rate is diluted due to luck-based and unfair features such targeting. You're still going to get (short run) games where, even though a player outmatched and outperformed his opponent in every measurable and observable way, will still lose due to luck. If TTC wants to see Tetris "in the stadiums" (professional competition), this type of design is unacceptable!

The targeting system in 3+ player games results in uneven garbage distribution. For example, in Tetris Splash, I was outperforming my opponents twofold (and downstacking better to boot), but there'd still be those games where I'd be the one who (unluckily) received all the garbage, and my opponents would receive none. In a 6-way game, there was simply no skillful way to win past this luck: 5*4=20 garbage rows all at once = top out.

A fair system would be "send to all," but Nintendo probably instituted the original targeting system because "send to all" games go by too quickly. However, a way to slow down these games to 1v1 pace, in a fair way, would be a fractional system which remembers the decimal (and it doesn't even change the balance).

[Rosti_LFC]

If you clear through garbage well enough, and are sensible enough to play defensively at the start of the game when things are a little more hectic, then it's easily possible to win 5p or 6p games consistently as the better player. It can even the playing field a little bit, but it doesn't do much more than that. Same goes for items.

Sure, occasionally you'll get screwed over and be hit by 30 lines in the space of a couple of seconds, but that's rare, and for me at least it usually only happens with players I'd struggle to consistently beat 1v1 anyway.

Plus what ever happened for just playing socially and for the enjoyment of it? =P

[caffeine]

If you clear through garbage well enough, and are sensible enough to play defensively at the start of the game when things are a little more hectic, then it's easily possible to win 5p or 6p games consistently as the better player. It can even the playing field a little bit, but it doesn't do much more than that. Same goes for items.

Sure, occasionally you'll get screwed over and be hit by 30 lines in the space of a couple of seconds, but that's rare, and for me at least it usually only happens with players I'd struggle to consistently beat 1v1 anyway.

Plus what ever happened for just playing socially and for the enjoyment of it? =P

It's about accurate feedback. If I outperformed my opponent in every way, the game should reflect that, to the best of its ability, by giving me a win. The current design only serves to "dilute" this feedback. Your so called "even the playing field" argument is analogous to adding a coin flip rule to the game of Chess. Why mess with something that's fair in the first place? There's no reason why we can't have a social and fair game "for the enjoyment of it."

I'm interested in playing a fair and competitive game--a game of skill, not of chance. If you don't feel that way, I can recommend some excellent games for you: Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders. =b

[Sozu]

Okays, thanks.
But what's E+ rooms?

And I also don't understand why tetrisfriends wouldn't have a forum :s
Would be more fun cus then can find many other people who plays it and therefor maybe make up a team/clan/guild or something like that..

[KeroKai]

Despite the entire luck factor. I've got to agree with Rosti that it's extremely rare to be topped out immediantly due to multiple people targetting you. While it might seem like there's more people to target you in 5-6 player rooms, most players (ignoring 10-11 combo combined with sub 50 speed) just aren't fast enough to send out extra damage that hasn't already been cancelled out by you.

In fact I'd say that playing in these FFA rooms have the opposite effect of being topped out too quickly. Most games are drawn out much more longer because of this targetting system that allows time for different players to recover. Basically a person is better at downstacking (surviving longer matches) and able to pump out damage at the same time, most of the time they will definitely win. It might not reflect how quickly they should be able to destroy other players, but it still reflects some sort of skill.

You just can't compare FFA tetris to 1v1 tetris. Going by your analogy, I could just argue that it's like comparing chess to poker.

[caffeine]

You just can't compare FFA tetris to 1v1 tetris.

We can compare a player's strength in FFA Tetris to 1v1 Tetris fairly accurately by using a fractional garbage system.

Going by your analogy, I could just argue that it's like comparing chess to poker.

Read closely. I said, "If I outperformed my opponent in every way, the game should reflect that, to the best of its ability, by giving me a win."

Poker does awards wins to the best of its ability, just as Chess does. While poker is a game of imperfect information (unlike Chess), it's as fair as it can be. Because if we played "perfect information poker" in an effort to make the game more fair, the game would devolve into such an obvious and simplified strategy, it would lose all its depth (e.g. tic-tac-toe).

FFA Tetris must make no such sacrifice (that is to say, to sacrifice fairness) in order to award a win to the best-performing player, and that's the difference.

In other words, targeting adds an unwarranted element of chance to an otherwise fair game. It's unnecessary and only hurts the game.

[Agamemnon]

I disagree with you quite heavily on the size-of-room factor. Imo, the worst is 3 player rooms, where it seems that 50% of the time one person gets hit by the openers of two others.
Other than that, the entire revenge-garbage thing is perhaps the dumbest side of TF ffa. In the end, ffa is for fun and learning while 1on1 is a better test of skill...

We can compare a player's strength in FFA Tetris to 1v1 Tetris fairly accurately by using a fractional garbage system.

You know, the lack of fractional makes for a different set of strategies in counter-attacking.... Fractional garbage would mean much nastier garbage all over, and change the game completely. I'm not saying worse, just completely different...

[Rosti_LFC]

It's about accurate feedback. If I outperformed my opponent in every way, the game should reflect that, to the best of its ability, by giving me a win.

And in my experience (which, if I do say so myself, is damn extensive given 4p Tetris DS was pretty much exclusively what I played back in the day, and I still play +4p Tetris Friends) it does the vast majority of the time. If you've made a tactical error and stacked too high, and the 12 lines you get all at once kills you before you can recover, then you've clearly not outperformed your opponent in every way. And if people are prepared to wait for the target symbol to sit on your field before they clear lines, then again, they're just out-thinking you (and there are ways to counter it usually) .

I think you're just missing an entire strategic aspect of how you're meant to play when there's more than three people. Just because you think you're outperforming your opponent in all criteria does not mean there can't be other criteria you're perhaps not considering and aren't experienced enough with.

Plus it's not like anything important gets decided on a single game. If you're playing several games for a match, then it mostly evens out anyway. And misdrops are far more of a lottery than target-based garbage.

[EnFuego]

You should also account for the handicap factor. Many times I would join a 6-player game and win easily the first time, but would get unfairly destroyed the second game because of handicap. If you are a better player, not only does it give you messier garbage but I think there is still a "revenge" system in place. If you KO someone, their target will stay on you more often.

So win the first round and KO 3 people, then you are stuck in more or less of a 3v1

[Rosti_LFC]

Yeah, but that handicap doesn't exist in Expert Plus, and I'm clearly not defending non-E+ games, because that would be insane and retarded.