Design Thoughts

[Spirale]

blablabla finesse

I dont think finesse is a major skill that will help you get better.
I think it takes only two things to be good at tetris, speed and foresight.

Finesse is just one of the thousand things you can do to optimize your speed (like using both rotates, stacking "flat", 6-3 stacking,etc).

It would be interesting to see a finesse training tool though and also both rotate training tool, 6-3 training tool.

[Paul676]

I dont think finesse is a major skill that will help you get better.
I think it takes only two things to be good at tetris, speed and foresight.

Finesse is just one of the thousand things you can do to optimize your speed (like using both rotates, stacking "flat", 6-3 stacking,etc).

It would be interesting to see a finesse training tool though and also both rotate training tool, 6-3 training tool.

Seconded, and when you look at people like Kim Min June or any of the top Koreans play, they go at speeds of sub-25 in their sleep whilst still single rotating - not that it wouldn't be a fun mode, but save it for nullpo...

[DrPete]

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]1) the ideal DAS/AR setting you would like to have for optimal performance.

Maybe same for Line Clear, and Softdrop too..
but this might me something you just want it to be zero..

However, DAR/AR is different as in..
faster is not always the best.[/quote]

ideally, I'd like these to be customizable in terms of frames/Hz/ms/whatever unit of measurement. maybe after unlocking all the presets, you can unlock a spanner kind of icon which lets you do this? then the people who care can micromanage to their heart's content and it doesn't confuse everyone else.

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]3) Any cool single player modes you'll like to see?[/quote]

+1 for dig challenge and finesse trainer. TB wouldn't be the first official game to have a finesse-trainer like mode - who remembers stage racer from TPD?

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]6) Anything else for a wish list? Smile.png[/quote]

when/if live happens, real garbage would be nice

also it would be nice if you could do something about people like this:

[!--ImageUrlBegin--][a href=\\\"http://oi56.tinypic.com/f41o9j.jpg\\\" target=\\\"_new\\\"][!--ImageUrlEBegin--][img width=\\\"400\\\" class=\\\"attach\\\" src=\\\"http://oi56.tinypic.com/f41o9j.jpg\\\" border=\\\'0\\\' alt=\\\"IPB Image\\\" /][!--ImageUrlEnd--][/a][!--ImageUrlEEnd--]

[Paradox]

1. Possibility for Instant AR! Definitely!

If you are going to make presets for DAS/AR please make more than 5, so that it will be easier to find our comfort level. Plus if there are more then we can have more to unlock at a cheaper price per unlock.

Another option is to give us the option to have custom das once we unlock all the presets! That would be perfect and still be good with the masses!

2. Double rotate!! Make sure it doesn't have insane wall kicks

3. Softdrop speed/ line clear delay presets

Again if you do presets allow the last one to be instant if possible, if not make it very fast!

4.  Dig Challenge!!

5. Proper IHS/IRS

6. Live games!

7. Balanced combos! 10+ combos shouldn't be an instant top out for the other player -_-

If you do all these things you would already make the best official game in existence

Optional: T-spin Doubles send 3 , Tspin triples send 5 , all types of tspin singles send 1

This is a more legitimate way of balancing t-spins if you have a faster soft drop. The answer isn't to have slow soft drop but to weaken t-spins directly, since they are the cause of the unbalance.

If this change would be made then tetrises would have more use. T-spins would still have more add per line but they wouldn't make other types of line clears useless.


   


[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]Seconded, and when you look at people like Kim Min June or any of the top Koreans play, they go at speeds of sub-25 in their sleep whilst still single rotating - not that it wouldn't be a fun mode, but save it for nullpo...[/quote]

umm no. If he learned finesse he would be sub 23 easily. Just because people can be fast without it doesn't mean its not useful.

Check out my keyblox record sometime... Its 1 kpt and its 3 seconds better than my best nullpo time.

[Spirale]

also it would be nice if you could do something about people like this:

[!--ImageUrlBegin--][a href=\\\"http://oi56.tinypic.com/f41o9j.jpg\\\" target=\\\"_new\\\"][!--ImageUrlEBegin--][img width=\\\"400\\\" class=\\\"attach\\\" src=\\\"http://oi56.tinypic.com/f41o9j.jpg\\\" border=\\\'0\\\' alt=\\\"IPB Image\\\" /][!--ImageUrlEnd--][/a][!--ImageUrlEEnd--]

theres only a huge "report" button next to that racist girl's post

[lmartins]

I dont think finesse is a major skill that will help you get better.
I think it takes only two things to be good at tetris, speed and foresight.

Finesse is just one of the thousand things you can do to optimize your speed (like using both rotates, stacking "flat", 6-3 stacking,etc).

It would be interesting to see a finesse training tool though and also both rotate training tool, 6-3 training tool.

Yea I was thinking of it would be nice to have tetris drills.  Finesse, stacking, speed, setups, etc.  Basically breaking out the individual things that go into tetris into their own drills (as many other sports/activites do).  But this is probably best left for nullpo.

[zaphod77]

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.

[acemagic]

Thanks acemagic for wanting to hear the community out on this.  

This community consists of players from many different Tetris game backgrounds, so it's tough to completely agree on 1 set of standards.  

Here are my own choices and reasons:

1) DAS 133, AR 8.  Personally I like to use something a bit faster, but this is fast enough and easy to control.  It doesn't require players to get accustomed to instant gravity that a small percentage of players use and seems like an easier transition for casual players.

For soft drop speed I'd like something faster than TF, maybe #5 on TOJ, but not instant firm drop that some players love.  I feel as though firm drop messes up the balance between tspins/tetris/combos and also pushes a games balance towards speed over skill.  Since you're talking about rebalancing though, this might not be an issue.  There are places a firm drop cannot reach that a soft drop can, and in my opinion a really fast soft drop would satisfy even firm drop fans.

For line clear delay I would be happy anything faster than TF's line clear delay.  To me TF's line clear delay seems quick enough already but I know many players want it faster so maybe half of that.

3) There's a Dig Challenge mode on the fan-made NullpoMino which alongside 40 lines is the most popular singleplayer mode I see being played.  Garbage rises on a players field and increases in speed over time until the player tops out.  Blockbox and TetriNET had something similar to this called survivor mode and it was played heavily on those games as well.  I think modes like this are very addicting, here's a video of it:

6) Real-time multiplayer with good spectator/chat support is a must!!  Live interaction with other players and the social aspect of live Tetris is what makes matches/practice/making Tetris buddies fun.  You can't talk to a replay.

7)  What ideas do you have on the rebalancing?  To use an existing game as a template, I'd choose TOJ.  I know that many players love TOJ's gameplay and feel it's very well balanced.  Japanese players and a majority of the community would agree.  Hangame on the other hand looks too speed based to me, and less about skill.  Games that fall into that speed over skill balance are no fun to watch, which many players saw during the Burger King Hangame tournament: http://harddrop.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1605

That being said, there are some interesting concepts that Kitaru has brought up before so hopefully he can post about them here.  They would need some heavy testing though to see how they affect balance.

Hi Blink.

My pleasure. I always enjoy talking with fans of Tetris because I myself is a fan as well.

1) This is quite interesting. If I can gather some more information on what hard core players prefer, I can try tweaking things to support it. It's really more helpful, because you've provided the exact settings you're looking for.

3) I'll look into this.

6) Actually yes, it's coming. But when I don't know yet. Scheduling is the toughest, but we need to be able to hit a critical mass before it will really take off in facebook. We already have the technology,
but making a commercially successful product requires beautiful execution.

7) TOJ's setting actually was made by me, so I appreciate the fact that you like it.

Facebook's audience is a lot more casual.. and there's actually more than 50% of users who can't do double, triples, or even Tetrises.

The new setting I've been looking into is a setting where
attack lines are awarded from single instead of starting from double.
I call it the 1-2-3-4 setting.

The concern here is that this might somewhat negate the power of Tetris..
but since there is B2B which awards 50% bonus. It might still be effective.
Also doing 1 Tetris is faster than doing four singles because of the line clear delay.

With this setting, Combo, will have to be re-adjusted so that it is triggered starting combo 2 instead..
which is actually not so bad, since we want to different people from doing combos intentionally, and accidentally. ( to make the rules more obvious, the current setting we use seem to confuse users as sometimes doing a single will send garbage, sometimes it doesn't)

I'm also considering bring the rule I've put in TOA, which is what i call no flush on counter,
inspired by PuyoPuyo 2s system. This helps create some breathing room while, people build up the combos..
and also give more chances to counter like in PuyoPuyo.

Now, T-Spin is the question...
I'd like to actually explore two things..

Re-establishing the hierarchy.
T-Spin Single actually only happens when someone fails a double.
Should I just merge T-Spin mini into Single to make it simpler?

Also, some people argue, that T-Spins (Zero; T-Spin with no line clears) should still award something.
What would be a good balance for a perfect clear?

what would be the best condition for speed increase in the game.
In Battle, currently, the speed never increases..
In TOJs I've made it so that it increases with time.
In Hangame, we made it so that it increases by line clears made by everybody.

Lastly, the targeting system for a 6p game.
In hangame We've designed an attack all system.
In TOJ, we combined it with nintendo DS's targeting system so that people can snipe.

The both have pluses and minuses.. so sometimes it's hard for me to choose.
Should I just design a new one?

Thanks and I'd like to hear out more from you guys,
so when I make this new version, all bases are covered even better than before.

1) Faster is not always best for DAR, but for AR, faster is always better =]. (Unless you're blink or someone else who uses skill-stops.) That said, I like 80-100ms DAR, and 0 or 1 AR.

Tetris Friends uses around 200ms for line clears, which is okay, but the faster the better. Perhaps if you must use line clear delay for multiplayer modes, you could use zero line clear delay just for Sprint? I'd like to see some World Records set on a licensed game (Tetris Friends has one player so far who has gone sub 30 seconds, but in fan-games that don't use line clear delay, we have players who can manage under 25.)

===> Thanks for the feedback. This is exactly what I need to hear out.

3) A speed-based garbage-clearing single player mode. Tetris Evolution allowed something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g8tDurevz0 . But unlike that video, I'd like to see two differences: A) you start with X garbage rows, and you win when you clear the bottom-most row (faster the better), and B) an algorithm which prevents lucky starts. As you see in that video, the guy starts with a 4 row column. What happens is players will restart over and over until they get a lucky field. So, it's a good idea to make it so all starting fields are equally lucky/unlucky (unlucky would be when you get two holes back and forth next to each other). One idea is to make garbage holes 10-bag, kinda like the piece randomizer, but a hole hits each of the ten columns before going on to the next bag.

===> Interesting.. maybe I'll just make something like this into a mode or mission or something.
The garbage hole bag system is really cool idea too!

6) An Elo-type skill-based rating system instead of an accumulative-type "time-invested"-based rating system.

===> There's actually a pro and con on both, So recently I've designed more over a hybrid.
TOJ used a XP system which is more time-invested based, but lose skill representation because the # of users are small. In a strict rating system (the one old hangame used to use) the there are two issues,
one is that the matching because picky.. (people will ban/kick people out or refuse to start when somebody with low ratings comes in or stays in the room), second it's too easy to abuse. (using two accounts to farm rating points)

So my goal is trying to make a rating system that best combination of the three,
and also in consideration of how many players are available.

7) More or less, the general consensus on this forum is that T-Spins require way more skill and risk than Combos. Yet in Tetris Friends, 4-wide Combo openings can do very well against T-Spinners. This may be too extreme, but I'd like to see a big time Combo nerf (unless you're willing to take Combos out altogether: PS3 Tetris has no Combos, and the gameplay is very good.) What I'm thinking is something like this:

0 garbage, Combo 1
1 garbage, Combo 2
1 garbage, Combo 3
1 garbage, Combo 4
2 garbage, Combo 5
2 garbage, Combo 6
2 garbage, Combo 7
3 garbage, Combo 8 or higher.

Might be extreme, but it should do the trick.

I think, T-Spins was less rewarding because of the delay of softdrop.
With tuning however, that is somewhat helped.
Maybe I can think of something else to help T-Spinners.

Nerfing combos, is an option, but we do have to focus on the fact that actually Tetris style is still the majority.
So giving T-Spinners some more benefits might be helpful.
(ex. let b2b of T-spins stack up?)
maybe we can gather some good ideas for that.

AR/rate - 60hz or Instant ("9G"); 30hz (like Tetris Splash) at bare minimum.
DAS/delay - subject to player preference; TF.Com's 6~16 frame range (@ 60fps) is alright, but I don't think there is any exceptional reason to enforce a limitation (other than perhaps trying to adhere to a free-to-play w/ item shop model). 4 frames is basically the lower bound for what anyone would think about using at this point in time.

Line Clear delay - zero; given how guideline multiplayer is designed at the moment (otherwise zero entry delay, poor Initial System options that are just there to get cope with line clear delay eating inputs), it probably makes most sense to just ditch it entirely. If it were using a Sega/TGM-style model, maybe this would be a different story.
Soft Drop speed - 1~2G or 20G (TGM's sonic drop); some players are attached to soft drop fixes and would appreciate a buff to soft drop speed without going instant, but both recovery styles can be supported by allowing individuals to tune this to their preference.
Perhaps rotation rule/kick table combinations.
I don't imagine we'll be seeing any TGM-style modes? Well, puzzle modes like Tetris Plus or Tetris with Card Captor Sakura are always neat if the levels are put together well.
Items are tricky... For now, I'd say I can think of more items that I wouldn't like to see in the games than ones I'm particularly interested in seeing added. In particular, please do not reverse, scramble, or lock player controls. TGM's Roll Roll is sort of acceptable seeing as you can fight against the rotations without having to change the way you think about moving the pieces, but anything else is just plain infuriating.
So, it's Reverse ACE...? ARS with SRS colors was already pretty odd. I guess you could use it to display your "true colors," but it's probably more confusing than useful without a rotation table change to go with it.
EDIT: Yep, this looks just as supremely uncomfortable as I thought it would. It's funny how badly this messes with my sense of things.
More info displayed regarding incoming garbage -- either via TGM3-style display of garbage content below the field or some sort of demarcation on the garbage meter showing where the attack chunks fall. I'd be more interested in this sort of feature in a game with real Change On Attack garbage as it would help make quick decisions regarding when to accept nice garbage or counter messy attacks without having to stare at your opponent's field and hoping you're reading the choppy updates correctly.
I'd like to investigate various mechanics with regards to attack sending, but I'm not sure how useful any of it will be for a game without real garbage like Tetris Battle. (Sorry to say it, but I still don't believe that that a replay-based system like this can amount to much more than a bloated single player experience.) Although it may not be an exact fit, I can still explain some of the concepts so you can gauge if there is some sort of application that suits your needs.

One approach that may afford some leeway in balancing a Change On Attack system like the one seen in TOJ is tweaking the way attack chunks are added. For example, we could potentially add a b2b tetris as +4 +1 to differentiate it from a b2b TSD that adds a straight +5. It may also come in handy when balancing the ever-controversial combo. An extreme example would be to force combo adds to be considered as part of the previous attack chunk -- that is to say, that combos should always add in a straight line if not mixed in with other types of attacks. I don't believe this approach is usable as-is, but it certainly would make a combo starter more of a risky all-in if it was dealing out a lot of clean garbage.

Another mechanic that I don't believe has been fully explored is strategic garbage -- giving the player control over how and where garbage adds. In the TGM series, garbage sent is based on the position, orientation, and shape of the piece being used to clear lines.

One concept I would like to test is allowing the player to send strategic attacks rather than standard Change On Attack random garbage by performing twists. The controversial aspect of this idea is that it isn't precisely clear where it should fit in with the concept of attack countering that now exists. Let's say for example that we change a t-spin double to send a messy two line attack like a T double would in TGM. Should the valuation of this attack as it relates to sending or countering attacks still be +4? Should spins in general instead add at face value? Should certain moves exist outside the realm of countering or be subject to removal only after all other attacks have been removed from the garbage queue? I don't think I can answer any of these questions until they have been put to trial.

Along similar lines, we could take an alternate approach to combos by allowing them to remain as strong in valuation (or perhaps stronger) but preventing them from adding all at once. Combos could instead be geared toward applying constant pressure over time by limiting them to adding one line per turn rather than flushing all at once as with other attacks. When combined with the previously mentioned concept of forcing combos to add in the same hole as the previous attack, there is strong incentive to mix up combos with other types of attack to ensure that attacks are well-distributed and not too many combo adds pool up for the opponent to return as a tetris. There would also be a lot of room to play with the "flow rate" of combo adds, either by increasing throughput if the match is sufficiently long (as in the Margin Time mechanic in Puyo Puyo 2 onward) or when the number of combo attacks in the queue reaches a sufficiently high value.
While I like the idea Combo Block mechanic on its own, I think it is part of the reason combos are so problematic. Combos don't really need the benefit of the block in addition to their tremendous attack power. I think part of the reason that 4-wide didn't take as much of a hold on Tetris Splash despite sporting the same damage potential is that starting the combo does not make you immune to incoming attacks.
I somehow managed to miss this amidst all the mechanic-centric discussion, but this is pretty key.
That table doesn't look too bad to me, though I recall some sensible tweaks like that being met with vehement opposition in old threads discussing combo balance. Personally though, I think exchanging the one-hit KO power for a lengthened messy start is a pretty favorable trade.

Thanks Kitaru,
this is some really good feedback, that kind of give me new ideas.

So far I see Tetris as a straight in boxing. Direct but efficient.
Combo is a fast 1-2-1-2 Jab, so maybe we should add more benefits on doing combinations,
and lower the attack in volume. Also combo is useful as a judo move, since you can use garbage to send garbage (however true for the Tetris style too if the garbage comes in a line)
T-spin is a like a hook or upper cut, with power, and also has the benefit of executing in small areas
(more beneficial in a situation like TOJ's concrete coming up) so let's keep discussing to find a good mechanic /benefit we can put on each styles.

If each style has it's own unique benefits, I think that's probably the best way to make it worth while for people to switch styles.

1) agree with others, TOJ settings but not too expensive. Though I guess in a way it would be fine for us more skilled players who can win rubie crowns but for others it would prove harder. So I guess I would be fine with current price scaling. note: though I would like it to be free so rubies can be spent on your rubie games instead, feels like noone from here plays em anyway - duno If thats the case for others.
Also understand that getting tokens to buy customization is a good way to get people to play, so keep prices if that is the case is my oppinion.

3) Any survival mode designed to kill you, so it requires no thinking of optimising points per line, minute or whatever, just surviving.
Also Arena options for arena with like 5KO/2min (1v1 single player style) games could be cool, this way people might like items too since a stroke of luck for the opponent wont make u lose the whole game.

4) Paul676's idea of 20G item looks cool. I generally think that most of the items are difficult to deal with when playing with fast opponents, there is items that pretty much one shots people when at high speeds.

6)

• More spectator friendly arena play, larger 1v1 screen so it can be easily viewable when playing tourneys and larger text on what for happens e.g "tetris" "T-spin double" and the like for spectators (spectators only!). Overall everything that makes tourneys easier I think would be great. (free/cheap customization would also contribute in a way)
• More stats, not on profile but like at least as in tetis zone, I really only miss seeing tpm lpm.
• TF PMs?
• Availability for more friends (think there is a cap atm - could be anoying for tourney organisators or people with teams.
• (not as important - Connect FB tetris with TF. But i really dont care too much atm, the other things are more important)
• rank skill > games played on arena highscores. Or at least fix the weird top 20% thing. (hope you know what I mean) - But once again this gets people to play and i rather have low highscores than no opponents.

7)Agree on Combo being too strong, but dont nerf it too much. I like the idea of changing the mechanics of it rather than the lines sent. However I belive that the short ds combo should not be nerfed, only the 4 and 3 wide set ups. Maybe as suggested before by capping lines sent at some point so large combos suffer, not the short ones.

Also duno if you guys are thinking like this but when Blizzard is doing balances to SC2 they they claim to spice the changes a bit in order to see any reactions. What I mean is that if the change is too small people will go on with the same strategies and not notice that T-spins are in fact stronger or whatever you may change. Wont probebly be a prob. for us as we are more aware of the changes but if you think that lower speed play also is broken you should consider this.
Edit: Noogy proposal rocks!

Thanks Alex, I actually just realized.
LPM, APM and those were stats actually I used to emphasize a lot in hangame and TOJ versions..
in the facebook version I have forgotten about it completely.

Yeah, I should start bringing back the stats because it's really fun to analyze the styles.

Spectator and tournaments are costly systems to build, so probably won't be able to do it anytime soon.
but hopefully we project becomes more successful, we can have the chance!

my proposal - a tetris finesse trainer

overview:
it really only takes three things to be good at tetris: speed, technique, and finesse.
now finesse and speed are generally useful across all tetris games, while technique is specific to each game (depending on spin bonuses, garbage types, etc.) as of now, there are tools out there to help you train speed/stacking and down-stacking: 40L and dig challenge, but there isn't a tool for proper finesse

now lets compare playing tetris to typing
when typing [words/sentences], there are three things you take into consideration

what you type - using bigger vocabulary and proper punctuation could be compared to very good tetris technique (efficient spins) and clean stacking
how fast you type it - higher wpm could be compared to high tpm
how you type it - how your fingers correspond to each key on the keyboard, this can be compared to finesse

some people could argue that if you want to be faster at 40L, learning finesse is key. however, many people have bad habits and are unwilling to drop those bad habits when playing 40L because it is actually faster for them to do it "their" way. (i.e. triple right rotate an L piece rather than taking longer to "think" and left rotating)

what tetris is like now:

someone who is very new to computers tends to type with two index fingers, poking at the keys in order to make words. eventually, they become faster pokers and can pretty much go about their day poking keys when doing things that require minimal typing
when using a typing program to teach typing, people are taught several concepts (fingers on home row, knowing which finger to use for which key)
no one is really "taught" how to play tetris by another person; they just know the keys and eventually find a way to get a piece from point A to B, sometimes not caring how many keypresses it takes

what the finesse trainer does:

the finesse trainer will focus on 2-3 generic keyboard layouts and help players improve finesse by emphasizing specific key presses per piece.
just like how a typing program starts out with really easy stuff (like alternating between K and J with your index finger), the finesse trainer will begin with easy things like DAS'ing a certain piece to the wall over and over again.
for beginners, the program would have you DAS a piece to the wall, and then as soon as you dropped the piece, the field would clear and have you do it again. It would then have you do other placements like DAS to the wall and tap one space back, always clearing the field after the piece placement. As the difficulty goes up, the program would ask you to do more piece placements before the screen cleared.
so for advanced players, the program could teach you TKI 3 by having you place 6 pieces in exact order (and clear the field and make you do it again)

finesse trainer features:

- a fixed ghost shadow showing where the piece should be (similar to words popping up on the screen while you type under them)
- a panel somewhere outside the tetris field that shows the keypresses required for the current piece (like a red arrow can mean DAS left/right while a blue arrow means tap)
- a chart somewhere to the side that shows exactly how many seconds it took to place that piece (so after doing 100 random placements, you can see which piece placements you need improvement on)
- a "free play" mode where you play for about 1000 pieces or so, with an AI that makes you do more of a certain piece placement that you keep screwing up
- a 40L mode where the AI gets to pick where your pieces go, and you get points based on how many proper placements you make. there can be a formula combining points & speed and a leaderboard for it as well
TL;DR - learning tetris the way you'd learn typing

This is really a cute idea.
The Tetris academy program to train professional tetris players.

If we do make something like this, all credits to you on the inspiration

1. Possibility for Instant AR! Definitely!

If you are going to make presets for DAS/AR please make more than 5, so that it will be easier to find our comfort level. Plus if there are more then we can have more to unlock at a cheaper price per unlock.

Another option is to give us the option to have custom das once we unlock all the presets! That would be perfect and still be good with the masses!

2. Double rotate!! Make sure it doesn't have insane wall kicks

3. Softdrop speed/ line clear delay presets

Again if you do presets allow the last one to be instant if possible, if not make it very fast!

4.  Dig Challenge!!

5. Proper IHS/IRS

6. Live games!

7. Balanced combos! 10+ combos shouldn't be an instant top out for the other player -_-

If you do all these things you would already make the best official game in existence

Optional: T-spin Doubles send 3 , Tspin triples send 5 , all types of tspin singles send 1

This is a more legitimate way of balancing t-spins if you have a faster soft drop. The answer isn't to have slow soft drop but to weaken t-spins directly, since they are the cause of the unbalance.

If this change would be made then tetrises would have more use. T-spins would still have more add per line but they wouldn't make other types of line clears useless.
   
umm no. If he learned finesse he would be sub 23 easily. Just because people can be fast without it doesn't mean its not useful.

Check out my keyblox record sometime... Its 1 kpt and its 3 seconds better than my best nullpo time.

Actually, we're preparing for the next stages of tuning already.

I'll look into if we can cover these areas as much as we can.

Btw, the how did you guys feel about tuning of the bag and the extended placement in TOJs version?

[Ryan]

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.

[Blink]

Hi Blink.

7) TOJ's setting actually was made by me, so I appreciate the fact that you like it.

Facebook's audience is a lot more casual.. and there's actually more than 50% of users who can't do double, triples, or even Tetrises.

The new setting I've been looking into is a setting where
attack lines are awarded from single instead of starting from double.
I call it the 1-2-3-4 setting.

I don't know how this will turn out because I haven't tested it yet, but it seems like combo strategy will gain the most from this, which might not be a good idea because combos are already seen as overpowered.  Especially if each of those single clears are treated as seperate attacks, that would mean some really messy garbage will be sent by someone who can clear singles + combo together them together at a crazy speed.

To be honest I think the current TOJ system just needs some tweaking around, rather than such a drastic change like this.  

The concern here is that this might somewhat negate the power of Tetris..
but since there is B2B which awards 50% bonus. It might still be effective.
Also doing 1 Tetris is faster than doing four singles because of the line clear delay.

True, but that Tetris would send the opponent 4 clean lines of garbage, whereas the 4 singles cleared would send 4 lines of garbage with changing holes.  Not only that, those 4 singles might send some additional from a combo chain.

Now, T-Spin is the question...
I'd like to actually explore two things..

Re-establishing the hierarchy.
T-Spin Single actually only happens when someone fails a double.
Should I just merge T-Spin mini into Single to make it simpler?

Not to sound like a broken record, but I think that T-spin minis sending 1 line like in TOJ work well for balance.  They're probably not worth the 2 lines of a T-spin Single like on Tetris DS, but shouldn't send zero either like Tetris Friends.

Also, some people argue, that T-Spins (Zero; T-Spin with no line clears) should still award something.

Maybe have it so that T-Spin zeros can start a B2B chain even though they don't send any lines themselves.

Lastly, the targeting system for a 6p game.
In hangame We've designed an attack all system.
In TOJ, we combined it with nintendo DS's targeting system so that people can snipe.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet, we definitely need a new type of targeting system that won't allow players to snipe other players.  Garbage sent to everyone would be fair, but with the heavy attacks of combos/t-spins/b2b it would have to be reduced depending on the amount of players still in the round.  
Or atleast a blind targetting system so nobody can see who the crosshair is on and time their attacks to snipe someone.

[Paradox]

I have actually already experimented with the 1-2-3-4 garbage system except in my version there are no spin/combo/b2b/ rewards. I called it whole garbage.

I actually really like the concept as long as the only bonuses are 1-2-3-4. It makes the game purely about speed and downstacking. But i'm not sure this is something that would be good for casual play. From my testing it is more like hardcore play similar to BlockBox but even more speed heavy.

I think all t-spin singles should send the same amount of lines. 2 lines + b2b is fine.

For my idea for reduced t-spins i would make singles send 1 though. (doubles 3, triples 5)

I also tested that concept out and I really liked it.

As for garbage sending my favorite is fractional garbage. It seems the most fair and logical. It divides by the amount of players and sends it to them. Every time the garbage queue is 1 or higher you get a line. The change rate of the holes is dependent on the amount of players as well.

Random targeting is completely unfair because it is luck based. imagine if everyone sent a tetris but due to their timing they ended up all sending you the garbage. I even made a video where I didnt even get garbage unitl 1 minute elapsed. Some of the players were already topped out by garbage by then.

[caffeine]

This is so cool that you're engaging the community like this! Thank you, acemagic!

Lastly, the targeting system for a 6p game.
In hangame We've designed an attack all system.
In TOJ, we combined it with nintendo DS's targeting system so that people can snipe.

The both have pluses and minuses.. so sometimes it's hard for me to choose.
Should I just design a new one?

The problem with targeting is not only that player hate being sniped, but rather players get an unfair distribution of garbage from their opponents (at least in the short run). What will happen is that, even though one player might've outperformed his opponents 2 to 1, he might still lose the game due to poor luck. Overall, this dilutes relationship between a player's skill and his ability to win. It's confusing when you've played much better than your opponent and you still don't win.

And even if noone purposely tries to target a certain opponent, players will occasionally get all the garbage after the first run of attacks and will unluckily (and unfairly) top out because of this. This happened to me in Tetris Splash a few times, and I raged so hard I quit that game outright.  

"Send to all," seen in Hangame, is very fair (and suited for competitive play), but  there's a problem with it which is why perhaps recent multiplayer games have favored targeting. Games go by too fast. When you add four players, the game goes by four times faster.

There's a very good way to get the fairness of "send to all," but the pace of 1v1: a fractional system. If I have four opponents, and I send a Tetris (four garbage rows), each opponent will receive 1 row. If I send 3 garbage rows, each opponent will receive .75 (they won't receive it right away, but the decimal is remembered until I send another attack and it bumps them over 1). This way, no matter how many players are in the game, it's always a 1v1 pace.

Now there's a hidden problem with even that. If the game uses "change hole column on attack" (seen in TOJ), this means garbage in a 6-way game will be much more randomized than it is in a 1v1 game because players will be receiving less garbage rows more frequently (in a 6-way game, five times as frequently since they have five opponents). There's an easy way to get the same 1v1 garbage "feel" in a 6-way game, though. The solution is to divide the "change hole column on attack" percent by how many opponents are left in the game. Say in a 1v1 game, there is a 100% hole change chance upon receiving a new attack (as seen in Tetris Friends). In a 3-way game (a player faces two opponents), you divide this by two: 50% hole change chance ( a 4-way game where you face 3 opponents: 33%, 4 opponents: 25%, and lastly 5 opponents: 20%). So what happens in the 3-way game, for example, is garbage becomes twice as randomized because you're receiving half the garbage but twice as frequently due to the fractional system, but the 50% hole change chance smooths over that messiness by roughly the same amount. The end result is that you get the same type of garbage as you do in a 1v1 game and at the same pace! It's a really nice system.

[Spirale]

Now there's a hidden problem with even that. If the game uses "change hole column on attack" (seen in TOJ), this means garbage in a 6-way game will be much more randomized than it is in a 1v1 game because players will be receiving less garbage rows more frequently (in a 6-way game, five times as frequently since they have five opponents). There's an easy way to get the same 1v1 garbage "feel" in a 6-way game, though. The solution is to divide the "change hole column on attack" percent by how many opponents are left in the game. Say in a 1v1 game, there is a 100% hole change chance upon receiving a new attack (as seen in Tetris Friends). In a 3-way game (a player faces two opponents), you divide this by two: 50% hole change chance ( a 4-way game where you face 3 opponents: 33%, 4 opponents: 25%, and lastly 5 opponents: 20%). So what happens in the 3-way game, for example, is garbage becomes twice as randomized because you're receiving half the garbage but twice as frequently due to the fractional system, but the 50% hole change chance smooths over that messiness by roughly the same amount. The end result is that you get the same type of garbage as you do in a 1v1 game and at the same pace! It's a really nice system.

I don't think it achieves what its intended to achieve : emulate a 1v1 game.
In 1v1 the garbage distribution depends only on Lines added per attack and hole percentage change on attacks.
With your system in 6 players games then it only depends on hole change percentage since each attack is 1 or 2 lines,the percentage is very low, so it makes huge tetris holes, which is really boring garbage.
In order to emulate a 1v1 you would have to emulate one average attack out of n people attacks, rather than modify the hole change percentage.

[caffeine]

I don't think it achieves what its intended to achieve : emulate a 1v1 game.

This system has already been implemented in NM, and it works very well.

In 1v1 the garbage distribution depends only on Lines added per attack and hole percentage change on attacks.
With your system in 6 players games then it only depends on hole change percentage since each attack is 1 or 2 lines,the percentage is very low, so it makes huge towers, which is really boring garbage.
In order to emulate a 1v1 you would have to emulate one average attack out of n people attacks, rather than modify the hole change percentage.

It makes about the same height towers as a it does in a 1v1 game (that's the whole point of dividing hole change percent by players left). Facing two opponents, you have a 50% higher chance of getting a "huge tower," but it processes that change chance twice as often (you get attacked twice as often). For this reason, it evens out, and you receive the same type of towers in both 1v1 and 3-way. In short, without dividing by the hole change percent, the more players you face, the shorter the towers become (more messy). Dividing the hole change percent counteracts this effect. I'm not sure what you mean by "emulate one average attack out of n people attack."

Here's an explanation I wrote up on the NM project site:
[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]
What we need to accomplish to get a 1v1 "feel" in a 6-way game is to find a way to make the 6-way's garbage just as dilatory as the 1v1 garbage is. Garbage "dilatoriness" is something I've actually been thinking a lot about recently. For example we can estimate any given attack's dilatoriness by by dividing how many garbage rows it sends by the minimum number of pieces it will require to clear it. With 100% "garbage change percent," a double, then, has a dilatoriness of 1.0 pieces per row, while a Tetris weighs in at 0.25 (1 piece per four rows).

The best solution in my opinion would be to use a fractional "garbage change percent" to go along with the fractional garbage system. Think about it. What happens when we divide garbage among five players instead of one? It becomes five times as dilatory! So, if we use 100% garbage change percent when a player faces one opponent, then we ought to use 20% (100/5) when that player faces five opponents. One opponent = 100%, so then {2=50%, 3=33%, 4=25%, 5=20%}.

In other words, when facing one opponent, if he sends me four Tetrises, I'll receive 16 rows of garbage [for the example's sake, forget about B2B], all at 0.25 dilatoriness. When facing two opponents (still at 100% hole change) and one of them sends four Tetrises, I'll now receive 8 rows of garbage at 0.50 dilatoriness (a 100% increase!). But... if we turn down the hole change to 50%, I'll still receive four discrete instances of two rows of garbage each, but this time, two of those four instances will likely stay on the same column and line up. In that case, our dilatoriness will goes back down to 0.25, and all is right with the world!
[/quote]

[Spirale]

This system has already been implemented in NM, and it works very well.
It makes about the same height towers as a it does in a 1v1 game (that's the whole point of dividing hole change percent by players left). Facing two opponents, you have a 50% higher chance of getting a "huge tower," but it processes that change chance twice as often (you get attacked twice as often). For this reason, it evens out, and you receive the same type of towers in both 1v1 and 3-way. I'm not sure what you mean by "emulate one average attack out of n people attack."

Here's an explanation I wrote up on the NM project site:

I played yesterday on Nullpomino a lot of 6-Players game, and it wasn't equivalent in any way to 1v1, it was even worse than before.

The reason is simple in 1v1 the hole change  for each garbage is roughly like this :

0,0,0,100,0,0,0,100,....

In 6 players games its like :

20,20,20,20,20,20,20....

Which does not achieve the same garbage distribution at all.