What happened?

[myndzi]

I didn't even have to watch that to know what you were talking about (though I watched it anyway), I remember that game. BBB's play was really impressive, but that doesn't mean he "had more skill" either. A decent case could be made for the skill in that match to be surviving that onslaught successfully and playing strategically so as to get the win. You don't *have* to be fancy to be effective.

But remember: the point under debate here is not to slow down games to make players lose or win. It's to even the playing field more. Anyone can cherry pick an example of a player losing a match they think they should have won, or the reverse. I'm after some more concrete evidence. If you really want to convince me, show me evidence of two players who aren't totally equal playing matches that are equally well played on slow and fast settings.

I'm not really supplying much evidence here myself, but I think the idea is sound. I only take objection to a cherry picked example as an argument

We can always put it to the test of course. HDTL 2 is about to end, and I've wanted to do this team cancel thing, and it's well suited to high are. I could make it a longer format tournament and gain a large sample base to draw from, provided there's enough interest. There won't be anything to directly compare it to, but it will say something to observe how the matches play out and how people feel about them.

[perfectclear]

myndzi, I wasnt trying to say that some ARE would be a bad thing, but just claiming that it isnt the whole story since there can be games like my cherry picked one that go on with equal speed players. my post was more directed at caffeine's complexity idea- that though the game has complexity, complexity is punished in the game. that is, as you say, that the more "skillful" tactic is apparently simpler- to take clean garbage and push it back with some decent timing.

I havent played tetris in a while, but would be interested in a game with some ARE and a different garbage style. one where the garbage takes the shape of pieces- making complexity a good thing. though I am sure that straight dowstacking would still be necessary when in haste- it wont be as strong as spin downstacking. especially if the garbage system was an all-spin system.

[Beastin_Shen]

i like rostis point on item play.

[coolmaninsano]

SRS allspins + TGM garbage sounds fun

[Anonymous]

stuff about people playing fast

You're right that players have an "unhealthy love affair with speed", but I don't think the problem is necessarily speed. The real problem is that players don't know how to use their speed. They don't take the time to learn to downstack efficiently, learn t-spin setups, make god decisions, etc. (ahem, Microblizz!   )

Everyone seems to equate that playing fast means playing good, which isn't the case. Meow, Shizi, and probably other people I don't know can go 120 tpm and totally wipe the floor against a lot of players who go 150-160 tpm. They don't realize that to be good you have to be efficient as well.

slowing down the game

I think I understand what you are trying to say, but I don't think the game should be slowed down.

Your idea of slowing down as a way to even up the playing levels, I actually have a lot of experience with this. Any time I play a worse player, I slow myself down so that the games don't end with me killing him in 10 seconds. You're right that it is funner than if I had just killed him every time in the beginning 10 seconds. There is a lot more time for piece placement analysis/other stuff.

However, I have much more fun playing as fast as I can when I play better opponents. If you were to slow down the game, I think you would be making it more fun for slow players, but also less fun for the fast players (when they play other fast players).

Although, I'm just speculating. I think it would be a very interesting idea to try. (hint* ARE BB mode in HDTL c:)

Also, just want to say, I like the idea of items too!

[exchliore]

I want to add something about some misconceptions that have been going around in this thread:

It's funny that the number of players logged into tnet2 have been brought up multiple times in this thread as if this was "proof" that there was a large "hardcore" audience at some point in time because I would not claim that there were 80 "hardcore" players online at any point in time. In fact, when tnet2 was thriving, most of the players were 30 ppm or less and played special blocks. It's also interesting to note that Blockles maintained a minimum of ~200-300 players playing at any point in time which could spike up to a few thousand during peak hours. Most of these players are also not "hardcore" players. TetrisFriends probably has anywhere between 200-400 active players, but less than 25% of them are Platinum (could be less now, I haven't logged on in months, but check the number of players playing in bronze, silver, and gold rooms throughout the day and there's just so many more people online).

Also, I must set a few things straight, I have many fond memories of tnet1 and tnet2, but none of them include Corrosive. Corrosive would come into my special block rooms, pretend like he's amazing, curse everyone out, make extremely vulgar racist comments targeted towards many ethnic groups, and told everyone they were noobs even when he was not winning. In my opinion, what really killed tnet2, are people like Corrosive. The rooms I played in were fun and we didn't keep track of scores or how fast anyone was playing and we played politics and formed peace treaties and ceasefires and I miss that. It was all fun and great!

However, when there weren't enough pure rooms around, Corrosive would go into rooms where people weren't very good and just destroy them and then he'd go on rants about the holocaust or something and tell people that they were noobs and that their life was wrong and to join his cult or else they would go to hell (tried to convert me quite a few times). People would leave the rooms and make new ones and Corrosive would follow them around and harass them until they logged off. I remember many times where I'd log in and Corrosive would be banned from like half the rooms open (geez, I wonder why). Tnet2 didn't die because it got old or it isn't fun, it died because it doesn't stop people from harassing others.

Don't get me wrong, there were many people who ruined the game for others (run out of rooms to play in so play with people who aren't on the same level). Corrosive is an extreme example, but he just did it so often and he did it very well.

In TetrisFriends, the grouping system makes it hard for players to do this and so no one can ruin the lower rank rooms. I'm sure there are plenty of people online all the time, just not rank 20. But really, why should people want to be rank 20. Rank 20 is where players trash talk and tout their elitism like it's their job. Rank 20 is where people are more interested in putting others down and being rude than actually playing the game. Rank 20 is where people play the game 8 hours a day 7 days a week to stay at the top of their game. Rank 20 is where the average player feels like this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/12/31/ (I link this a lot, only because it's so true).

Who wants any of that? I don't go snowboarding to hear someone trash talk about how terrible of a snowboarder I am, I go snowboarding because it's fun and I want to do it. The same for going out to a bar. I don't go to a bar to tell random people that they're losing at life and that I'm better than them. I go out to have fun. I actually see this a lot in sports as well. You have the group of players who thrive on trying to be "the best" and taking everyone out. "I scored that goal", "I don't believe in teamwork", "I only slam the ball", "Anyone who doesn't copy me is a noob", "I don't pass the ball", "I peg the ball, I don't pass it". I ran a tennis group in college and the most annoying people that I asked to stop coming were the people who would show up, look at someone, turn to me and say "I'm better than him", "I could kick his a**", "That guy looks scrub". The joke is, they would look at ranked players and say this (and they weren't even good, but even if they were good, it gives them no right to ruin the fun for others). My default response is always "go home, no one wants that around here".

Everyone in this thread wants insane competition and all they care about is kicking another person's butt and now they're sad that no one else wants to be as "awesome" as they are. The real question is why would anyone want to join the group? It's not fun and no one likes getting their butt handed to them nor is the average person that interested in trash talk or even competition.

Overall, I can probably going into a lot of issues that isn't "random", "Blink vs Hebo_Mai", "not enough trash talk", "no one cares", "not enough commitment" but really, if you want more people to be around, don't make it such a pain to be here, because why would anyone want to come back? Like, for example "TF isn't Tetris" <- why should I talk to someone who's instantly going to parade around like they know Tetris better than me? Why are we arguing about whether or not TF is Tetris or saying that Nullpomino is better than TF and how to transition players over to "hardcore". "Nullpomino is great, TF is trash, why are you playing TF?".

TF is Tetris as long as I'm concerned. No one cares about the best, they only care about fun. Telling someone that they're stupid because they think that TF is real Tetris only makes people not want to talk to you. [sarcasm]And I wonder why no one wants to be pro like me![/sarcasm]

[myndzi]

Rant

Hear fu**ing hear. One can summarize much of this by saying, sportsmanship isn't just a word in the dictionary. As someone who's seen a game community that I loved go to sh** because of the kind of attitude you are talking about, I can wholeheartedly agree.

Since I don't play a lot of live vs, I don't know if it's a widespread thing; I thought it was limited to a handful of players that I pretty much ignored, and that's why I didn't address it head on like you just did, but you bring in a lot of other good points too - specifically about being fun to play. We do have a stumbling block in the way which is lack of exposure, so working against making players want to come play with us is doubly ineffective.

perfectclear: I'm dubious about the garbage thing, though I think TGM garbage is interesting and is well worth being explored in non-TGM vs. I think however that spin garbage would increase the garbage level even more than tetris garbage would. Not only does TGM garbage send more lines than normal garbage, but making it easier to return less garbage with greater attacks would only speed the pace even more. Though, I guess you can't have spins and TGM garbage too - how do you send a T-shape in 4 lines when you clear 2? In short, I'm not sure why it would add to the game's balance. Fast players who ignore stacking would still ignore stacking.

Anonymous: I agree with what you say about players not knowing how to use their speed, but I would add that the biggest reason is because they don't have to. Playing faster gets many people by because the truth is that speed can compensate for less effective play. Stacking will tell between two players of the same speed, but there is a point at which poor play at high speed will triumph over good play at low speed, and it's attainable for many people, extreme cases excluded.

I understand what you mean about enjoying play with equal players at high speed, but the main thrust of my comment is that there aren't enough players for that. I'm not suggesting that high speed play be completely eliminated, but I do think that if a more moderate game (perhaps moderated in other areas too, such as garbage) was the norm instead of the exception, it would be more welcoming to a wider range of players. (As well as good sportsmanship/attitude!)

In the end, what has happened is that the skilled players (such as yourself, for example) have come to prefer settings that isolate them from the majority of players, and that's what I'm trying to touch on and get people talking and thinking about. If we want a player base, we may very well have to give up some of the things we like, at least until that player base is built, for things that make the game more appealing.

[Rosti_LFC]

Starcraft has arguably the strongest competitive gaming scene out there, and it's been going for a good decade or so. It also has a fairly strong emphasis, even in the lowest leagues, on good sportsmanship and manners. You wish your opponent luck at the start, and you gg when you lose, and anything else is generally seen as impolite and somewhat childish.

You don't need continuous smack-talk and badmouthing in a community to keep it going. There is such a thing as friendly rivalries. I didn't really reply to the point at the time, but I totally back any sentiment of keeping things clean and avoiding people talking sh**.


I've tl;dr'd most of the stuff on speed, but myndzi I would agree with adding ARE delays and maybe trying to slow stuff down a bit, even though that wasn't what I was talking about explicitly. I wouldn't say that slowing things down is 100% definitely the way to go, but I think it's worth the experimentation.

Whatever system gets used should do its best to keep the games reasonably fair (I'm not saying that having the same piece sequences are a stupid idea, just using it as an example of how far people go to insist on reducing any luck-factor), and should work to keep the games as close as possible whilst maintaining the skill margin.

I wouldn't want a game mode where I could beat Blink in a first to fifteen. I wouldn't want one where I could beat him first to five either. Those would both be stupid. I'd like a game where I could at least feel like I could beat him on occasion. It's not about shuffling the rankings of the best players, it's just about condensing them together a bit so that we get far more entertaining and closely-matched games.

For what it's worth, I personally think that Tetris DS (both 2p and 4p) had it pretty much nailed for everything regarding multiplayer - both close and entertaining matches, and a decent rating system. The interface for match-making wasn't the best by a long chalk, but as far as competitive gameplay for any official game has gone, it was easily the best I've played.

[myndzi]

I wouldn't want a game mode where I could beat Blink in a first to fifteen. I wouldn't want one where I could beat him first to five either. Those would both be stupid. I'd like a game where I could at least feel like I could beat him on occasion. It's not about shuffling the rankings of the best players, it's just about condensing them together a bit so that we get far more entertaining and closely-matched games.

Yeah, that's what I'm getting at!

BTW I don't think 60 ARE is likely to be good, but a little bit of line clear delay, a little bit of DAS or soft drop maybe can do a lot to slowing down the pace without being too inconvenient. I also think that the "enforced lag" of TF's attacks is great. It gives a big obvious notice to the player that garbage is coming AND time to react, rather than Nullpo's subtle bar that you can easily drop a piece before you notice.

Another thing to consider is garbage closer to TPD, where spins are 1:1 instead of 2:1. It would make for messier garbage, but since we're talking spins here, you have 5 pieces you can use that garbage to attack with that aren't I pieces. This could also encourage more spin play like you're talking about, perfectclear

I'm not a huge fan of 30% garbage, and I like the strategic options afforded by Change on Attack, but with reduced garbage CoA wouldn't be as markedly useful. With a forced hole-change every X lines if it doesn't happen randomly, fair 30% could be quite palatable.

(This is all if allspins is the chosen route, which could be debatable, especially from an appeal-to-a-wider-audience perspective)

Anyway, perhaps we should discuss this in depth in another thread, run some tests, and try to come up with a One True Versus preset for Nullpomino. It's possible to put it into the current Netplay server, but the version 8 release would be a great milestone to implement such a thing. Custom presets are of course going to be available, but *rated* presets offers significant incentive to play, along with a community effort to popularize whatever is picked.

[ohitsstef]

Suggestion: Since Corrosive made a thread complaining about the lack of tournaments .. I think he should make his own tournament and try to run it through successfully.

If you have time to b****, you have time to this sh** yourself.

[myndzi]

I think we're mostly ignoring Corrosive now and trying to talk about interesting things...

[Rosti_LFC]

I think change on attack adds depth, and I also think that line clear delay adds depth as well.

And if we're railing on game rulesets then I also think that combos are totally broken and I personally think they need to be massively neutered or removed altogether. I like the idea of chaining clears whilst drilling, but that offers benefits in itself without creating a way of sending huge amounts of garbage for very little skill or risk. T-spin triples send a ton, but at least they force you to destabilise your stack a bit.

[exchliore]

I think change on attack adds depth, and I also think that line clear delay adds depth as well.

And if we're railing on game rulesets then I also think that combos are totally broken and I personally think they need to be massively neutered or removed altogether. I like the idea of chaining clears whilst drilling, but that offers benefits in itself without creating a way of sending huge amounts of garbage for very little skill or risk. T-spin triples send a ton, but at least they force you to destabilise your stack a bit.

A lot of people dislike combos, I'm not sure what's so bad about them. What would be interesting, is if there were different modes that players can switch between on the fly.

Regular Mode - boring
Absorption Mode - send 1/2 as many lines, but can cancel 1.5x as much garbage
Berserk Mode - send bonus lines, but also receive some to yourself

And let's not make it an extra button to switch between modes. Let's say that modes are activated a certain way. Perhaps a tspin mini from the left and from the right can switch between these modes and they only last a certain number of pieces (ie. 30 pieces) or that the modes slowly diminish over time. This would definitely add an extra element to the game, if not confuse the heck out of everyone playing.

Perhaps what may trigger berserk mode is if the player achieves a certain send:clear ratio within the last x blocks (like sending 12 lines for clearing 8 lines over 30 pieces) and Absorption Mode triggers if the player starts cancels a certain number of lines in a combo. This would balance the game in such a way that you can send lines to send a combo situation into absorption mode and players who go crazy end up penalizing themselves, but if the berserk garbage always lines up, they could dish out a harsh number of lines very easily.

[myndzi]

exchliore: I don't like those ideas for standard play, but I think they have potential to make some crazy interesting peripheral gametypes. Similar to an item mode; I don't like it for standard play, but it can be fun as its own kind of game. (Edit: after further consideration, I have to say I really like the idea of a game mode where the parameters shift based on what you are doing. Bonus cool points for the self-balancing combo system.)

Rosti: I've talked about combos before but nobody seems to agree on what should be done about it. Personally I think it's the top end that throws them out of balance. I implemented my alternate combo table in KoS and I like the results quite a bit, but there are still people who cling to the "I should be able to send a screen and a half full of garbage!" mentality and there's no way to appease that.

I also think that the farther we stray from standard guideline play, the less appealing things will be in general to Tetris fans. That said, garbage blocking, while I think we all prefer it, is one way this can be dealt with. If you still receive garbage while you are performing your combo it can be much more dangerous to stack up high. Midgame combos are still beastly when you get lucky, but you aren't immune for the duration of the downstack and a well-timed attack could negate a lot of your gain. Combine that with a shortened hidden height and instant KO if your stack breaches the top of the hidden area and you can effectively nerf 4-wide center starts, for example, without having to change the combo table.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like the standard combo table much at all, but I think that it might be counterproductive to mess with something that is already pretty much standardized.

By the way Rosti, you should come play me on KoS and let's see how you like the table  We can do a T-spin only or Tetris only game if you prefer. I honestly think after playing it a bunch that most of the complaints people had about the idea are perhaps misplaced.

[Zircean]

T-spin triples send a ton, but at least they force you to destabilise your stack a bit.

Well, they also have the lowest APL of all types of T-spins when strung up back-to-back, and they send garbage that is really clean in change on attack, so they're really the weakest form of T-spin, objectively speaking. The thing that saves them is that they store up a lot of "energy" that you can release with a single T (i.e. to block a lot of garbage or get a spike).

(I agree with the rest of your post, but I don't think combos need to be neutered *that* much...)