I need some serious stacking advice.

[oh7even]

I've read the wiki on keeping stacking flat and even. Didn't work.

I'm getting better, slowly, and I've finally gotten my sprints under 60 seconds for both nullpo and TF. I think most of that is because of my intermediate finesse/finger speed.

My stacking is completely horrible.

My sprints:

http://youtu.be/CySx6oVPWLM - Nullpo 54.40

http://youtu.be/5qUj8xhwapU - TF 53.88

My apologies for the quality, but I'm sure you can see the hideous stacking.

From these two videos, I think the J piece is my nemesis   and I think I have bad patterns

Haalllp

[Rosti_LFC]

One suggestion on the Nullpo video:

At 22 seconds (game time) you place the I piece in a way that creates two outcrops that can only ideally be fixed with an L piece (the one into the tetris hole would take an S perfectly fine, but it'd break any back-to-back tetris combo). In general needing the same piece for more than one part of the stack is bad and should really be avoided unless your next piece or two contains the piece you need. You should have just placed the I piece vertically against the left hand wall.
That said, the way you actually got yourself out of the situation with the J placement was really good.


Really though, overall your stacking looks fine. On the Nullpo video you have quite a few non-Tetris clears but for sprint that's really not a huge deal. With 0 line-clear delay there's no difference between four singles and a Tetris in terms of time, and I'd expect someone playing as fast as they possibly can to F*** up a fair bit in terms of keeping their stack clean.

Do you play Nullpomino all that much compared to Tetris Friends? Have you tried tuning any of the DAS or other control settings? I'm somewhat curious to why your TF time is faster, because it should be the other way around.

[caffeine]

http://www.ryanheise.com/tetris/tetris_stacking.html

[oh7even]

http://www.ryanheise.com/tetris/tetris_stacking.html

I've seen this, but while I'm playing it's like I forget it.

Do you play Nullpomino all that much compared to Tetris Friends? Have you tried tuning any of the DAS or other control settings? I'm somewhat curious to why your TF time is faster, because it should be the other way around.

I play TF more. I know how to change the das on nullpo but I don't know what the numbers mean. Mine is at 8 right now. I play at 3/5 on TF

[Kitaru]

DAS settings in Nullpomino allow you to directly set how long you hold the key before the move speed kicks in. So, lower is more sensitive.

(Your settings mean autorepeat starts after you hold the key for 0.15s (DAS 8 in Nullpomino means 9 frames / 60 frames per second = 0.15 second. DAS 5 means 6 frames / 60 frames per second = 0.1 second, and so on.)

3/5 in TF is actually a longer delay than DAS 8 in Nullpomino... I think it was somewhere in the .17~.2 second range, but someone (Wojtek?) will have to refresh my memory here.

[Barneey]

I can't offer you advice on your stacking, but I can tell you that your stacking will get better if you just play enough. Your brain will get used to it and subconsciously differentiate between a good tetromino placement and a bad one relevant to your current stacking.

[Paradox]

play slow and think carefully about each decision, take into account at least your next 2-3 pieces.  Its not really about stacking flat its about stacking so there is always a place to put something.

But honestly this doesn't even really apply to you I see nothing wrong with your stacking. In your nullpo one it seemed like you were pushing speed a bit and made careless drops, but you cleaned it up exactly how you should with skimming and such. Not really any problem just keep playing.

[DAS44]

Might be worth your while to try some high gravity ARS (I used Texmaster Sudden Ti, but tweaked nullpomino would serve just as well). It forces you to stack flat, if you don't you're digging your own grave. At first you'll suck (I blew something awful for the longest time), but it'll come naturally after a while.  

I hit the first torikan just as my interest in tetris began waning...

Anyways... that might help

[myndzi]

I've seen this, but while I'm playing it's like I forget it.

play slow

This.

You do seem to make things hard on yourself sometimes, ex. 0:10 (nullpomino video) where you did this:

[fumen]110@xdlzmblzZihbQpgb1lbigbRpgb1lYi1lYigbQpvsQp?1lIwgbvsRplzIwgb/eQplzJwqbA4G7eDZMBeIBZABAAA[/fumen]

instead of, say:

[fumen]110@xdlzmblzZihbQpgb1lbigbRpgb1lYi1lYigbQpvsQp?1lIwgbvsRplzIwgb/eQplzJwqbA4G7eDZMBmEB5eBAAA[/fumen]

or even

[fumen]110@xdlzmblzZihbQpgb1lbigbRpgb1lYi1lYigbQpvsQp?1lIwgbvsRplzIwgb/eQplzJwqbA4G7eDZGBORB5eBAAA[/fumen]

Also, play around with your tuning settings like Kitaru mentioned. If you want to get fast it's probably worth learning instant DAS.

The biggest dilemma with Tetris is that it's always pushing you for time, so you are tempted to make hasty decisions. But when you make hasty decisions you don't learn from making good placements as much. 40lines  and versus exaggerate this effect more than some other modes. If you can hold yourself to a speed at which you can learn, you will find yourself stacking nicer the more you practice. You'll make better decisions and recognize similar situations in the future so that those decisions come more naturally.

You could always come play KoS, too

[Rosti_LFC]

Might be worth your while to try some high gravity ARS (I used Texmaster Sudden Ti, but tweaked nullpomino would serve just as well). It forces you to stack flat, if you don't you're digging your own grave. At first you'll suck (I blew something awful for the longest time), but it'll come naturally after a while.  

I hit the first torikan just as my interest in tetris began waning...

Anyways... that might help

As someone who has played an absolutely sh**load of TGM, I disagree with this, or at least the way you suggest.

Playing Ti modes doesn't help a great deal. You still have hold, three previews, and the things that kill you in 20G ARS aren't the things that will kill you in 0G SRS. It will teach you things, but not things that are necessarily transferable. Sure, it teaches you to stack flat, but that's not always the best way of stacking for 0G SRS.

On the other hand, I would recommend playing TAP - either Death or Master, because you have one preview and no hold. While this is actually further from typical Nullpo 40L, it teaches you proper stacking to a far greater extent because you don't have assistance if you make poor decisions.

Really though, you could achieve the same effect playing Nullpo with SRS and just remove hold and use fewer previews, and it won't require you to need to get to grips with how ARS rotation and 20G works, but will still put you in a situation where you need to rely more on proper stacking than the tools given to help you stack. Playing without hold, ghost piece or previews is the equivalent of weight training for Tetris, and when you add them back in you should find you improve quite a bit.

tl;dr - if all you care about is SRS 40L, then ignore TGM and just try playing with fewer previews and no hold.

[oh7even]

The biggest dilemma with Tetris is that it's always pushing you for time, so you are tempted to make hasty decisions. But when you make hasty decisions you don't learn from making good placements as much. 40lines  and versus exaggerate this effect more than some other modes. If you can hold yourself to a speed at which you can learn, you will find yourself stacking nicer the more you practice. You'll make better decisions and recognize similar situations in the future so that those decisions come more naturally.

You could always come play KoS, too

Ok, so slowing down will help me not get lost in my own stacking?

And what's KoS?

tl;dr - if all you care about is SRS 40L, then ignore TGM and just try playing with fewer previews and no hold.

I want to become a better all around tetris player. I want to start heavy t-spinning/combos/improving downstacking. I just want to make sure I'm at an ok enough speed to not get mollywhopped while trying a setup or something.

[myndzi]

Balance in all things. Speed has its place too, but when you're playing for speed you're not usually learning how to stack better very fast. Since you were asking for stacking help, that's what I focused on.

KoS = King of Stackers, turn based Tetris. No speed - all stacking, but mostly all-spins too, and standard Tetris learning curve applies... I've found it great for getting more familiar with stack shapes and twists, but I haven't worked on speed or live VS in a long time.

[DAS44]

As someone who has played an absolutely sh**load of TGM, I disagree with this, or at least the way you suggest...

Fair enough, you've definitely got me there.

[oh7even]

Playing without hold, ghost piece or previews is the equivalent of weight training for Tetris, and when you add them back in you should find you improve quite a bit.

tl;dr - if all you care about is SRS 40L, then ignore TGM and just try playing with fewer previews and no hold.

Why?

[myndzi]

So that you learn finesse. Wouldn't you like to be able to play pieces without caring what you're looking at?