Skill gap: desired or not?

[Integration]

I know, most Tetris player wants to get as fast as possible. But does this also mean, multiplayer Tetris games should allow them to go as fast as possible? As a result some players might dominate others easily, which makes Tetris pretty boring in my opinion. Let's take a look at todays multiplayer guideline: 5 previews, 7-bag, hold, kicks, solid garbage sent back and forth, garbage blocking. 5 previews make the speed gap extreme big (if controls are fast). 7-bag and hold make you downstack efficiently and there is practically no situation you cannot handle (also because of solid garbage). Twists let you fix misdrops easily. And garbage blocking makes games last long (so that you have more time to show your superioty) and helps you to prevent getting topped out, when you are in trouble.

I wonder, if somebody had created a todays guideline styled fan-made multiplayer game 10 years ago (without the firepower of the Tetris company), wouldn't it have become as dead as Blockbox is now after 2 years?

My personal experience with previews: In Cultris 2, the best players speed isn't more than 35% higher than mine. However, I am quite sure, I could train NullpoMino as lot as I want, but still some players would go 60% faster there. Practising with 2 previews made me immediately go faster (though, probably not as much faster as other people would), but I have practised 3 previews for 10 hours now, but I am still slower (although I have more informations).

The only advantage, I can see is, that your skill doesn't plateau out that fast. So perhaps some players won't lose motivation that fast, because they see, that they still make some progress.

What do you say?

This topic was supposed to have a poll, but it didn't work (, because I didn't enter the poll question?).

[Barneey]

My favorite trait about TetrisFriends is that the game forces you to slow down, I hate playing 1 on 1 on games that "make" me play my fastest (Except for Nullpomino League ).
Also, I, and I know a lot of other players do, consider myself quite fast but inefficient, I don't know how many times I've gotten away with poor stacking, misdrops, or neglecting to downstack because my speed, and it feels like I'm winning illegitimately at times. So personally I would love it for games to slow down. At the same time, I doubt I would really enjoy it if it significantly hindered my ability to play fast.

There is also the issue regarding Tetris from the average spectator's point of view. I know a lot of the players watching the recent TTO stream were players who were completely unaware that Tetris even had a competetive scene, so I'm assuming they had a hard time keeping up with what on earth was going on, I know I once did, and although that motivated me to get better as a player, it certainly made my ability to spectate high level games nonexistent.

I think if games were slowed down, we'd also see some new top competitors very soon like Kaibutsu, to mention one of very many.


PS: What was the poll going to be?

[caffeine]

On PS3 Tetris, the fastest you can play is around 120 TPM. Blink and Kaibutsu still beat me around the same win ratios as they do on Tetris Friends. Even if you don't have much of a speed gap, you're still going to have a skill gap.

I'd much rather play faster games than slower ones. I like the feeling of playing fast. It's fun.

[NoManual]

I'd much rather play faster games than slower ones. I like the feeling of playing fast. It's fun.

Agreed Caff! Even tho I don't play some much multiplayer, but when I do, I like that it's fast

[Integration]

On PS3 Tetris, the fastest you can play is around 120 TPM. Blink and Kaibutsu still beat me around the same win ratios as they do on Tetris Friends. Even if you don't have much of a speed gap, you're still going to have a skill gap.

Hmm, it might depend on how you are holding the controller, but isn't PS3 Tetris rather similar to Tetris Friends (DAS behaviour)? The only way to be as fast as link would be some kind of entry delays.

It might sound stupid: But aren't older games like Gameboy or SNES Tetris more fun to play with friends than e.g. PS3 Tetris?

PS: What was the poll going to be?

^^ The topic's title. Or with other words: Do you want Tetris games to have a huge skill gap/long learning curve?

[Paul676]

Integration: I think you're making an illegitimate implication of the form

1. Faster games mean more of a speed gap between top players and lower players
2. More of a speed gap means bigger wins for the top players.

Although it appeals to intuition, many players who have spent a long time here and playing slower games (I'm thinking specifically of when myndzi played meow in a 60ARE blockbox game) will know that the top players when deprived of their speed just thrash the slower players with their knowledge of stacking anyway. Basically, the better you are, the more of a choice you have of either playing fast or playing well. With fast games, you don't see how efficiently fast players can go if they want, but with slow games you do, and they win just as easily. Even KoS has huge skill gaps, and that's indefinitely slow!

So basically: Yes I want Tetris games to be as fast as possible - no, this does not necessarily mean that there is a bigger skill gap because of it.

[Integration]

There are 2 reasons for skill gap:
1. speed gap
2. smarter stacking

What I wanted to say is the following: guideline rules - especially more previews - increase both. An example for speed gap: Tetris friends vs. Cultris 2. C2 has faster DAS settings, less lags, no line clear delay.

my best C2 time: 39.9 s, international record: 30.5 s
my best Tetris friends time: 55.0 s, international record: 27.8 s

You see? C2 is "faster", but less speed gap. Now about the second point: Some guideline rules are not intuitive. You'll only learn them by reading in forums or seeing some other people doing so (twists).

When you have 1 preview and piece order is completely random, you cannot stack efficiently. You won't know, which pieces will come. You can only make moves, which won't screw your stack, independently from which of the 7 different pieces will appear afterwards. And you learn rather fast how to do so. But you still need luck to downstack. And you need luck to do some Tetrises. This means you have higher chances to carry off some games against better players. And this makes Tetris more interesting (in my opinion).

[Paul676]

Fair point about cultris - you can see the games are closer than on tf just by looking at the scores from HDOV compared to TTOII.

But I think it's more about the scoring system of cultris and tf than about the speed. You basically said just that in your last post, but I'm just flagging it up before TF get any excuses to keep their game as slow as it is

[Integration]

In Cultris 2 speed gap isn't that huge (most players have 100 - 160 BPM average). But still, skill gap is huge because of garbage blocking and time-based combo system (i.e. faster players make higher combos). Of course, you can win against everybody in a 1 on 1 situation, because combos and downstacking depend on luck. But my winning chances would be 0 in a free for all room with Jes and Maserati. This was different in C1, since there games ended faster, the garbage distribution tended to be unfair, garbage blocking was more difficult and you could use your garbage against your opponents.

[Paul676]

in which case it's not about speed

[clincher]

Even KoS has huge skill gaps, and that's indefinitely slow!

I'd just like to say that there's no such thing as speed on KoS. It just isn't a factor... I am aware that doesn't contradict you, in fact it supports what you're arguing, just thought I'd mention it so new players don't think it's a regular Tetris game that forces you to play slowly.