Why guideline Tetris is broken

[Blitz]

I just wanted to let people know that I have quit playing guideline Tetris.
edit: by quit I meant reducing the amount of time that I play from 2 hours a day to 2 hours every 15th day.  

I could have left without a word. That was the easiest and most tempting alternative because that would have saved me the time it took to write this. I still decided to make this thread because I think the reason I quit is worth sharing as it brings up an important design problem with the guideline multiplayer Tetris.

This diagram illustrates that the balance of skill and challenge affects how we feel while doing an activity, in this case playing Tetris is the activity.
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Flow is where you want to be. A good Tetris game must keep the player in the flow area as much as possible.
How it feels to be in flow:
  -   Completely involved in what we are doing – focused, concentrated.
  -   A sense of ecstasy – of being outside everyday reality.
  -   Great inner clarity – knowing what needs to be done, and how well we are doing.
  -   Knowing that the activity is doable – that our skills are adequate to the task.
  -   A sense of serenity – no worries about oneself, and a feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of the ego.
  -   Timelessness – thoroughly focused on the present, hours seem to pass by in minutes.
  -   Intrinsic motivation – whatever produces flow becomes its own reward.

This is where the guideline Tetris fails. Players who are new to guideline Tetris may experience flow, but the best players will inevitably "solve" the game and experience boredom instead of flow.

I have been playing guideline multiplayer Tetris for about 3 years and in my earlier days as a casual/intermediate player I was experiencing flow often. I was having fun because the skill to challenge ratio was just right. At the end of 2013 I decided to become pro

Ill set the bar high. I hope to be able to compete with any of the top 10 multiplayer players by the end of 2014.

I was being serious about this. I wanted to become the best. If I already had fun playing at an intermediate level, then I would have even more fun playing at a top-tier level right? I could not have been more wrong.

I started my quest to become one of the best players by practicing against Misamino AI. I played Misamino because it allowed me to set the exact difficulty I wanted. I could just jump straight into a game against my perfect opponent whenever I wanted without having to waste any time searching for another player with just the right amount of skill. I had played Misamino 30-60 minutes every day for around 6 months when I began noticing that something did not feel right. The game was not as fun as it used to be. I thought this was just a temporarily thing. I decided to keep playing because if I did not, then I would not improve. I was able to push myself for a few more weeks, but then the game just got too boring. I stopped playing for a while and used the time to read up on game design because then I could maybe improve while not playing the game. My findings greatly changed the way that I played the game. I found that the guideline multiplayer Tetris has some very clearly defined rules such as a T-spin double sends 4 lines, B2B bonus +1, there is this many next pieces, the bag randomizer works like..., the combo table goes like 0,1,1... These things are obvious and common knowledge. What may not be so obvious is devastating effect this has on the high level game. These rules can be abused. In fact a player should abuse this if their goal is to win. That is exactly what I did. Using all the rules and information provided to me by the game I calculated the efficiency of pretty much every strategy that I could think of. I quickly found that most strategies are worthless, and some are very strong but so complex you must be a machine to use them. What I was left with was a set of guidelines that I could follow for much more efficient play. My average attack per minute in Misamino skyrocketed from 60 to 90 as a result of this. My speed had not changed, I was just able to send that much more lines with the same amount of pieces.

Tetris is a game that can be played in thousands maybe millions of different ways. But in multiplayer Tetris, most of those million play styles accomplishes the same thing or nothing, they all lose to the dominant play style defined by the rules of the particular game or game mode you are playing. What I'm trying to say is that there is an optimal way to play guideline multiplayer Tetris. I do not say that it is humanly possible to play optimally. I believe that the best players are zooming in on the optimal play style through either analyzing the game like I did or just unconsciously picking up the patterns whether they realize it or not.

This is why guideline multiplayer Tetris has become boring to me. The gameplay has gotten extremely repetitive. All I have to do is to repeat the same play style over and over again, because that is really the only viable way to play the game. Everything that I do has become routine and boring. The game has lost its depth. The challenge of playing the game is completely gone when you have the solution. If it is possible to solve the game with a lot of skill, and solving the game leaves you with no more challenge, then skill and challenge are not balanced anymore and high level players will have a hard time entering flow.

[Sisu]

7-bag teh antichrist yo

[VitoKing]

Well written, Blitz. I can see why some people would get into that groove where the game becomes more routine and formulaic then fun, and it can cripple the experience for more advanced players. That said, I think it is on a person-by-person basis on how they will view the game, advanced player or novice. Some people can get into that humdrum repetition and still enjoy it. Also, while to me it seems that hardcore players (like me) will get every new version of Tetris they come across, the truth is that the game is streamlined for a casual market: a market who may play a round on their phones while waiting for the dentist, and the type of gameplay present in Guideline caters to just that type of person.

[Pineapple]

If you ask me, guideline single player has largely the same issue as guideline multiplayer. You're not freestyling, you're drumming a very specific rythym.

[poopmo]

This is like the movie Lucy but with tetris lol. I think smurfs have less flow, try playing on ur real name and against people instead of bots.

[Paul676]

Poopmo is right.

[Kitaru]

Blitz is right.

[meow]

Play Cultris

[pwn_by_numbers]

I quickly found that most strategies are worthless, and some are very strong but so complex you must be a machine to use them. What I was left with was a set of guidelines that I could follow for much more efficient play.

So what are the worthless strategies and what are the strong ones?

[Blitz]

Play Cultris

I tried.

I had fun the first month because it was something challenging and different. Then it became repetitive and boring. Cultris has the same issue as the guideline. It has clearly defined rules that tells the player exactly how he must play the game in order to win.

I think multiplayer Tetris would be better if it was designed to have a lot of viable play styles and each of those play styles would have weaknesses and strengths against other play styles so that there is no optimal way to play the game. That way repeating your play style over and over will get you nowhere because other good players will know how to easily counter it. The gameplay would become more freestyle instead of a static set up and the chances of getting bored because you feel like you figured everything out diminishes.

This is probably too much to ask for as this problem only affects high level players and the Tetris authorities are mainly focusing on the casual market.

[larrytetris]

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on KoS then. Why do you keep playing that?

[Blitz]

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on KoS then. Why do you keep playing that?

KoS is the only Tetris that I still play because it's addicting and I'm not bored of it yet. I suppose KoS has gotten SOMETHING right, but I don't know what.

[caffeine]

So you've found the optimal strategy for guideline Tetris? How does it work? Does that mean you win every game, or do others only beat you when they go faster?

[hebo-MAI]

All games are substantially to repeat similar things.
For example, in RPG, you do battle repeatedly.
What is the different between this and what you said?

[cycle]

I had played Misamino 30-60 minutes every day for around 6 months when I began noticing that something did not feel right.

yea...whatever.