Phantom Mania Cleared

[Question_Mark]

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention this. (How...? I've said all of the words.)

Just so you don't get the wrong idea, I don't "require" pats on the back - although I certainly cast a line for them with threads like these - but I really do appreciate them. The reason I engaged this conversation-turned-lecture (sorry people!) is because I really care about what others think of the legitimacy of my achievements, much more than approval. Frankly speaking, I can understand why some folks might have doubts about how comparable this achievement is to a clear without PF, bag, or rotate reset (all of which were used in this run).

I'm just happy that I cleared Phantom Mania. You can either be happy about it, too, or not (that includes being indifferent). Whatever works for you.

It might take months, but I'll go for it - a serious (SRS) PM clear with 4-hist (hence no PF) and only step reset. When that happens, some kind of advocation (that it's a satisfactorily true completion of the game mode) would be worth a thousand times more to me than any congratulation.

I'm doing the very best I can to make my new rule-settings more comparable to a Classic3 clear than a World clear, because anytime people whinge about World achievements they seem to target move reset - which to me is utterly useless at these speeds. It's basically "Classic3 with SRS instead of ARS." I know it's different, but there's nothing I can do about it.

I shouldn't say this, but I've been practicing, so I will: Trust me, you won't be less impressed that I use SRS. If anything, it has the potential to be more mind-blowing.

[zaphod77]

In my opinion, switching away from bag, and using standard-hard should be sufficient to silence the naysayers.  The amount of stalling that can be done using standard-hard is VERY limited.

[Rosti_LFC]

If there weren't time restrictions (or they were lax as hell) then I'd maybe call SRS times as not being worthy of "Phantom Mania Gm" as a title, but ultimately there are. You can't fuck about and abuse step reset to get to 999, and even if you could, QM hasn't shown signs of doing that - his SRS play has been perfectly fast enough. If he was finishing past 7 minutes then it'd be a point of debate, but 5:20 is a very respectable time for 999 lines (semi-related aside out of curiosity: does PM have the +2 bonus that Ti does for Tetris clears?)

There are other aspects of SRS that make 20G easier than ARS, and they've already been covered in this thread, but really I don't see Phantom Mania as a mode that's really built to test 20G survival, and there are more than enough other modes for that. The invisibility plus time plus Tetris requirements are more than enough for it to be a seriously impressive achievement in its own right. To paraphrase what someone else said (because I can't be bothered to re-find the exact quote), the difference between SRS and ARS with all other things the same is the difference between incredibly hard and ridiculously hard. It is *more difficult*, but certainly not to the point where I'd ever object to someone using SRS claiming the title of Phantom Mania Gm on the basis that they weren't playing it properly.

[Question_Mark]

If there weren't time restrictions (or they were lax as hell) then I'd maybe call SRS times as not being worthy of "Phantom Mania Gm" as a title, but ultimately there are. You can't fuck about and abuse step reset to get to 999, and even if you could, QM hasn't shown signs of doing that - his SRS play has been perfectly fast enough. If he was finishing past 7 minutes then it'd be a point of debate, but 5:20 is a very respectable time for 999 lines.

Actually, I doubt finishing past 7:00 is even possible in Phantom Mania (although presumably it is for Death). There's a level 800 Torikan of 5:23 (yes, there are three of them). In this run, I wasn't manual locking the last two sections at all - playing about as slowly as I can without abusing move reset - and cleared them both in about 1:17. So unless I'm missing something, 6:40 seems to be about as slow as you can finish PM at all. The Torikans of 300 @ 2:28, 500 @ 3:38 and 800 @ 5:23 are progressively stricter, and the last one requires an average section time of 40 seconds. So, yeah, you need to play fast.

(semi-related aside out of curiosity: does PM have the +2 bonus that Ti does for Tetris clears?)

Much to my chagrin when I was using PF, no - PM gives 3 levels for a triple and 4 levels for a Tetris, in true TA Death nature. When I play in Speed Mania 2 and make a Tetris or a couple triples along the way, the line clear that finishes the method always gets me past 100.

In PM, the lack of a Tetris bonus kind of sucks when using PF because I place 35 pieces and clear 14 lines, twice, counting for 98 levels. Then I'm stuck at 99 losing 7-14 pieces of tempo while I wait for a T piece to make that line clear. If you're curious, I have more info to share about that.
[spoiler]
Some insight into how I play: Since the method consistently yields 98 levels, I drift further and further behind the level stop. The problem is worse the later I get the pesky T I need to break 99-100. In fact, in the runs leading up to this one, I threw away every game where that T did not come first in its bag (P=1/7), because I know I'd drift so far behind that I'd have to place an extra 30 pieces. (When every piece needs to be placed perfectly, you don't want to place a single one more than you must.)

In this run I made perfect tempo (stuck at *99 for the minimum cumulative time possible) all the way up to 500 - starting with getting T first in its bag, and then not wasting a single piece at *99. 599 broke the combo, but at that point it no longer matters as much because I tend to lose the most levels at the start. I've made it to 500 roughly a hundred times, but this was my all-time best by a mile in terms of fewest placed pieces.
[/spoiler]

There are other aspects of SRS that make 20G easier than ARS, and they've already been covered in this thread, but really I don't see Phantom Mania as a mode that's really built to test 20G survival, and there are more than enough other modes for that.

FINAL mode is best mode.

The invisibility plus time plus Tetris requirements are more than enough for it to be a seriously impressive achievement in its own right. To paraphrase what someone else said (because I can't be bothered to re-find the exact quote), the difference between SRS and ARS with all other things the same is the difference between incredibly hard and ridiculously hard. It is *more difficult*, but certainly not to the point where I'd ever object to someone using SRS claiming the title of Phantom Mania Gm on the basis that they weren't playing it properly.

While I agree with you guys that, all other things constant, ARS is harder than SRS, that statement holds only in terms of the minimum difficulty of the achievement. I maintain that ARS does not let

Just to recap: I'm changing Standard-Hard so that I get no move- or rotate-reset (which I'll call Standard-Harderer), meaning I get to keep the rotation system only, but literally everything else is identical to Classic3 (that includes the 4-hist, 6-roll randomiser). That's as close to Classic3 runs as you guys are ever going to get from me.

I'm also keeping the annoying-as-pants 1G ARR. I quite hate not being able to instantly DAS to the wall, but at this point I know somebody might complain that instant ARR makes my gameplay not legit. (But, man, is it slow getting a piece to the wall.)

That said, the only advantage I'm getting from SRS apart from its familiarity is the rotation system itself. Now, to be honest, I was told the ARS orientations are supposed to be better tuned to high-speed play, but you guys are telling me it's not. My guess is it has to do with when your playing field is... random and jagged? As for upward wall-kicks, I'll grant that they exist, regardless of how little I may use them in freeform play.

I will however point out two things ARS has that I'm deeply envious of: The first is 180 rotate. Boy would that have made my life easier when using PF. And the second, of course, is dat L twist.
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[Kitaru]

Rather than get sucked into the vortex of douchery that some people seem to be creating, I'm going to make ONE single reply and let people decide if they give a crap about it or wanna just throw it in the same "piece of crap" bucket they seem to be throwing a lot of other stuff in...

Shuey, I understand where you're coming from. I think the discussion in this thread was well-meaning and came to an amicable resolution and understanding. As you can see, a lot of words were expended in the process, so I'll summarize a few points:

- Phantom Mania has been cleared with a custom ruleset, utilizing a very clever method of play that Question_Mark himself developed. This is already incredibly impressive. I don't think anyone said anything to the effect otherwise.
- As a next step, Question_Mark has taken it upon himself to clear with not just one of the standard rulesets, but a harder variant thereof.

- ARS isn't really relevant to the topic. (I kind of wish it hadn't been mentioned at all.) There was some side discussion/clarification surrounding it, but it's largely extraneous. Phantom already provisions for SRS with Standard-Hard, and moreover the same strict time requirements remain in place.
- However, Bag vs. Memory 4 is relevant insofar as custom rules vs. standard rules for the mode.

Nullpomino doesn't do a good job of enforcing custom vs. rule-locked modes (e.g., Line Race as custom vs. anything Mania as rule-locked -- you wouldn't play Grade Mania 1 with Classic3 or Standard-Zero, at least not with the expectation that it be  comparable to Classic1). The only thing Nullpo can do is "suggest" the intended rules for a mode. As I said, that doesn't make this clear any less impressive in its own right -- 999 levels of invisible play with Phantom's time requirements is a major undertaking regardless, and the method by which it was accomplished was very clever. Given that QM has taken PF3.1 as far as it can take him, the logical progression is to continue with one of the standard rules in the foray into freeform play.

Actually, I doubt finishing past 7:00 is even possible in Phantom Mania (although presumably it is for Death). There's a level 800 Torikan of 5:23 (yes, there are three of them). In this run, I wasn't manual locking the last two sections at all - playing about as slowly as I can without abusing move reset - and cleared them both in about 1:17. So unless I'm missing something, 6:40 seems to be about as slow as you can finish PM at all.

You'd have to abuse move reset, or even abuse Hold resets.

While I agree with you guys that, all other things constant, ARS is harder than SRS, that statement holds only in terms of the minimum difficulty of the achievement. I maintain that ARS does not let

This got cut off or was left unfinished. ?_?

Just to recap: I'm changing Standard-Hard so that I get no move- or rotate-reset (which I'll call Standard-Harderer)

Again, don't feel obligated -- Standard-Hard is one of the default rules for the mode. But, if you go for it, more power to you.

I'm also keeping the annoying-as-pants 1G ARR. I quite hate not being able to instantly DAS to the wall, but at this point I know somebody might complain that instant ARR makes my gameplay not legit. (But, man, is it slow getting a piece to the wall.)

Yeah, 1G is expected. The fact that Nullpomino allows customization of DAS timings in what are supposed to be rule-locked modes is a known flaw that ultimately went unaddressed.

Now, to be honest, I was told the ARS orientations are supposed to be better tuned to high-speed play, but you guys are telling me it's not. My guess is it has to do with when your playing field is... random and jagged?

It is -- as you surmised, one of the optimizations is being able to DAS to hooks in the the stack instead of continue to use two-step finesse through 20G. The simple right/left kicks also allow for some neat optimizations by pushing off the stack, and don't have the unfortunate property seen in SRS where pieces have a tendency to pop up out of what could have been useful twists (as you touched on) or opportunities to buffer IRS.

I will however point out two things ARS has that I'm deeply envious of: The first is 180 rotate. Boy would that have made my life easier when using PF. And the second, of course, is dat L twist.
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ARS doesn't have 180 rotate, actually. But yeah, the L/J kicks are the hotness.
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[Ravendarksky]

Just wanted to give my congratulations to Question_Mark!

Regardless of the rules used you've achieved something special which I doubt any but an elite few can ever hope to replicate. Well done!

[Rosti_LFC]

Posing question mainly to Kitaru I guess given he knows more about the mode mechanics (or QM if he's fiddled with the ARE/DAS timings), but if PM doesn't award the +2 level bonus for Tetrises, and follows the Death speedcurve and timings, then why is more not being made of QM hitting 999 in 5:20? The western world record for TA Death is 5:32, and that's with visible pieces!

It seems a bit crazy to blitz Death in 5:20 without some difference in ARE/DAS/etc that was allowing for faster play. He hits 500 at 2:31, which is a full 24 seconds than batfly's PB, where he's at 2:55. That's a pretty big increase at a point where players are mostly limited by the game speed, especially given that QM himself loses time at a few of the level stops. It's also faster than kashiwa's world record run, where he hits 500 at 2:36.

I'm not sure that hold + 3 previews + SRS alone would account for a 15% increase in speed over batfly, unless there's some kind of 777-like efficiency you gain that saves a fuckton of time, which would suggest to me some of the timings are different? Or maybe it does, and it's more than enough to off-set any speed lost by the invisibility and the funky PF playstyle. Or QM deserves more credit for some seriously rapid and efficient SRS play on top of the invisible stuff

But yeah, strikes me as curious. 5:20 for 999 is a very impressive time, but if he's genuinely being locked to the Death timings (especially the slow ones from 0-200) and nothing else is different, then it'd be outright blistering even if he could see the pieces. Am tempted to do a bit of experimentation with Nullpomino and see how much my speed changes on Death with extra previews and hold.

[zaphod77]

Yeah it does seem to have the death speed curve.   I think the only reason it went this fast, is because of his method of placing pieces allows him to be more confident with manual locking and plan out his positions in advance.

that, and his rule may have had instant DAS.

[myndzi]

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[fumen]v115@/gG8CeA8AeE8EeE8AeI8KeqEnvhBSqBAAA[/fumen]

???

[myndzi]

why is more not being made of QM hitting 999 in 5:20?

I think maybe instant DAS or other rule-lock fails, but tbh I was so fascinated by 1000 levels of invisible tetris in Phantom Mania that I wasn't really paying much attention to the specifics of the timing. Also not a TGM player so that stuff's not in my awareness. Also didn't know about the extra Torikans.

But basically, diggity-dizamn.

[Question_Mark]

why is more not being made of QM hitting 999 in 5:20?

I think maybe instant DAS or other rule-lock fails, but tbh I was so fascinated by 1000 levels of invisible tetris in Phantom Mania that I wasn't really paying much attention to the specifics of the timing. Also not a TGM player so that stuff's not in my awareness. Also didn't know about the extra Torikans.

But basically, diggity-dizamn.

Yeah, as some of you already noticed, I used instant ARR. That's kind of a remnant from my really old Nullpo install (I just kind of loaded up an old Bag+SRS rule and went with it, hence the crazy corrupted rule name on all of my replays). But instant ARR is of course faster than the 1G constraint of TGM based modes, and the little time shavings add up over 700+ pieces.

As for the Torikans, I was frankly kind of amused that there were three for this mode. At first I didn't discover them and got Torikan stopped, 300 @ 2:34.XX. Then I looked them up and began grinding for speed.


Look, I know I'm being a bit whiny. But I really dislike this "slow" ARR; the only reason I'm even doing it is because a comparison between my time and, for example, batfly's Death record could actually make some sense.

Since I never mentioned this before, I might as well admit it now. My 0-99 section time went up to 45:00-50:00 seconds on average when I first played with the slower ARR. It's taken me a dedicated week to tighten those times down to around 35:00 again. Granted, part of the reduction comes from a really neat "lemons-into-lemonade" trick I figured out with DAS and locking (before you ask, no, it's not a bug/exploit that gives me a time advantage. TA Death runners could do it if they're careful). But I'll have to show that in a demonstration sometime.

As it has been some time since my last communique, I'll give all interested parties a little "progress update" if you will, just to whet your appetite and build up the suspense a titch.

Accepting that the circulating mantras to "keep a flat stack" and "rebuild your floor" are very good advice for playing invisible... Let's just say I don't do those.  But I am getting much better at stacking for Tetrises. The biggest obstacle I have is stacking with no holes; once I make holes, my stack has reference points and gets easier to memorise, but I tend to fill holes/overhangs with singles and doubles, and the 2-Tetrises-per-section requirement is unforgiving. One workaround I've been developing is exposing holes via Tetrises, which is coming along nicely but still can be difficult to execute because I have to stack exactly 4 blocks above the hole.

My biggest obstacle to getting far in this game is the frequency of my misdrops. If any of you who don't know, or may have forgotten, I deliberately play exclusively one-handed to make the game more challenging. I'm very pleased with my controls, but they do sometimes lead to uncomfortable placement finesse and occasionally my hand locks up/gets caught on the wrong button. Also, I'm using some lame generic Logitech keyboard (I think a k360) that can't handle more than 3 inputs. When I'm doing some of my more complex manoeuvres, that leads to dropped inputs, including (most annoyingly) dropping a "drop input" so instead of locking a piece I take something out of Hold that I can't place. @#%$ My problem is that I'm constantly updating my mental image of the field, so once I misdrop unexpectedly my whole field falls apart.

There's another skill I've been developing which looks decidedly awesome but will remain shrouded in mystery until I have a decent run to unveil.  As far as I can tell, I'm the only invisible player who does it. Shuey's already seen a short replay I threw together in 3 minutes where I pull it off a couple of times. I will say this: It is just as possible in TAP/Ti M-rolls as it is in Phantom, but it's difficult, risky, unrewarded, and violates every principle of invisible stacking out there. And if I get good at it, I daresay it'll be my signature.

It's still gonna be a while before I get anything on video - I'm very busy IRL right now and don't have much time to play Tetris, let alone record anything. I'd love to just belt out a few quick replays of sup-500 runs or so, but I doubt you'll believe them anyway.  But if I could actually get the Orange GM run on camera, that would be so great.

[KevinDDR]

Look, I know I'm being a bit whiny. But I really dislike this "slow" ARR; the only reason I'm even doing it is because a comparison between my time and, say, batfly's Death record actually makes sense.

Unless you use exactly the same rules as Batfly this will never be true.

[Question_Mark]

The problem with jumping into the later stages of a conversation to nitpick a sentence is you're bound to take me out of context, and indeed you have. Here's the context.

[...] why is more not being made of QM hitting 999 in 5:20? The western world record for TA Death is 5:32, and that's with visible pieces!

It seems a bit crazy to blitz Death in 5:20 without some difference in ARE/DAS/etc that was allowing for faster play. He hits 500 at 2:31, which is a full 24 seconds than batfly's PB, where he's at 2:55. That's a pretty big increase at a point where players are mostly limited by the game speed, especially given that QM himself loses time at a few of the level stops. It's also faster than kashiwa's world record run, where he hits 500 at 2:36.

Rosti is making a comparison, and a rather intricate one at that, between my game - with Bag, SRS, and move reset - and a couple Death runs that obviously use Classic rules. I would've chimed in at this point, but Zaphod beat me to it: My auto repeat-rate was faster. In fact, it was already mentioned several posts prior that I'm switching to 1G ARR, so I had nothing new to offer.

The implication, which I hope most people got, was this: Despite the speed of my gameplay, it doesn't make sense to compare times because our timings are not exactly the same. All frame timings such as ARE, Line clear, Lock Delay, etc. are, but my ARR is faster (accidentally so, I might add. I've apparently been playing on instant ARR since the beginning and never knew it was non-standard.)

This is why I use the word "actually" - it's a figure of speech often used to oppose a previous statement in a positive way. For example, me saying "I'm never going to clear this mode," and about 4.5 months later saying "I'm actually doing this!" So the parenthesis one might add to

[...] the only reason I'm even doing it is because a comparison between my time and, say, batfly's Death record actually makes sense.

is "[... as opposed to the given comparison (a time with instant ARR vs. a time without), which does not make sense]". I would assume just about everyone got the message I was trying to send - that my run isn't strictly comparable to the mentioned Death runs. But any counterexamples among you, let me know.

Unless you use exactly the same rules as Batfly this will never be true.

Depends on how literally you interpret my sentence. Saying that "a comparison... makes sense" doesn't imply that the comparison is perfect. It just means it's not silly, like comparing a level 500 time of 2:31 with 10G ARR to a time of 2:55 with 1G ARR. With that timing left fixed, and the abundantly aforementioned step reset, the only difference is the rotation system and wallkicks. How much sense the comparison makes, and how valid it is, depends on your perspective.

If you take "a comparison [...] makes sense" to mean "a comparison [...] makes complete sense" or that the runs in question are equivalent, then naturally you'll disagree. For starters, we're trying to compare a visible game to an invisible game. No matter how much difficulty balancing there is, you can't make a perfect comparison. But I'd also say in this case that you're making claims I don't intend. But I will edit in the word "some" to clarify.

To pre-empt what I suspect is coming: I hold that it does make some sense to compare two times in games whose timings are all precisely equivalent. I'm not going to bother justifying that - it's obvious. Just re-read the bloody sentence.

My patience is frankly wearing thin. I am not under obligations to justify practically every claim I make, especially peripheral ones such as whether it makes sense to compare times on games that have the exact same timings. This is a forum thread, not an academic paper or court of law. Be reasonable.

[Kitaru]

OK dudes (Kevin and others with the inclination), I guess it wasn't clear enough earlier so I'm going to have to put y'all blast: Stop fucking talking about ARS/SRS movement constraints!

This thread is not about ARS/SRS. Standard-Hard is a valid category for the mode -- that's pretty much the end of it. And yet, of the 18+ pages worth of content in this thread, a significant portion of it was spent discussing ARS/SRS. Yes, there were some deviations from topic to explain why things weren't directly comparable across categories, but this was already visited and closed. Just about everything that could be possibly be said on the topic has already been said. Please stop. We don't need any more reactionary posts in an already critically derailed thread.

If you stop for a moment to think about use of language, you'll notice that neither of you is actually wrong about what you said. If the timings are the same, yes, you could use a Death time as a vague yardstick to compare against. And yes, if the constraints are different, then you have disparate categories that cannot be directly compared.

Fine, you think he Doesn't Get It -- have you thought about trying to explain it instead of just being contradictory? (Except, again, please don't, since if you'd read the thread then you'd find it already over-discussed.) What does that actually achieve?

tl;dr: i mad

(Actual on-topic constructive commentary coming later.)

[Kitaru]

Anyway, here is the post I was originally working on.

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???

What's with that sloppy right tap? One whole extra input...

Let me clear things up a bit:
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u jealous yet? :v

Since I never mentioned this before, I might as well admit it now. My 0-99 section time went up to 45:00-50:00 seconds on average when I first played with the slower ARR. It's taken me a dedicated week to tighten those times down to around 35:00 again. Granted, part of the reduction comes from a really neat "lemons-into-lemonade" trick I figured out with DAS and locking (before you ask, no, it's not a bug/exploit that gives me a time advantage. TA Death runners could do it if they're careful). But I'll have to show that in a demonstration sometime.

For what it's worth, you can charge DAS completely during ARE until level 400. Of course, you'll need to be tight on locking quickly upon reaching the destination and then recharging. Curious what "lemons into lemonade" other bit refers to.

My biggest obstacle to getting far in this game is the frequency of my misdrops. If any of you who don't know, or may have forgotten, I deliberately play exclusively one-handed to make the game more challenging. I'm very pleased with my controls, but they do sometimes lead to uncomfortable placement finesse and occasionally my hand locks up/gets caught on the wrong button. Also, I'm using some lame generic Logitech keyboard (I think a k360) that can't handle more than 3 inputs. When I'm doing some of my more complex manoeuvres, that leads to dropped inputs, including (most annoyingly) dropping a "drop input" so instead of locking a piece I take something out of Hold that I can't place. @#%$ My problem is that I'm constantly updating my mental image of the field, so once I misdrop unexpectedly my whole field falls apart.

Hmm, sounds limiting. At the bare minimum you need a device that supports the inputs you're performing. I suppose it's all well and good if it's a matter of preference, however, I don't think it makes sense to stick with it if it's an artificial limitation just for the sake of it; there is more than enough to deal with as it is without a potentially unreliable input scheme on top of that.