Nullpomino Questions

[osiron23]

So I've been playing nullpomino on my laptop for about 3 years, but I never really looked into getting outside help before. I mainly play Ultra and have a personal record of a little over 72k in 2 minutes. However, I've hit a wall and I figure it's time to look into getting some help. I just have a few questions:

1. What do the "elite" players keep their settings at for Gravity, G-Max, Lock Delay, DAS? Mine are 110, 500, 11, and 6 respectively.

2. Is 72k in 2 minutes fr Ultra actually any good? lol

3. Why are there two left-right rotate options in your keyboard options?

4. Do people actually play Ultra? Or is Sprint generally what people try to improve on more often?

EDIT: So apparently I joined this site over 5 years ago... I guess I've been playing a lot longer than 3 years.

[Master]

i leave it at default ..
i only change the min and max das (in options > game tuning) min das : 0 max das : 4
das delay 0
idk if 72k is good cause i dont play ultra ..
idk why there are 2 left rotate xD
hmm idk i heard some people like ultra i only play sprint from time to time
:O 3+ years? wow so..are you good?

[Okey_Dokey]

1. What do the "elite" players keep their settings at for Gravity, G-Max, Lock Delay, DAS? Mine are 110, 500, 11, and 6 respectively.

I would say DAS = 5, gravity = 0 (a piece hard dropped 1 row is worth 2 points), lock delay = 30 (manual locking a piece with hard drop), but I am no expert.

2. Is 72k in 2 minutes fr Ultra actually any good? lol

Yes, that's good. That's more than I can do. As far as I know nobody got over 100k with just freestyle Tetris + T-Spin. Record with special techniques (e.g. ST stacking, infinite TST) is 114k. It's very important to T-Spin almost every T piece or one can't score that high ( a T-Spin Single scores as many points as a Tetris ). Are you a ST / ZT stacker?

3. Why are there two left-right rotate options in your keyboard options?

As far as I know, no decent guideline player uses 2 buttons with the same function. I would rather use 180 rotation than a second button of the same function (but I don't use 180 rotation in games with hold).

In official games, there are 2 clockwise rotation buttons: Up arrow and X. NullpoMino spawned from the TGM series, which has 2 counter-clockwise rotation buttons (A & C). This has the advantages when players use only 2 buttons, they can decide if clockwise rotation is the left button (B & C) or the right button (A & B, people are usually used to this, e.g. modern games, Game Boy, NES, SNES). TGM also has entry delay and some players use A & C simultaneously to rotate a piece quickly by 180 degrees.

4. Do people actually play Ultra? Or is Sprint generally what people try to improve on more often?

Sprint is the much more played mode. However, people should improve their Tetris skill more quickly by playing Ultra (at least when freestyling).

[osiron23]

1. What do the "elite" players keep their settings at for Gravity, G-Max, Lock Delay, DAS? Mine are 110, 500, 11, and 6 respectively.

I would say DAS = 5, gravity = 0 (a piece hard dropped 1 row is worth 2 points), lock delay = 30 (manual locking a piece with hard drop), but I am no expert.

2. Is 72k in 2 minutes fr Ultra actually any good? lol

Yes, that's good. That's more than I can do. As far as I know nobody got over 100k with just freestyle Tetris + T-Spin. Record with special techniques (e.g. ST stacking, infinite TST) is 114k. It's very important to T-Spin almost every T piece or one can't score that high ( a T-Spin Single scores as many points as a Tetris ). Are you a ST / ZT stacker?

3. Why are there two left-right rotate options in your keyboard options?

As far as I know, no decent guideline player uses 2 buttons with the same function. I would rather use 180 rotation than a second button of the same function (but I don't use 180 rotation in games with hold).

In official games, there are 2 clockwise rotation buttons: Up arrow and X. NullpoMino spawned from the TGM series, which has 2 counter-clockwise rotation buttons (A & C). This has the advantages when players use only 2 buttons, they can decide if clockwise rotation is the left button (B & C) or the right button (A & B, people are usually used to this, e.g. modern games, Game Boy, NES, SNES). TGM also has entry delay and some players use A & C simultaneously to rotate a piece quickly by 180 degrees.

4. Do people actually play Ultra? Or is Sprint generally what people try to improve on more often?

Sprint is the much more played mode. However, people should improve their Tetris skill more quickly by playing Ultra (at least when freestyling).

@Master, I thought I was, but just looking at this forum... I've got a hell of a lot to catch up on.

@Okey_Dokey
1. Didn't know that about Gravity. Thanks. I'll see about lowering mine.
2. Took me a while to figure out what ST/ZT was. Lol. Yes I'm a ZT stacker. So someone actually got over 114k just ZT stacking with double t-spins? Wtf... I can't imagine going much faster than I'm going now.
3. And I think I got it. I use the 180 rotate (assigned to l-shift key for me). People sometimes just use the 2 left-right rotation buttons together instead of using the 180 rotate? I never thought of even doing that. Maybe I should...

Now you did mention that all my T pieces should be used for spinning. How is that possible? I find that after a while, I need to use 2 additional T pieces on the left side of my grid to keep up my tspinning.otherwise, the right side slowly gets higher than left side and I can't properly tspin? Does that make sense? O.o

[XaeL]

Now you did mention that all my T pieces should be used for spinning. How is that possible? I find that after a while, I need to use 2 additional T pieces on the left side of my grid to keep up my tspinning.otherwise, the right side slowly gets higher than left side and I can't properly tspin? Does that make sense? O.o

Dokey was wrong about that one. You have to use 2 t's every so often to increase the height of your stack.
It must be exactly 2 because of parity issues.

[Okey_Dokey]

2. Took me a while to figure out what ST/ZT was. Lol. Yes I'm a ZT stacker. So someone actually got over 114k just ZT stacking with double t-spins? Wtf... I can't imagine going much faster than I'm going now.

There's no shame in not being able to score that high. There's practically no speed limit in NullpoMino and only very few players can show those feats. I think it was 3 years ago when the 100k barrier was broken.

People sometimes just use the 2 left-right rotation buttons together instead of using the 180 rotate?

Some people do that when they play the TGM modes (grade mania, speed mania). No guideline player would ever do that.

Now you did mention that all my T pieces should be used for spinning. How is that possible? I find that after a while, I need to use 2 additional T pieces on the left side of my grid to keep up my tspinning.otherwise, the right side slowly gets higher than left side and I can't properly tspin? Does that make sense? O.o

I said almost every T piece must be spinned to score very high. It's ok if you waste 4 or 6 T pieces (which ST stackers have to do in 2 min Ultra). The points per cleared line ratio of a T-Spin Double is more than twice as high as that of a Tetris.

Here are some outstanding Ultra videos:

jkwon23 - 95k Freestyle
jkwon is one of the fastest players who also plays Ultra from time to time. During that run he wastes about 30 T pieces - and that's the disadvantage of playing freestyle.

dhuang - 100k ZT Stacking

morningpee - 101k Infinite TST
Infinite TST scores around 9% more points in comparison to ST Stacking (same number of lines cleared), but probably it can't be played as fast. Note that there's a Japanese player called omu (1st place on TF Ultra leaderboard) who should be able to get at least 110k in Nullpo using that technique.

defghi - 109.9k ZT stacking

TrampolineGm - 110k+ ZT Stacking
Couldn't find any video of him playing Ultra, but I remember z2sam saying he scored over 110k.

ISuckAtTetrisALot (OnePunMan) - 112.9k ZT Stacking

FireStorm58 - 114k LST Stacking
This one is interesting. A technique similar to ST Stacking but more flexible (not the left-middle-right partition). Also interestingly, he used significant gravity. Made him lose about 800 drop points but maybe it helped him to stack faster.

[fumen]115@deQ4IeR4AeQ4FeglQ4AeR4E8glCeQ4E8hlAehlE8Q4?CeglE8R4AeQ4glE8glQ4AeR4E8glCeQ4E8hlAezhC8Q4CeA?tE8R4AeBtE8glQ4AeAtQ4E8glCeR4D8hlAeBtQ4D8Q4CeBt?D8R4Aei0D8glQ4AeBtg0Q4C8glCeBtR4RphlAezhQ4RpJeA?gH8eywHewwHeywHewwReywHewwHeywHewwReywHewwHeywH?ewwReywHewwQeAAAvhAAAA[/fumen]

[Okey_Dokey]

I did some calculations regarding the efficiency of ZT stacking, LST stacking and infinite TST. In the following, we neglect softdrop points, assume that we start with back-to-back bonus and that no T-Spin Zeros are made with "wasted" T pieces.

Whenever, you don't make T-Spin Triples, you will have to make a Tetris every 5 T pieces. It can be easily seen as follows: 10 bags are 70 pieces which are 280 blocks/minos. That means you have to do 28 line clears every 10 bags, if you don't want your stack to grow. With 10 T pieces, you can clear 20 lines, so you have to make 2 additional Tetris line clears.

So, even if the left side of the LST stack grows only by 4 rows for every 8 T-Spin Doubles, on the long run you have to do a Tetris line clear after 5 T-Spins. ZT stack is obviously a Tetris every 4 T pieces, which can be easily seen when observing how fast the 9th column grows.

A b2b T-Spin Triple is worth 2400 points, a b2b T-Spin Double is worth 1800 points, a b2b Tetris is worth 1200 points:

Infinite TST: 2400 points for every 3 lines
LST Stacking: 10200 points for every 14 lines (5*1800 + 1200)
ZT Stacking: 8400 points for every 12 lines (4*1800 + 1200)

Let's now compute the efficiencies:

Code Select Expand

TST/ ZT =  2400/ 8400*12/ 3 = 114.28%
TST/LST =  2400/10200*14/ 3 = 109.80%
LST/ ZT = 10200/ 8400*12/14 = 104.08%

So, Infinite TST is about 14 % more efficient than ZT Stacking and 9.5 % more efficient than LST stacking. LST is about 4% more efficient than ZT Stacking (but also harder to do).

[Alexsweden]

However, I've hit a wall and I figure it's time to look into getting some help. I just have a few questions:

Some of your other questions was already answered so im going to focus a bit on the above.
In regards to improving it depends on what you want to improve. But as you seemd to have guessed yes sprint is more popular. If you want to improve in vs modes then besides vs modes themselves I would recommend the two dig modes as they improve your downstackin skills, but also sprint to increase overall speed.

Freestyle ultra is great, but I prefer playing freestyle in dig challange so you can practice getting into your T-spins efficently. Both options are good though.

However if you want to improve your Ultra score, which already is good i would suggest doing sprint or other modes and aiming at improving your speed overall. At 72k you know the ins and outs of ST stacking pretty well and your main problem for pushing towards higher scores is most likley not that you encounter a lot situations where you have stop and think about what where you should place a piece. You prob get a few of these over 2min but if you watch the 100k+ scores they are simply faster overall and there in lies the biggest difference. In many cases they also have a few hickups where they are a bit slower than their normal speed.