Being a Competitive Player

[milkolate]

I currently find that I have a lot of free time in my hands so I have decided to learn how to be a competitive Tetris player. The only version of Tetris that I have played is the Gameboy version. So I'm pretty much a clean slate.

1. How do I start? Which version should I use for "training"? I have an emulator with Tetris loaded (since I still own the original cart, but my Gameboy is busted). So basically I only have a PC with me. But I do plan to buy a DS Lite within the year.

2. How do I train? Aside from practicing a lot, what specific points should I practice for?

Thanks a lot!

[m:)]

im by no means a pro..
but i say checkout heboris and texmaster that you can find on this site.

those games are both epic fun and insanely hard compared to the slandered issue western tetris

tgm is great..

if your looking for battle tetris.. dunno maybe something else maybe not.

[Amnesia]

I currently find that I have a lot of free time in my hands so I have decided to learn how to be a competitive Tetris player. The only version of Tetris that I have played is the Gameboy version

I hope you REALLY have a lot of free time AND motivation..There is many style of "competitif player"..

Maybe you wish develop a strong technical ability, in this case, search for TGM1 and TGM2.

Otherwise, you can go for a fast and agressive style, you could play lockjaw for his famous 40 lines burst challenge, or choose Heboris to have the TGM3 clone which is more optimised for fluid and fast styles, and a bit less technicaly boring than the 2 first TGM..

PS : ignore those who talk to you about "texmaster"..This fucking game is hard to configure and very stressing to play, you will have more fun in playing Heboris.

PS2 : PM me if you want me to introduce to these games and give you links, because I understand your position of GB player who never knew any of these complicated Tetris game..and even me sometime, I can not find what I want on this forum.

So I'm pretty much a clean slate

Hmm this is very interesting, do you accept to be my new padawan and follow my formation ?? I think after many attempts, I finaly found the perfect good program of training for you my new (next) cobaye.. http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_twisted.gif

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

PS : ignore those who talk to you about "texmaster"..This fucking game is hard to configure and very stressing to play, you will have more fun in playing Heboris.



http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_lol.gifhttp://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_lol.gif

[caffeine]

If by competitive you mean compete against other players, I'd stay away from TGM. Tetris competitions are few and far, but when the do come around they're most likely to be in standardized SRS type games. Since you only have a PC, you're pretty much limited to Facebook Tetris and that Japanese one, which I hear ain't so great anymore. Personally, I've been honing my skills with Blockbox and hi-games.net. Those games are fun!

BTW, you know that competition I won last year? I got a 1099 tax form in the mail the other day for $7000. So if you want to beat me in Tetris winnings, I'm officially claiming $7000 and not $2000. =b

[Amnesia]

ha ha..What I was saying..
And you will see a lot of many other player who will speak to you in chineses terms..

First, maybe it would be more subtilt to explain him what is SRS..

Trust me milkolate, you can become a powerfull player with TGM.. http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_twisted.gif

7000 $ ??!! http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_eek.gif

[Rosti LFC]

I'd go for trying out Blokkendoos (aka Blockbox) on http://neo.spelpunt.nl (http://neo.spelpunt.nl/default.htm)
It allows VS play, and it has leaderboards for all the modes. It is currently in Dutch only (where has Deniax been lately? http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_confused.gif ), but it's not too hard to figure out most of the stuff.

As has been said, if by competitive you mean rankings for single-player modes, then your best bet would be to go for the TGM series and get something like Texmaster. Also Lockjaw for the 40-lines pure speed leaderboard.

If you mean competitive against other people, then aforementioned Blockbox, or also Tetris Online (http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1097&st=0&sk=t&sd=a), which is Japanese only but is probably the best official multiplayer version for the PC. It's also free.

[milkolate]

If by competitive you mean compete against other players, I'd stay away from TGM. Tetris competitions are few and far, but when the do come around they're most likely to be in standardized SRS type games. Since you only have a PC, you're pretty much limited to Facebook Tetris and that Japanese one, which I hear ain't so great anymore. Personally, I've been honing my skills with Blockbox and hi-games.net. Those games are fun!

BTW, you know that competition I won last year? I got a 1099 tax form in the mail the other day for $7000. So if you want to beat me in Tetris winnings, I'm officially claiming $7000 and not $2000. =b

Aw, you said a lot of things that I do not understand http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_sad.gif

[Burbruee]

If by competitive you mean compete against time and learn how to change your playing style to become better and faster in general I would highly recommend Texmaster (http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=893) or Heboris (http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1353#p30265) or even Lockjaw (http://www.pineight.com/lj/default.htm).
If you want to compete against others I would recommend Blockbox / Blokkendoos (http://www.spelpunt.nl/default.htm), but you can also play this game alone and it has 40 lines mode which is fun.
(Requires Java, click Anmeelden and register an account, then go to Blokkendoos. Then PM Deniax of this forum and ask him to change your account to have VIP-status. http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif )

For something portable, Lockjaw is available for GBA and Nintendo DS. There's also a great TGM3 clone for NDS, but we can't distribute links for that.

And don't listen to Amnesia, Texmaster isn't hard to configure at all, it's all pre-configured and only allows you to change basic settings like display name and controls, not the gameplay..
Lockjaw or Heboris would be harder to configure if you consider all the customization options that a new player won't have any idea what they do.

[milkolate]

ha ha..What I was saying..
And you will see a lot of many other player who will speak to you in chineses terms..

First, maybe it would be more subtilt to explain him what is SRS..

Trust me milkolate, you can become a powerfull player with TGM.. http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_twisted.gif

7000 $ ??!! http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_eek.gif

I shall believe in the power of TGM (though I have never heard of it before) http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_exclaim.gif

[tepples]

If you see a term you don't understand, it's probably in the TC glossary (http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/../wiki/index.php/Glossary)

[Quad]

If you want to compete against other players and not just be a total show-off then I'd say you should stay away from TGM. Try some Tetris DS or Tetris Party.

In the end it is not as much what game you play, though. Mostly you just need to learn the mechanics of modern Tetris.

[Rosti LFC]

If you want to compete against other players and not just be a total show-off then I'd say you should stay away from TGM.

You can still compete against other players in TGM. Even if you mean directly in versus, there's no reason why TGM blocks that avenue off. There are plenty of TGM players who are equally good in VS matches. Maybe with SRS they'd lose some speed due to switching rotation systems, but there's no real reason why they can't play. I'm primarily a TGM player and I still do perfectly well on Blokkendoos and even TOJ where I'm forced to use SRS.

And why say "total show-off" as if it's a bad thing. Isn't this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwC544Z37qo) the sort of performance most of us aspire to, regardless of which series we play?

And you can play a Tetris game where multiplayer is the primary mode and still be a show-off on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u0BY7msnEg).

[Quad]

If you want to compete against other players and not just be a total show-off then I'd say you should stay away from TGM.

You can still compete against other players in TGM. Even if you mean directly in versus, there's no reason why TGM blocks that avenue off. There are plenty of TGM players who are equally good in VS matches. Maybe with SRS they'd lose some speed due to switching rotation systems, but there's no real reason why they can't play. I'm primarily a TGM player and I still do perfectly well on Blokkendoos and even TOJ where I'm forced to use SRS.

And why say "total show-off" as if it's a bad thing. Isn't this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwC544Z37qo) the sort of performance most of us aspire to, regardless of which series we play?

And you can play a Tetris game where multiplayer is the primary mode and still be a show-off on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u0BY7msnEg).

SRS is more standard in the west than ARS. ARS plus 20G to most western Tetris noobs seems "weird" and since it is weird it also becomes more impressive. That's why I think TGM is more for show than competition. Since there are fewer ARS players there is also less competition to be had. Sure, it's relatively easy to switch rotation system but for most people they just take what they know and stick with it.

[Rosti LFC]

Since there are fewer ARS players there is also less competition to be had.

Fewer ARS players in general maybe, but I'd say in terms of the hardcore community and elite level of play things are reasonably even. There aren't really that many official SRS games that open themselves out to ultra high-speed levels of play. Tetris DS was quite good competitively, but I wouldn't say that there was much of a community for it. I certainly didn't manage to find anything much more organised that anything at TC or Blockstats. The competition was there while the leaderboards worked, but it still wasn't that fantastic.

It is personal choice though really. The natures of competitiveness for SRS and ARS are different, though I don't think it's arguable that one is more competitive than the other.

[milkolate]

Sorry for being such a n00b here, but how different are these versions? I always thought that there is a basic competence to Tetris that you can master whichever version you play. But with these variations (between ARS and SRS), it seems like there is no such thing as "mastering Tetris".

[DIGITAL]

Sorry for being such a n00b here, but how different are these versions? I always thought that there is a basic competence to Tetris that you can master whichever version you play. But with these variations (between ARS and SRS), it seems like there is no such thing as "mastering Tetris".
I wouldn't say it's ARS vs. SRS but rather ARS singleplayer vs. SRS multiplayer. Games with ARS are famous for their insane difficulty brought about by the integration of 20G, decreasing delays, and strict rotation behaviors into the core singleplayer gameplay. Games with SRS tend to focus more on multiplayer with an emphasis on lenient gravity, T-Spins, and whatnot. These two styles conflict in many areas as you will find out and mastering even one will take significant effort. That's not to say that there are no overlapping skill sets because there are, but realize that there are habits that are quite difficult to iron out once you dive into one style.

[Zaphod77]

ARS is a lot more similar to old school tetris than SRS is.

Old school tetris: pieces stick as soon as they hit the stack. logn line clear delay to give you tiem to think (on game boy at least) pieces are slow to start dropping. No wallkicks. Rotation always fails if the new spot would overlap anything. Random really means random. You can go over 100 with no i if you are unlucky. Many old school games eventually become unplayable due to pieces sticking before you can move them.

ARS: insanely fast at higher levels. lock delay allows you to easily slide pieces down a pyramid where they would just stick in old school. Entry delay gives you time to charge up an auto-repeat if you need it. pieces start the same way they do in classic. soft drop locks. Hard drop does not. Simple wallkicks exist. pieces will get nudged to the right or left if they don't quite fit. Modern ARS (TI) also allows limited upward kicking with the I and T pieces. The game remlains playable at maximum speeed, but is still a big challenge. History-based randomizer makes long streaks of S and Z unlikely, and usually doesn't starve you of your I liek old school tetris games can, but is still unpredictable. Multiplayer garbage copies the cleared lines and send them to the opponent, minus the last piece. 0/2/3/4. CLean stacking is most important, because recovery is difficult.

SRS: pieces are flipped compared to old school. As long as you move or rotate a piece it will not stick (limited in newer games, though, and in multiplayer). Many flexible wall and floorkicks let you climb pieces over obstructions to an extent by rotating them. Slow auto-repeat, no entry delay usually. All pieces except square have four orientations. Hard drop locks instantly, soft drop does not lock, so you can slide or spin afer a soft drop. Garbage is usually lines with a single hole in them, duplicated a few times, with the position of the hole changing about 1/3rd of the time. The game hands out one of each piece in random order, then hands out another of each piece in a new random order. Guarantees you NEVER go for more tha 12 pieces without an I, but can sometimes stick you with SZZS at the "bag seam" or something similar. If you picked up tetris DS you are very likely to be able to clear marathon mode with a bit of abusing move reset and some practice. Survival is easier, but playing rapidly is harder. Even when the pieces are dropping super fast, you still have plenty of time to move them around obstancles with the kicks. Recovery is much easier in SRS, and many moves that are misdrops in ARS are twist setups in SRS.

It is easier to go from ARS to SRS then form SRS to ARS, in my opinion.

[PetitPrince]

If you picked up tetris DS you are very likely to be able to clear marathon mode with a bit of abusing move reset and some practice.
(and be bored to death)

Also, SRS rewards T-spins (http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/../wiki/index.php/T-spin): they have a better line-cleared/garbage sent ratio. T-spin focused setup is requiered to play with the most skilled players.

[milkolate]

Hhhmm.. so which Tetris variant should I start with?

[Rosti LFC]

Hhhmm.. so which Tetris variant should I start with?

Simple question of what sort of gameplay you prefer.

Multiplayer - SRS (Tetris Online Japan, Blokkendoos or alternatively Tetris DS/Wii for non-PC games)
Single Player - ARS (Tetris The Grand Master 1, 2 and 3, Texmaster)

Most SRS games have poor single player modes, consisting mostly of gimmicky scoring. Time attack is all that there really is for single-player SRS. On the other hand there's no notable multiplayer ARS, and the only online modes you can have for ARS are on games like Blokkendoos and choosing to use the ARS rotation system.


Really it wouldn't hurt to just download a handful and play whatever takes your fancy.

[Ai]

It's a trap don't play ARS games! Once you start playing ARS style Tetris there is no way back. ^^

No seriously, like already mentioned if you want to be competitive in multiplayer games you should focus on SRS. Almost all (commercialy) available tetris games use SRS. And while you're at it you should definitely start learning how to T-spin.

That doesn't mean you can't enjoy ARS games too if you want to challenge yourself. But from my experience I can tell you that it's very difficult to play both styles and to expect to be a decent player at both. Unless you're talented you will have to be very patient like everyone else. No amount of free time will make you a great player overnight is what I found out a while ago. ;)

Go play some of the games mentioned in the other posts and see what you like. Afterwards you can ask more specific questions to become a better player.

But I urge you to give TGM (ARS) a serious try. You won't regret it!

[KevinDDR]

Yeah, take it from me. I learned by effectively starting with playing a bunch of SRS and TGM3 ARS (which is significantly more forgiving than TAP and TGM1 ARS) and now I just suck at both. I kind of regret not focusing more on TGM1 earlier.

[m:)]

Yeah, take it from me. I learned by effectively starting with playing a bunch of SRS and TGM3 ARS (which is significantly more forgiving than TAP and TGM1 ARS) and now I just suck at both. I kind of regret not focusing more on TGM1 earlier.



if you suck at both then what does that make me??? http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_lol.gif

[colour_thief]

Some food for thought for people who say ARS doesn't have competitive versus... The Dreamcast version of Sega Tetris had online versus with rankings and it had a very dedicated and hardcore scene. Of course, the server has long been taken offline, but it was great while it lasted.

It would be so awesome if a new fan server was made for it, the way they've done with some other DC games.

[muf]

It would be so awesome if a new fan server was made for it, the way they've done with some other DC games.
It would be even more awesome if a fan server was made, and the online capability of the DC version backported to the NAOMI version!

[Rosti LFC]

Yeah, take it from me. I learned by effectively starting with playing a bunch of SRS and TGM3 ARS (which is significantly more forgiving than TAP and TGM1 ARS) and now I just suck at both. I kind of regret not focusing more on TGM1 earlier.

"Suck" is a bit of an exaggeration there.
If you regret not focusing more on TGM1 earlier then you should do so now. It just takes a bit of dedication and discipline to play TAP Master and Death rather than Ti Master and Shirase. At least if you know where your problems lie you can attack them and improve in the areas you need to.

[iphys]

Wow, I've never heard of anyone making a conscious decision to be a competitive Tetris player -- usually it just hooks people by addiction. I think you should just play a bunch of different versions and see what you find most fun, because if it's fun it won't be a chore to train. Going from Gameboy Tetris to TGM might be too much of a leap, so I'd say start with the easier SRS games for at least a short while and switch to TGM later if you want to be hard core.

Maybe I'm old-school but my favourite thing is playing marathon and challenging myself to improve my high score. A lot of people seem to prefer doing head-to-head battle because they want to win against a human being, but it makes me feel bad to make other people lose and I hate losing when other people rub it in, so that's not as much fun for me. I think it sort of depends on your personality what you'll prefer.

[caffeine]

Maybe I'm old-school but my favourite thing is playing marathon and challenging myself to improve my high score. A lot of people seem to prefer doing head-to-head battle because they want to win against a human being, but it makes me feel bad to make other people lose and I hate losing when other people rub it in, so that's not as much fun for me.
Suit yourself, but to me there's no greater feeling than the one where you're playing as fast as you can trying to out-add your opponent while nervously downstacking as the garbage piles up. The intensity of playing an equally skilled or better player--trying like hell not to top out, trying hard as you can to out pace him piece for piece, garbage for garbage... it's elating. I love the thrill of the kill!

[milkolate]

Wow, I've never heard of anyone making a conscious decision to be a competitive Tetris player -- usually it just hooks people by addiction. I think you should just play a bunch of different versions and see what you find most fun, because if it's fun it won't be a chore to train. Going from Gameboy Tetris to TGM might be too much of a leap, so I'd say start with the easier SRS games for at least a short while and switch to TGM later if you want to be hard core.

Maybe I'm old-school but my favourite thing is playing marathon and challenging myself to improve my high score. A lot of people seem to prefer doing head-to-head battle because they want to win against a human being, but it makes me feel bad to make other people lose and I hate losing when other people rub it in, so that's not as much fun for me. I think it sort of depends on your personality what you'll prefer.

Hhhhhmm... Actually, I'm slowly leaning towards just excelling in single player marathon mode, but maybe move one to be a VS player later on. It is quite fun to go for high scroes.

[Rosti LFC]

Hhhhhmm... Actually, I'm slowly leaning towards just excelling in single player marathon mode, but maybe move one to be a VS player later on. It is quite fun to go for high scroes.

In which case I can stop trying to give a balanced argument and say you should go for the TGM series. Easily the most entertaining and challenging single player versions of Tetris out there.

[milkolate]

Hhhhhmm... Actually, I'm slowly leaning towards just excelling in single player marathon mode, but maybe move one to be a VS player later on. It is quite fun to go for high scroes.

In which case I can stop trying to give a balanced argument and say you should go for the TGM series. Easily the most entertaining and challenging single player versions of Tetris out there.

How do you play it? I'm currently playing it via Zinc... It just sucks that I can't save the highscore.

[Rosti LFC]

I use Texmaster for general play. The fact that all my runs are automatically saved as replays and are easily converted into AVI files is very nice, as is the little records display to the right of the playing field.
Obviously though when going for records I have to use the real thing, but you can train on Normal Texmaster for a while and then play the proper TGM1 game now and again to set genuine records.

[Ai]

It's indeed better to practice in Texmaster first for a while until you can get S grades easily.

How do you play it? I'm currently playing it via Zinc... It just sucks that I can't save the highscore.
Normally the game saves the leaderboard in ZinC and MAME automatically. To get listed in the Grandmaster Ranking you need to achieve at least the grade S1 within 7 minutes. The Todays Ranking is reset every time you restart the game. You can make MAME act like an arcade machine that is powered on 24/7 if you use a hiscore.dat file though. But TGM doesn't run perfectly on MAME...

If you need more details just pm me and I will try to help you out!

[m:)]

the top three scores are always saved for me, with the bottom three scores being reset when the program is launched.

[milkolate]

the top three scores are always saved for me, with the bottom three scores being reset when the program is launched.

So it's automatic even if I ESC from Zinc?

[m:)]

dunno on that one.

[Rosti LFC]

I don't recall ZiNc ever saving my records, but I know it can and I never really questioned what was up with my setup that stopped it from doing so.
I just had them all written down on a sheet of paper and screenshots.

[Kitaru]

the top three scores are always saved for me, with the bottom three scores being reset when the program is launched.

So it's automatic even if I ESC from Zinc?
Anything that is in the all-time ranking should be automatically saved. The daily records are dropped when you quit. S3 is the lowest grade you can get onto the all-time records by default, so it might be some time before you get a record saved if you're just starting. (EDIT: Whoops, I saw Ai's post and it threw doubt into my mind. Upon checking, S1 is the bottom of the all-time board by default and S3 is at the top. Sorry about that. :s)

I've only ever had ZiNc drop my all-time records once. It was quite bizarre. If I recall correctly, I think it even reverted to an older set of rankings, which left me more confused than it would have if it had just reset to the defaults.