How do you play in 300/400+ ?

Thread in 'Strategy' started by PetitPrince, 29 Mar 2011.

  1. I very often die near 370 ± 50. Also, I'm very slow (my Death record is 500 in 4:09:06, which the slowest time sub-500 ). Why ?

    Self-analysis:

    Death 300+ doesn't trigger my panic mode anymore. I think can reasonably think about the stack and try to build something instead of "omgomgomg survive survive MISSDROP !!11 oh I'm dead.".
    Still, I'm very often near the top at the end off the 300 section, resulting in a quick death when the speed is becoming really an issue for me.
    400+ either triggers my panic mode or my flow state. I can only rely on instinct. Dunno if it's good or bad.

    ----

    I think I often make move that force me to make slow, suboptimal move (complicated overhang, singles). Also, I try to manual lock in 300+ but that's far from always.

    ----
    Questions:
    • What's your strategy in the 300 section ? Is there some safe move I don't know ?
    • Same question for 400+.
    • Sub-300: how can I reach your speed ?

    Sample games, ~10 games featuring my current best (.inp, sdlmame 0.137)(played in mame64, shmupmame; I updated my launcher a few day after that)
     
  2. Depends.
    If I lock at 300, I will feel comfortable at 400. If I lock at 400, I will feel comfortable at 500.
    My main problem is, I still struggle to lock at 400 AND keep the stack clean.
    If I reach 300 with a pyramidal stack, I will go for tetrises. If not, I will go for the most possible flat stack.
     
  3. Amnesia

    Amnesia Piece of Cake

    What's your strategy in the 300 section ? Is there some safe move I don't know ?
    ==> just lock and fuck the game like you don't want to be.

    Same question for 400+.
    ==> just fuck it more

    Sub-300: how can I reach your speed ?
    ==> by using C, MDMA or GHB. :twisted:
     
  4. Amnesia

    Amnesia Piece of Cake

    More seriously, I tried 1 time kevin's tactic, the tactic he used to perform a fast lv 9XX : just downstack in looking for the lowest singles or doubles..
    I don't why but it is pretty efficient.
     
  5. and remember jago's advice: keep the left side of your stack clean ! (which you can change in "if you feel like you are going to have the slightest hesitation with one tetromino, just throw it flat to the right")
     
  6. Amnesia

    Amnesia Piece of Cake

    Use jago's strategy, ore use mine :

    keep the 4-5-6-7 row clean, and mess on the rest..
     
  7. COL

    COL

    After 300 the gameplay changes
    1) BAN from your gaming style moves such double tapping, altough they are still feasible at 300+ they are too much risky.
    Here's how I do it:
    0-300: I play normally
    300-400 far less double tapping
    400+ I play 500 style (only simple moves, i stop worrying about anything, if there's holes it's OK, there's no time available to think about anything, multiple tapping ONLY in case of step reset- so that i save time to think :p)

    2) what about manlocking?
    Watch your next piece instead. The idea is to plan the placement the tetromino displayed on "next" WHILE you are doing the moves (you've previously planned ^^) to put the current tetromino. Manual locking will be a lot easier at 300+ speed if you do this and you'll play faster.

    Practice advice:
    a)Play 500 a lot (even if you die a lot)
    b)Play from the beginning and force yourself to NEVER use double tapping: only DAS and simple right/left moves are allowed. Do this for a few weeks to get used to the less harmful moves available at 400+
     
  8. Amnesia

    Amnesia Piece of Cake

    Double taping can be safely used even at DEATH 500 but at one condition :
    the first tap must be performed as a "DAS tap", the second DAS is done after the tetrimino has moved one cell by the DAS, if you do that you can do the second one with almost no risk. So it become DAS-tap. It is a frame by frame manoeuver but it is not insanely hard when you are well used with the timing.

    3 tap must be absolutly excluded from 0-999 (I am not saying it is what I do..)

    No human can perfom a triple tap without being fucked up at DEATH 500.

    Be very attentive and accurate when you do 1 tap, make sure it won't be DASed and bring your tetrimino one cell to far.
     
  9. I need to do this a lot. Now that I have gotten a new death record (will be posted shortly) this is my only goal for the rest of carnival, to be able to force myself to play without "risky" doubletaps (nonrisky doubletaps are okay) and triplerotates (garrhhhhhggg).

    My current strategy for getting M looks very roughly like:
    300-400: manlock. play as if it was 0-299, except faster faster faster.
    400-500: no manlocking at all. focus on cleaning stuff up; try to dig down as low as possible.

    ...or something.
     
  10. I kinda agree with Amnesia's "DAS-tap". If you're confident and you got the timing, then go for it. If you're unsure, just don't double tap.

    Personally I lock 300-400 nowadays, because it got pretty manageable over the months and it also helps with finding simple moves. Good skimming and compromising is pretty helpful to survive.
    400-500 can be a bitch, though, which is why I practised 500 a lot.

    For sub-300:
    1) Avoid level stops (applies for 300-500 as well :p)!
    2) Find a fast locking rhythm.
    3) Never hesitate, you have to know what you're doing next all the time.

    Eventually you will hit 300 @ 2:05:00, survive the next two sections and get to 500 in less than 3:25:00. :awe:
     
  11. Forgive me for not understanding the terminology, but what's a "DAS tap"?
     
  12. Normally it's DAS and tap back [from wall], but it looks like in this case they're talking about DAS one and tap into: pre-charge DAS and allow it to iterate once, return the stick to neutral, then do a natural tap shift in the same direction. It takes a high degree of precision with such fast DAS, but you're getting the first shift more or less "for free," so you can certainly get away with another single tap after that.

    It's funny to see it proposed as a move for TGM, I had only really thought about it for getting pieces to the wall in NES when DAS doesn't quite cut it.
     
  13. Not like it's official terminology, though.
     
  14. almost feels like a vanilla double tap seems easier than this fancy DAS business (doesn't it require frame-perfect timing?)
     
  15. If you have a reset, you might just be better off doing a regular double tap. If you have to fit both taps into the space of one lock delay period, being able to frontload the first input would be a valuable asset. It does require very precise timing, but your other option is trying to tap as close to piece entry as possible (but under no circumstances before it),trying to squeeze in another tap before lockdown, then trying to prepare yourself for the next piece. With the DAS-tap, you can almost treat the move as a single tap after the DAS timing is successful.

    I think they're both dangerous, frankly, haha. Pick your poison.
     
  16. Play as fast as you can, never stop manual locking, don't change the style you're playing within a game and with a bit luck you'll reach 500 or not..

    No seriously, i pretty much second DDRKirbys approach:
     
  17. I should add as an addendum that "faster faster faster" doesn't mean you should actually try to push yourself to go faster, but rather the game is just faster as a natural consequence of the timings. You might have to make some decisions more "hastily" than you might have otherwise because you can't afford to spend time rethinking a piece placement or else you'll screw yourself over.

    If you have the ability to do timing that precise, wouldn't you theoretically just be able to do a skillDAS move by just letting DAS iterate twice? Unless we're talking about some crazy situation where you have to tap once, then rotate or something, then tap again. Which to me just seems way too fancy xD

    Doing an alternative placement =P (but at my current state I probably just go for the doubletap out of habit)
     

Share This Page