See title. Beyond approximately Lv350 of TAP Master mode, the probability of suffering tetromino dyslexia, rotation dyslexia, or generally retarded misdrops shoots through the roof and I'm not sure why. Additionally, I make a lot of amateur mistakes upon reaching 20G, but that's mainly because I'm not used to shifting to a mindset where I know I can't just DAS pieces into corners with the force of a thousand suns. It's jarring, and I have very little 20G experience to back me up. But what I'm really curious about is why I fall apart after reaching about 3G. It happens too often, and while I can reach Grade 1, I usually die at around Grade 3 as a result. It sure as hell doesn't help my quest for S1 when the only way to get though the extreme-G sections is to just go full Super Saiyan and be praying. So, ITT: tips to not suck, "you just suck, practice moar"
AwkwardG... That takes a lot of time. My only advice would be to tap repeatedly when you get close to those sections, but I'll let other people speak about it
I think what you have to keep in mind is that sub-20G is like puberty. It's very awkward and by the time you get used to it you're already past it, but it enables you to do things you can do in neither 0G nor 20G. The easiest way to overcome it is to play very slowly and essentially treat it like a slow 20G, that is don't DAS until the piece has landed, after which you have the same mobility as in 20G. The most powerful way to play imho is to treat it like a "cheating mode 20G" where your pieces don't quite get stuck in places where they would in 20G, which is great for cleaning up the stack to enter 20G with a low stack. The main advice I can give you is not to half-ass any moves. You have to really decide where you want to place a piece and fully commit to it because only then can you charge enough DAS to jump over gaps and holes. Once your piece lands just tap carefully and remember you have a lot of lock delay at these levels, so don't panic.
Muf's advice is pretty decent. The other typical way of handling almost-20G is to keep a reasonably high stack. Not particularly helpful if you're really bad at 20G as well, but it makes things predictable because you're basically restricting yourself to 20G. The main piece of advice I'd give, kind of following on from what muf said about not half-assing things, is that if you're not sure if the piece will go over a ledge, don't try it. Having a piece not do exactly what your brain is expecting it to do (such as getting stuck where you didn't realise it would, or accidentally double-locking pieces), and being forced to change things up on the fly with the active piece still in play, is one of the biggest killers in a Tetris game. If in the spur of the moment you're not 100% confident you can get a piece where you want to, then pick a different spot, because your second best alternative will almost always be better than the "oh shit it didn't work oh fuck what do I do oh god now it's locked in a horrible place" panic on the occasions where it doesn't work. That's not to say don't experiment ever - if you never try out things that merely *might* work, you'll never learn and get a grasp of exactly where the line is for what you can and can't get away with. But save the experimenting for runs where things are going shitty, not runs where you've had a super clean 0-300. The easiest way to keep control of those situations is to be super conservative and only go for piece placements and movements you're 100% sure on. That way you don't get nasty surprises.
It's starting to sound like highG is worse than 20G, funny enough. Additionally, I tried out 700-899 speeds in a certain remake and found it oddly comfortable compared to 500-699 speeds. If I may ask, how important is it for me to try to play fast at this level of play?
For TAP Master it's important to a degree, but not really until you're starting to hit 999 on a regular basis. TAP has decay on the grade points, so playing especially slowly can make it harder to rank up, but for the most part the way the grade system works means that more level = more grades to a far greater extent than slow speed = fewer grades, assuming you can Tetris and not just struggle on with singles and doubles. If you can clear just a handful of Tetrises at 750-999 in TAP then you'd be doing badly to not be at least S7.
0-99, 100-199: Capable of pretty clean sub-1:10 sections, or at least about 1:15 each. Straight Tetrises aside from stack fixing, raising the 9th column, etc. 200-299: Game slowly begins to push on me, still pretty clean though. Still smacking I pieces in the Tetris hole. Bronze SK around here on a good run. 300-399: The most I push at this point is man-locking about half the pieces, things can get a little messy now. Tetrises dwindle. 400-499: shit gets real at this point, messes will possibly be made 500-599: Oh god help I was too focused on awkwardG no dad don't do this I'm scared (usually, sometimes this goes... okay) 600-699: If 500-599 went okay, THIS section is the "help me I'm scared" one 700+: people get this far? Basically, I figure that I probably play fast enough in the slow parts of the game that, by the time I start chugging, the game is already going plenty fast on its own to hopefully stave off that decay That said, I have never entered 20G with a grade of 1, always 2, so clearly I am doing something terribly wrong. I currently aspire for S1 and reaching 700+, with a long term goal of a Green Line run (orange, maybe? nah...). Basically I suck.
I would not be concerned. Most people who can clear TAP have played the game for multiple years and even then, some of those people never do. I would wait until you've spent a good year or two playing to worry about your progress.
Yeah, quite a lot of people seem to be getting frustrated and posting threads because they're not 20G experts after a couple of months. I started TGM sometime in the second half of 2006. My first record posted for TAP was S2 - 769 @ 9:15:76, on 29th March 2007 I got S4 in April 2007 I got S7 in October 2007. S9 sometime May-July 2008 First M grade July 2011 Admittedly I am not the fastest improving player - especially given TAP Master was probably one of my more ignored modes and my Tetris playing slowed down massively when I started uni late 2008, but either way this shit takes years. Be happy with the small improvements and that you're not at a stage where your next grade or time attack improvement is probably months away
So should I be concerned that I only improved from '1' to 'S2' in 6 years? And as of yet best so far since I got a cabinet and pcb is S1. Slow progress, haha. I notice improvement in time though, but not in grade or stacking and clearing tetrises after 300.
Wow, I guess I just expect more from myself than I'm doing. I can't help but feel that I should be progressing faster than I am, but as it stands, I've reached TAP Grade 1 after about... 2 months of playing, having never played a Tetris game before. It's reassuring to know that the journey ahead of me is a long one. Wait, that isn't reassuring. Ugh, maybe I should just play more TAP. Thank you, Tetrisconcept, for acting as my enabler! : P
I found my experience to be pretty identical to yours. I'm at a place where I can fairly regularly get to level 350-ish and then I lose my shit for some reason. The advice here has been pretty helpful guys, thanks.
I'm still learning myself, and usually fall apart around level 6-700, so I can't give you any 20G advice apart from how I train it myself, but playing some Death Mode to get used to 20G, which will make handling 3G+ speeds much, much easier! Getting used to the steep speed increase in Death Mode, will also make Master Mode feel a lot more lenient. That kind of stuff is comforting for me to hear. I really can't shake the feeling that I'm just not improving no matter how much I play. That said, I haven't been playing for ~3 months and need to regain some ground right now...
