In TAP 500-600, 700-800, and 900-999 are generally easier because of the timing changes. 600-700 and 800-900 is where it's extremely easy to miss it. In Ti, it's trivial until the speed plateaus at 700. 700-800, 800-900, and 900-999 are where it's easy to miss it. I can lock all of Ti Master, and I feel I'll get my section cools unless I really don't deserve them for the most part. TAP is fickle by comparison, and I'll often feel cheated out of my "cools".
Bah, I just realized I was looking at TGM2's M-Roll conditions and not TAP's. I knew something was weird. After reevaluating this, I deem both TAP and Ti equally difficult regarding the 2 second rule. I would agree that for TAP, it's quite easy to miss 600-700 and 800-900 like you said ct. The same would go for Ti at the speed plateau of 1200. I don't understand how TAP would be any more fickle than Ti in this regard.
Well, do you understand what I mean when I say Ti has "2.86 seconds" of flex by the same metric as TAP? 2 seconds /(70/100 levels) = 2.86 2.86 > 2 and that's all there is to it.
That doesn't make sense to me. The player's "flex" (if I understand correctly, you're talking about margin for error) time is determined by his performance in the previous section + 2 seconds. The length of the section does not matter at all. As long as the player can match his previous section time subtracting 2 seconds, the extra 2 seconds is equivalent regardless of section length.
http://www.tetrisconcept.com/wiki/index.php?title=Tetris_The_Grand_Master_3_Terror-Instinct#Section_COOL.2FREGRET_System So, Ti uses a 70 level cool system right? And TAP uses a 100 level system. Those 30 levels make all the difference. If a player can do 100 levels within x seconds +/- 2 seconds, then they can make 50 levels within x/2 seconds +/- 1 second.
I'll admit, the 2.86 does make sense when you reason it out that way. However, something else dawned on me. TAP's delays still decrease with each section after 500. Wouldn't that more than make up for the 0.86 seconds?
That's why I said it was only a big deal in TAP for 600-700 and 800-900. Also recall that I mentioned Ti's faster speed as making things easier. Not only do the previews and Hold allow for greater consistency, but the faster speed means that there is a smaller time difference between a full screen and an empty screen. Even if it's an issue with fewer sections in TAP, I argue that you're more likely to randomly miss one of these sections with relatively solid play than you would be in Ti. If a player is not managing his screen height to appease the cool system, and is otherwise playing very well, the random variation in screen height can make you miss a cool more easily in TAP than Ti. In Ti a missed cool is more likely to be the result of a dive in play quality... Which is a perfectly legitimate reason to deny a cool.
For 600-700, it's understandable as the only thing that decreases is 9 frames of line clear and you might not clear 6 lines for whatever reason. But for 800-900, you get a decrease of 4 frames of ARE and 6 frames of line clear which is plenty enough to offset the 0.86. The disadvantage in stacking consistency due to one preview and no hold is a separate issue. The faster speed in Ti does not give it any advantage over TAP in terms of the difference between a full and empty screen as far as I see. The smaller time difference in stacking a tetris accounts for itself when you hit the next section and have to stack even faster to beat that. The player is just as vulnerable to missing a cool from not managing the screen height in Ti as in TAP.
Well, I still disagree with you. The higher TPS in Ti makes raising the height of the screen between checkpoints less of an issue. But... Let's just ask KAN what he thinks next time we see him.
Higher TPS to me means that you'll decrease the time you take to reach the current checkpoint, which raises the bar for the next checkpoint. The cycle repeats. But yeah, let's just ask KAN for his opinion. Does he play much TAP anyhow? PS. This topic has sort of drifted off into a comparison between TAP and Ti.
I will admit that a good strategy would be to spend *00-*70 maintaining a clean stack and then line attacking the crap out of the remaining 30 levels. If you can make at least 3 tetrises from *70-*99 (maybe a little earlier than *70 to sneak in a fourth), then you're in good shape and the next cool requirement is not as demanding.
that strategy will lead to lower grades overall. tetrising more often yields much higher internal grades. therefore, it's better overall to tetris from x00 to x70, and cleanly stack from x70 to x99. That said, if you look at many GM replays, even though they have sub-40 second seection times at the beginning, they still stack high long before they reach 70! It seems stacking high simply allows for more tetrises in the long run. it lets you take maximum advantage of the streaks of Is that show up. Raising the bar is a non issue, except for the case where you went into a section with a high stack, and left it with a low one.
Sorry to bump, but I just realized something: The section cool system's primary purpose has nothing to do with speed. I mean, the baselines are there to keep things sensible and to make sure that you're adhering to a fairly undemanding threshold of play quality, but add all the regret conditions together and you essentially get a 10:28:00 time limit for the m-roll. This leads me to believe that Master Mode doesn't put much emphasis at all on speed, just reasonably mistake-free play. For example, if you're able to reach level 070 in 30 seconds or whatever, then if you keep up the pace and continue stacking just as you stacked before, then you should have no problems whatsoever with going from 100 to 170 in 32 seconds because your quality of play hasn't lowered by any significant degree. Excellent playing doesn't make it harder on the player, the game just expects you to maintain an even quality of play no matter how good you are. As far as I'm concerned, if you miss a cool then it's because you made too many mistakes or didn't recover efficiently enough from them, never because you made seven tetrises in the last section and you only made four in the current section. The only reason I can think of why you would feel cheated out of a cool is because of the granularity of the grading system making smaller mistakes have more impact on the result. And of course, the stragglers who can barely make the baseline requirements will most likely have a lower internal grade due to general slowness and less efficient stacking. It's almost as if these two independent systems naturally create a single checks-and-balances system. But I digress. The point is that if you spend an even amount of time stacking and clearing lines with few accidents up to 999, then you should never miss a cool.
