It's like Whack-A-Mole, but instead of bopping plastic animals that pop out of holes, you come up with some way to assign a player's performance in Tetris to a set of grades. Same concept, really. Okay, enough stupidity. Basically, while I think that the GRS in TAP is incredibly well balanced and calculated, I believe that it's somewhat superfluous in Ti with its cool/regret system, so I think something far simpler could measure the player's skill. Ideally, it wouldn't involve any sort of scoring system, as I see a game of Tetris as a series of events rather than a cumulative number of line clears. However, this gets unwieldy and treads arbitrary ground, which is never good for a well-balanced system. My original idea was to, for each level, detect whether the player's stack has any holes. For every 45-60 levels that the player's stack has no holes, a new grade is given. GTET had a mechanism that detected holes, and this mechanism inspired Mihara to use a non-score based grade system for TGM2. Combine this with a cool/regret system and you have a pretty solid method of measuring skill that isn't abusable. Then I decided to simplify it even further. My logic is that there are only two situations in which a player will make a tetris. The most common would be if the player has a clean stack and a long, one-cell-wide well in which to place the I piece. The other, less common situation would be if the player makes a hole and is trying to recover from it while still keeping up his normal pace. In Ti, a tetris requires 16 levels; 10 for the pieces, 6 for the level bonus. With seventeen grades to be attained with the non-cool/regret portion of the grade system, an even distribution of grades from 000-999 would require a grade to be given roughly every 60 levels. Now, with all of this taken into consideration, this is my ideal GRS: 9-1 S1-S9 M1-M9 Gm Grade requirements: 1. Make 3 tetrises to increase your grade by one. 2. Get a section cool to increase your grade by one. That's it. My reasoning behind rewarding only tetrises is that no player that values his sanity would consistently use a strategy that doesn't involve making tetrises. Three tetrises requires 48 levels, thus naturally creating an even grade curve while giving a bit of leeway. This part of the system would also ensure that the player keeps a clean stack for the majority of the game, as would be required to be able to make tetrises in high quantities. Section cools ensure that the player is efficient in stacking and fixing mistakes, and that he is reasonably fast in doing so. Also in this system, there would be a section cool for 900-999, which will take you from M9 to Gm. There would be no staff roll challenge, as I consider that a bit too gimmicky. The rest of Ti Master's game play elements would be the same. If you managed to read through all of that, congratulations. Now it's your turn to come up with some measure of skill involving grades. The game mechanics of Ti or any TGM game do not necessarily have to be used, nor does the 9-Gm scale. Just nerd out with me, damn it.
i like TGM1 grades, lol. they are the easiest and most simple of all. though i don't understand the letters S, M, MK, MV, MO, etc... by the way, i wanted to ask about it for a long time, what do these letters represent?
Score-based system based on completion, time and line clears in that order. I'll do the numbers later
I came up with one that I was going to implement once I ever got around to programming a TGM-ish game. As a sidenote, it's elemental-themed because I was planning to call the game "The Final Element" or something similarly ridiculous to prevent getting nailed by TTC about it. =P First off, the game would be longer, as I always thought endurance should be a major part of Tetris. Thus, the Elemental Master mode would stop at 1999. Those 1999 levels are divided up into 40 subsections (0-49, 50-99, 100-149, etc). Each subsection will be graded from 0-100 on four facets: Earth: Stability (lack of singles, as typically singles denote garbage clearing. Some leeway would be allowed here for skimming or some mistakes) Air: Deftness (multi-line clears; tetrises give a far greater bonus than triples, which give a far greater bonus than doubles. I was originally thinking just tetrises, but 50 levels is a bit short to grade that) Fire: Speed (subsection time as related to the minimum subsection time, with ~1 to 1.5 second grace before points are deducted) Water: Consistency (subsection time as related to the previous subsection time, with ~1 to 1.5 second grace again before points are deducted) If a facet's grade is greater than the minimum for that subsection (starts small initially and increases later in the game), then your overall grade is incremented by one. (From subsections 1-10, the requirement is 50; from subsections 11-16, the requirement is 60; from subsections 17-22, the requirement is 65; from subsections 23-28, the requirement is 70; from subsections 29-34, the requirement is 75; from subsections 35-40, the requirement is 80) A "perfect" game from 0-1999 would give you 160 grade points. The last 40 come from the staff roll. I was initially thinking of doing the semi-invisible and invisible if you meet a certain requirement, but I'm not sure I like that. (For the curious: the original plan gave 10 grade points for clearing the roll, and 1 point per 6 seconds survival on the semi-invisible roll and 1 point per 2 seconds survival on the invisible roll) I like the thought of playing during the roll, but I don't know any good ways offhand to increment the grade for it. Regardless, I planned for 40 grade points through the roll, so it's definitely there to stay if I ever make this. =P Thus, a complete game gives you grades from 0-200, with designations as follows: Internal Grade 000 = WAS (Complete Waste) Internal Grade 001~050 = 50-1 (In Training: ##th rank) Internal Grade 051~100 = U50-U1 (Understudy: ##th rank) Internal Grade 101~130 = S1-S30 (Student Elementalist: ##th degree) Internal Grade 131~150 = L1-L20 (Lower Tier Elementalist: ##th degree) Internal Grade 151~170 = M1-M20 (Middle Tier Elementalist: ##th degree) Internal Grade 171~180 = H1-H10 (High Tier Elementalist: ##th degree) Internal Grade 181~189 = SM1-SM9 (Submaster Elementalist: #th degree) Internal Grade 190~198 = EM1-EM9 (Elemental Master: #th degree) Internal Grade 199 = EHM (Elemental High Master) Internal Grade 200 = EGM (Elemental Grand Master) The three letter/digit abbreviation would be displayed in high score lists, online rankings, etc., and both the full designation and the abbreviation is shown in the postgame stats screen. The screen would also display time, level, rankings locally and worldwide (assuming online rankings of course), and a graph which shows the distribution of points awarded from the four elements--if you got all 40 possible points from an element, it would be maxed on the graph. (to help visualize, the graph'd kind of look like a diamond with each element in the direction it traditionally occupies, and an internal diamond colored for the elements which grows in each direction. I can whip up a pic if needed) That's all I have for now. It's a wonder what some downtime'll do to you (such as prompt you to come up with ridiculous ideas like TFE, heh). ~EI
Back in the 2-second rule topic (which sounds more like when to pick up dropped food than anything else), I came up with a way to reward speed, combos, and big line clears all in one. Score is lines cleared with this piece * lines cleared so far in this combo * average TPM over past 10 pieces. For example, a tetris-double combo at 80 TPM would give 2240 points for 6 lines: 4 * 4 * 80 = 1280 points 2 * 6 * 80 = 960 points To increase your score in this system: Survive longer. Play faster. Make bigger line clears. Make combos, especially tetris-triple or triple-tetris. Grading is just by score thresholds, like TGM1. TTC already made something called nearly that: Tetris Elements.
I just looked at ElHoppe's post again and it reminded me of a bad Karate school with a million different belts. I thought having 15 or so different M grades was pushing it, but that...
On second thought, the three tetrises system is far too harsh. Here's an earlier revision: singles are worth 5 points doubles are worth 10 points triples are worth 20 points tetrises are worth 40 points when the player gets >=100 points, the points reset to zero and a grade is given. Combine that with the cool/regret system and you essentially get the GRS I explained in the OP with a much more fair amount of leeway.
I think grade recognition systems get too much emphasis. Compare how the qualified GM players play Master 600+, and how they play Shirase. And yet, line clears don't really matter so much in Shirase. The goal is to play cleanly and efficiently, with lots of tetrises. The exact grading system doesn't matter so much... No matter the system, what the game boils down to is honing your strategy and technique to a high level. Who cares exactly what a piano teachers says when he comments on your playing? Different teachers will say different things. But in the end as long as they teach you well, presenting you with progressively more difficult pieces and technical drills, you'll become an excellent pianist over time.
Exactly. The perfect GRS detects that and gives an indication of how well the player is doing. The perfect GRS being a non-abusable, preferably not score-based system. It's just helpful more than anything.
I love that idea, tepples. Here's my idea. In "The Grandmaster Mason," a mason (player) is graded on the same principle of power. Power = Work / Time Work = Masonries raised You raise a masonry when you build four rows of stone simultaneously. Three rows or less are simply not up to company standards. You have 720 stones to build as many masonries as fast as possible. As your coworker becomes more eager to finish up in time for happy hour, he passes you stones faster and faster. This mortar drys quickly, so there's no "action reset" or excessive floorkicking. If you cannot finish at least half of the stones, you receive an Apprentice ranking. You must lay all the stones to rank Master or better. Your power number (Masonries raised / Minutes) determines your skill ranking: < 3 Apprentice >= 3 Senior Apprentice >= 5 Journeyman >= 7 Senior Journeyman >= 10 Master >= 13 Senior Master >= 16 Grandmaster I would need to beta test and study some high level videos to make it more accurate. To compare one mason against the other, the higher ranking mason is better. If both masons have the same rank, the one who finished in less time is better.
what if you find the bastard that keeps making your masonries disappear and hit him in the head with a stone. any bonus points for that?
Right, but scoring on pure t*tr*s count doesn't help beginners, who would end up discouraged with a score of 0. So who's going to be the first to shop this into shape?
Even someone who's just starting out can make one just as long as he knows he should. A brand new player after a couple days could manage Sr. Apprentice by going over 30 TPM and squeezing out three masonries a minute. And anyway, I believe at that super early stage where you can't even make a masonry, you just like playing the game because it's addicting to fit the stones together. I don't think it would discourage the mason.
OH SNAP I just came up with a brilliant, ridiculously simple system for TAP Master and similar modes: grade = floor(((level - seconds) + lines) / 40) The result should range from 0 to 17, or 9 to S9. A small line bonus for triples and tetrises may be desired and Gm would still have to be artificially restricted to the end of the game (I think?), but overall a performance using TAP's GRS and this one should yield similar grades.
just to add my 5cent: my scoring system for cubestorm assigns 1 point for each freed cube. a single line thus gives 10 points. a double line gives 20 points * 2 and a tetris gives 40 points * 4 so this - i think - simplest possible scoring system is just score = cubes_freed * combo because cubestorm has cascade gravity, combo can rise up to 16 or more, if played fast. a all_clear gives 10x20 points. (i.e. just the area / volume of the playfield or pit). to add time pressure, the default mode is limited to 10 minutes. if you already play perfect with lots of combos, your can only increase score if you play even faster. by the way, the latest alpha version has a cascade delay counter. a cascade is over, if no line clear happend after xx msec. each time a line was cleared, this counter resets to xx msec. xx = the time a piece would need to fall from top to bottom (this depends on the level / or mode ) plus 350 msec. this 350 msec allows you to prolong combos even in 20g by dropping pieces in such a way that you delete lines with every dropped piece. but if you think too long, combo counting stops.
