Or slightly before this, get rid of garbage canceling. Which allows a sufficiently autistic player to play slightly behind and memorize the other player's piece sequence, or to play slightly ahead and memorize the other player's garbage sequence. I used to do this all the time with garbage in Tetris & Dr. Mario: I'd send garbage to the opponent, watch for it to show up in the other player's field, drill down to the corresponding hole in my own field, and then tetris back any garbage I got, which was useful with the (now ridiculous) way that game's garbage was aligned. But even with random garbage, knowing what's coming next would help with T-spin forecasting. I believe that's already part of the guideline. Tetris DS already appears to do nearly this, inserting about 31 frames for a single, 32 for a double, 33 for a triple, and 34 for a tetris. (Lockjaw does the same thing.) All three versions on the NES (BPS, Tengen, Nintendo), plus the Game Boy version, have zero to negligible additional delay per line after the line clear delay, and so does TGM. In fact, the only Tetris product I can think of with a delay roughly proportional to number of lines cleared was Atari's arcade game.
"the only Tetris product I can think of with a delay roughly proportional to number of lines cleared was Atari's arcade game." i was mainly thinking of tetris online japan. and good point about garbage canceling. in a 1v1 game, i don't see any use in it. seems like planning a cancel would only work against you as you'd lose the time advantage. which leads me to what you were talking about with identical garbage. waiting to see what pieces the opponent gets is dumb because of piece preview, but worse so because you lose time advantage. seeing what garbage the opponent gets by playing ahead could be useful, but that's okay since we're motivating players to play ahead now (rather than waiting passively). in any case, it is much more fair than one opponent getting a lucky four garbage rows lined up (will happen 0.111111% of the time) where the other player gets four rows with none lined up (don't feel like doing the math).
Garbage cancelling is meant as a form of defense. If you're about to top out, you don't want to attack your opponent with 4 lines of garbage. You want to cancel the incoming lines. Without canceling, you'd send 4 rows and recieve just as much back if the other player sends a tetris, meaning you're back to the row height you were previously at. But if you had canceled 4 lines of garbage instead, your field will now be 4 rows lower. This adds another tactical aspect to the game in terms of timing your garbage.
More like "piece pay-per-view" in that case though. Not if you play behind and make TSDs while the opponent is waiting for I tetrominoes to bust out a tetris.
what i wouldn't give to hear a TTC representative say that. and that's why it's so hard to put a strong player away when they're near the top. you play well all game to gain an advantage, then the other player starts timing their line clears rather than trying to kick ass to get back in the game. what if each player receives 2 lines of garbage when a tetris is countered with a tetris? countering a tetris with a triple would give you 3 lines and the other player 1.
Hmm, both players have the capability to counter. If the weaker player is not able to defend against the stronger player, but the stronger player can defend against the weaker player, then wouldn't the better player have won anyway? Even though both players can turtle, I think it would be better to push the game towards offense like you suggested if it means the garbage will be random.
i was really talking about a situation where the weaker player is in position to win but can't because the stronger player goes on the defensive. i think it's too easy for the stronger player to get back into the game. the stronger player would still win most of the time because the weaker player is rarely in a position to win.
In any case, I don't bring personal issues I have with any given thing to interfere with morals. Whether I like or hate something, when it comes down to business, that's all it is.
Exactly. The weaker player should not be able to beat a stronger player and countering only reinforces that. Imagine if you take out T-Spins. Sure, the playfield is still even for both players but you just lost an element of depth. The gap between the weaker and stronger player decreases as a result.
i think you may be overly complicating things. canceling or no canceling, the game is fair. with canceling, you encourage passive play. without, you encourage aggressive play. an aggressive game is better to watch visually, and that's what ttc is clearly focusing in on right now. in the end, i don't see canceling being very strategically deep at all. to me, it just seems like it makes the game last a little longer.
Yes, and that is why I said the defensive element should be reduced but not eliminated. Making the game purely agressive is too linear, maybe even boring in my opinion. Canceling plays a huge role in high level TDS matches. It allows a player to tactically get himself out of a potentially bad situation, not unlike combos in TOJ.
As disgusted as I am with all this, I stand by the concept of "confidentiality" as a universal one. So even with good reason for everyone to have negative feeling towards them, I still give respect where respect is due.
chaos, TC has a tradition of exposing "inside tetris information." now if you were beta testing a new game or something that was clearly your-eyes-only, then i'd understand, but i doubt ttc would care much if a small group of people merely knew of the existence of a user panel. i think it's great they're reaching out to players for feedback. to my knowledge, they don't do that much.
true, but if they're going to put an effort (even if a small one) to say that it's confidential, then I'll just stand by that, because that's just me.
HUH-WAAAT? ok, maybe a noob shouldn't beat a grandmaster, but a 7500 player should beat an 8000 player sometimes. and without garbage countering (or with nerfed countering) each player would have to bust their ass to win, and the 8000 player would still win most of the time. they just wouldn't have the defensive tricks to fall back on in a tough spot.
I think the issue you're bringing up isn't about whether or not to have or to not have defensive maneuvers in the game. It makes no difference whether or not the feature is included because both players are still on an even playfield. I believe that a strong player that is consistently playing at a certain level should always beat a weaker player that is consistently playing at a lower level. That would completely rule out luck. If TDS had no luck factor involved in the gameplay, an always consistent 8000 player should never lose to an always consistent 7,500. Losses and wins should be determined by the player's performance, not though any sort of luck determined by the game.
"but if they're going to put an effort (even if a small one) to say that it's confidential" oh, so the email said it was "confidential"? i didn't know that. in that case you'd be right.
yeah i couldn't agree more. the thing is, some players are at 7500 because they might play really well and beat an 8000 then make dumb mistakes and lose to a 7000 and on the topic of luck: how's about playing a best-of-3? >_>
