Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

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> Wouldn’t that problem be solved by simply setting both players seed value to the same?

Lets say drop 100 through 110 were unlucky SZSZSZSZ pattern. The faster player will come across the "unfortunate" pattern first and then lose. In contrast, the slower player will only be on drop 80.

The bag system ensures that high-speed play is possible for both players, and favors the faster player in all cases. A true randomized system would have "unfortunate" patterns which will eventually kill the faster player.

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With that being said: Tetris Classic competitions seed the two competitors with the same pattern. But similarly, Tetris Classic has no concept of "garbage damage".

In Tetris Friends / Puyo Puyo Tetris / etc. etc, you "damage" the opponent by doing a Tetris, or a T-spin (a complicated maneuver). Its actually a very good, very well balanced game (although some would argue that "combos" are a bit strong in the current iteration of the damage formula).

> Lets say drop 100 through 110 were unlucky SZSZSZSZ pattern. The faster player will come across the "unfortunate" pattern first and then lose. In contrast, the slower player will only be on drop 80.

Does the faster player get nothing in return for their speed advantage? If so, then shouldn't they just play slower? If not, then aren't they compensated fairly for the risk of running into a difficult sequence earlier in the game?

> Does the faster player get nothing in return for their speed advantage?

In Guidelines Tetris, you only deal damage if you do a sufficiently complicated maneuver. A Tetris (4-line clear), a T-Spin ("spinning" a T-block into place), or a "Combo" (repeatedly clearing lines non-stop). As such, you only can do a major damage from I-blocks (a 4-line clear / Tetris), or T-blocks (TSpins).

No other block in the game can deal major damage by themselves. So the placement of I blocks and T-blocks is fundamental.

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Also note: Garbage is a "comeback" mechanism: large amounts of garbage "feed" the opponent lines to perform a combo with. If you deal non-lethal damage to the opponent, it is common for the opponent to use the garbage you sent him to "combo" into a large amount of damage back to you.

As such: the game becomes more garbage is sent around. There is a chance the opponent can see a 12-combo through the garbage you sent them. Its difficult for the untrained players to see combos, but it definitely comes into play at higher-levels.

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The current system (including the bag-randomizer) has been carefully balanced between many issues, and playtested for years. Aside from occasional issues (ex: TSpin singles becoming too easy in an early version: leading to the development of "TSpin Minis" to nerf that technique), the overall Tetris Guidelines rules are quite good. I recommend playing a modern competitive version of Tetris and trying it out yourself.

Combo-play is definitely considered one of the strongest strategies right now. Moving to a true-randomizer will necessarily nerf Tetris / T-Spin play, because you can no longer predictably get Tetris or T-blocks.

In my experience, most players want to play Tetris: that is, create Tetrises (4-line clears). Combo play is certainly fun, but it makes sense to "buff" the canonical "Tetris" strategy of the game since that's what people expect. Tetris is the name of the game after-all, and you can only play "Tetris" if you have some kind of assurances that I-blocks are on the way.

Nerfing Tetris and buffing Combos seems to be the wrong direction for balance. If anything, Combos need to be nerfed.

Perfect-clear play is also lovely to watch. Computers are better than humans, but when a human perfect-clear player comes in, its truly intense and fun to watch (and play against). Perfect-clear play relies upon the bag-randomizer to a severe degree, and isn't even that strong of a strategy (a good perfect-clear player needs to threaten 3x perfect clears within 20 seconds to be competitive at high levels). Moving to "true random" would erase this obscure style of play completely.

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In any case, there's a big community which prefers to play with true randomizers: the "Tetris Classic players". They play by a separate set of rules entirely.

As a Guidelines Tetris player, I obviously have my bias. I think the game is more fun with Tetris, Combos, and Perfect-clear openings in play.

Difficult to extract the pertinent info out of that, but I take it you're saying that the player is compensated for speed. They can send more garbage and increase their chances of winning by placing pieces faster. In which case, that undermines the earlier point that bag randomizer is better because it rewards fast play. In reality, both kinds of randomizers reward fast play, as the net advantage of playing fast with the classic randomizer is still positive.

> as the net advantage of playing fast with the classic randomizer is still positive.

Only if T-blocks and I-blocks come. If there's a drought of T-blocks and I-blocks, then the combo-player wins.

Combo is currently the strongest strategy, under the current Tetris Guidelines.

If you have "too many" I blocks, you run out of Tetris room very quickly (You can only form a Tetris if you've built up 4-rows of 36-minos, with the last 4-square hole being where you use the I-block). If you have "too few" I blocks, you literally can't clear the hole and die.

My overall point is that the bag-randomizer "buffs" Tetris and T-spin players, while "nerfing" combo play. I argue that Tetris-players are the "main strategy", and probably should be buffed to be stronger.

Currently tetris players are not the ones winning usually. Combo is still really strong because it basically stun locks you by throwing garbage at you and a sufficiently strong combo player can make you top out from an empty playing field even if you clear three tetrises back to back.

Tetris players also get wrecked by t-spinners as t-spins do double damage compared to how many pieces you clear. The t-spin is the only piece that can send 6 lines back. And with about three bags worth of pieces you can do a t-spin triple + t-spin double + t-spin single = 12 lines.

Only way you can top that is with three all-clears which you most likely won't get.

With the current rules, if you wanna win, you gotta be either t-spinning or comboing in pvp tetris.

Its great to see another good Guidelines player discussing these issues :-) Its clear you have a lot of experience in this matter.

You are correct in that TSpins are a great upstacking strategy. Tetris however is a downstacking / defensive strategy.

Consider a "Counter-Tetris": You clear 4-lines of garbage, while dealing 4-damage (+B2B). That's a "effective garbage differential" of 8-lines (+B2B) (you lost 4-garbage, while dealing 4-damage to the opponent). This ideal doesn't always happen, but its far more powerful than a TSpin Triple.

It is impossible to build a TSpin Triple out of garbage, you MUST create a specially crafted overhang. TSpin Triples always leave an overhang. As such, TSpin Triples and TSpin Doubles can at best, clear 1-line of garbage. (and a TST will block your garbage hole until the TST is executed AND the overhang is somehow cleared).

TST into 1-line of garbage is 7 "garbage differential" (2-lines of upstack, 1-garbage cleared + 6 damage sent + B2B). TSD into 1-line of garbage is 5 garbage differential (+B2B) (1-line of upstack, 1-garbage cleared + 4 damage sent + B2B).

Counter-Tetris is 4-garbage lines cleared, 4-damage sent+B2B (8-garbage differential). 3-garbage lines cleared is 7-differential, and 2-garbage lines cleared is 6-differential.

As such, even a 2-garbage + 2-upstack Tetris is more "garbage differential efficient" than all TSpin Doubles, while a 3-garbage+1-upstack beats a pure-upstack TSpin Triple.

Just don't upstack a Tetris, and you'll do fine. Upstacking for a Tetris is grossly inefficient compared to Upstacking TSD or TST.

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My recommended strategy is: TSD for upstack, Tetris for downstacking. TSD keeps the "hole" open for an emergency Tetris if the opponent starts to spike you (an incoming I OR T block can be executed).

A TST overhang blocks the hole however forcing ordering. (you MUST use a T-block), and the overhang will block the I-block until you clean it up somehow.

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Anyway, I argue that going for Tetris should be a stronger strategy... because "Tetris" is literally the name of the game. The "namesake" strategy is weaker than people expect as it is, weakening it further by using a full-randomizer would probably be a bad idea.

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