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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ส.ค. 2022
- When the powerful "Rolling" technique was introduced to the NES Tetris scene, people worried that it would break the game. Over a year after that prediction, a match between rollers was so historic that the rules for competitive play might be changed for the first time in the game's 33 year history.
Players featured:
Fractal161: / @fractal161
Dogplayingtetris: / @michaelkhanhofficial
Huffulufugus: / huffulufugus
PixelAndy: / videogamebroselite
Videos featured:
Joseph vs Koryan (2018 CTWC): • CTWC 2018 Top 4 - Pt. ...
Brighton's rolling demonstration: • NES Tetris rolling tut...
Andy Vs Huff (June 2022 CTM): • KILLSCREEN MASTERY! An...
Dog vs Fractal (July 2022 CTM): • WORLD RECORD: Highest ...
Andy vs Nenu (2021 CTWC): • 2021 CTWC Tetris Top 8...
MylesTheGreat: / mylesthegreat
TommyNTG's From Below gameplay: • From Below - 2,230,000...
Music (in order):
FRM - Transistors
Luminist - Kinematica
Chris Doerksen - High Speed Chase
Foewi - Test
Some background:
Tetris for the NES is one of the most played versions of Tetris at a competitive level, stemming back to the 1990 Nintendo World Championships. From there, the game had a small scene for about two decades, until the first account of a maxout score by Harry Hong emerged in 2009. From there, the Classic Tetris World Championships began in 2010. It was initially dominated by only das players, but Koryan and eventually two time world champ Joseph Saelee brought the playstyle of hypertapping to the forefront of the game, causing a new emergence of young tapping players who would go on to break the game. In 2020, Cheez created his own style called rolling, where multiple fingers are used in succession to move pieces. Now, players such as Fractal161 and Dogplayingtetris are using that to completely obliterate previous records, producing incredible landmark achievements along the way. - เกม
It still feels surreal that we'd ever come to a point where Level 29+ is "too playable" for people now
Interesting idea: if both players manage to roll over, the winner will be whoever used the least lines to perform such action
I had the privilege to watch this live, and to talk with Fractal. He’s convinced me that linecaps are important. How to implement that is where there’s been minimal consensus. I prefer having a double speed killscreen implemented at 300 lines with a romhack
I'd say the same thing but at 330 lines. Then you'd have a clean 100 lines of possible killscreen play.
@@Otto910 My reasoning for 300 is that there's a pattern of lines and speed. 130 lines of 18, 100 lines of 19, 70 lines of 29, it goes down by 30 lines every time you speed up. It's an arbitrary extension of a bug, sure, but 100 lines on 29 is also arbitrary.
A fun side effect is that a perfect run from 29-36 is about 721k points, somewhat mirroring the score potential of pre and post
I agree that doubling the kill screen speed is the way to go.
Because level 29 speed is twice as fast as level 19 speed we can have 100 or 150 lines on level 29 speed though.
How would this affect online competitions since you need this romhack now I assume?
The from-below method seems like the best for competitive tetris for me. It basically artificially increases fallspeed smoothly without having to deal with framerate issues. This means that slightly higher tapping speeds will still yield a small advantage while not yielding the possibility of infinitely lining out. Right now watching a chase down is still very hype but when players become more consistent then it will be the same as watching a chasedown after a missdrop on 19speed earlier in history. With garbage coming from below we get that hype back because the game gets more and more difficult which is imo cooler than a hard cap.
I absolutely love 2 minute countdown for a chasedown in Tetris effect connected. No need for line cap, just for time cap after other player in lead topped off.
Maybe 2 minutes is a bit harsh for competitive play, but I agree that the best solution is a chasedown timer. It encourages pre-29 efficiency, post-29 aggression and it doesn't require any changes to the game itself. There is the potential problem of infinite games, so maybe also add an absolute time limit for single games.
@@robinbernardinis love this idea and it doesn’t punish players for being good at a game, it just makes the strategy different
I like the idea of the time cap that Tetris Effect: Connected uses. It encourages risky play, and if you get an insurmountable lead, even encourages topping out on purpose to lock in your win.
I'm not familiar with this option, but that does sound good.
@@dougfile6644 if the player in the lead tops out, a 2 minute countdown starts, and the other player must catch up in that time, or lose.
That's maybe too far gone, but the idea that the time starts ticking when the first player reaches lvl29 is my favorite - it encourages maximum efficiency from both players right from the start, but still keeps the door for comebacks open and prevents such tacticts as you described.
@@petrv.804 But the tactic is good - it encourages not making the game endless.
Like any other show, NES Tetris is about entertainment. Risky games are clearly more entertaining, than conservative games. This means that risk must be encouraged otherwise competitive Tetris will become even more and more marathon like which is not going to attract huge audience. But the question of way to achieve it is still open. I like the idea of the floor more than the line cap.
I agree with this take. I watched the Classic Tetris World Championship for years, and while it was exciting at first seeing players managing to continue play after the kill screen, watching player just hitting singles and doubles for 100+ lines just isn't appealing to me. If players aren't trying to get a tetris, it just doesn't really feel like Classic Tetris to me..
I think it's normal for any competitive game to gravitate towards defensive gameplay. Give a game enough years to solve any aggressive strategy and defensive style always wins.
I say just wait it out. Fractal is the only one who's doing this successfully at the moment. It's easy to think that a very consevative play post 29 is the way to go until the real killscreen but i think we need more data before a big decision that alters the game of competitive classic tetris is made.
Spot on. No one has endurance trained like Fractal. He's put in the work to go beyond everyone else. This basically comes down to should you cap Fractal and a few others or not.
No line cap, but a tetris is required every x number of post kill screen levels
I agree. It would be unfair to Fractal. Why start here, now? Why didn´t they forbid hypertapping or scoring points after the killscreen when Koryan and Joseph entered the scene? Yeah, they had an advantage over the DAS-players, but it´s due to skill. Fractal uses the same controller as anyone else.
I totally agree, my only concern is from the viewer's standpoint. Trying for tetrises beyond lvl 29 is extremely entertaining for the crowd, unlike Fractal's undeniably effective strategy. I definitely would not change the format of the game in the upcoming year, but once the games get longer as both players play defensively and train their stamina, the wait from lvl 29 till 70+, where one player loses won't be much enjoyable.
@@MCFoultier it's not unfair to me because my main reason for playing long lineout games is to get it banned lol. (well, restricted, you get the point)
what i care about is promoting the most excellent gameplay, and I believe encouraging efficiency requires more skill for the player and is more exciting for the audience, not a bad combo.
To put my oppinion in, I don't think a line cap will ever be a good idea, players aim to push the game to its absolute limit, adding a line cap only stops that.
The future looks like it'll involve games going beyond 400 lines each and slowly optimising that, if players learn the new strats, then they deserve to win.
Its worth noting that saying this is an overpowered strategy takes away from fractals skill to keep play on the kill screen.
I look forward to seeing how much further this game will be pushed.
thing is, "pushing the game to its limit" is extremely relative. the current meta pushes the limit of pure survivability, but in doing so we ignore the limits of true killscreen efficiency, which I believe is a much "better" skill and the one I'd rather see explored through competition.
so in my mind the question isn't "do we limit players or not" but "what kind of gameplay do we want to encourage," and I think efficient gameplay is far better in that regard.
oh and for your last note I do think my skill isn't unique and my success will be matched fairly quickly, all it takes is a perspective shift and all of the top rollers have ridiculous mentals lol.
@@fractal161 I agree that efficiency is also a lot more fun to watch as a spectator
@@fractal161 I also want to point out that pre killscreen efficiency has an element of RNG involved to get a very high score, having killscreen Chasedowns while doesn't get rid of the rng still helps give comeback chances to those who haven't had favourable seeds.
I never said your skillset is unique but I don't want this to take away from the fact that what you and many other rollers do to survive at killscreen for so long is extremely impressive.
I am still against a line cap but whatever the community decides is best for them is the best option no matter what it is.
@@fractal161 I think it's admirable that you are arguing against privileging the strat you're clearly the best in the world at. Also I agree we need a line limit.
I think that we should get through this year's CTWC before implementing line caps
I second this.
It's really entertaining to watch. Plus, we're not at the point where every player is like this
Amazing video. Please dont stop making these vids and please dont change your style. Direct, informative and relevant content in Summoning Salt style direction is exactly what we're missing in classic tetris community. No need for unnecessary side stuff. Just direct to the point, just enough pace to keep the viewers interested and not get overwhemed and bored. Thanks good sir!
Great video Cobalt! It's awesome to hear the discussion of options we have to address the insane capabilities of rolling. Super excited for the future of this game :)
My proposal: Vison cap at 330 lines (players blindfolded) and Freedom cap 430 lines (players arrested and incarcerated)
Well, maybe just take their controllers away and give them a stern talking to. Then arrest them at 530 lines...
This was the first video I watched on your channel and the quality of the video alongside how you present (and how cool all of this is) spurred me to watch the rest of the Tetris videos on your channel, and start following the competitive Classic Tetris tournaments myself. The storylines, the history of the game, and the new heights that the game is being taken to are also so fascinating. Thank you very much for these videos.
As someone has already mentioned in the comments, from a spectator's perspective, these chase down sequences are really fun to watch since they have not become the standard and because there is still a lot of skill behind it. So from a spectator's perspective, I don't think the rules currently need to be changed, but it makes sense from a competitor's perspective for linecaps or time caps after the kill screen to be added at some point.
Another reason to have some sort of limit on 29+ is to keep a game from going unreasonably long lengths of time, which is hell for scheduling the tournaments. You have many matches waiting for the 29+ marathon to end. If you have a game where someone lines their way up to 2M+, that will take soooo long
I have made many many suggestions to reduce the tournament lengths. All rejected. These include:
- Qualifying: 1 chance, 1 hour, top score counts
- Top 16 qualify for main bracket
- BO3 for all rounds
- 4 player scenes for all rounds until the Finals
Look at the old WPL tournaments. They do not take long at all. All they needed to do was to change the tournament structure
Time is not really a factor. Boredom is
@@pumpyheart The thing is that I could not watch CTWC because the Top 64 literally took ages to play. I just looked up the results after it was over
Even in the internet era the Top 8 took 7 hours to play 7 matches
Usually the right window for spectator engagement is 2-3 hours. This is why so many sports operate within that time range
@@DanielSong39 I mean, just watch the finals then
@@pumpyheart I may have to just watch starting the semifinals LOL
let's gooo more cobalt content, amazing video as always!
Great video! Now everybody's even more hyped waiting for Scout's linecap video where he unveils his data.
Thanks, it is coming!
Rolling is impressive and the amount of time and dedication it must take to make it viable is nothing short of inspiring. That said, as an spectator myself, it kinda made the game less exciting for me to watch. The thrill of seeing level 29 coming and glance at the point differential, calculate how many tetrises and look at player faces and reactions to this is something that rolling took away and will never come back. Knowing that people can manage post 29 for so long feels like any comeback is possible and kinda trivializes the whole game up to that level since it doesn't feel like it matters that much how good you play up to level 28. Of course I'm an spectator and sure it must be incredible to see the feats people accomplish when you know the ins and outs of the game, but as an spectator who know surface level tetris it does become somewhat boring. Hope there are side tournaments like the DAS only there was before or DAS + hypertap only.
That's cool. For me I love it and it was super exciting
The idea that a comeback is possible makes the game less exciting is a really confusing one for me.
How is that a thing?
Back before even 2020, if you saw someone down X amount at about level 25 or so, you already knew the match was over.
Prior to rolling, you could accurately identify almost all winners of matches with several levels to go.
Another interesting question is: As the community's skill-level increases, should we start on level 19?
Btw, watched that match live, one of the most thrilling esports moments I've been lucky enough to witness.
honestly, even that's not it. level 18 was chosen for a number of reasons. it's a good warm-up, it has the highest score potential per line for a speed below 19, and it's the speed directly below the "intended" speed of competitive play, ensuring that at 19-speed transitions are occurring every 10 lines and no one experiences too much overexertion. it is, or at least was, a 100-line game end timer. all that said, as level 29 speed gradually becomes the norm for rollers, their optimum starting level is likely to be as high as level 28. it presents the same benefits - highest score potential within the bounds of 19-speed, a chance to warm up before 29-speed, and ensures transitions occur every 10 lines during 29-speed (though that matters less, since 29-speed is the maximum). of course someone would have to mod the ability to select levels higher than 19 in, but it would likely be best. however, as long as there are hypertappers and DAS players still out there, the best start will continue to be level 18. starting at level 19 for players whose skills are designed for 19-speed will deprive them of a chance to warm up and force them to play for much longer than normal at that speed.
@@matthewbertrand4139 Warm up? This is competitive play we're talking about. You should already be ready lol. This is like saying Formula 1 drivers should do the first 30 laps in Formula 2 cars before completing the remaining 20 laps in their Formula 1 cars.
Honestly, that level 18 "warm up" stage has gradually been getting boring since you know levels 19-28 are what separate the pros from the amateurs.
level 18 is my favorite level because i can make adjustments on a lot of different heights since I can actually think about placements.
it's a bit hard to see, but level 18 vs level 19 stacking have the potential to be vastly different purely through what adjustment possibilities there are. and both require their own (very good) skillsets. so i personally would want to keep level 18 starts, and i think it's also good for the casual viewers too
@@fractal161 Yes
@@novachromatic Funny analogy... as F1 drivers do have both a lap to the grid to "do a practice start and check grip levels" as well as a formation lap to warm the tires and again, check conditions before the actual race starts.
Whether the rules will be changed or not (and unfortunately I also think they have to be changed), I hope at least the semis and the final at the CTWC will still be played under normal rules. At this point long matches will only add to the excitement and the importance of the event and those long killscreen chasedown still won't lose their novelty.
I dont know what the solution is at this point frankly, I mean frankly id be fine with a Das exclusive tournament, a tap/Das exclusive tournament, and then an any style goes Das/Tap/Rolling etc. with unlimited play if capable tournament, but as far as doing this at the CTWC that'd take way to much time and isn't feasible for the funds they have, as for separate events like CTM I do hope this happens in the future.
Keep in mind that CTWC has to plan their event. They have to "book" time slots at a convention. They need time estimates for that. If one single game could potentially go for half an hour and longer, CTWC has to cut other parts of the tournament.
I for myself like to watch a lot of talents in shorter matches (eg a braket of 64) instead of watching a few selected talents in longer matches (eg a braket of 8, because of limitless matches)
Nah, firstly, chase downs are boring af. Maybe it’s okay for 100k point, or if the guy actually was trying to do tetrises, but chase down with single and double only for 500k point is boring. Tetris viewership plummeted for a reason, eventhough players are higher level than before.
Second, the game is called tetris, with what fractal did, anyone can win by not doing tetris, simply do singles and doubles from lvl18 and every game will take 30 minutes but at least they wont lose.
3rd, there’s a time limit for a live event like ctwc. Hiring the venue cost a lot, so there’s no way they let players play infinitely into 29.
Why not level 19 starts? This will speed things up significantly.
I smell a new tournament!
19 starts no cap. Singles don't count...
From the outside perspective and from what I've learned from other communities, introducing rules and regulations almost never have the intended effect.
The way I've seen this solved and resulting in everyone being happy with the outcome is by creating different categories with category specific rules, like chess where rulesets like blitz and bullet exist.
I do not see any issues with Tetris containing Tetris: 330 and Tetris: Unlimited. I believe the community has the capability to decide which ruleset is the most enjoyable and prestigious.
I was actually hoping Fractal would get to the glitched colors for a second there… At this point, no there should be no line cap, also do we think Fractal is a favorite to win CTWC this year?
All I want for Christmas is a linecap
The turning off next box seems subtle yet effective. Just like @ 330 lines it blinks off. Sure you can still play, maybe...
Great video!
One of the things that made Classic Tetris so fun for me to watch was seeing players have to fight the balance between aggressive play and staying alive as you knew the kill screen was coming and would eventually end your run.
On one hand, it is geniunely amazing to see Tetris to be pushed to the limits that it has gone to today, on another hand, fractal's playstyle of slow and steady play to come back on the kill screen kind of takes that away.
Even if you end play on the kill screen, all you're doing is resetting the rules back to what made Classic Tetris so competitive. So I don't think it's a bad call.
Not saying current day matches or bad, it's still amazing to see the game grow like this in such a short time.
I was thinking first to “rollover” wins. That is, first to get past “F”. But it would also deprive us of incredible excitement in those rare chase downs like Fractal displayed.
It's a good idea because it means you have to take more risks and build higher, to accelerate the drop rate. So it's good for the spectators.
It could also eventually lead to incorporating speedrun strats in competition though (eg building very high, maybe even building a tree for levels 18 to 19), which are highly unconventional in normal competitive play.
@@vlongo26 building a tree would probably be ineffective because tree strats don't normally give many points and in this scenario you want to score fast.
Great video. Felt the paradigm shift after watching this live. I love the idea of a rising (garbage) floor at 330 lines. Modern Tetris also incorporates this for the sake of brevity (Tetris Friends, Tetris 99).
I mean, yeah, a line cap using the floor is just modern battle tetris.
Tetris 99 does _not_ use the floor rising. Instead, it starts to amplify the garbage sent to opponents after a certain time (though it doesn't work for defending against incoming garbage).
@@budgetcoinhunter No. Modern battle Tetris (including t99) doesn't amplify the garbage based on time, it creates messier garbage the longer the match goes on.
The way you should take on the linecap should go like this in my opinion: FIRST define what you want from a competive NES Tetris match e.g. fixed lenght or going for max effiency or not modifing the game more than need. And then with these "goals" in mind think about a linecap or something else. I think trying to do what is "indented by the game" is just not possible or has no sence, because scores above 999999 are not possible in the unmodded game, everything past level 29 just programmed in a way expecting you to never reach it.
Yeah, honestly this opens the door for multiple different tournaments to sprout up. It doesn't have to be the end of competitive Tetris, just the end of a short and glorious era were the scores never seemed to get any smaller. And all the games lasted well into the night...
this is the way, limit the lines, the level or the time or you will have only tetris marathons.
See, I just want people to keep reaching until they crash the game in the late 200s.
@@EebstertheGreat The game crashes at about level 165. The reason is that the score calculations code is so bad that it takes over 10ms of the 16ms frame. The reason why Stackrabbit was able to reach level 237 was that it was using a 7 digit score ROM hack. It seems couterintuitiv that seven digits are better than 6 digits, but the code sets the score to 999999 over and over again in the score loop. Skipping this part gives you ilke 70 more levels before the crash. Skipping the code that checks for maxouts out rigtht fixes the crash on all levels and versions of the game. On top of that: the crash is as far as I know only poorly understood.
In short: any modification to the game can change the level on which the crash happens by a lot.
@@EebstertheGreat but u dont need pvp for that. ppl stream single modes and eventually they will get there with crashing the game. pvp serves different purpose - to compare players efficiency and consistency
My thought to this is mainly: Try it out, see what feels better, maybe have different categories for different modes
The problem with my idea of course is, that this would be an enormous effort, since it basically suggests making entire separate tournaments around the methods. I don't have a better idea though
We're going to try to pull off a double killscreen mod for September's CTM Masters if we can get the hack made and carts shipped in time.
I think a time limit would be more interesting. When one player reaches lvl29, the time limit starts, and you have x minutes to score as high as possible before the match ends. It still encourages aggressive play, and it still allows for a player to top out, and give some time to their opponent to catch up. Maybe both?
Yeah, turning the kill screen into a sudden death, limited time high score mode sounds like a simple and easy to implement solution.
In another optic, a time cap match would be really nice to have. Players would want to play more agressively on the 18 and 19 levels to reach higher levels faster and score more points. It will also have the same function of a line cap and the tetris rate would still be relevant. Furthermore, it would be way more stable for competitions schedual because we'll know that a match won't be longer then Time_cap_value *5.
i think the biggest argument against a linecap is that the game was modified only cosmetically and now it's changing the rules substatially. also adding a cap is like closing the door of infinite potential
It would be nice if there would be some kind of a “shot clock” system implemented in competitive classic tetris past level 29 in the future. Players must do a tetris at a certain time frame.
This will increase the skill cap, though eventually maybe people will get good enough to consistently tetris at lvl 29. it's just a matter of who can do it faster.
Maybe implement a system where if you're ahead by X points for Y seconds past killscreen, you just win. This will actually add a layer of interactivity between players, where the winner isn't decided just by their ending score. Whether that's a good or a bad thing? Very opinionated.
I also thought about this. a "shot clock" for a tetris, let's say within a minute, a player must do a Tetris or the penalty will be an additional lineblock on the bottom of the playing field.
also to bring back the excitement.
First of all, thanks for another great video. They’re invaluable to the community and the discourse on subjects like a line cap.
Personally, I’ve yet to crack 500k so I don’t think my opinion should matter much. Being an old head I lean toward trying to maintain the competitive spirit of the last 30 years. Meaning, maybe a line cap wouldn’t be so bad because the focus shifts back in the direction of accumulating Tetris. Though I think ultimately it’s these ultra elite players who are pushing the boundaries of the game that should have the most sway on the future of the competitive nature of it.
I think doubling the speed again 10+ levels later is the best idea, this means the game doesn't just randomly stop, in gives players an extra few blocks if they can do something with them.
wait couple of monthes and they gonna play new speeds like its no problem
@@andTutin fine by me, we'll worry about that when we get there
@@andTutin that just won’t happen even with perfect 30hz every time rolls you can only get 6 high right and 2 high left and considering the random price sequences in a competitive match even assuming perfect play no player will last long enough
Maybe it would be cool to make a competitive mod where, post 29, only tetrises are worth points, while anything less is worth 0, whose only real utility is to try to burn to set up more tetrises. That would encourage more aggressive post 29 play, without a hard cap.
this is a really interesting thought but i think it would still run into a similar issue, where players can just burn forever until they have a good setup for a safe tetris.... it could just make chasedowns like this take even longer.
Something I thought of around when the first rollover was achieved, was having the decider be "whoever rolls over first wins"
I dislike the idea of a hard cap, which seems very abrupt. In the past the kill screen allowed for a few more placements here or there to grab another couple of lines, or even a centre well tetris.
Which means the aim should be to find another difficulty step like the previous transitions- like dropping two spaces per frame; or another gradual increase in difficulty to squeeze the abilities of players- perhaps lowering the spawn point of new pieces every level after 39.
The rom for a level twice the speed of the current killscreen already exists. The record there is currently 11 lines. So using this change will probably feel like the killscreen did before rolling was a thing.
This seems like the most organic answer to the problem. It mirrors the old kill screen...
This is the best solution imo. Instead of halting progress, give the players a higher mountain to climb now that the previously unclimbable mountain is just a checkpoint.
My opinion comes from a purely spectator POV. I've been following the scene through channels like yours and gamescout since 2018, occasionally watching CTMs, WR videos, and aways making sure I carve out time for CTWC.
I think a line cap would greatly improve the spectator experience for Classic Tetris. Watching efficient and aggressive play for me has always been the highlight of any match, and while comebacks can result in some of the hypest moments, it usually accompanied by that aggressive play.
While watching someone score singles and doubles for 16 levels straight might be interesting for an avid member of the community, for someone like me, it doesn't have that same thrill that watching aggressive play has.
At the end of the day I'm simply a spectator but I think the line cap encouraging a "active" playstyle (aggressive/point efficient) will be much healthier for the game/viewing experience overall than encouraging "passive" play (scoring into Infinity)
I want there to be lots of different well-accepted formats with their own hosts and stakes, and players get good at all of them. I'm sure fractal would also be rather cracked with a linecap (he has a 29 start maxout in 149 lines?) but he plays strategically for what the current format is.
err fwiw i haven't played anywhere near that good since then so it's a claim i wouldn't really want to see spread that much? Hopefully one day I'll be able to match it, but my efficiency is not the best right now.
but still linecaps good
Man what a difficult question. I was always on the side of no, but idk now. Once we start seeing more players with Fractal's consistency, it may be necessary, but it'll be super tough to create some artbitrary way to limit the game...
I definitely don't think we need it now or at CTWC this year. I'd say we should wait it out until at least the beginning of next year at the earliest, then discuss it again.
I love watching the silly faces people make when concentrating so hard on the game, makes me feel better about the goofy faces i make too xP
Overall, wonderful video! Great analysis and editing c:
just go to colors 4Head
for real though, i think either the line cap or the "from below" method would work best. expanding on the latter, what if it essentially turned the board into b-type, speeding up with line count?
I'm not sure how I got to this video, but that was kinda fascinating
Another option that could be interesting is an additional win condition. Namely, the first player to reach a target score will win automatically (for example, a rollover). This would put some pressure on top-level competitors to not play from behind, as overly safe play risks allowing your opponent to win before you get the chance at a comeback. It might not affect lower-level play, where these problems don't exist in the first place.
It rewards the traditional "efficient" playstyle of going for tetrises, while also rewarding fast-paced play. Any thoughts?
Hydrant dude did host a mini tourney with level 29 starts, target score 300,000. It was to test this exact idea of a score race (if both fail, higher score wins, otherwise it's first to the target as measured by number of lines).
It seemed to go well and I like the idea, but fractal and others have definitely made good points about the metagame it provides. If you think your opponent has low chance of reaching e.g. the 1.6 million target score, you just line it out anyway.
@@biggiemac42 True but that gives your opponent the opportunity to play safely as well, and you are not going to catch up that way. Either way the pressure is on the player who is behind to take the bigger risks.
That's a completely different game imo. A score race needs completely different strategies than a score attack. Like you said, a score attack has the dynamic of letting an aggressive player risk himself to death while you aim for a chasedown. Fractal's strategy is 100% viable and is not a bad thing. He chills early because he's confident with his post 29 skills. It's similar to floyd mayweather playing it safe in the first few rounds and unleashing the offensive at the later rounds when his opponents are tired. Like floyd, fractal's style is boring but it's legit.
@@shapowlow Of course I wouldn't contest that it is legit. However, it's only legit because of the rules of the format. So if the format encourages boring strategies, maybe there are better rulesets where the "legit" strats are more dynamic overall.
That would be the best solution to all of that.
Such a cool event. No linecaps please. Endurance adds another aspect that really makes it an E-sport.
True. It's not an easy thing to do eventhough fractal makes it look like that.
It might just be worth running different rules sets in different tournaments. This is common in a lot of games. Think like speedrunners competing over Any% or 100%, or poker tournaments being NLHE or mixed game, or track being 100m, 400m, and so on. It also allows different skill sets to shine on different days, which is great for competition.
Shouldnt be a linecap: it should be a timer.
If a player tops out with a lead, player 2 should have a set amount of time to surpass or they lose
interesting concept. I think it has the same purpose. A timer would add a different dynamic than a line count. You would still have to play aggressively in the same manner, however it might be more exciting as the timer could go really close. That being said, it is still quite similar. Both ideas re-add a killscreen. However a timer might be too far from classic tetris for many people's liking. I imagine the mechanics and engineering of how much time is added is gonna be complicated and a little far from home.
This idea exists in tetris effect connected and harry Hong abused the crap out of it by just topping out whenever he built a big enough lead. Of course, this rule should only apply to kill screen play, but even then you would basically either eliminate the possibility of comebacks, have to set the timer to be long enough that it would almost never come into play, or just see two players play infinitely until one of them builds up a big enough lead to want to intentionally top out
this can be very easily taken advantage of by building an insane lead and just topping out intentionally which would make that lead almost impossible to beat.
I love these videos they are so interesting.
I would like to lend a little friendly criticism for the narrator, which is to be careful how much and how often your voice inflects up into the higher registers. Which may be difficult as you sound pretty youthful normally you don’t want people to be all monotone but in your case I would advise to lean a little bit towards monotone because of that tendency to go high mid sentence and finishing sentence as well. I’m not trying to be petty or anything I just think it would add to the quality entertainment and information that you already provide. Thanks for these tetris videos (I’m not even a player) they are very interesting to watch.
Maybe add a limited time after the first topout, so if you are behind you'll need to play agressively
Idk how much but it can be an other alternative
Tetris Effect: Connected (the most recent official Tetris title, with a NEStris multiplayer mode) set this limit at 2 minutes, and so far I haven't seen many complaints about it.
Though, it's worth noting that rolling on TE:C is not as popular due to most players playing the game with a keyboard or modern controller, so that limit might not be applicable when rollers are added into the mix.
Time limit > line cap
Could be lvl 29 + x minutes. Or even rollout + x minutes. It brings efficiency back, but also leaves space for clutch chase-downs, depending on the amount of time or when the timer starts, it even brings stamina in a much stronger way back - of course it is still less than with hypertapping, but as you said in your video on the alternate colours, playing tetris perfectly for more than 15min is absurdly difficult, even to these beasts of rolling that make it look easy to scrubs like me
I think the option of having the speed twice as fast as 29 is the best option
classic mode in tetris effect has a solution with a timer instead of a line cap. When the other person tops out, the other player has a certain amount of time to chasedown the opponent, forcing the player to play risky if they are already too far behind. This would give rise to much more riskier playstyles like Dog's and it would be much more entertaining than just watching someone take single line clears for 10 minutes.
I think line caps are good for competition in terms of making sure one match doesn’t slow down the pace of the entire tournament, but at the same time it prevents legendary killscreen showcasings from players who have a lot of potential
We ran into a similar issue in Icy Tower 1.2 back in 2005. World record games in the Floor category were becoming increasingly long (up to 30 minutes) with players having mastered the final speed. Several approaches were tested in beta, including extra speed increases. Developers eventually settled down on shrinking the floors at specific numbers for Icy Tower 1.3. That acts in a similar way as a line cap, limiting the number of floors you can jump before a difficulty increase.
The question for Classic Tetris is whether to put sporting aspects ahead of staying true to the original game. When you modify the game, is it still Classic? Then again, quality of life modifications have been done already.
Personally I would like to see a period where different approaches are tested in parallel (e.g. have some tournaments with a line cap and others without). I like how, as mentioned in the video, different rulesets make players naturally adopt different meta strategies.
Changing the scoring is also an option (no increase per level post 29, maybe also reducing the value of each clear by 1000)
Fractal actually defeated the game with colors on pal system. he is a real life genius. Dog is a talent but fractal is on ANOTHER PLANET
Fun fact : the game had the highest combined score in a 1 game match AND the lowest combined score in a 1 game match (technically)
I think it should just speed up by another 1% (multiplicatively) every level after 29 so that it just slowly keeps getting harder and encourages some aggression while still giving fair credit to those with the survival skills. It'd also mean games wouldn't be able to continue forever as it'd eventually get too fast for anyone.
It will take some more time and experimentation to make a definite choice. For the next year or two, different tournaments can try different rules and see what works best. Eventually a standard will naturally emerge, and there is no reason to force one across the community too early.
Tetris is so intense!! I love its name too, derived from Greek Latin root “Tetra” meaning 4, and each shape is made of 4 blocks. I remember learning that in 10th grade and being like 😳😳😃😃
today i learned about competitive classic tetris
What about no line cap at all but using the number of tetrises players get as a primary score with tie break being the actual score? This would require more counting but would prioritize efficiency in overall play
this doesn't discourage just lining out forever because you could just line out and take safe tetrises and if your opponent is going aggro you might just beat them out
I think it is too soon to do something drastic like adding a line cap for major tournaments. See how it plays out and evolves first, then implement something if needed.
The fact that there’s no consensus on how to possibly introduce a line cap indicates to me that the competitive scene has developed a need for different categories of competition.
If you want to compete based on efficiency, just define a line cap in the rules of the contest (highest score at line x is the winner). If you want to compete based on ability to play the game to the fullest limits, play without a line cap in the rules.
There’s no need to make the game itself have a kill screen when endurance matches are a perfectly valid super-high-level form of competition, and if you need to modify the game itself anyway you should just develop an external rules set on a case by case basis to save some effort and be more flexible
Lots of people talk about a timer and the counterargument is intentional topping out. My take is that the timer starts when you reach kill screen or when you have cleared at least as many lines as the topped out opponent, whichever comes later. I am not sure whether this prioritizes efficiency or mitigates intentional topping out, but once thing is for sure: it heavily punishes both players for lining out while not in a dire situation, which I think is more important than intentional top-outs. I am curious if people can counter this with some breaking strategy though.
I'd honestly be more worried about a close chase dragging out because both know that its an issue of whoever tops out second. If I were to put I timer, it'd be a limit on how long you could be behind by more than a tetris when both players are on the kill screen.
I wouldn’t say a line cap perhaps, but a second artificial kill screen would be good. It would up the intensity and you would have to show amazing skill to find a technique to combat that.
Has talk about creating new categories been done yet? Like having Das/HyperTap/Rolling separate categories.
I have another idea for matches that isn't line related.
Since NES Tetris has always been about efficiency and more players are getting to a rollover, how about making the matches a race to either maxing out or rolling over? This has to bring back efficient play and would limit game times while still letting a "best score wins" if the score cap isn't reached when the first player tops out.
What do you think of this idea?
Another new tournament...
Time out! Race to roll over.
is a maximum difference in score a solution? forcing at least some tetris rate if one of the competitors wants to be agressive, but allowing for both to be passive
Fractal, the Dog catcher!
A couple years back I had a 300k comeback against SaltedSofa in a friendlies match when he topped out on 22, crazy to watch a comeback from an even bigger deficit :P
Any thoughts on a timer once the first player tops out? Say 2-3 minuts? Aggressive play would be rewarded but still need to play long enough to gain the "insurmountable" lead. Just a thought.
It would be a better choice to intentionally top out when your lead is high enough then continue playing giving your opponent time to catch up
Score cap turns matches into a race.
Line cap ends the game abruptly.
Time limit is not in the spirit of classic Tetris.
A soft cap, like KS was, seems legit. Double speed again, turn off next box, etc. Giving the most skilled extra room without giving them infinity.
I think I prefer turning off the next box to double speed. For matches that are video recorded, it wouldn't even require a ROM mod if the rule were that after reaching level 39, there would be a scoring penalty for each piece drop where the next box was showing.
Double speed would make it totally impossible to survive. There ARE limits to human dexterity.
@@Planetdune I think they already beat it. th-cam.com/video/FTuKlEQTSYA/w-d-xo.html
Line caps aren't essential to conserving the competitive integrity here unless players start getting to a point where the game starts randomly crashing, since it becomes a question of consistency in the kill screen which is certainly a skill, but it would make it more enjoyable to both watch and play since it speeds up games while adding an extra element of skill. It really comes down to what the tetris community values, but I will say it's probably best to not be too hasty. It's very easy to make rules that then become hard to remove even if they're found not to really be necessary.
Additionally I think it might be good to consider hand health in the equation. Even taking a short break between games can drastically reduce hand strain and improve hand health, and if this eventually reaches a point where players start needing to regularly play nonstop for well over an hour (I know everyone already does play for multiple hours straight, but it's different to have the ability to take a break and ignore it compared with being unable to stop since it's midgame) without taking a break for hand health, that's a serious issue. SMB1 speedrunning has this issue. Competitive SSBM has this issue. Players shouldn't expect to have to have hand pain in their 20s if they want to compete at the highest level. At the very least, the rules should work to reduce these kinds of issues as much as possible.
I think some kind of line cap format will make sense at some point, BUT I also want to see the game as-is, pushed to the max. There should be parallel formats, and one of them, IMO, should include no line cap. Give it another couple years, I want to see colors in live competition sometime. Have a DAS category and some kind of post-29 line cap category and also a category that allows for matches like this one. Fractal's comebacks weren't boring, even though he was lining it out. Apart from the raw stats, this match was the most exciting classic Tetris match I've seen since Joseph vs. Green Tea.
Soon these games will just go on forever until someone gets bored.
I think of all the options presented in the video, I feel like an artificial killscreen might be the most fitting-- where every level beyond 29 introduces one row of risen floor. So much of original competitive NES Tetris was making the most of the lines you had, and putting a visible, rising floor would remind players of that limited number of lines-- but still give a little room for ultra-skilled players to make a move. Just my two cents.
the only problem with this idea is that everyone who plays tourneys with this would need a special cartridge or an everdrive which neither are easy to get.
As an event organizer, the knowledge that a match WILL end on time (by adding a hard time limit via kill-screen shenanigans) would be TREMENDOUS!
I already knew this would be a problem because the speed doesn't increase anymore. A simple solution is to simply keep increasing the speed. But then we need to make our own Tetris game, which is not hard to do, the controls can be sampled at 240Hz and the screens will have to be able to support 240Hz too.
In the limit, both players could theoretically play forever, which means that a new rule will eventually be needed if the skill ceiling never stops increasing in an unbounded way. But, I definitely agree that it's premature to introduce such a new rule or game modification until that point comes, or at least until the game length becomes a problem (you can imagine players needing to play past 1k lines and the games taking excruciatingly long). Adding rules that will inevitably change the competitive meta artificially before it's necessary definitely seems like an overreach. As a community we'd have to decide at what point the games are getting too long or the strategy getting too defensive (average game length > 30 minutes? > 2 hours?) and impose a rule or game modification at that point. That gives us some time to think about the best way of doing it. To me it does feel like doubling the drop speed is the best natural extension of the difficulty progression present in the vanilla game, while further increasing the skill ceiling and presenting more challenge to the players that could lead to more interesting developments, rather than simply ending the game at a fixed number of lines and forcing the subsequent strategy to fall back on optimizing points per line.
Something I wish to suggest for the cap of some kind post-killscreen.
How about adding a _time cap_ instead of a line cap. 4 minutes to chase down.
TE:C Classic Score Attack already does this and frankly seems like the best idea.
I hope they bring in a count down once one person taps out, that could be fun. Potentially a linecap if all the games go on forever. Last ctwc games seemed to last an awful long time, maybe increase the speed?
if the problem is match duration, then limit time of every single game. almost any sport have some form of time limit.
Huh that could make a lot of sense actually. Good idea to.
I think te:c's idea is good. Having a timer after one player tops out puts the pressure on the other player to rake risks in order to make back the deficit
Double killscreen speed will be somewhat similar to playing PAL 19 in terms of piece moving potential with DAS. Extremely hard but doable if a player has consistent 25 Hz roll.
what about taking a cuefrom TEC? once a player in the lead tops out start a chasedown timer. doesn't have to be 2 min, could be 5 or 10, or less even. but I feel that would be better. Then you can bring back tetris aggression needed to out pace their opponent. maybe chasedown timer starts once you hit 29, so you can work as long as you want on the earlier levels, but if you make it to kill screen on a chasedown, your timer starts. That is basically the concept of the floor raising, but using a timer instead of a floor
Not every tournament necessarily needs to run by the same rules. Different rules can be trialed, and the players will naturally gravitate to the format they enjoy playing the most.
i liked when the tournaments was das only… all the tournaments were between these stern guys who looked like they were tending bonsai trees in their spare time
i think instead of a line cap, do a time cap, once the first player tops out. perhaps you get 2 minutes afterwards to try and catch up?
Has a score cap been suggested? First person to 1.4, 1.5, rollover wins?
When will Eric's 6.49 mil in comp video come out?
Finishing an unrelated video, then I will get right to work on one covering the Eric WR :)
i wonder when i will be in a cobalt discord screenshot
Looking at this from the perspective of having competed in stuff that is not this,I say let things play out for a few more years and see where the players take it.
Man, it must be so fucking infuriating to be the best, the most aggressive, the fastest player on Tetris and see yourself be given a death by a thousand cuts by a guy who simply won't give up.
I wouldn't do line cap. I would however do a double killscreen. 39 gets even faster, then 49, etc.
But if it were up to me, I would not change a thing. To be the best in Tetris means how long can you survive. Plain and simple.
Unless you are the first to reach a very high score, then you can just watch somebody get singles and doubles for 30 minutes...
Personally, instead of line cap, I'd like to see a time cap for a game.
First - it's more accurate from the viewing perspective, as the main argument for caps in general is that we as viewers don't want to see marathons of lining out. This way we know what we're signing up to more or less. It'll also make things easier from the organizing perspective as it's easier to determine how long matches will go for and how to schedule things.
Second - unlike with the line cap, there would be no skill cap in the competitive scene. Once rollers get so good that they will stack with great efficiency on killscreen, they can try to go even more aggro to get more levels (and pushing down on 18 will be viable, ).
Third - with the playing ahead rewarded, we will fix other problem that concers competitive scene - screenlooking when on same seeds.
yes, line cap. or at roll over trigger the new kill screen
I'm on team introducing a timer, tetris connect sold me on that one. I don't like the idea of artificial boundaries and certainly not if they're arbitrary like a line cap, which doesn't consider the context of the match. The timer wouldn't just affect killscreen comebacks, they would also affect pre-killscreen comebacks, so it's fair no matter which level of play you're at. (That said, I'm also game with not introducing a boundary at all)
timers are exploitable because if you build a huge lead you could just intentionally top out and then your opponent is unable to chasedown the score, that in my opinion would not be fun to see in a match
@@LovenRazu To me it's just another element of competition, it changes it into a race if survival isn't a factor as you need to keep up with your opponent's score. It's a different vibe where aggression is encouraged, but I don't think it would be less exciting
Spins of Tetris could be a cool video