Gaming The competitive gaming thread

[Fortitude]

Think we could do with a thread for competitive gaming as it’s a specialist branch quite far removed from normal gaming.

Hopefully there’s enough interest to keep it going.

Will start with this:



@dumbo I figure you might be interested. Don’t know how many others play Tetris competitively.

Why do they play it on the NES?

 

[dumbo]

The original NES (ntsc) Tetris relies on the perfect blend of input timing, pattern recognition, adaptability and quick decision making. Practically every Tetris iteration since has scaled back on the importance of these core principles in favour of ease of use and casual playability. The exceptions to this would be Tetris Grand Master, Tetris IO and a few others designed with competition in mind. I never played Tetris 99 but by all accounts it was a great version designed with fun and mass interaction in mind. The original Game Boy version is good too and it's the one I grew up playing but it has a few major limitations.

The original NES version is still recognised as the best standardised version of the game. The lack of input lag on NES hardware and crt tvs is another benefit over most modern editions.

I don't play much these days and the scene has developed a lot in the few years since I dipped out. Bizarre grips and multi tapping techniques were developed to overcome difficulty resistances, allowing players more time and greater piece manoeuvrability. Meaning scores previously impossible to attain. I can still hold my own in a traditional game (DAS) but what the STEMbrained children who took over the scene are doing now is really out there.

Ecstacy of Order is a great documentary on the original Tetris scene if you want a good overview of where the competitive scene began.

 

[Fortitude]

The original NES (ntsc) Tetris relies on the perfect blend of input timing, pattern recognition, adaptability and quick decision making. Practically every Tetris iteration since has scaled back on the importance of these core principles in favour of ease of use and casual playability. The exceptions to this would be Tetris Grand Master, Tetris IO and a few others designed with competition in mind. I never played Tetris 99 but by all accounts it was a great version designed with fun and mass interaction in mind. The original Game Boy version is good too and it's the one I grew up playing but it has a few major limitations.

The original NES version is still recognised as the best standardised version of the game. The lack of input lag on NES hardware and crt tvs is another benefit over most modern editions.

I don't play much these days and the scene has developed a lot in the few years since I dipped out. Bizarre grips and multi tapping techniques were developed to overcome difficulty resistances, allowing players more time and greater piece manoeuvrability. Meaning scores previously impossible to attain. I can still hold my own in a traditional game (DAS) but what the STEMbrained children who took over the scene are doing now is really out there.

Ecstacy of Order is a great documentary on the original Tetris scene if you want a good overview of where the competitive scene began.

Educational. Cheers. I’ve had a mild interest in the Tetris scene, but nothing beyond watching the bigger tournaments when they pop up on my feed.

That popped up and I thought of you, if you’d not already seen it that might be something you would be interested in seeing.

Were you more interested in the lines and score side or direct vs.?

 

[Dirty Schwein]

I used to play fighting games competitively. Won a fair bit of money back in the day. But I'm older now and therefore don't have the reactions I used to have

 

[dumbo]

Educational. Cheers. I’ve had a mild interest in the Tetris scene, but nothing beyond watching the bigger tournaments when they pop up on my feed.

That popped up and I thought of you, if you’d not already seen it that might be something you would be interested in seeing.

Were you more interested in the lines and score side or direct vs.?

Yeah I hadn't checked it out yet and it's pretty cool to catch up. Alex from the video has been one of the best since he was about 11 and emulating it on a shitty laptop. At 54.41 in the video the commentator says "super kill screen" when they reach a completely modified level that doubles the line speed of the previous level, which had to be made because games were going on for too long and they needed a way for the players to die. Which just illustrates how much the "rolling" technique changed the META.

On gameboy I would play for lines because you can play that game almost forever but on the NES I would only play score really because there is a theoretical maximum number of lines you can get before you reach the "kill screen" (before they had to modify in a super kill screen). The original kill screen was level 29 and the point where it is practically impossible to get some pieces all the way to the sides using the standard playstyle and therefore you can only really get a few lines maximum before you die. So the standard DAS game at the highest levels almost requires you to reach level 29, and it's basically about how how precise you can be within that set number of lines untill you reach level 29 i.e. how many tetrises you can get.

I took up rolling for a bit and was able to beat my previous best scores and go past the kill screen but it's pretty rough on the old fingers and by removing the DAS limitations it took a lot of the fun out of it. Also I was never going to be able to keep up with the youngsters and their yet to be worn away cartilige.

Here's a link to the Ecstacy of Order documentary. It's a good watch even without the Tetris.

 

[Fortitude]

Yeah I hadn't checked it out yet and it's pretty cool to catch up. Alex from the video has been one of the best since he was about 11 and emulating it on a shitty laptop. At 54.41 in the video the commentator says "super kill screen" when they reach a completely modified level that doubles the line speed of the previous level, which had to be made because games were going on for too long and they needed a way for the players to die. Which just illustrates how much the "rolling" technique changed the META.

On gameboy I would play for lines because you can play that game almost forever but on the NES I would only play score really because there is a theoretical maximum number of lines you can get before you reach the "kill screen" (before they had to modify in a super kill screen). The original kill screen was level 29 and the point where it is practically impossible to get some pieces all the way to the sides using the standard playstyle and therefore you can only really get a few lines maximum before you die. So the standard DAS game at the highest levels almost requires you to reach level 29, and it's basically about how how precise you can be within that set number of lines untill you reach level 29 i.e. how many tetrises you can get.

I took up rolling for a bit and was able to beat my previous best scores and go past the kill screen but it's pretty rough on the old fingers and by removing the DAS limitations it took a lot of the fun out of it. Also I was never going to be able to keep up with the youngsters and their yet to be worn away cartilige.

Here's a link to the Ecstacy of Order documentary. It's a good watch even without the Tetris.

Tonight’s viewing sorted!

Thank you for your insights. It’s practically a whole new world to the likes of me as I didn’t even know how vast the competitive Tetris space was until a few years back when a friend showed me a vid of Alex. Time to get clued up!

 

[Snow]

I follow Apex Legends but not anything else. CS I know but don't follow. Mobas I've got no interest in.

I do watch the more long form video summarizations on various games but only if I'm not doing anything and stumple upon it.

Apex is great for the people that love transfer windows in football and all the gossip that folloes. Rostermania is always nuts.

Downside of the game and most esports is that you don't really follow teams because you've got no reason to. CS stands out because the scene is so old that you have enfranchised teams and you can somewhat go from there into other games.