tetris friends facebook update

just a little note here to mention that tetris friends has put up some great new options for configurable controls, and your preferences stay across sessions and across computers--and that is the nift.

also, marathon has been implemented. it's 15 glorious levels long and all of the blockstar people still hate it because it "arbitrarily" cuts them off when they finish the game.

of note, the scoring in marathon is really really counterintuitive (near identical to tetris zone) and requires a really deliberate and annoying style to perform optimally. that level goal counter on the left does not go down directly proportionately to the amount of lines cleared, but instead moves in really strange increments depending on whether you cleared a single, double, triple, etc. here's an "easy to understand" chart to follow:

Action	Points	Lines Cleared	Lines Awarded Towards Level Goal
Single	100 x level	1	1
Double	300 x level	2	3
Triple	500 x level	3	5
Tetris	800 x level	4	8
T-Spin Single	800 x level	1	8
T-Spin Double	1200 x level	2	12
Back-To-Back Bonus (Tetrises and T-Spins performed consecutively)	0.5 x Action Total	0	0.5 x Action Total
Soft Drop	1 per line dropped	0	0
Hard Drop	2 per line dropped	0	0

you also get an extra 50 points x level for every consecutive combo, and every two combos award 1 line to the level counter. so clearing 4 consecutive singles on level one will give you 50(1 level point)+100(1 level point)+150(2 level point)+200(2 level point)=500 points and 6 level points.

everyone following? if this makes sense to you, you don't make sense to me.

taking level 3 as an illustration of this bizarre picture:
the level counter reads 15, and you finished off level 2 with the super awesome worth 1200 points t-spin double, and, looking at the score chart, have decided to just get as many t-spin doubles as possible to "maximize" your score.

1 t-spin double = 1200 points x level 3 = 3600 + b2b bonus of .5 = 5400 points! w00t!

but that also decremented the level goal counter by 18, which is more than the 15 needed to complete level 3, so you are now on level 4. another t-spin double?

now lets take a look at an alternative strategy:

you enter level 3 flustered, because you hate that goddamn tetris music. (it makes you think of turnips. and watching television with your dad. also, you have weird memories.) so you begin by making a regular old single, which gives you 100 x level 3 = 300 points, and ticks down that level counter by 1. you immediately make another single, again, 300 points, this time with 50 x level 3 = 150 extra points for the combo score, and combo 1's do not affect the level counter (you have to get at least a combo 2 before it starts making it go down faster.) so for 2 level counter points, you have earned yourself 750 points. do a little math on that, and realize you can do it 6 more times in level 3, and get yourself a score of 5250 points, with 1 left on the level counter. still not better than your 1 t-spin from the last game though. so instead of finishing off level 3 with another boring single, set up a t-spin double, worth 1200 x level 3 = 3600, bringing your total to 8850. that is much better than the 5400 from earlier. but you can do better.

instead of doing that "single, single, wait. single single, wait" thing all the way through the section, stop when the level counter gets to 9. so, 6 level points, or 3 sets of single combos. your score is now 2250. get a tetris, which will move the counter down by 8, so you're at 1 level point, and give you 800 x level 3 = 2400 points, your total is now 4650, which is not as high as the 5250 you had when you did single combos the whole way, but now you've got the back-to-back bonus coming for your next clear, which should be a t-spin double. worth 1200 x level 3 = 3600 + b2b bonus of .5 = 5400 + your previous score of 4650 = 10, 050 points. that is the most points you can get on level three (not counting the points gained from dropping pieces).

the same strategy actually holds up for the entirety of the game, so a perfect play would be single combo 1's and then a tetris and a t-spin double for every single section. the maximum score ends up being about 980,000 with drop scoring.

now everyone go write Tetris Online a letter explaining how ridiculous this is and how much you would prefer a more straightforward version of the scoring.

check out this forum thread over on tetrisconcept.com for source material, as well as this handy chart made by tetrisconcept's very own Lardarse showing the optimal strategy in use and the math behind it.