Tetris Party and item usage

[Mewtwo]

It's been forever since I've posted here...since the days of TDS and when having a rank of 8,000 actually meant something.

But anyway, I figure if there's one place to make this rant and get some input, it'd be here. GameFAQs hardly has anyone worth nothing that doesn't already post here.

Is anyone else noticing that 90+% of Tetris Party Wi-Fi players that play with items...don't actually fucking know how to use them effectively? I'm seeing players randomly using clocks or speed-ups very early on, when they don't actually have much effect.

I know that a good chunk of this is probably common sense to all of you already, but I'm not seeing a list of combos or techniques for items anywhere else, so...

The obvious ones:
Lock + Speed Up
Smoke + Speed Up
Hide + Speed Up

...or saving a cascade as a counter to a Lock or a Hide + Speed Up combo, or saving Shift until you have at least 12 rows of blocks on the screen, two sticks in queue and a third in hold, for 3 quick Tetrises.

The big one I've never seen discussed anywhere; Line Kick and Block shot as offensive options rather than defensive plays.

If there are no garbage lines on the bottom of a stack, setting up for a Tetris (and having up to 5 additional rows of stuff above that Tetris setup)...then using the Line Kick on the 7th row from the bottom of your Matrix (which knocks out all the stuff in rows 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9), then slamming the line down for an Bravo/All Clear Tetris, sending 10.

Alternatively, Block Shot can do the same thing but takes a few more seconds to setup; having 3-4 rows worth of lines of stuff on your screen, having the stick next in queue, using the block shot plus the piece currently on the screen to set up to where there's nothing but that one Tetris waiting to be cleared on the screen, then using the stick for an All Clear.

I know both of those defensive options as offense can be beaten by having one or more lines sent to you, and about a third of the time I try to use a Block Shot to set up an All Clear, this happens, but I'm wondering if it's just that I'm not playing the right people, or if no one else is trying that with items at all...



For those of you who play item Tetris (I know a few of you are probably already 9,999 on it), how do you guys use your items?

[iphys]

I've only played items a little, because it's slow to get a match started and often it's buggy about initially disconnecting people several times in a row.

The lock with speed up is my most hated -- people seem to know that one because it's happened to me several times.

Is it really possible to have good enough aim with the Wiimote to select your lines with the line kick or cells with the block shot? Whenever I've tried to point the Wiimote at the screen, I can't find the pointer or it wanders all over the place, so I've never managed to use it.

Someone else was complaining about getting 2 of the same items in a row, and I've noticed sometimes I even get 3, so have you noticed if the game is really bad at evenly distributing the items?

Honestly, most people that play this game are so mediocre that you can beat them without even using the items at all. I usually just hold onto the items and save them to get myself out of any trouble or give the final knockout punch to my last remaining opponent when time is running out. I suppose I would care about using the items more if the game actually matched you against competitive players.

[tepples]

The lock with speed up is my most hated -- people seem to know that one because it's happened to me several times.
I hated it ever since it was called lightning+mushroom.

[Mewtwo]

Is it really possible to have good enough aim with the Wiimote to select your lines with the line kick or cells with the block shot? Whenever I've tried to point the Wiimote at the screen, I can't find the pointer or it wanders all over the place, so I've never managed to use it.

Someone else was complaining about getting 2 of the same items in a row, and I've noticed sometimes I even get 3, so have you noticed if the game is really bad at evenly distributing the items?


Yes, it's definitely possible to use Block Shot for this; having a bigger TV helps somewhat. The easiest way to do it would be something like...(X's are filled blocks, () is the open row you have for the stick to go down, and -s are other open spaces)

() - - X X - - - - -
() X X X X - X X - -
() X X X X X X X - -
() X X X X X X X X X

Let's say you have a T piece on the field, and the next piece is the stick.

You could use the block shot now (O's represent blocks individually filled by Block Shot)

() O OX X O O O O -
() X X X X O X X - -
() X X X X X X X O -
() X X X X X X X X X

So that when the T piece falls,


() O OX X O O OO T
() X X X X O X X T T
() X X X X X X X O T
() X X X X X X X X X

Leaving a perfect 9x4 stack for the stick that's next in queue to drop down and perform an All Clear.

The easiest way to do this successfully is to have no more than eight single blocks that need to be filled in by the block shot. I've tried doing 10 to 12 and it just doesn't work.


Every so often, you will get 2 of the same item in a row; the chances of that are 1 in the total number of items there are. I've gotten 3 in a row, but it's rare enough that I chalked it up to random chance instead of a bad random number generator.



The lock with speed up is my most hated -- people seem to know that one because it's happened to me several times.
I hated it ever since it was called lightning+mushroom.

Well yeah, but in TDS you only have 1 item at a time, which means you either need to use your held Lightning or Mushroom right before you get another item, get the other one randomly, and use it right after...or easier, wait for someone else to use the other item and piggyback off of their item use.

With TP, you have the piggybacking option, but you also have the ability to do it yourself, if two of your three held item slots have those two items and there's nothing like a Block Shot (that would take up lots of time to use) in between them or something.

If the players in your game are even remotely smart, speed up + lock is going to happen way, way more than lightning/mushroom.