RE: Tempest Multigame (behaviour)

On Thu, 27 May 1999, Clay Cowgill wrote:
> >
> > Did you know that you can kill the flipper as they flip? It's an
> > unwritten rule, and if you don't know it, you are lacking in skill as
> > a Tempest player.
>
> That's not skill.

It is on the higher levels - I'd say at least half, maybe 2/3 - of my
flipper kills on the yellows and above, are flippers killed on the rim.
Most of the times I get nailed, it's because I misjudged the approach from
4-5 sectors away. (If there are an odd number of sectors between the
flippers, wait in the middle and kill both at once, if an even number of
sectors, run towards one, kill it, and then kill the second one when it
reaches you.)

Flipperkilling on the rim is part of the game, just as is continuing.
The guy who gets to 500K on two credits is better than the guy who gets
to 500K on 20 credits.

No, Clay, I'm *not* making your point -- the guy who takes 20 credits
to get to 500K will take 20 more credits and make little further progress.
The guy who takes 2 credits to get to 500K will have 550-600K by the time
he's through his 20th credit, because he's the better player.

(Your point only applies if there are Tempest players who *never* use
the buy-in feature and rate their high scores on that. If you're such a
player, you're probably the first such player I've met :-)

On cashflow -- that was the ironic part about Tempest. I'd say the "good"
Tempest players (and even the experts, with the possible exception of the
1.7M scorer we just read about) put more credits per hour into a Tempest
machine than the newbies :)

> He's got a higher score. If you get 255 lives in Sinistar and blow away
> every high score on the machine as a result are you the most skilled?

Though I *will* grant you that -- IMHO "255 lives" is a sufficient change
in game balance to allow a lesser-skilled player an invalid high score.

(Consider the state of evaluating Missile Command scores - did you play
with "120 free cities", the "free city every X points", or the "start with
six cities and no bonuses" versions...)

And as long as we're talking about non-vector games (i.e. PacMan and the
merits of "patterns"), I'd point out that Ms. Pac, while it doesn't have
patterns, does have techniques that are somewhat similar to pattern play,
with world-class scores in the 950,000 range.

My take on PacMan patterns - legitimate. After an hour or so, fatigue
becomes a factor, and the ability to execute the pattern, over and over
again, constitutes skill. The techniques used to beat Ms. Pac, which I
have yet to try, require much more study and more skill to apply.

Later,
Doug.

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