How can I score higher in the puzzle modes?

[Capricornus]

Hi,

first of all, I have to say that Audiosurf was maybe the best ~7.74€ I've ever spent. So far I've played countless hours and it hasn't gotten any boring yet at all.

However, there are certain things that bother me. After having spent a lot of time in casual mono, I've recently moved on to mono pro in ironmode which I find a lot more challenging. I consider myself a pretty good mono player since I'm first in many songs and at least among the top 10 at the more popular songs. The first places are almost always taken by pusher, pointman or eraser characters, though, so I decided to move on to one of these.

Actually, I guess I am too stupid for it. The only character apart from mono I'm reasonably decent at is eraser. However, even my eraser scores can't compete with those I get in mono, often only being half or one third as high. This does not apply for songs with a congestion of 150 and lower where I'm actually able to keep up with my mono scores in eraser.

I tried pusher and pointman once or twice; I cannot say at which of them I'm actually worse even after watching the really great pusher tutorial somebody from this forum created recently.

Is there any trick to being really good at these modes? I guess my reflexes are quite good since I'm having no problems with ironmode mono (except for faster songs in elite which admittedly I haven't tried that thoroughly yet). I can't seem to come up with a good strategy for making as big combos as possible.

Could maybe some of the more skilled guys around here enlighten me?

[Cody900]

Same here, my scores suck for those chars. DvP is great though.

[Capricornus]

DvP? I think I played it once. Not my cup of tea, to be honest. Same with vegas. I do think eraser is really fun; I've played it for the last few days instead of mono and I'd say I've gotten considerably better at it. Pusher seems fun, too, however I couldn't even handle it at songs with congestion of 60-80
Pointman IMO kinda sucks. Sadly, it seemingly is considered the mode with the most potential for success, i.e. dethroning people.

[CrackTheSky]

Sadly, it seemingly is considered the mode with the most potential for success, i.e. dethroning people.

Nah, that'd be Pusher Elite thanks to the unique bonus(es?) it gets.

[Capricornus]

Anyway, I don't have much of a chance at the moment. So please, pusher/pointman/eraser nerds, what is your secret?

[kEn_sct]

all my secrets were in my tut but im about to make another poinman tutorial perhaps that will suit you better

[Capricornus]

Thank you. The pusher tutorial is really great, actually I think you should really do one for pointman as well. I just can't keep up with the speed of songs with higher congestions and, above all, the logic of making the most effective combos.

Maybe someone can review my current eraser method and help me improve at least there a bit. So first of all, I look at the song's graph and divide it into parts, depending on their speed. Then, when I'm actually on the track I pick the two most predominant colours and focus exclusively on them. For really slow parts this would be most likely blue and purple. When the song gets faster I try picking up a common and a "valuable" color, i.e. one like blue which appears really often and one like yellow or most favorably red which is rare yet gives you the most points. Occasionally, when it's hard to discern which colours are the most predominant ones I try to collect three colours. However, I do this quite reluctantly because it causes me to overfill really often. Oh, and black blocks (I guess they're the equivalent of white blocks when having a black background, aren't they?) are preferred over everything. I try to throw away purple or blue blocks then if otherwise I overfilled.

Annoyingly, making point-intensive combos happens rarely to me, and if it happens it's mostly pure luck. Or is this something most eraser players don't care about? On many of the songs I've played so far I could somewhat keep up with at least the majority of the other eraser players -- I don't play the most popular songs, to be honest -- although there were almost always one or two other eraser guys who easily scored twice as much as I did.

[CrackTheSky]

Your strategy is similar to mine (I'm predominantly an Eraser player). I tend to avoid purples completely unless they're in groups of three or more on the track, and if I pick up any I erase them as soon as I can. Focus heavily on blue and yellow (I assume you're talking Pro and not Elite) - if you avoid all but these two colors, you'll make huge combos. Get reds too, obviously, but your focus should be on the blues and yellows.

Also, whenever you see a black/white block, grab it and do what you can to get it to the bottom. You should try to get rid of the blocks beneath the black/whites by getting combos, but erase if you need to. Also, if you have any blacks in your grid, avoid paint powerups unless you have the opportunity to get a Match21 immediately afterwards, or you have a lot of blocks on your grid and the paint is red or yellow - typically, these will result in a larger payoff than if you let the blacks/whites fall.

Don't rely on paint powerups. You should always try to make matches on your own. The paints are nice, but don't make a habit of grabbing them whenever you see them, unless they're red/yellow, or you REALLY need to clear the board (i.e. it's the end of a song and you want Clean Finish).

If any one of your columns starts blinking, you gotta kinda develop an eye for the right color to erase. For example, erasing the most dominant color in the column isn't always the best solution because you may end up erasing a bunch of other blocks in your other two columns that could lead to a nice combo. Consequently, you should try to erase a color that will result in blcoks coming together to make a combo. That way, you get the most points.

Also, I believe chaining applies to all puzzle characters, so try to keep what kEn says in his tutorial in the back of your mind.

As a final note, practice with a Mono character. It sounds weird, but if you get good with Mono Pro, or ideally Ninja Mono, you can use what you learn in those modes and apply it to Eraser (and all other puzzle characters). If you can kind of start to think of purples (and in Elite, blues) as the gray blocks in Mono, it'll be easier to only collect certain colors. Eraser's really forgiving because even if you mess up you can erase the color that you didn't mean to get, but it'll make it easier if you learn to just not collect those colors in the first place.

[Capricornus]

CrackTheSky, thanks for this detailed posting

I tend to avoid purples completely unless they're in groups of three or more on the track, and if I pick up any I erase them as soon as I can. Focus heavily on blue and yellow (I assume you're talking Pro and not Elite) - if you avoid all but these two colors, you'll make huge combos. Get reds too, obviously, but your focus should be on the blues and yellows.

This is exactly what I do, except for slow parts of the song where there are no colours apart from blue and purple.

Also, whenever you see a black/white block, grab it and do what you can to get it to the bottom. You should try to get rid of the blocks beneath the black/whites by getting combos, but erase if you need to. Also, if you have any blacks in your grid, avoid paint powerups unless you have the opportunity to get a Match21 immediately afterwards, or you have a lot of blocks on your grid and the paint is red or yellow - typically, these will result in a larger payoff than if you let the blacks/whites fall.

Also exactly what I'm trying to do.

Don't rely on paint powerups. You should always try to make matches on your own. The paints are nice, but don't make a habit of grabbing them whenever you see them, unless they're red/yellow, or you REALLY need to clear the board (i.e. it's the end of a song and you want Clean Finish).

Are you referring to the blocks that make all your board switch to one single colour or to those adding some blocks of their respective colour to the top of the board? In case you mean the latter: I've always picked them up, regardless what colour since they increase my chance to get match21 and give quite some points.

If any one of your columns starts blinking, you gotta kinda develop an eye for the right color to erase. For example, erasing the most dominant color in the column isn't always the best solution because you may end up erasing a bunch of other blocks in your other two columns that could lead to a nice combo.

I try this. It isn't always easy, though, especially on songs with a 200+ congestion

Also, I believe chaining applies to all puzzle characters, so try to keep what kEn says in his tutorial in the back of your mind.

Meh. Exactly my problem. When rarely I get a chain it's just luck. I simply cannot decide which colour to remove to make huge chains in mere milliseconds
I was much worse at pusher where I never knew how to stack up the blocks in order to get the most efficient (or even any at all) combos.

As a final note, practice with a Mono character. It sounds weird, but if you get good with Mono Pro, or ideally Ninja Mono, you can use what you learn in those modes and apply it to Eraser (and all other puzzle characters).

Did this for the last month or two. I'd say I'm pretty decent at mono, maybe among the 20 best mono pro players considering I almost always beat 90% of the other monos on the songs I play. Naturally, my scores cannot compete with those of a good pusher or pointman, though

Something I've ever wanted to know: do I get match21 only if all my board is full with blocks being used in a huge combo or also if I just put random blocks on it until it's full without having any combo?

[Avarice]

If Eraser is fun to you, by all means play it.  I know Gooner is very good with Eraser, though I'm not sure if he strolls around here much anymore.  If your end goal is to score well, though, you're going to need to be playing Pusher (most songs over ~170 traffic) or Pointman, and be able to keep a chain going. 

Chains are a lot easier to learn with Pointman on slower songs, that's where I started with it.  Pick your favorite acoustic ballad and sort it out for a few runs.  Pay a lot of attention to the thresholds for keeping a match/chain going, do some test runs.  Check the new wiki if you want an unreasonably detailed look at the scoring mechanics.  As for Pusher, you just need some time sucking at it till you don't actually have to process the left and right clicking anymore.  It's overwhelming and masochistic for you to try and learn everything at once.

[kEn_sct]

If Eraser is fun to you, by all means play it.  I know Gooner is very good with Eraser, though I'm not sure if he strolls around here much anymore.  If your end goal is to score well, though, you're going to need to be playing Pusher (most songs over ~170 traffic) or Pointman, and be able to keep a chain going. 

Chains are a lot easier to learn with Pointman on slower songs, that's where I started with it.  Pick your favorite acoustic ballad and sort it out for a few runs.  Pay a lot of attention to the thresholds for keeping a match/chain going, do some test runs.  Check the new wiki if you want an unreasonably detailed look at the scoring mechanics.  As for Pusher, you just need some time sucking at it till you don't actually have to process the left and right clicking anymore.  It's overwhelming and masochistic for you to try and learn everything at once.

gonner used to be good with eraser and probaly still is the best at it but he says u cant get anymore than 3x gold with it as it doesn't have the sorting capability so he now plays pusher (and dethroned me 3x last night ) argh.  as for pusher on some songs u can get a whoppin 6x gold and i have gotten 122000 ppm on only a 250 traffic song

[Capricornus]

If Eraser is fun to you, by all means play it.

I do, and finally it seems I'm getting the trick. I was able to dethrone some people. IMO it's way more fun than mono

I guess I'll stick to it for a while before moving on to pusher or, more likely, pointman. Up to now I've only played songs with a congestion lower than 200 with eraser so I think my next goal will be to kick some butts at 200+

Check the new wiki if you want an unreasonably detailed look at the scoring mechanics.

I'll certainly do, thanks for the advice.

It's overwhelming and masochistic for you to try and learn everything at once.

Indeed. Lately I realised this, too...

[FluFFey2]

just play. alot.
I used to be below average when the game was released. and only played mono for the first week since I couldn't keep up with 200+ traffic with the other chars. but after a while i got tired of mono and did some casual dv an pointman pro for a few days, and later moved on to elite. Just play. Learning by doing! THAT'S how you score high(oh.. and you need to know how point system works!- -).

[Nicsthomp]

There isn't really any secret to playing well with pointman... just takes getting used to! Main things really are block placement and timing, making sure you can carry on matches by not putting say a blue block underneath a whole lot of purples and to know how long you have before a match clears so you can know whether to put another block down, continuing the chain or wait till you scoop up the next block. There are probably lots of things i do without actually knowing... i just play the game :s

[CrackTheSky]

Trial by fire is the best way to learn.