They can only do so much. The team has been fighting TTC to even get this game out for at least fifteen years now, I'd think they'd have pushed back against everything they could.

+1, I would greatly appreciate an option to have NEXT at the top. I strongly dislike the current NEXT position; it's very uncomfortable to have to look up diagonally away from the playfield to properly understand the NEXT queue. I hope TTC can understand the detriment that this strict adherence to the established rules is causing for players of their games.

It's backwards that the information that is least immediately necessary (the pieces in queue positions 4~6) are closer to the point of gaze, and the information I need the most (the pieces in queue positions 1~3) are furthest away. This effect is greatly exacerbated during Cyclone, where it becomes imperative to understand the incoming piece orientation as soon as it is revealed. Whereas in TGM1-3 I can understand the NEXT piece easily without much need to avert my gaze, in TGM4 Master mode I find I am often at a disadvantage if I am not staring directly at the NEXT queue.

I think the treatment of the NEXT queue in TGM ACE and the TGM2015 location test where the queue updates when the active piece leaves the spawn zone was perfectly acceptable. It doesn't matter to me that NEXT "obscures" the area above the playfield, because the playfield frame naturally already obscures the area above the playfield as it is. It doesn't interfere with my understanding of the contents outside the playfield, and regardless it's more important to me that I understand the upcoming pieces.

I wholeheartedly agree with what has been said, and somehow I'm irrationally passionate about this feature.

Having the next box on top and aligned with the playfield make it so that the next piece is already part of the game, but just in a tempirary staging area. It helps to judge where the piece will land and avoid fundoshi situations (situations where the piece directly falls into a hole). Even today I still misjudge this due to the next box position. It's a little design feature, but it does not make me better at Tetris. It's the opposite in fact.

My hope for this thread is that enough people voice their opinions in favor of this change so that Arika can implement it as a toggle. This way:
1) technically that's still complies what the licensor wants
2) worse case scenario Arika can justifies itself by saying "it can't be helped, that's what the players wanted".

Yes please.

The position of the next piece in the other TGMs is simply good game design.

Unfortunately, as in every game involving famous brands, there will always be the suits using corporate pseudo-science to "enhance the value of the brand", even if this results in objectively worse game design decisions than those made by people who know what they're doing.

Putting the NEXT box on top is worse than the previous guideline mandate of having simply a queue of pieces on the side. Just look at Puyo Puyo Tetris, which clearly marks the next piece, and Tetris Effect, which only shows a queue and apparently relies on the player to understand that the piece at the top of the queue will be issued next. I would really like to learn more about how TTC comes up with such design decisions. Apart from that, the enlarged NEXT box on top of the playfield is jarring whereas the centered box in TGM3 and the TGM4 beta version is a lot more elegant.

@Arika: a layout similar to Tetris Effect would be an improvement over the current one.

Yes, please, Next on top is much better, I don't even have to look at it, I recognize the color by indirect vision. Whereas on the side, it all becomes a blur.
Please make it at least optional.
Thank you.

+1. I'd love to see this.

Strongly agree with this too.

+1 next box on top is a crucial feature

Hank rogers and his stupidly rich family won’t let mihara cook :/

I would love this as well, but I have a feeling it might be a guideline thing that Arika's hands are kind of tied on.

Although if they were allowed to break the two most core elements of the guideline (color scheme and rotation system) for the TGM modes, I don't feel like just moving a UI element's position should really be that big of an ask. Having the next piece horizontally aligned with where it spawns is just plain and simple good UI design and it's especially significant in TGM where it's so important to pre-rotate pieces so they don't get stuck on the stack in 20g.

Mihara-san previously confirmed this is indeed something enforced by the TTC in a tweet he tweeted previously, so don't expect it anytime soon yet.

Keep pressuring though, the more we voice our opinions the more the TTC might loosen their enforcement, just keep your expectations realistic.

That said I'm totally in support for this change as I dearly miss this!

Originally posted by Poggers:

Mihara-san previously confirmed this is indeed something enforced by the TTC in a tweet he tweeted previously, so don't expect it anytime soon yet.

Keep pressuring though, the more we voice our opinions the more the TTC might loosen their enforcement, just keep your expectations realistic.

That said I'm totally in support for this change as I dearly miss this!

The solution would then be for a user to modify the game and make the mod available to us. But as far as I know, that would go against the game's "terms of use", and the Japanese tend to take these things seriously...

oh yea also +1.