Would anyone else like an option to turn of vocal scoring?

[IMaMAGlCman]

I think it would be a cool feature to allow the vocals to just scroll across the screen and not force whoever is singing to have to match the pitch. None of my friends will try the vocals in this game because the first two who tried couldn't get through songs on easy, so all the rest wont even give them a try because they feel they dont have good voices.

This kind of sucks because the times I have had like 10 people over and we are all switching of roles, I am always stuck on the mic because if I don't, no one else will. Another problem was that a couple of the people have decent voices, they just arent able to match pitch correctly or when they do get pitch correctly, their singing is worse than if they just sang the song their own way. This is especially problematic in songs that people dont know the words to, let alone the pitch the words are supposed to be sung in.

If you had this option on, the song would not be allowed on the leaderboards, since it wouldn't be fair for people who are singing and being scored, but I wouldn't care and I bet many other wouldn't easier, because I when I have this game on with 20 people at my house, no one cares about score, we just want to have fun. And its not as if the vocals are completely realistic, since I have seen tons of videos of people just humming the song on Expert and getting 5*s. I think it would be a little more realistic to have people actually sing the song their own way than make them hum the notes.

Again, I am just saying this would be something nice to have as an option, not like they need to get rid of the scoring completely and change to this way. This would just be a pretty cool addition, because it would promote more people to try this if it was like karaoke and not something that they could actually fail at.

And its not as if singers in concerts sing their own songs EXACTLY like the studio versions. In fact, there are some rock concerts where the band does known songs differently than the studio versions that many view as being better than the studio version.

This just seems like it would make people more likely to try the singing and have fun with it, rather than feel they need to focus on trying to get a cursor to match a line.

Just wondered if anyone would be interested in something like this.

[JShmazzle]

Sounds like a good idea to me. I've had plenty of parties where no one wants to sing because they can't get through the song on pitch, but everyone is still happy to rap Sabotage because they don't have to worry about pitch.

And everyone wants to be MCA. Or is it Adrock? I don't remember.

[DesiredFX]

It wouldn't suck.

[Schultzy]

Ummm...doesn't turning off the scoring completely defeat the idea of having a singer in the band? :confused:
Why would Harmonix want to turn off one of the main features of their game in the first place?
If none of you can sing well, don't have a singer in your band and just play with three people, cause that's all it seems like you're doing anyway. There's no point in forcing people to play something they don't want to and it doesn't seem like you're having all that much fun playing as singer anyway. Just have someone sit out a turn and wait til the next go.
Turning off the scoring would be absolutely pointless. If none of you can match the pitch but still wanna sing, unplug the mic and sing to your hearts content. There's no need/reason for HMX to go back and change a big part of their game just cause a few people can't match the pitch given.

[Abaddon]

Ummm...doesn't turning off the scoring completely defeat the idea of having a singer in the band? :confused:
Why would Harmonix want to turn off one of the main features of their game in the first place?
If none of you can sing well, don't have a singer in your band and just play with three people, cause that's all it seems like you're doing anyway. There's no point in forcing people to play something they don't want to and it doesn't seem like you're having all that much fun playing as singer anyway. Just have someone sit out a turn and wait til the next go.
Turning off the scoring would be absolutely pointless. If none of you can match the pitch but still wanna sing, unplug the mic and sing to your hearts content. There's no need/reason for HMX to go back and change a big part of their game just cause a few people can't match the pitch given.Believe it or not, there are some people that want to have "fun" and their objective is not to get a high "score".

Clearly you completely missed the point of the request, maybe you should skip this thread and move on to one of the many 5* GOLD threads instead.

[DesiredFX]

Whereas the Bass, Guitar, and Drum parts are "pre-quantified" by nature--that is, you have to play the note charts as they're laid out--the game's attempt to measure vocal performance requires it to convert the input on the fly and measure it against a pre-determined standard.

This approach completely destroys the possibility of singing something your own way, forcing you instead to mimic. Except that you don't mimic what the singer is singing, you mimic what the game designer has interpreted the singer to be singing.

This is why people can rack up huge points by producing a loud, ugly, on-pitch hum when singing well ends up scoring much, much worse.

Since the scoring for singing is so unforgiving and inaccurate, since it encourages and rewards robotic whining, why not just set up a "jam mode" that allows the singer to sing however he/she wants to?

[SSPWOLF]

I can see both sides of this argument, but not both sides make sense to me.

Personally.. I don't give a damn about score. I like challenge and fun.

The crux of the situation is that this IS a game. If you turn off the scoring feature, you aren't actually doing anything.

I understand where you are coming from... but on the same token, when my wife picked up the guitar controller for the first time she failed some of the harder songs on easy too. A LOT of people can't play the drums on easy without a lot of practice.

I have a suggestion that might help you out a lot: Let people play through the singing tutorial. It only takes about 5 minutes.

The bottom line is.. the game is designed to be EASY on easy. Chances are if someone is failing on easy they just aren't getting the concepts of the game, because you don't have to be able to sing well or imitate the song's vocals to pass on easy. Now.. you can't just completely do your own thing on the microphone... you can't just yell random stuff and make noises or decide you're going to sing the Johnny Cash version of I fought law... or that you're going to do an opera version of Enter Sandman.

You also can't just play whatever guitar solo you want either.


Honestly, I can't imagine anyone failing on easy unless they are either being silent during a couple phrases in a row.. or trying to just do something completely different from the song. I've seen someone fail on easy on "Enter Sandman" because they were trying to growl and thought they were sounding like James Hettfield. They weren't, they sounded like they had glass in thier throat.

If you can complete the tutorial you can do MOST songs on easy.

If you've got someone who can't sing every song in the game.. then don't play every song. Just about anyone can get through the first three tiers simply by making either HIGH or LOW pitched noises in the GENERAL rythym.

I just went into the game, picked "Say It Ain't" so and purposely only sung the last two words of each phrase and stayed mono-tone through the whole thing. It didn't fail me.

[DesiredFX]

Now.. you can't just completely do your own thing on the microphone... you can't just yell random stuff and make noises or decide you're going to sing the Johnny Cash version of I fought law... or that you're going to do an opera version of Enter Sandman.

You also can't just play whatever guitar solo you want either.

Which would be an issue if you were actually playing a guitar rather than a plastic controller. Expressed at its simplest, the purpose of the game where guitar is concerned is to match the colored buttons on the controller to the colors on the screen.

Whole different experience from singing.

Even the drumming is little more than a simplified rhythm chart. Hell, it's ONLY a simplified rhythm chart.

But singing is, by nature, an intimate and subjective experience that the game is trying to quantify, and some people do want to try an operatic take on Enter Sandman or Johnny Cash's version of I Fought the Law. It's called "having fun."

The OP here is suggesting, in essence, a party mode that doesn't score/fail people, because, let's face it, at a casual karaoke bar, they still let you finish the song even if you blow chunks right from the start.

In fact, why not have a complete party mode that doesn't score anyone at all...or allows you to revive anyone unlimited times instead of having a three-strikes rule. It's a party atmosphere--you want to be able to finish the song and then laugh at each other for how much you suck.

In the end, is it really any different from having an unlimited lives or unlimited ammo cheat in a platformer or shooter?

[SSPWOLF]

Which would be an issue if you were actually playing a guitar rather than a plastic controller. Expressed at its simplest, the purpose of the game where guitar is concerned is to match the colored buttons on the controller to the colors on the screen.

Whole different experience from singing.

Even the drumming is little more than a simplified rhythm chart. Hell, it's ONLY a simplified rhythm chart.

But singing is, by nature, an intimate and subjective experience that the game is trying to quantify, and some people do want to try an operatic take on Enter Sandman or Johnny Cash's version of I Fought the Law. It's called "having fun."

The OP here is suggesting, in essence, a party mode that doesn't score/fail people, because, let's face it, at a casual karaoke bar, they still let you finish the song even if you blow chunks right from the start.

In fact, why not have a complete party mode that doesn't score anyone at all...or allows you to revive anyone unlimited times instead of having a three-strikes rule. It's a party atmosphere--you want to be able to finish the song and then laugh at each other for how much you suck.

In the end, is it really any different from having an unlimited lives or unlimited ammo cheat in a platformer or shooter?


Don't get me wrong.. I'm not against the idea. It wouldn't matter to me. If people want a party mode.. more power to them.

I'm simply trying to help them justify what it is, and hopefully give some advice on how to deal with it the way it is.

Visiting the tutorial will help a lot of people who think they can't even pass on easy.

Also, a karaoke bar is karaoke. Wanting Rock Band to imitate karaoke is like wanting Halo 3 to imitate Call of Duty 2. Similar ideas, but totally different designs.


By that logic.. what's the difference between just not having a "singer character" in the game and just letting your "singer" stand there in the living room and sing?

The only thing missing is the scrolling words.

So print out the lyrics for them and let them sing along with the vocal track that's already there. Or turn it off and let them do whatever they want. Could even have them hold the microphone if they like.

I don't know what everyone's audio set up is.. but I have a top-of-the-line set up here and we play with it turned up pretty loud.. we still hear the "singer's voice from his/her mouth" over the "singer's voice through the microphone coming out of the speakers"


My point is, like I said.. by all means.. whatever makes people happy go for it. It's just that.. I think people tend to look at it from a distant perspective is all.

It doesn't matter to me, I'm sure if it was in the game to disable scoring and failing a lot of people would use it.

It's not though, so maybe if you view it from another perspective, or try something new.. your friends who "would sing but don't" might give it another shot.

[chupa]

For those of us who throw big rock band parties and get lots of drunk girls who just want to do 'karaoke', this would be a sweet feature.

So, I support it.

[SSPWOLF]

As a humorous side-note, somewhat related...

A buddy of mine came over and saw my Rock Band drums and asked about them. He'd never heard of the game, but asked if he could try the drums. About 30 seconds into the first song he got mad, saying: "What the hell? I don't wanna play what they tell me to play. I wanna play whatever I wanna play!"

So I offered to let him play my real drumset.... he says "I can play drums any time I want to. I just wanted to play the game.. but it's stupid."

[DesiredFX]

I see what you're saying, and it's hard for me to judge how it's working because I'm the one who typically ends up singing, which means that what I'm hearing is mostly about the bone conductivity in my skull rather than the speakers.


Also, a karaoke bar is karaoke. Wanting Rock Band to imitate karaoke is like wanting Halo 3 to imitate Call of Duty 2. Similar ideas, but totally different designs.

The singing in RB is just Harmonix lifting their Karaoke Revolution engine into a new game and tweaking it a bit. I knew that going in, which means I already knew the limitations the game would have, and I already knew that singing was going to get old for me very quickly--forcing a singer to hop octaves is not my idea of a proper way to implement a singing game.

But that's something of a digression--I got tired of KR not because of octave-hopping but because my own personal style of singing some of the songs got graded very harshly. It's not that I couldn't sing the song in a way that people found entertaining, but that what I do to sing the song in an entertaining way--which has more to do with the way I phrase things and trail off of notes than anything else--is not something that Karaoke Revolution considered "accurate" where the game is concerned.

At some point, the game needs to let go of the idea that your voice should be used with the precision of a game controller. I'd frankly be surprised if any of the singers of the master tracks could score G5* on Expert without practice.

[hessonbox]

i agree this would be a great feature for parties

[TobyD81]

I think it's a great idea; stick in a Party option that turns off scoring and makes the game fully user-friendly. If your concern is getting a high score, you don't have to use it, but your drunk friends might have fun with it later.

[SSPWOLF]

there's another thread where I've posted some long observations about what you are saying.

To sum up what's relevent here...

Personally.. I've played around enough with the singing to know that there's plenty of ways I could end up singing every song in the game on expert. I could hum through certain parts, octave hop, start early to ensure my pitch is right, and otherwise be a "score-monkey".

I don't do that though.

I enjoy the singing aspect. If I'm by myself I'll play on hard most of the time and try to finish the song with a decent score. I don't put my everything into getting that "uber score" but I like the feeling of "playing the game and getting to the next level" sort of like in Mass Effect when I do side quests that I really don't care about.. just to get the sense of completion for having done another quest.

When there's people around... I sing most songs on medium, and some on easy. Not because I'm afraid I'll fail or something..

But because when I'm on medium I can do my (if I dare be so arrogant as to say so myself) spot-on Kurt Kobain impression.. and when I'm on easy I can ATTEMPT to do a decent Sting impression.

It's more entertaining if I have fun with it. On songs like Fortunate Son and Creep I don't just mumble in pitch.. I put the ole' rockstar vocals on em'. Hurts my score.. but it's fun as hell and everyone gets into it more.

I've found that even belting along I can still get through any song on easy and most songs on medium.


On the other hand.. my wife plays on hard, and with the exception of the metal songs (a woman with a normal voice is not going to "imitate" James) she actually does sing the notes in pitch and on key. The reason she doesn't play on expert is because on hard she still has some room to "be herself" with the songs she likes.

so.. there is some room for self expression within the parameters of the difficulty level based on your own ability to remain on pitch and rythym...

You just can't expect to G5* any songs "doing it your own way" (or arguable doing anything other being a score monkey)

[DesiredFX]

You just can't expect to G5* any songs "doing it your own way" (or arguable doing anything other being a score monkey)

I agree, but that's exactly the opposite of what the thread is asking for.

I think you're right in that the singing tutorials would get most people up to speed enough to handle easy on any song they already know. What tends to kill people in this game is singing songs they don't know...or worse, singing songs they THINK they know that the song charts at a level of detail they're not prepared for.

For example, for a long time, the "Hmm-mmm" in In Bloom was giving me fits: in my mind, I heard Cobain going down to a much more harmonious pitch than he actually goes down to in the song. I had to guesswork my way to figuring out that he's only going down about a half-step. Little things like that can not only destroy your score, they can make you fail out even on Easy.

[SSPWOLF]

I'm honestly not trying to be argumentative here. Like I've said (three times now) I'm all for people getting whatever makes them happy....

All I'm saying is that... Singing in this game is a lot more like playing the guitar in this game than most people think.


You can't pick up the guitar your first time every playing one of these games and expect to be able to play it well at all.

People think that in the "game" they should be able to sing a song they know and get 100% FC on expert because they are great singers and they know the song.

It's still a game.. you can't have your cake and eat it too.

The underlying themes I'm detecting are:

1) I *really* don't care about score or anything to do with score. I just want to SING, but I can't do it on easy because I fail.

I'm suggesting, humbly, that you should be able to pretty much do "your own thing" on easy with out failing. Now, obviously I can't spit the lyrics from "F- The police" to "Roxanne" and still pass. It's still a game, you gotta do "somewhat" what the game is asking.

I'm not sure what the real difference is.. but It's almost like you either sing "High" or "low" on easy.. whereas on expert you gotta actually be on the particular note.

Of course, some people want to be able to just sing ANYTHING they want... and for them, I hope that Rock Band gives them some kind of patch.

I'm just trying to suggest that if you are actually trying to sing the same song as the singer of the original track is and you just can't seem to get it right... the tutorial and about an hour of practice on various songs should equip you to sing on easy without failing.


the other thing I'm getting here...

2) People think that even on the easiest levels the game is fundamentally designed to ensure that if you are a good singer you won't be able to get high scores because you have to sing monotone etc.

I don't have enough information to really speak on this. I know my wife sounds pretty good when she sings on hard/expert on most song...

but until I can get one of my singers from my work to come down and really do some professional style vocals to one of these songs I can't really make too many claims.

I got a guy who records gospel professionally, I'm sure he can hit most of the notes spot-on because he has an absolutely amazing range and excellent breath control. It'll be interesting to find a song he knows well and see how he does on the different difficulty levels. I'll post his thoughts when I can get him over.

[sporkBrigade]

While I don't actually object to the idea, other then I think it should be low on the priority list, I have to echo the concern that a request to make a video game not a video game is counter intuitive. If you want to sing Karaoke style, go to a Karaoke Bar. There's beer there even, and girls to hit on.

Sorry, I know you don't want to hear negativity, but it is what it is. Rock Band isn't a jam session, and it's not Karaoke. It's a video game. The whole point is the be scored. If you don't want to be scored, why are you playing? There are many other ways for you to sing where you don't get scored, and they're all cheaper and cooler then playing video games.

I totally understand the party situation, and that's why I wouldn't mind seeing it. But this general concept that singing should be an expressive art, and you shouldn't have to worry about being scored... Well, it's a little weird in context.


At some point, the game needs to let go of the idea that your voice should be used with the precision of a game controller. I'd frankly be surprised if any of the singers of the master tracks could score G5* on Expert without practice.

You're asking for the impossible. You're dealing with a Computer, so you have to reduce everything to the simplest terms. You dropping your voice at the end of a phrase to make it sound cool, in simplest terms, is you changing your pitch. So either you reward the wrong pitch, or you force people to drop pitch. That's it, those are your two options, there's no middle ground. I know it can be frustrating to singers, especially since you all like to put your own spin on things. I totally get that, music is expression. But you really just have to see how impossible your request is. The game has to score you, there's nothing else to do about it. Other then not play Video Game versions of music, but obviously we all have problems avoiding that pitfall. :D

[DesiredFX]

You're asking for the impossible.

No, I'm not. I personally don't care what the design of the game is for singing except that it's designed so stringently that I really don't want to play it.

And the reality is that the pitch detection engine could have "fine tuning" controls accessible to the user that would allow them to tailor the song's scoring to their own style of singing. In my case, that might include a slider that allows me to tweak how much I can "tail off" on the note without losing points.

But that would be defeating the purpose of the game aspects of it, much like giving me editing capabilities for the enemies in Ratchet & Clank. "Well, I like using the Devastator, so I'm going to change it so that this guy is extra-vulnerable to the Devastator."

As I said earlier, what I'm asking for--what the OP is asking for, really--is about the equivalent of an unlimited health or unlimited ammo cheat in another game. They exist. They don't ruin the experience for people who don't use them, and they do enhance the experience for people who feel like the game is too difficult without them.

And frankly, it wouldn't take much effort at all to implement a mode that either doesn't allow fail outs at all, or which doesn't put a limit on the number of times you can fail out.

[SSPWOLF]

While I don't actually object to the idea, other then I think it should be low on the priority list, I have to echo the concern that a request to make a video game not a video game is counter intuitive. If you want to sing Karaoke style, go to a Karaoke Bar. There's beer there even, and girls to hit on.

Sorry, I know you don't want to hear negativity, but it is what it is. Rock Band isn't a jam session, and it's not Karaoke. It's a video game. The whole point is the be scored. If you don't want to be scored, why are you playing? There are many other ways for you to sing where you don't get scored, and they're all cheaper and cooler then playing video games.

I totally understand the party situation, and that's why I wouldn't mind seeing it. But this general concept that singing should be an expressive art, and you shouldn't have to worry about being scored... Well, it's a little weird in context.



You're asking for the impossible. You're dealing with a Computer, so you have to reduce everything to the simplest terms. You dropping your voice at the end of a phrase to make it sound cool, in simplest terms, is you changing your pitch. So either you reward the wrong pitch, or you force people to drop pitch. That's it, those are your two options, there's no middle ground. I know it can be frustrating to singers, especially since you all like to put your own spin on things. I totally get that, music is expression. But you really just have to see how impossible your request is. The game has to score you, there's nothing else to do about it. Other then not play Video Game versions of music, but obviously we all have problems avoiding that pitfall. :D

Spot on mate.

I too, agree with the sentiment... that, Hey.. for all you who want it I truly hope HMX does it for you.

But it if it comes down to them taking time and manpower away from people who could be working on NEW features, I'd just as soon they didn't.

As a side note..

[CKarinja]

Personally, I would like this option because I know some of my friends won't be able to sing well (Or do anything beyond Easy on the other instruments), but I want us all to play everything and just have fun. Since we usually have 4 in one room, we can then all play Rock Band together.

If I have one friend failing a song from the singing part, then it ruins the experience for us all. Now, normally I wouldn't mind this. But if we all just wanted to have fun and play the instruments at our own pace, then I see no reason to not have something like this. And kicking the singer for that song out of a turn because he can't sing it, then that's just terrible.

So, I would be happy for some sort of Party Mode that allows everyone to have fun.

[Nakor]

I completely support this idea. It's an option. Just like the DLC tracks, if you don't want it then don't enable it. I think this should be possible for the entire band though too as was already mentioned. Sometimes you just want to have fun and screw around with your friends.

[sporkBrigade]

No, I'm not. I personally don't care what the design of the game is for singing except that it's designed so stringently that I really don't want to play it.

And the reality is that the pitch detection engine could have "fine tuning" controls accessible to the user that would allow them to tailor the song's scoring to their own style of singing. In my case, that might include a slider that allows me to tweak how much I can "tail off" on the note without losing points.

But that would be defeating the purpose of the game aspects of it, much like giving me editing capabilities for the enemies in Ratchet & Clank. "Well, I like using the Devastator, so I'm going to change it so that this guy is extra-vulnerable to the Devastator."

As I said earlier, what I'm asking for--what the OP is asking for, really--is about the equivalent of an unlimited health or unlimited ammo cheat in another game. They exist. They don't ruin the experience for people who don't use them, and they do enhance the experience for people who feel like the game is too difficult without them.

And frankly, it wouldn't take much effort at all to implement a mode that either doesn't allow fail outs at all, or which doesn't put a limit on the number of times you can fail out.

I hope we don't have to go through the motions of discussing why giving people control over the scoring system invalidates the point of having a scoring system. Yes, technically you've proven it's possible to account for personal singing, though. I stand corrected. :D

Funny enough, I find myself thinking along the lines of the Fan Caps discussions. It comes down to this, and I think after this long winded post we'll just agree to disagree. I believe failure belongs in Videogames. I believe it should be required, and there should be no way to get around it. There should always be something there that you can't do, and there should never just be a magical code to make it go away. Any attempt to get around this basic rule makes the game more shallow. Of course, there are various exceptions you make, but I'll always be on the side of fighting against it. Unlimited Health codes and the like are going away as time goes on. You seem them less and less, and I think for very good reason. I support that full heartedly.

Scoring in singing has to be consistant. There's no way to account for your personal differences in style while still penalizing someone else's inability to keep the correct pitch(Again, I hope we don't have to go into edited scoring systems again, that won't be fun for anyone). Verbrato sounds great from one person, but the same changes in pitch in a different context is just someone not able to hold a note. Dropping phrases is changing pitch, so it's just not viable. All you can rely on is accuracy. Accuracy does not mean it sounds good. But I know I've heard some really good expert singers that are accurate, and still make it a performance.

But if you're a great singer and you don't care about score, you just want to belt it out and make it sound great, sing on easy. There's no need to demand scoring changes. You obviously don't care about score, so just drop it. If you're a terrible singer that can't sing on easy, failure needs to be there so that actually singing on easy means something. I know this bugs a lot of people, but game developers do this because games that follow these rules sell better. They're better games. People like them more. It just is what it is.

Removing actual fail outs are the one thing I will stand behind completely, and I'll go even one step further. I believe you should never be able to fail out on Easy. DDR did it for years, and it worked just fine. You might find it weird that I see a difference between removing/dumbing down scoring and removing fail outs, but I do. If on Easy you're flashing red and you know you failed out, but technically the song doesn't stop, I feel this is a fine comprimise. You still know you failed, but at a party the music keeps going. That way the new beginner doesn't get quite as frustrated. It works a lot of magic, and I've always been fine with it.

I'm not an elitist by the way. I've gone through all the hardships that everyone else does, and I always struggle when learning to play video games. They don't come naturally, I'm just not an agile person in any sense of the word. But I'm a strong believer in failure, and how important it is in making a great experience. I'm not talking about Expert, or songs like Jordan or Through Fire and Flames. I'm just talking about the basic philosophy of failure, and it's importance at every stage of a game's difficulty. Even the lowest.

[SSPWOLF]

spork, that was one of the best written posts I've ever seen on this forum.

Well done, kudos, and bravo.

I agree with you on every point you made.. so much so that I'm almost tempted to levy a lawsuit against you for invading my personal thoughts.

I can't even find a way to agree with you more by adding to what you've said.. you said it all.

[DesiredFX]

I don't think anyone's asking for failure to be removed from the game. They're asking for us to have an option to remove it from the singing portion of the game just to make it more accommodating as a party game.

No, it's not a karaoke bar, but when you have a group of five or ten people that just wanna hang out and play, there's nothing that will crush the party spirit faster than nobody wanting to sing because nobody can get through a complete song. It's a far worse buzzkill than "0 New Fans."

(And for the record, I'm on the side of keeping the fan caps.)

[espher]

No, I can't say I would want this option, for many reasons others have listed in this thread.

Besides, if you can't get through a song on easy vocals with your own vocal styling, I probably wouldn't want to listen to you sing. :p

Edit: There's probably a "rock meter always in the green" cheat somewhere out there that we just haven't discovered, honestly.

[sporkBrigade]

I don't think anyone's asking for failure to be removed from the game. They're asking for us to have an option to remove it from the singing portion of the game just to make it more accommodating as a party game.

Optional removal of failure is still the removal of failure. To use you're own analogy, the unlimited health/ammo codes. They're the same thing. It's optional, but it's also the removal of failure. It creates a shallow experience, and many game developers are opting not to include such codes in their games.

Sometimes the best games don't always give you the options you want, even though you really think you want it. Again, there are exceptions. Always exceptions. The inability to strafe in Resident Evil 4 leaps to mind. But in this case, I haven't seen the need. I see two cases. Expert singers who want to make the song sound better, but have to sacrifice accuracy to do so. My response to them is simple and clear, play on medium. And of course...


No, it's not a karaoke bar, but when you have a group of five or ten people that just wanna hang out and play, there's nothing that will crush the party spirit faster than nobody wanting to sing because nobody can get through a complete song. It's a far worse buzzkill than "0 New Fans."

I hear ya. I would push for no failouts on easy to solve your specific example. Songs keep playing, things keep going, but you still failed. But you're also drunk, so it shouldn't actually matter that much. I find this solution much better for the overall game experience then a code or mode that guts the scoring system in any way.


(And for the record, I'm on the side of keeping the fan caps.)

We should totally make out. :D

[DesiredFX]

Optional removal of failure is still the removal of failure. To use you're own analogy, the unlimited health/ammo codes. They're the same thing. It's optional, but it's also the removal of failure. It creates a shallow experience, and many game developers are opting not to include such codes in their games.

I've got a friend who won't play some types of games unless they have life or ammo cheats.

But, since a game is, on some level, an artistic experience, I can understand why a skilled developer would want to challenge a player to meet the game on its own terms rather than throwing open the doors to anyone who can push a button.

I don't use cheat codes myself--the people I play with want to play the game. But if I had just gotten the game and was going to have ten people over to hang out and play, I'd certainly use the "unlock all songs" cheat to make the game more accessible to the people I had over who weren't as into playing as my gamer friends.

And, yeah, some of them would sing versions of the songs that I don't think anyone should be subjected to. But, in a party situation, it's all about having fun, and anything I can do with the game to remove obstacles to that goal seems perfectly reasonable to me.



I hear ya. I would push for no failouts on easy to solve your specific example.

How come that isn't "still the removal of failure?"

[SSPWOLF]

All the songs are available immediately in quickplay ;)

[DesiredFX]

All the songs are available immediately in quickplay ;)

I'm assuming the winking smiley means you're kidding, eh?

Oh, another example of why singing kinda drives me crazy in this game: we downloaded the Police pack on launch day and at one point Can't Stand Losing You came up. Several of us tried it--on Medium, I think--and every one of us just failed, and failed, and failed.

It wasn't until listening to it for about the fourth time that I realized that what HMX had charted as the melody was the part that every one of us was thinking was the harmony--we were all singing the melody of the falsetto part, and just failing outright.

Now, if you don't know that going in, you're gonna fail until you figure it out, like we did.

This isn't really intended as an example beyond the idea that the files that define the songs to the game are created according to what someone's subjective idea of what the song is and that it's a lot harder to decode that subjectivity on the vocal track than it is on any of the other instruments.

[SSPWOLF]

No. I played every song in the game the day I bought it. On quickplay. Every song is available immediately on quick play.

[BIGZFOOT]

I have no idea how people fail singing on easy! it's so easy hence it's called EASY!!!! Besides there would be no point...When you sing a song you usually sing like the song and the pitch of the voice don't you? Stupid Idea

[DesiredFX]

Huh. Some part of my brain vaguely remembers checking Quickplay on the PS3 and only seeing the songs we'd already opened up by playing them elsewhere, but, to be honest, I haven't dug that far through solo or local multiplayer Quickplay.

And in online Quickplay on the PS3, if my character has opened up 25 songs plus all 13 bonus tracks, and yours has opened 35 songs and no bonus tracks, the list we have to choose from is based on combining those two lists. If neither of us has opened Run to the Hills, it's not available.


I have no idea how people fail singing on easy! it's so easy hence it's called EASY!!!! Besides there would be no point...When you sing a song you usually sing like the song and the pitch of the voice don't you? Stupid Idea

See kids? This is an example of "Narcissism."

The writer can't understand how someone could fail on Easy because he has never failed on Easy and he therefore thinks nobody else could fail on Easy, which makes it a "Stupid Idea" to allow players to turn off vocal scoring.

[SSPWOLF]

Agreed on the Narcissism.

If there's one thing I'll say these forums are teaching me...

It's that it's easier to find sexy crackhead than it is to find an objective person on the internet.

Everything about these forums is plastered with "me me me!"

Seems like the majority of the people here think the game was created first and if you offer an opinion that differs from theres they tend to go into "I must prove I am right" mode.

It's impossible to enter into civil debate when, furthermore, most people think "That's stupid" is a valid point.

[espher]

Everything about these forums is plastered with "me me me!"

You're right about that. There are a lot of people who want the design of the game redone to fit their needs.

[Ishanji]

Believe it or not, there are some people that want to have "fun" and their objective is not to get a high "score".

Clearly you completely missed the point of the request, maybe you should skip this thread and move on to one of the many 5* GOLD threads instead.

I play this game exclusively to have fun, but I'll tell you what's not fun: Being kicked off of my favorite instrument (vocals) to hear somebody who can't sing belt out a totally off-key performance. I don't mind switching instruments with somebody if they can carry a tune, but if they CAN, then they can play on Easy. I've played this game with easily 30 different people, and I've never seen anyone fail Easy, even those whose voices were audibly offensive. I routinely mess around on the vocals even playing Hard/Expert and still pass. My score can be abysmal sometimes, but it's fun. If you're really improvising to the point where you fail the song, you're either taking it too far or can't sing well enough normally to support your noodling elsewhere.


This approach completely destroys the possibility of singing something your own way, forcing you instead to mimic. Except that you don't mimic what the singer is singing, you mimic what the game designer has interpreted the singer to be singing.

This is why people can rack up huge points by producing a loud, ugly, on-pitch hum when singing well ends up scoring much, much worse.

Since the scoring for singing is so unforgiving and inaccurate, since it encourages and rewards robotic whining, why not just set up a "jam mode" that allows the singer to sing however he/she wants to?

Mimicking the original artist is what this game is about. That's why it's a game and not a jam session with your friends. As I mentioned in my reply to Abaddon, you can freestyle a good deal of the song and still pass, as long as you're on pitch for some of it. And really, the designer has interpreted the pitch of the singers almost flawlessly. Yes, sometimes it's difficult to use the same vocal effects and score 5*, but by the same turn it's also difficult to fail by mimicking the singer's abnormalities, especially on Easy. I sing Welcome Home on Expert and strain my voice to sing like Claudio does and I still pass, and it's fun to boot because that type of singing is way up in my falsetto.


But singing is, by nature, an intimate and subjective experience that the game is trying to quantify, and some people do want to try an operatic take on Enter Sandman or Johnny Cash's version of I Fought the Law. It's called "having fun."

I would argue that singing is intimate, but is NOT totally subjective. For example, we may argue back and forth about a certain singer's vocal style, but there is no argument as to whether the singer is on pitch. And in fact, if there were such an argument, we could produce electronic readings to verify the claims of either side. That's what Rock Band does: Electronically measures pitch. No electronic device available today can measure your "style", but they certainly can measure pitch, and that's all Rock Band demands: you sing on pitch. I sing in a variety of styles between different songs, and as long as I'm on pitch, I never fail.

The problem, again, is that this is a videogame. If you want to try an operatic take on Enter Sandman or do Johnny Cash's version of I Fought the Law, you should pick up some instruments and do it. The point of Rock Band is to approximate the song as recorded by whichever artist appears in the game.

Honestly, adding a "jam session" segment to the game is ridiculous. If all you want is to play around with a song, why wouldn't you just pick up some real instruments and start playing? That way you're not limited to whatever notes Harmonix would decide to use for each instrument; because each non-vocal instrument would have to have set tones for each button as opposed to the dynamic tones that are available with the note charts. And if you argue that you're not musicians and thus cannot pick up your real instruments and start playing, well, then you really have no business reinterpreting songs anyway, now do you?

[SSPWOLF]

^
I hate this guy.

You just took my whole argument and made it sound better.

Lol, well spoken.

[dfjdejulio]

Turning off the scoring would be absolutely pointless. If none of you can match the pitch but still wanna sing, unplug the mic and sing to your hearts content.

The difference between this and what the OP is asking for is basically, if you unplug the mic and don't have a singer registered with the band, the game does not display the lyrics at all.

Would you support the request if the OP had simply asked for the game to display the lyrics even when nobody is singing? Because that's basically what they want.

[Ishanji]

Would you support the request if the OP had simply asked for the game to display the lyrics even when nobody is singing? Because that's basically what they want.

Why would anyone need that? If somebody wants to sing along with a song, they should know the words, or at least most of them, and chances are the ones they don't know they'll sing along with the vocal track anyway. People who just want to sing along do so because they know the song, and if they know the song, they won't need the lyrics.

Unless you're suggesting that by displaying the lyrics onscreen that it turns off the artist's vocals in game, in which case we're back to my previous argument: start a real band already.

[Sashimi-X]

I really think the game should have some kind of "freestyle" mode where you can never fail. Perhaps a Band Practice mode or something.

[DesiredFX]

The point of Rock Band is to approximate the song as recorded by whichever artist appears in the game.

Which is fine as long as you've got an electronic instrument interpreting what you do and translating into what Peter Buck does, or what Joe Perry does, or what Alex Lifeson does. Guitar players are not asked to play at their caliber--just push buttons quickly and rhythmically.

The drums work similarly: there is a different between rapidly tapping a pad and generating a drum roll on a snare drum. Drumming in this game is certainly closer to real life drumming, but in the end, you're still pushing buttons quickly and rhythmically, with the game interpreting your action and translating it into Charlie Watts, Neal Peart, or Bill Berry.

But the electronic device I've been given for vocals doesn't interpret what I do at all. It doesn't translate my vocals into a set of trigger events that make sounds come out of the game. My voice is used in place of the singer's, and as proud as I am of my singing ability, I'm not Thom Yorke, I'm not Michael Stipe, I'm not Steven Tyler, I'm not Sting, and I'm certainly not Mick Jagger.

No amount of practice is going to prevent me from having to drop down an octave in the middle of the song...and that's the least of my problems when dealing with mimicking the singers in this game.

Is singing arguably the easiest "instrument" in the game? Of course it is...as long as you're not expecting me to imitate someone with precision.

When I turn on Radiohead, REM, The Arcade Fire, Wilco, or anyone else in my car and sing along, I'm singing along to enjoy myself, and I sing along pretty darned well. I even sing the songs in this game pretty darned well. But in neither instance do I sing them exactly like the artist I'm singing along with.

The most accurate way for this game to handle vocals would have been to create an instrument that has you push buttons and trigger the vocals according to how well you push them. Or you could have it expect you to sing a rhythm and as long as you kept up with that rhythm, it would continue to play the vocalist's soundtrack. If it did that, I could understand your argument.

Since it doesn't, it needs to give some leeway, especially when it's being used as a party game with a group of non-singers.

Realize that no one is asking for this to be a fixture in the game that allows everyone to sing without the possibility of failure and so end up at the top of the leaderboards. People are asking for a cheat--and no one's calling it anything more respectable than a cheat--that allows you to get through the singing without failing out.

I frankly don't understand why anyone would object to that. There's really no reason to, because allowing such a cheat--fully optional, triggered by the player, and with no effect on online scoring--doesn't impact the play of anyone but the people who trigger it to make their Rock Band party more fun for their friends who don't play these sorts of games regularly.

I don't think the casual player needs to fail out to understand the difference between "Messy" and "Awesome."

[DesiredFX]

Why would anyone need that? If somebody wants to sing along with a song, they should know the words, or at least most of them, and chances are the ones they don't know they'll sing along with the vocal track anyway. People who just want to sing along do so because they know the song, and if they know the song, they won't need the lyrics.

Ever meet someone who can sing the chorus of a song flawlessly but doesn't know any words from the verse? For me, that describes the total lyrical investment of almost everyone I know in almost every song they enjoy singing along to.

And please, can it with the "start a real band" argument. That's annoying enough when it comes from haters of the game.

[SSPWOLF]

But the electronic device I've been given for vocals doesn't interpret what I do at all. It doesn't translate my vocals into a set of trigger events that make sounds come out of the game. My voice is used in place of the singer's, and as proud as I am of my singing ability, I'm not Thom Yorke, I'm not Michael Stipe, I'm not Steven Tyler, I'm not Sting, and I'm certainly not Mick Jagger.

No amount of practice is going to prevent me from having to drop down an octave in the middle of the song...and that's the least of my problems when dealing with mimicking the singers in this game.

."


WRONG

The game uses what you sing as a trigger for the track vocals. That's a fact.

You've obviously not played online very much as anything other than a singer.


all you have to do is match the pitch and rythym and you trigger the vocals. If you miss it, there's a background track that plays continuously, but the "main" vocals won't play.


You are also wrong about "no amount" of practice....

When I was a kid I was kicked out of choir for being a "monotone"

I took lessons and was able to flex my pitch.

I practiced and was able to increase my range.

Not saying you should invest the time and energy into becoming a great singer just to enjoy rock band...

but if you can't sing on "easy" then the issue lies with your ability to understand the concept of singing. No offense, I didn't understand how the game's concept worked at first either.

Either you want to get teh "uberzor score" or you want to have fun.

If you want to karoake and noodle, then you won't be able to successfully play the game. If "singing along" is your kind of fun.. then you can do that on easy and medium with little to no talent.

If your idea of fun is getting "teh highzor score" then there's ways even a tone deaf person can achieve 5 stars on expert by cheating.

If you want to get better and eventually be able to sing and get "teh uberzor scores" .. well, you do that the same way you get to Carnegie Hall.

I am sick of the argument of "It's not like playing guitar" because it is. Your voice is an instrument, you must train and practice and make mistakes and learn from them.

[Project_Mercy]

I would counter that the drums is closer to drumming in a live band than the singing is to vocals in a band. I mean, Freezepop is using a drum machine for Brainpower. Rockband drums are considerably closer to a acoustic drum kit than some sequencer. There's an extremely fine line between mark 1 roland rubber drum pads, and the RB set. I even know RL drummers who (I cringe when I have to watch it) setup their snare and toms much in the same way the RB pads are set up. I'll agree the lack of cymbols and the horrific kick pedal are distinctly different.

But the vocal part of this game is frustrating to me. I'm not a singer. I can hold a tune (I can 5-star almost all the hard songs, but it's rare I get above a 3 on expert). First, octave shifts on the fly don't work. I can show it in a few seconds by singing "I fought the law" where you don't go up in the chorus but keep in the same octave for the whole part. It will register fine on the way up, but it will take it a whole measure to figure out that you didn't drop back down in the lower part. I even recorded my part into Acid (the software, not the drug), chopped up the part and sequenced the vocal parts correctly (so i'm using the same frequencies) and I can watch it fail at recognizing the octave shift. The same vocal section that gets "AWESOME" before the chorus gets "WEAK" after it, unless you skip the high part, then it will get an "AWESOME". There isn't anything you can do about it.

Second, you have to sing off key if the vocalist is singing off key. Maybe some algorythm that would detect "perfect pitch or vocalist's pitch" and choose which ever one you're singing at would be nice, but it doesn't do it. Hence, you're stuck trying to immitate someone else's failure. On drums, even on expert, you can be slightly off (or on) in your time, and the sound will come out correctly. The issue is that the vocals on expert is less about timing and rythym and more about frequency (for the singing parts, not the talkie parts, which make up the majority of the vocal game), while the rest of the game is designed to simulate timing, and your velocity and potential frequency is completely irrelevent.


So while I can't see how someone could fail on easy (We jokingly refer to it at "Stephen Hawking difficulty"), I can't see why anyone would be adverse to a cheat to just make it ignore and pipe it out. It rates right up there with the "ignore the kick pedal" cheat that really would probably be handy for people if they felt so inclinced (not that I have any reason for it).

[DesiredFX]

WRONG

The game uses what you sing as a trigger for the track vocals. That's a fact.

You've obviously not played online very much as anything other than a singer.


all you have to do is match the pitch and rythym and you trigger the vocals. If you miss it, there's a background track that plays continuously, but the "main" vocals won't play.

Actually, I've noticed that online--I generally play guitbass. But that's basically done simply because the game doesn't have the ability to send what you're singing through in sync with the music.

I can turn the vocal track completely off when I play and substitute my own voice through the sound system.

At best, the triggering of the voice track is an approximation of what I'm talking about. I can play the guitar controller all day long and not get guitar sounds out of it without hooking it up to the game. Same with the drum kit. Not true with vocals: if I'm singing, I'm not doing it with the intent of triggering the vocal track...especially not when I turn that track down or off.



You are also wrong about "no amount" of practice....

When I was a kid I was kicked out of choir for being a "monotone"

I took lessons and was able to flex my pitch.

I practiced and was able to increase my range.

That particular passage had nothing to do with the general concept that you can't stretch your range through practice. It had more to do with the fact no amount of stretching is going to get my range--which would fall on the border between baritone and bass--up to tenor levels.



but if you can't sing on "easy" then the issue lies with your ability to understand the concept of singing. No offense, I didn't understand how the game's concept worked at first either.

That hasn't been the problem. I was already playing this sort of game--and deciding I didn't like the way it scored--when I had Karaoke Revolution.

I would like to be able to play it on a level above Medium, but frankly, it's not worth the effort required for most of the songs. Some of the vocal intonations in the game are from one take and one take only and were never repeated by the vocalist in question at any time in their lives.

I mean, it's like expecting that Cab Calloway's scat vocals would be identical from performance to performance.



Either you want to get teh "uberzor score" or you want to have fun.

Yet people getting the big scores are curiously having fun at the same time...

Which is neither here nor there for the purposes of this discussion. Just me pointing out that the two aren't mutually exclusive.



I am sick of the argument of "It's not like playing guitar" because it is. Your voice is an instrument, you must train and practice and make mistakes and learn from them.

No vocal coach in the world would tell you that practicing to get good in this game is going to do anything more for you than practicing using the guitar controller will toward getting you to be able to play an actual guitar.

You can strengthen your sense of pitch the same way you can strengthen your fingering hand, but that's about it. It doesn't grade your phrasing, so it can't train you in that regard, nor will it do anything to help you improve the quality of your tone.

[Ishanji]

No amount of practice is going to prevent me from having to drop down an octave in the middle of the song...and that's the least of my problems when dealing with mimicking the singers in this game.

Is singing arguably the easiest "instrument" in the game? Of course it is...as long as you're not expecting me to imitate someone with precision.

Actually, you can increase your vocal range (and thus lessen your need to jump octaves) with enough practice. You'd probably need an actual vocal instructor, but nonetheless, it's possible.

And I think that's part of the problem people have with the singing in this game: It's way too accurate. You're right when you say that the other instruments do not mirror the experience of playing their real life counterparts, and you're right. But I don't feel that they should, because otherwise this would be a guitar/bass/drum trainer and not a videogame. The difference is that there's no (fun) way to do that with the vocals, so HMX went the most natural route and made you really have to sing properly to do well. It's easy to trivialize failures with the instruments, because in the end they're all videogame components and, given practice, anyone could probably work their way up to Expert and star 5*ing songs. People who don't have the time or drive to do that can just say "Well, I'll never be as good as him, but I don't have the time" and be perfectly happy playing where they're at.

With singing, though, you can't say that you're just bad at a videogame. If you cannot sing a song on Easy in Rock Band, then you cannot sing. The game takes painful leaps and bounds to ensure that the singer has to be abysmal to fail on Easy. To fail at that level is probably a serious ego hit to people who've never been told they can't sing, but that doesn't mean that the game should change to fit that demographic. Like I said before, I have never actually seen somebody fail Easy, and I've heard people who cannot sing in any sense of the word play the game.

And on the opposite end of the spectrum, the game tries its best to make sure that you're at least a competent tonal singer in order to pass you on Expert. I've had a year's worth of vocal training and I can 5* a decent share of songs (generally ones I've been singing for a long time) and if I do poorly on another song, I know it's because I sang it poorly. I've compiled the whole soundtrack of the game from CDs and iTunes so that I can practice outside of the game to learn the songs and eventually 5* them too. Yeah, I could probably just learn the tune and hum it, but I play the game for fun (and to better my own singing) so I don't want to look stupid in front of my bandmates humming through the song.

I think the main issue with the "difficulty" of singing in Rock Band isn't actually the difficulty of the game, but rather the puffed up view that many people have of their own singing ability. The fact is that many people hit a brick wall with their singing because they haven't learned to distinguish a good note from a bad note and just sing whatever "feels right." Learning to admit that you suck is the first step to being a better singer, and given the demographics that play videogames most (males, teen-young adult) it's unlikely that they ever WILL admit that and instead complain about "unfair" game mechanics.


Ever meet someone who can sing the chorus of a song flawlessly but doesn't know any words from the verse? For me, that describes the total lyrical investment of almost everyone I know in almost every song they enjoy singing along to.

And please, can it with the "start a real band" argument. That's annoying enough when it comes from haters of the game.

Actually, I have never met anyone like that. My bandmates and, in fact, everyone I play the game with or around, generally know the whole song. I've had groups of 8-10 people over playing Rock Band and hear people in the next room singing along to the whole song while they play other games waiting for their turn or getting another drink.

And why should the "start a real band" argument be put to rest? It is a remedy for EVERY complaint that people have for this game, because in a real band you don't have anyone scoring you or stopping you from doing anything you can think of. If you don't want the videogame parts of Rock Band tying you down, real instruments are a viable and fun option. This game isn't meant to be a band simulator, and it shouldn't be. It's an objective game with objective scoring based on objective goals. If you're trying to "just have fun", take a case of beer, a couple instruments, and just rock out. That's what my "band" does when we get tired of the game but still want to do something musical. Plus, all the "DLC" is free when you have a real band ;)

[DesiredFX]

And I think that's part of the problem people have with the singing in this game: It's way too accurate.

You say accurate, I say stringent. Potato, potato, tomato, tomato.



Actually, I have never met anyone like that. My bandmates and, in fact, everyone I play the game with or around, generally know the whole song. I've had groups of 8-10 people over playing Rock Band and hear people in the next room singing along to the whole song while they play other games waiting for their turn or getting another drink.

I've been listening to REM for 24 years now, but I didn't know all the lyrics to Orange Crush perfectly--especially not the "high on the roof...thin the blood" lines.

I've been listening to Radiohead for 10 years, and I didn't know all the lyrics to Creep.

As for the real band stuff, in order to put together a real band, I need to...well...put together a real band, now, don't I?

Or I could buy a $50 karaoke box and a bunch of CD+G discs with songs I don't like on them at Target.

And, frankly, this argument has gone on way too long over an issue that isn't really even an issue: there is a non-save cheat to unlock all the songs...what's the big deal about a non-save cheat that keeps you from failing out, or gives you unlimited strikes instead of just three?

This isn't a question like the Fan Cap, which doesn't prevent you from finishing BWT and is in place solely to create a sense that if you play at higher levels, the game has more to explore--any video game does that.

This is about giving the people who want to play as a party game--people who don't have much talent, who haven't taken any lessons, and who simply enjoy singing along in the car--this is to give those people the opportunity to sing without the song coming crashing down in the middle. That's all. A simple cheat that allows that without impacting any part of the game for the people who are playing it "seriously."

I've even seen people arguing against this saying that what's important in this game is having fun, and while it's fun to succeed within the rules, it's decidedly UN-fun to fail out altogether in a casual atmosphere simply because you're singing a song that you don't know as well as you thought you did.

[SSPWOLF]

I'm not understanding what your argument is then.

I support the party mode, I just don't understand what the problem is with the the way the game scores vocals. Hit the pitch and the rythym, win a prize

[CKarinja]

I'm not understanding what your argument is then.

I support the party mode, I just don't understand what the problem is with the the way the game scores vocals. Hit the pitch and the rythym, win a prize

I understand everyone's argument about scoring and such, but I find that a Party Mode wouldn't hurt the game if it was just local. If it's just a few friends that want to hit notes without problems, I find nothing wrong with it. Similar to a band practice mode, but just a cooler name.

[DesiredFX]

I'm not understanding what your argument is then.

I support the party mode, I just don't understand what the problem is with the the way the game scores vocals. Hit the pitch and the rythym, win a prize

That would be fine, if that was the way the game scores vocals. But obviously we've seen that you can be rewarded for doing an aesthetically worse version--an OBJECTIVELY aesthetically worse version--of singing the song.

At it's simplest, I guess you could say my objection to the way the game scores vocals is:

I'm interested in singing the song, not aping the performance.

[Ishanji]

That would be fine, if that was the way the game scores vocals. But obviously we've seen that you can be rewarded for doing an aesthetically worse version--an OBJECTIVELY aesthetically worse version--of singing the song.

At it's simplest, I guess you could say my objection to the way the game scores vocals is:

I'm interested in singing the song, not aping the performance.

That is the way the game scores vocals. If you're on pitch, you get an "Awesome." If you're not, you get less, depending on how long/how bad you were off.

If the game doesn't score based on singing well, then I'd like to know how my 55 year old parents who are terrified of video game consoles managed to both do well (85-95%) on Expert on their FIRST day of playing. I'll explain how they did: They are both singers, and still play music regularly. They know what tone and pitch are, and when I told them "all you have to do is sing it right" they picked up the mic and did great on their first tries. When I was singing poorly on a section of a song and my mom called me out on it, I challenged her to do better. She did, and while I was initially surprised, I realized that she has decades of singing experience on me. That's when it really sunk in that the singing in Rock Band isn't about learning an endless combo of buttons or a certain trick, it's about knowing the song and being a good singer.

You can make excuses about "style" and "aesthetics" all you want, but the bottom line is that the only thing stopping you from getting to Expert is a lack of singing ability. If my 55 year old game-phobic parents can do it, why can't you?

EDIT: I noticed that you added some to your original post, I added it in my quote up top and want to address it here. You don't have to "ape" the performance to score high, and in fact after her first playthough my mother asked me to shut off the "annoying background vocals" so she could hear just herself and proceeded to get a 98% on Don't Fear the Reaper (which is as good as I've ever done, background on or off).

[DesiredFX]

You can make excuses about "style" and "aesthetics" all you want, but the bottom line is that the only thing stopping you from getting to Expert is a lack of singing ability. If my 55 year old game-phobic parents can do it, why can't you?

You already answered that question: "They are singers and still play music regularly."

From my perspective, the only reason I'm having trouble with Expert is because I haven't tried it much, and I haven't been interested in trying it.

The first time I did Creep on Expert, I four-starred it. It's not a question of being unable to sing.

The problem is, from a video game point of view, there's way too much work involved in being able to sing the songs in ways that score well. I don't "train" on the guitar controller, either, because it's a game and it's supposed to be fun.

It's not fun for me to ape, as closely as possible, the noise that comes out of Courtney Love's mouth. It's not fun for me to try to copy every little pitch warble coming from Anthony Kiedis, or to see if I can figure out what pitch I'm supposed to be yelling "Hey!" at in "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?"

EDIT: (Don't Fear) The Reaper is another song I slam dunked pretty much the first time I sang it. I've been singing that one since it came out.

[Ishanji]

DesiredFX, I think the only point I can contend in your post is that the game requires "way too much work" but that's really just a matter of opinion and that's why there are difficulty levels in the game. Beyond that, I think it'd be just fine if they added a "jam" mode for people who don't want to have to practice vocals/guitar/bass/drums endlessly on Expert to have fun. You've made it obvious that you don't want to pour time into getting better at fake instruments or matching up to stringent difficult vocal standards, and I don't think there's any harm in having a mode for people like you as long as it applies to the whole band.

Really, the only issue I had with the original post/idea is the argument that singing alone is too hard and thus there should be a mode that trivializes the singer's ability to sing while leaving the rest of the band "intact." Since I've spent time training as a singer, it would irritate me to suddenly become irrelevant as far as casual play goes and have to start playing only guitar because "anyone can sing." I'd have no problem with a mode that removed everyone's meters/failure and allowed for improvisation with no penalties (especially in guitar solos, that would be pretty cool). To me it's pointless since I'd rather be playing real instruments at that point, but I can see how people would enjoy making the game more accessible for people who don't own it or won't play often.

Anyway, that's about all I have to say on this topic, and I've got some festivities to attend to, so Merry Christmas and thanks for the debate to everyone in this thread :)

(And yeah, Don't Fear the Reaper is pretty easy even on higher difficulties, but I was trying to show that just knowing the tune is enough most of the time)

[DesiredFX]

What makes songs difficult to sing in this game is the attempt to mirror exactly what the vocalist is doing in the performance rather than simply establishing a baseline melody for the song. If the vocalist modulates his/her voice up, then down, then back up again on a single note, you are expected to follow that as accurately as possible. Frankly, mapping all those inflections is more effort than I want to put in, but if I don't put it in, I can't even PASS some of the songs on Hard or Expert, much less score well.

Regarding scoring: as far as I'm concerned the numbers can be left alone. Just set up a version in which you either don't fail out, or you can't fail all the way out to the point where it kills the band.

How it scores isn't really an issue, since it's not being recorded anywhere. If you manage to beat the four- or five-star score as a band even with the fail-out turned off, hey, you get four or five stars that are marginally more meaningless than all the other meaningless stars out there.

Have a good night and a happy holiday!

[Frederf]

I know Guitar Hero started under this premise but does Rock Band follow the concept that your band is a "cover band" and thus playing like the original artists is top priority or not?

Also this is exactly what a "can't fail" cheat is for.

[King_Nuthin]

I've had quite a few people come over and sing, I always put everyone on medium and we had a singer fail ONCE in many, many nights of rocking. I find it hard to believe that if you put the vocals on easy and have the mic plugged in that anybody can fail.

[IMaMAGlCman]

You can all continue to have a hard time understanding that people can fail on easy, but the fact remains the same. Just because the small sample of people (and I am including anything under a hundred people as a very small sample of a massive population that will be playing this game) you have seen havent had problems, doesn't mean it cant and doesnt happen. ESPECIALLY when the people don't know the song AT ALL. And it obviously isn't just my friends who are having the problem as numerous people who have posted have stated the same thing. So open up your minds to the fact that things you haven't seen have happened.

As for the people saying that I should just have people run through the singing tutorial, Im sorry, but having 20 people go through the tutorial, regardless of how short it is, will have people on their cell phones looking for another party to go to.

This goes the same for the people saying that people just have to practice because that is the only way you can get better. Well, that doesn't work really well when of the 50+ people I have had over since Nov. 21 to play the game, none of them have it themselves to practice with at home. This makes it pretty hard for them to practice. Especially when they may only get a chance at 2-4 songs on an instrument when they come over. We dont just sit and play one song over and over to let 4 people practice when there are 20 other people who want to take their spots and play another song.

And last time I checked, Rock Band was touting itself as one of the ultimate party games. Not the game you need to get 4 people together on a regular basis to practice the game with so you can have fun.

This option would be purely about adding an additional feature that would open up gameplay. And just because some of you feel that every video game must have the ability to tell people they're failures, doesn't mean that that is a view held by everyone else. "Games" as whole are about fun. Why does every part of the game have to have the opportunity to have someone result in failure? Tag, which is a game universally recognized as being a fun, easy game that anyone can play, has no such thing as failure. You can go from being "not it" to being "it," but that is just a change in the structure of the game on the fly and the game continues. No one is ever a failure at the game. They may just have to continue doing one part until things change.

And no, I am not a person that feels that both little league teams need to get ice cream after the game, but this is completely different. This game is founded on being something that people can pick up and play and have fun with, not something that you must take outside singing lessons to be able to play.

Thanks for all the discussion, though. Hopefully this topic will get noticed by Hmx and they will think about it. I am just tired of being the only one who will sing, even though I have friends with decent voices.

[IMaMAGlCman]

One of my friend did go through the vocal training and he still failed the first song he tried on easy. It was a sad day. Actually it was pretty funny because he said there was no way he was gonna fail the song so we made a waiger that he would have to take 5 shots of Jack if he did or I would have to take 6 if he didn't fail.

Needless to say, he didn't try vocals again after that because he was rather drunk (and disheartened as a result of his failure).

[topperharley]

the game's attempt to measure vocal performance requires it to convert the input on the fly and measure it against a pre-determined standard.

This approach completely destroys the possibility of singing something your own way, forcing you instead to mimic. Except that you don't mimic what the singer is singing, you mimic what the game designer has interpreted the singer to be singing.

I agree completely. I was really looking forward to the singing part of the game, but it's really not much fun for me. Even though you don't have to sing the same octave, you still have to sing the same note, which makes sense from a scoring standpoint (which, at its core, is what the game is about), but not really from a fun standpoint (which the game is also about).

What might work, as a response to the people that say "just have the people that want to sing karaoke sing along while the other people play", is to have an option in quick play where you can toggle the vocals on and off. That way, they wouldn't have to sing over the in game lyrics. They would have to know the lyrics from memory, however.

[espher]

Did some catching up in this thread and I'm still not really swayed in favour of it. I'm sure there's a 'can't fail' cheat in there somewhere, but to me that really takes the 'game' aspect out of the video game.

I guess I'm just not in the right mindset to understand why, even with people 'explaining' it. Oh well. :p

[PrestoMovie]

i'd love this feature to death.

i have tons of trouble with the pitch in Rock Band and i don't even get to enjoy 1/4th of the game, and it's 1/4th that i've been dying to try.

i'm still having trouble understanding what to do with my voice to get to certain pitch areas during certain songs, but even when i get to some of the low parts, the sound i have to make is ridiculously low and sounds aboslutely nothing like it does in the song.

lots of the time no matter how low i go or how high i go the pitch meter thing won't budge.

i'd love to get points for it, but as of yet i'm still having trouble figuring out the singing and would just love to kareoke it with friends over.

it might be the octave i sing in, or maybe the way i'm singing. i try not to do vocal scoops or sing all grainy anymore since i joined my choir, i've been singing pretty clearly.

[Stubbs94]

ummmm I'm really surprised know one here knows about the no fail mode.....

[supernova1324]

Believe it or not, there are some people that want to have "fun" and their objective is not to get a high "score".

Clearly you completely missed the point of the request, maybe you should skip this thread and move on to one of the many 5* GOLD threads instead.

Here's a great idea: No Fail Mode. Problem solved.

[ExcessNeo]

ummmm I'm really surprised know one here knows about the no fail mode.....

Check the last post date 12-28-2007, about 10 months before Rock Band 2 and subsequently No Fail mode were launched.

:)