What was the biggest leap for you? Easy - Medium? Medium - Hard, etc...

[lemmyk]

I have played through easy and medium on both guitar and drums.

Obviously, easy was "easy", and was a breeze on both instruments.

Medium gave me a couple of problems on drums (GGHT and Enter Sandman), but was able to get through everything else first try.

Medium on guitar was pretty much a breeze (since I play bass, my fingers may be a little more nimble and I have a little better feel for positioning).

Here is my problem.

Drums on Hard are a bit too "hard" for me. I can get through about half the songs *barely*, and the other half I get boo'ed off the stage. I really am in need of heavy-duty practicing here.

Did anyone else notice this between medium-hard? Is the jump from hard-expert as intense?

[Purist]

What about Medium to Hard on Guitar? That's the one that's going to kill me, because I'm new to the game, and you have to use all five frets now. (Medium is a breeze, for what it's worth).

[lemmyk]

What about Medium to Hard on Guitar? That's the one that's going to kill me, because I'm new to the game, and you have to use all five frets now. (Medium is a breeze, for what it's worth).

Honestly, I really haven't played that much hard on guitar. I wanted to get the drums done first.

I have screwed around with the guitar on expert and hard, but haven't really played enough to comment on that.

Since I play IRL, I am not too concerned with the use of the 5th fret, the major concern is the unnatural fingerings that the RB guitar uses...

[ManOwaR]

Hard on Guitar is really only hard for 6-10 of the songs, but expert has enough tweeks and wrinkles to make most songs an initial challenge.

Drums on hard... Yes, I agree is hard, but I need to play that instrument more. When you are in the groove on Drums, it's weird because you look down at your modifier and you are surprised evertime that you aren't missing notes!

Anyways, good luck.

[HeXcoda]

Medium to Hard on Guitar, but not for the reasons you'd think.

I can handle Orange. I tried Should I Stay Or Should I Go on Hard and had no problems; my finger spread is actually pretty nicely placed to shuffle from blue to orange without an issue.

The real problem is the sheer number of notes and the speed they come at. It's my skill wall and I hit it pretty much dead on -- I just can't move from chord to chord fast enough and hit them precisely enough when they're swarming me like that. I've tried, and it's just not happening.

I have FUN playing on Medium, at least -- it's right in my comfort zone, I can nail a song and have a few challenging moments and overall have a good time. So, I'm fine with that. I'm not fine with being locked out of various parts of BWT and their related achivements, but hey.

Now, if only my non-gamer sister and her husband could make the jump from Nothing to Easy... they struggle even on Easy. Aie.

[The Squeaky Wheel]

I'll preface by saying that I never played a real instrument (or at least played well) and never owned GuitarHero.

I bought RockBand the day it was released. I played one or two songs on easy (guitar, bass, drums) and found that too easy so jumped right to medium. Some of the harder songs on medium iniitally challenged me (Sandman & Vasoline were tough at first) but I was able to get 5 stars with 95%+ accuracy fairly quickly.

On to hard....

Some of the easier songs on hard aren't that hard. But some of the more difficult songs on hard give me fits.

On guitar I've completed everything except Flirtin with Disaster & Highway Star (the solos with multiple hammer-ons give me fits but I can handle the non-solo material quite well), although I have lots of 3 stars and barely passed. On drums I'm stuck on the mid-level hard songs. Tried Won't Get Fooled Again and accept that it'll be some time before I can do that with any type of consistency.

That's cool.....I'm 38 and just enjoy jamming to great music. I don't play online and really don't care about bragging rights.

Expert? Maybe I'll try some of the easier Expert songs but doubt I'll ever make any real progress.

[chillzatl]

I'd say medium to hard on guitar is the hardest for most people. Drums will probably be the same. They do a good job of designing the games (gh2, rb, etc) so that Hard will be a big accomplishment for most people and expert is something reserved for the more dedicated players.

[chillzatl]

Since I play IRL, I am not too concerned with the use of the 5th fret, the major concern is the unnatural fingerings that the RB guitar uses...


What do you mean by unnatural fingerings? Myself and most of my friends that play real instruments seem to agree that the RB controller feels far more natural than the GH controllers.

[bloozman]

The jump from medium to hard on drums is the biggest problem for me.

I was able to quickly get through Hard on guitar as I have all four GH games. The jump to expert hasn't been all that bad. It is challenging without feeling impossible like GH.

The jump from medium to hard on drums is frustrating for me. The off beats for the bass pedal are destroying me. I need to practice much more, but I just can't figure out the beats.

[JShmazzle]

Medium gave me a couple of problems on drums (GGHT and Enter Sandman), but was able to get through everything else first try.

Here is my problem.

Drums on Hard are a bit too "hard" for me. I can get through about half the songs *barely*, and the other half I get boo'ed off the stage. I really am in need of heavy-duty practicing here.

Did anyone else notice this between medium-hard? Is the jump from hard-expert as intense?


I won't comment on guitar, the last time I had that problem was way back the week GH2 came out... However:

Since RB came out I made myself a drummer. I played the first 5 songs on easy, switched to medium, and never looked back. About halfway through the medium sets, I played some songs on hard and was okay, and even made it through a couple of the expert songs.

I still had problems as I moved through medium getting 5 stars on GGHT and Enter Sandman. I got bored with it, and started working my way through hard. Hard was, well, hard. I struggled through the middle sets, and got hung up a few times. I'd come home, play 10-20 songs each night, and eventually would work through the hard ones I was having problems on. Eventually it started clicking.

I think it's best to get up to hard and work on those right away. They'll teach you how to separate your foot from your hand (the hardest thing to do, IMO), and then you can go back and rock the medium songs.

While I'm just barely through hard (F U Run to the Hills), expert does seem to be a fairly large jump, yet again. I'm sure the process will be the same as jumping from medium to hard.

I think there are even a few songs on medium where I have a better score than my score on hard...

So, just keep trying out the songs you can't get through very well, and you'll notice a step up when you start to separate your hand from your foot, and then I'm sure another step up when you get to expert and have to have that foot going on all the odd beats all the time.

[NismoRR]

I'm just starting hard on drums after getting 5 stars on every song in medium except three (wanna guess?) and hard drums are pretty hard. It's not the speed for me, the amount of kick pedal hits and quick double pedal hits that are causing the problem for me, mostly in stamina. When I first start a song, I'm usually pretty decent at least, but somewhere in the middle of the song, I just lose the rythm and the kick pedal, and it's very difficult for me to get it back. So, for me it's just practicing and getting the feel of those double pedal (and off tempo) beats and building stamina.

[Matt]

For me, on drums, the toughest jump has been from med to hard. (I'm not an experienced drummer, or a drummer at all).

I started on easy and it introduced the bass pedal, which made me look like I was having a seizure. Eventually I learned to stay calm with it and after a while I moved up to medium. The bass pedal again messed with me, and after a couple of weeks of that, I can 5 star almost every song in med.

The jump to hard has been tremendous, but some songs I can easily 5 star, and I have found that I can also 4-5 star those same songs on expert (Say it Ain't So, Wanted Dead or Alive, I think I'm Paranoid, etc.).

It seems as though med gets you comfortable with using the pedal and your hands at the same time, but here on out I'm learning how to use my hands and feet independently. I keep getting better and better at it so I'm definately motivated to continue until I get to expert status.

The ones that give me the hardest problems are those like Wave of Mutilation (although I know it shouldn't it does for some reason). I can keep the alternate beats for a few minutes but then I lose it and have to find a point to start over. I've managed to 4 star it on hard but I'd really like to get better at it.

Odly enough, songs like Enter Sandman and Dead on Arrival seem to be a bit easier for me...

[lemmyk]

What do you mean by unnatural fingerings? Myself and most of my friends that play real instruments seem to agree that the RB controller feels far more natural than the GH controllers.

I didn't mean that the RB guitar was unnatural relative to the GH guitars, but relative to real guitars (I've only played RB for about a week, I've never played GH).

[Bluvox]

I think the key is practice, to be honest. And practice is something that you don't think about in most games. You are having to work on your reaction times for moving fingers, work on finger nibleness and strength, and hand placement, and that's just for drums. You need to up your wrist strength, leg/ankle strength, stick placement and timing for drums. These are not normal traits for gamers.

I can make it through almost every song on medium with 95% or more, but on hard certain songs still kick my butt. I managed to Gold Star "Roxanne" so far, and I'm close on 2 or 3 other songs. The HO-PO's really kill me, though. I'm 2 songs short of finishing hard for guitar, stupid Flirtin' with Disaster and GG&HT...

Medium to Hard always seems to be the big jump, though.

[Katdaddy]

I love the drums, and started from "ground zero"... I do have band experience (saxophone), no percussion experience at all.

I can pretty much ace every song on vocals through expert difficulty. I was in Chorus, and can nail the timing/pitch, except for some odd vocal ranges (Epic, Rtth).

Drums are most fun for me, and I started from "ground zero". I have 5-starred all songs through medium, and the jump to hard is, well, hard. I have 3-4 starred most songs, 5-starred some, and some I just cannot get through right now.

On the odd side, I've 5-starred about 8 songs on expert. Lucky? I don't know...maybe so.

[citizenchris099]

From reading these forums I now feel like a complete tard for being somewhat challenged by easy drums. Most songs I pick up rather easily with only a bit of trouble but then I got to Black Hole Sun and The Hand That Feeds and they totally kick my a$$! But I like the challenge...so I'm basically sitting here at work chomping at the bit to get home and kill those songs.
On the other hand easy guitar was wayyyyyyyyyyyy easy and medium is feeling allot more fun.

[kanrei]

The speed change was a hard thing for me when going from Medium to hard on Guitar. What I did to help was to play two warm up songs on expert knowing I was going to fail, but to get my eyes used to the notes moving that fast. Then I go to hard and the notes just don't seem so rapid fire anymore.

Drums I am having different problems with. I play drums and have always been a jam band drummer. This means I improvise quite a bit and, while I don't miss many notes on the screen I do tend to add some extra notes that are not there and fail. I cannot get my limbs to limit themselves to what is on the screen.

[Nate Finch]

Medium to hard guitar was really hard for me. I couldn't do it at all on GH3 (the first time I tried, since I'd only gotten GH2 a couple months before that).... I'd fail out immediately. With some tips from someone who'd done hard, and playing on the easier-to-master rock band songs, I was able to start doing hard. Now I do ok on the lower 75% of hard songs, though the crazy nightmare and impossible ones still kick me in the butt.

Drums started out difficult on easy. It's like they skipped easy and went right to medium. But after some practice, just a couple weeks of infrequent playing, I'm now pretty solid on medium. It seems like the game difficulty on drums matters a lot less than the difficulty of the individual songs. I can play expert drums on some songs and some songs I struggle on medium. Some of the things I have the most difficult time with are the random no-pattern drums in some of the later songs, and off-beat kick pedal notes. Quick double pedals are also really hard just trying to move enough to get it the hit to register but small enough so it's fast enough.

[endlessly]

medium to expert on guitar

medium for 4 songs was too easy so I skipped to hard on drums

[Rod_Stixx]

I hadn't played any GH before Rock Band, so I'm just now getting into the guitar (mostly by playing on GH2 first). I should be able to handle Medium ok, though I'm tempted to strum notes that aren't there yet in the game at that setting (on a few songs that I actually play on real guitar).

I've mostly drummed and done vocals for RB. Drums I played on easy at first, but moved up to Medium fairly quickly I've tried a handful of songs on Hard, but they were really throwing me off. I'll have to practice a bit to move up to Hard and play well. Vocals I started on Medium, but usually handle on Hard and Expert. I have a background singing though, so the vocals are a breeze on most tracks.

[phulcrum]

Hard to expert drums is hard for me. In expert the bass is crazy in a lot of songs and I'm not used to it.

[hikikomori]

For drums, easy to medium has been a big leap in challenge for me. I can barely handle some of the songs on medium right now.

For guitar, its been going from hard to expert. The speed of expert is much more than it was in hard plus there's a lot more HOPOs in expert which I am still absolutely horrible at (also the reason I haven't been able to complete Hard thanks to that solo in Flirtin with Disaster).

[Myth]

well for rb the big jump for me is drums
when i got the game home i started drums on med and flew threw the songs till ggaht once i finally got passed that i passed med no problem

once me and a buddy created a bwt we got med fan capped in no time and were shocked at how low/fast the med fan cap hits u.

so i was forced to learn hard drums and man it was tuff. in solo carrar i am stuck on go with the flow but can pass alot of songs that come after it.

during that same night we got hard fan capped and were even more shocked at how low the hard cap was. 600k for hard cap seems pretty low. so i tryed expert out and failed horribly

on expert im stuck on the david bowie tier ( i think its the 3rd one )

the jump from med-hard-expert for drums is really different then on guitar. Guitar the jump is just here use this extra button but the notes will time better with the sound so it is ezer and funner to play.

drums is completly different its more of ok here learn how to play on med. Now on hard u play completly different. ur foot will have to do completly random off beat things at a much faster pace.

practice does seem to be paying off a bit but i really think drums has a milestone set for some people who just cant seperate their foot from their arm

[ColdForged]

For both drums and guitar the jump from medium to hard is pretty tough. Kudos to Harmonix for the easier transition, though, compared to Guitar Hero II. I gave up on Hard on GHII.

[Steve171]

to be honest, none. i transitioned to new difficulties without a problem

[capnhowdy69]

My biggest leap was from not owning the game to expert. I've never played less than expert on guitar or drums. Singing on the other hand... yeah.. I can't sing for crap.

[blue_duck]

I oddly went from Medium-Expert on guitar, lol.

[Mickey Buns]

I oddly went from Medium-Expert on guitar, lol.


This is what I found, the notes fill in nice on expert, so I also went from med. to Expert, It was just easier.

[toyomatt84]

Medium to Hard on lead guitar, if you ask me. But, I'm nobody special. :)

[Ventura]

In general for both the guitar and drums it's the medium to hard jump that's the biggest of all.

For both, if you can play comfortably on easy, you could pass medium without being booed off, and while I'm not talking from experience here, I would imagine hard to expert is much the same if you can play relatively comfortably on hard.

[griffinmills]

My guitar experience was on GH2. I thought that game did an excellent job ramping the difficulty untill you hit some random difficult stuff on Hard. Woman I believe, had these really fast 9-10 note ho/po sequences that are like nothing else you see untill much farther into the Hard tiers but it's in the second tier! Generally, if you are taking it slow and learning from what they are throwing at you the curve is good until the final tiers.

Final tiers you start having to learn a lot of things that you'll just need to train muscle memory for if you aren't "a natural." Then expert the fret/notes speed is a lot higher on screen which personally affects how I "sight read" and I wish they could just fill the screen with more notes at a slower scrolling speed. Expert also starts being a lot freer with the triple-chords which you'll have very little experience with, especially when they are "split triple-chords" like GRB or GYB, another thing to train your fingers and muscles to do!

I'd say that expert is where the biggest jump comes in for me on Guitar.

Vocals, I can fumble through almost anything on Hard thusfar, expert is difficult. Yet again expert is the biggest jump for me, this time for vocals. In this case the only difficulty is guess where they want you to start. I have no trouble adjusting my voice but when they expect it to START perfect I have difficulty. I need a bit of "fudge time" :)

Drums, yeesh so hard on Medium! I tried to go straight to Medium but after doing only 70s and 80s on early tier stuff I dropped down to easy. I can kick the crap out of most anything on Hard and Expert on the demo kits though... IE:sans kick pedal. :( Drums are tiring out of the box on easy and difficult starting on Medium for me.


In general for both the guitar and drums it's the medium to hard jump that's the biggest of all.

For both, if you can play comfortably on easy, you could pass medium without being booed off, and while I'm not talking from experience here, I would imagine hard to expert is much the same if you can play relatively comfortably on hard.

I agree and, from what I've seen, if you can 5 star on a lower difficulty you can pass on a higher difficulty. There may be some notable exceptions to this but it should hold true for most anything this side of the highest tier songs or random Bonus tracks.

[inyodreamz]

Going from medium to hard on the guitar is hardest for me even tho I can 100% nearly all the songs on medium. Now that I'm trying to finish my hard career, medium is too slow.

On the vocals I got thro hard easy enough but expert is giving me a little trouble

[Squirrel1971]

I found going from Hard to Expert drums much harder than the same jump on guitar - especially when my bass pedal started to crack on me because of all those double orange bars

The easiest jump seems to be from Easy to Medium vocals, as I can't even tell the difference between them.

The easiest instrument to me is the bass guitar since virtually all levels are pretty easy with the exception of only a handful of songs.

[BigMonkE]

Medium to Hard for Drums and Guitar. Although I got the hang of hard guitar within a few days.

[topperharley]

Medium to hard on drums. There were a couple of songs on medium that gave me problems (Enter Sandman, Run to the Hills), but I finally muddled through them. Hard will have to wait for now.

Medium to hard on guitar was easier, but right now Enter Sandman is a huge brick wall keeping me from Tier 9. I can make it to the solo, but then I get destroyed. Any tips? I really hate that song, which makes it worse. :mad: