Does the effects switch have anything to with the score?

[MrSelfDestruct]

I went down to BestBuy the other day in North Dartmouth Massachusetts to check out Rockband, but the game kept freezing and crashing so I only got to play a couple of songs. After playing it for a few minutes there were some new features I noticed but didn't really get the time to figure out what I they were all about:

The Effects switch seemed pretty cool although I did end up hitting it by accident a few times. My big question is DO DIFFERENT EFFECTS CHANGE YOUR SCORE? Do you get extra points for changing to different effects, or incorporating more effects? Or is it just for an enhanced experience?

Also, I've read some posts talking about "embedded" versus "freeform" solos...can anyone enlighten me on that?

[dragulaAC]

Well I believe all the effects switch will do is enhance your experience/enjoyment. It will not affect your scoring capablilities.

As for freeform solo's are available throughout songs for the drummer. What this does is, it stops sending notes telling you what to hit next, instead it has a few measures left blank, this is where you decide what you want to play. Which drums to wail on or come up with your own drum patterns. Also, I believe at the end of some songs, provided everyone makes it to the end, there is a freeform ending where the guitars, drums, and singer get to play/shout whatever they want to to get some added bonus points.

[Atsumi]

Also, I believe at the end of some songs, provided everyone makes it to the end, there is a freeform ending where the guitars, drums, and singer get to play/shout whatever they want to to get some added bonus points.

My questions about that though, is are there certain patterns and stuff that'll make it worth more, or is it just hit as many notes as you can before time runs out?

[Vilius]

I couldn't tell you if it has been confirmed or denied, but I would think that they just change the sound.

Again, I can't confirm this is true, but I'm pretty sure that you just play wildly, and the more notes you play, the more points you get. That's what it seemed like to me at the BB demo.

[dragulaAC]

Unfortunately, I'm so terrible coming up with anything that great, so all I've done is like 6 hits on each pad going left to right, so i can be at the right pad at the end. Being that you MUST hit the final green pad at the end of the freeform for it to count. I haven't used it enough to fully understand everything about it. From what i can see, it's the more you hit the better. Correct me if I'm wrong anyone.

[sporkBrigade]

I went down to BestBuy the other day in North Dartmouth Massachusetts to check out Rockband, but the game kept freezing and crashing so I only got to play a couple of songs. After playing it for a few minutes there were some new features I noticed but didn't really get the time to figure out what I they were all about:

The Effects switch seemed pretty cool although I did end up hitting it by accident a few times. My big question is DO DIFFERENT EFFECTS CHANGE YOUR SCORE? Do you get extra points for changing to different effects, or incorporating more effects? Or is it just for an enhanced experience?

Also, I've read some posts talking about "embedded" versus "freeform" solos...can anyone enlighten me on that?

Effects=Zero effect on score. Nada. Nothing. Zilch.

Freeform comes up mostly for singers drummers. It never shows up at all until you have half a bar of overdrive. Once that happens, for singers you get freeform sections between lyrics. So you can just shout nonsense, and it triggers your star power. You can also choose to shout nothing and save your power for as long as you want. For drums, random little fill sections become freeform. You can actually play in these and not set off your starpower by avoiding the green note at the end. The penalty for waiting is that you don't get points for drum fills, so if it's covering up normal notes, you're losing out on some points until you activate your overdrive and fills stop showing up.

The outro of certain songs have freeform for everyone. The only difference here is that drums will actually have a drum associated to every pad, so you truely will be improvising. With the guitars, the notes actually just sort of change on their own. So you can control the rhythm of the guitar wankery, but you have no control over the notes. Singer just gets a weird echo effect as he screams whatever her wants. The one requirement here is that there's one last lick after the wankery, and if you anyone misses a single note there you lose all bonus points from the section. So don't throw you're guitar through your amp until AFTER that part.

[maddrummerdan86]

does anyone know what all the effects are? and which effect is better for what type of song? (i.e. distortion for punk)

[sporkBrigade]

Unfortunately, I'm so terrible coming up with anything that great, so all I've done is like 6 hits on each pad going left to right, so i can be at the right pad at the end. Being that you MUST hit the final green pad at the end of the freeform for it to count. I haven't used it enough to fully understand everything about it. From what i can see, it's the more you hit the better. Correct me if I'm wrong anyone.

It's been confirmed there is a cap on the points you get. You just have to hit a certain amount of notes per second and you'll get the max points. Think Wammy bar and star power. The faster you wammy doesn't provide extra star power. You just have to be at the minimum speed.

So for gods sake, make it sound good and we'll all be better off. There is a certain charm to just going full speed, though...

[sporkBrigade]

does anyone know what all the effects are? and which effect is better for what type of song? (i.e. distortion for punk)

Off the top of my head it was:

None
Chorus
Flange
Echo
WahWah

It's all personal preference. I personally loved WahWah on long Chord passages though. Good times.

[Xzyliac]

My questions about that though, is are there certain patterns and stuff that'll make it worth more, or is it just hit as many notes as you can before time runs out?

The latter. Just go insane.

But effects are just for fun.

[sporkBrigade]

The latter. Just go insane.

But effects are just for fun.

Whoa, really? I'm 98.6% positive they confirmed a cap on points made from freeform. Of course I can't find anything one way or the other now, but I'll keep looking. Do you know of an interview where they confirmed?

[Symphonite]

Off the top of my head it was:

None
Chorus
Flange
Echo
WahWah

It's all personal preference. I personally loved WahWah on long Chord passages though. Good times.

I'm a fan of the chorus and echo myself. They aren't too in-your-face like the wahwah and pepper the sound pretty pleasently. They are also my two favorite effects on my real guitar effects chain.

[Xzyliac]

Whoa, really? I'm 98.6% positive they confirmed a cap on points made from freeform. Of course I can't find anything one way or the other now, but I'll keep looking. Do you know of an interview where they confirmed?

I am 98.7% sure Sean or Moss came here and said more notes equal more points.

[tbradshaw]

Whoa, really? I'm 98.6% positive they confirmed a cap on points made from freeform. Of course I can't find anything one way or the other now, but I'll keep looking. Do you know of an interview where they confirmed?

There are three kinds of freeform, and they have been confused more than a few times during discussion. To clarify/recap:

1) Drum Overdrive Freeforms

After collecting sufficient energy to allow an overdrive trigger, the charted "fill" portions of the song are overlaid with a three pad "drum freeform" section ending with a green cymbol crash. You may hit anything you want and the audio from the game will respond appropriately to your freeform drumming.

The amount of points possible during a fill is fixed. Hit one tom or go nuts, these overlaid freeform sections have fixed scoring. Importantly, this value is not necessarily the same as the underlying (no longer accessible) note chart. You may gain or lose total possible points from the overlays.

2) Vocal Freeforms

After collecting sufficient energy to allow an overdrive trigger, the "gaps" between vocal phrases gain a golden glow. Any substantial microphone pickup will trigger the overdrive. No points are gained or lost from the activation of overdrive and these freeform sections have no effect on your score.

Of note, there are no "extra strums" in the vocal game. You can "shout out" and make up dialog any time you do not have scored phrases with no penalty (or bonus).

3) End of Song Freeforms

When certain (not yet completely discovered) criteria are met, the band gets an opportunity as a whole to do an end of song jam session. These sections do not appear to have a fixed value associated with them, and the more that you participate the bigger the scoring potential. They do come with a catch, and it is:

[ Song chart, notes notes notes ] [ Band freeform end of song shenanigans] [ Closing Chart ]

You finish the song in good shape. Your band begins the freeform shinanigans, racking up as much points as possible. After the freeform you get a closing chart to end out the song. Everyone must hit 100% of the closing chart or your freeform bonus is changed to 0. This format is most apparent watching the popular footage of Ok GO's Here it goes again.

Hopefully that clears things up some.

[BiffMan]

I am 98.7% sure Sean or Moss came here and said more notes equal more points.

I remember the cap being mentioned as well and I thought by someone in an official capacity. Haven't found the reference yet, but will report back if I do.

[sporkBrigade]

I am 98.7% sure Sean or Moss came here and said more notes equal more points.

Oh snap. The .1% is all the difference in the world. I'm gonna be heading to best buy sometime this weekend and get my animal on, see what nets me more points. Hopefully it's not too much a difference in score. The score whore in me won't let me practice nice sounding fills if they don't net me enough points.

[hmxdfan]

In the Big Rock Endings (the freeform sections at the end) you get more points for playing more, but there's a cap on how quickly you can accumulate points, so someone going extra nuts won't get more points than someone going regular nuts.

[BiffMan]

In the Big Rock Endings (the freeform sections at the end) you get more points for playing more, but there's a cap on how quickly you can accumulate points, so someone going extra nuts won't get more points than someone going regular nuts.

Thanks for the definitive answer, good sir!

[Xzyliac]

In the Big Rock Endings (the freeform sections at the end) you get more points for playing more, but there's a cap on how quickly you can accumulate points, so someone going extra nuts won't get more points than someone going regular nuts.

That's pretty stupid.

[espher]

That's pretty stupid.

Hi, I'm the unscrupulous person playing solo drum career with three friends each holding a pair of drumsticks so we can go loco and rack up ze points.

[Electric_Zen]

Hi, I'm the unscrupulous person playing solo drum career with three friends each holding a pair of drumsticks so we can go loco and rack up ze points.

That made me laugh.

[tbradshaw]

That's pretty stupid.

No it's not. The limit on the rate of change in score is a great design decision for a number of reasons:

1) It appropriately awards motor skills. The skills rewarded in Rock Band are not the same as Mario Party, just hitting a button as fast as possible isn't a desired behavior. It's the musicality of the actions that are desired. When musicians have "Big Rock Endings", they are still flailing in a musical manner. As such, players that try to maintain some musicality to their big rock ending should definitely be getting as high (preferably higher) score than those that just throw themselves into a seizure. Rewarding a mini-game like seizure is counter to the game design.

2) It discourages cheating. While espher advocated the human angle, I personally would have four women's vibrators on swing arms like sewing machine heads. When it was Big Rock Ending time, they'd flip down and provide as much input as the drum kit can handle.

[Electric_Zen]

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I don't actually have four women's vibrators lying around my place.

[Xzyliac]

I love how just banging away is considered cheating.

I think scoring should leave room for people to play how they want. When I'm rocking I want to be conscience in sound. When I'm failing or just not doing better than my three star attempt it turns back into a game and I want those points for whatever Achievement or whatever. Especially now that performance actually unlocks stuff.

[espher]

I love how just banging away is considered cheating.

I'm not sure if you think that's the implication being made, but that's not the case.


I think scoring should leave room for people to play how they want.

It still does...

By putting a cap it allows someone who plays a measured or limited amount to score just as well as someone flailing madly, thereby letting them play the way they want without penalizing them.

[Xzyliac]

I'm not sure if you think that's the implication being made, but that's not the case.



Well he did say cheating.


By putting a cap it allows someone who plays a measured or limited amount to score just as well as someone flailing madly, thereby letting them play the way they want without penalizing them.

I understand you I just think if I'm flailing I should be given those points per hit.

It's a minor thing I'm just sayin'.

[espher]

Well he did say cheating.

I don't believe he was referring to the act of flailing as cheating.

I believe he (and I) were both referring to the cap being a way to mitigate cheating, for reasons (and examples) listed.

[Xzyliac]

I don't believe he was referring to the act of flailing as cheating.

I believe he (and I) were both referring to the cap being a way to mitigate cheating, for reasons (and examples) listed.

Ah. M'kay.

[mxmarks]

Personally, I think that the 'flailing' would naturally hurt the song, and your score, no matter what.

I actually already had a convo with my roomate/drummer about the fills and the endings. He's never played drums in his life, and I was saying that the flailing and such will DEFINATLEY hurt both of our abilities to either hit the ending, or re-join the song.

Since the flailing will actually come OUT OF THE SPEAKERS as DRUM HITS, if you hit with no rythym, and just try to hit everything as fast as possible, its going to sound awful, and most likely dominate the sound in the room and screw up everyone. And if I understand correctly, if you fail to hit the final drum beat (always green?) you get NO points.

Thats why in real life most big endings will usually have 3 bass drum/snare hits as everyone hold a note, to get back on time and hit that final punch.

The guitar, on the other hand, I have no idea what will happen in its free form mode, as each button isn't mapped to a specific note (as far as I know...)

[BiffMan]

And if I understand correctly, if you fail to hit the final drum beat (always green?) you get NO points.

Not always green, no, but otherwise correct. There will just be some sort of signature, usually unison, ending sequence of notes for everyone to hit and if someone blows it, then no points.

[tbradshaw]

Not always green, no, but otherwise correct. There will just be some sort of signature, usually unison, ending sequence of notes for everyone to hit and if someone blows it, then no points.

We're mixing up the freeform sections again.

He was referring to the overdrive activation on the drum sequence. It is always green, you do not have to hit it in order to get the fill points. You do have to hit the green if you want to activate your overdrive.

Your statement is perfectly correct for the big rock ending freeform.

[BiffMan]

We're mixing up the freeform sections again.

He was referring to the overdrive activation on the drum sequence. It is always green, you do not have to hit it in order to get the fill points. You do have to hit the green if you want to activate your overdrive.

Your statement is perfectly correct for the big rock ending freeform.

Thanks for the clarification. Crisis averted. Shutting up now. :)
/end KnowItAllMode

[Ultrace]

Your statement is perfectly correct for the big rock ending freeform.
So, there's neither a score bonus to any singing during the big rock ending, nor is there any sort of required pitch to hit like everyone else's unison notes?