Wow, that was easy...

[KaoAtlas]

I decided to play Rock Band again yesterday, but this time on the Guitar.

I pretty much played every song I played last time on the guitar and while I payed the solo in Black Hole Sun, I said "Well atleast it sounds hard."

I was surprised how is was pretty much all double notes, as I expected hammer ons and pull offs.

I was on Expert too.

Any songs you thought would be easy or hard, but were the exact opposite?

[sushi111]

That sucks :(

[85_SWB]

i almost happy its a little easyer
i play to have fun and rock out with my buddies
i dont like it when its so hard i dont have fun playing it

[Paakaa10]

The songs that I've played solo have been songs that I didn't think would be difficult and they weren't, but I did fail for the first time last night playing "Vasoline" by STP with my buddy playing drums. He was on "hard" for the drums and I was on "expert" for the guitar, and once he lost the beat on the drums I lost my beat on the guitar--annoying, I guess, but also something that holds true with real band experiences. If my band's drummer were to lose the beat in a real practice, we would all essentially have to stop because we'd all be off.

Also, I would point to the "Vasoline" solo and the new 3 minute montage video of Rock Band at gamevideos.com that shows both "Welcome Home" and "Foreplay/Long Time" for examples of the guitar being at least up to par with that "other game".

I would much rather have the songs be a little "easier" at the expense of better replicating the experience of playing the music. I beat every song in Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero 2 on Expert difficult, often five-starring them on a regular basis, and I can't get through the fifth tier on Expert in that new game. Not particularly enjoyable, particularly when you look at places where notes are just egregiously exaggerated for the chart.

[Xzyliac]

That sucks :(

That it does :(

[Oxyplox]

The black hole sun solo isn't that hard?
Agh. That sucks.
It sounds ridiculously hard, you're right.

[Xzyliac]

If my band's drummer were to lose the beat in a real practice we would all essentially have to stop because we'd all be off.Funny that never happens to me. When the drummer screws up (and trust me he will) you keep going or do an improv solo if your vocalist isn't doing anything.

[MaineDrummer]

I'm almost happy it's a little easier.
I play to have fun and rock out with my buddies.
I don't like it when its so hard I don't have fun playing it

I feel the same way

[JarethLegend]

i almost happy its a little easyer
i play to have fun and rock out with my buddies
i dont like it when its so hard i dont have fun playing it

My friends and I have fun playing it when it's hard. Preferences preferences preferences.

[HeXcoda]

Speaking as someone tired of having his ass kicked by crazy note charts, I WELCOME an easier game. Casual players ftw. :)

Still, I think it'll pose enough of a GROUP challenge to keep everybody alive and streaking that it won't matter.

[TheRocker]

Speaking as someone tired of having his ass kicked by crazy note charts, I WELCOME an easier game. Casual players ftw. :)

Still, I think it'll pose enough of a GROUP challenge to keep everybody alive and streaking that it won't matter.

QFT Its all about social game.No friends ? go get some before RockBand is out

[socco6]

i almost happy its a little easyer
i play to have fun and rock out with my buddies
i dont like it when its so hard i dont have fun playing it
That's why they have easier difficulty levels.

[toefer]

QFT Its all about social game.No friends ? go get some before RockBand is out

As the person above (or below, depending on how you sort your threads) mentioned, that's why they have difficulties.

You can still have hard note charts, and have a social game. Just play on a different setting. And in HeXcoda's case, I know he's mentioned (or I think he has) the idea of not being able to unlock everything unless you beat expert, but they could simply change this. Make everything unlockable after beating hard, or have timed unlocks, regardless of the difficulty. That way everyone wins.

Granted, I think the line has to be drawn somewhere, and GH3 likely crossed it. I'm not advocating adding in fake notes just to make the songs harder to play, but it'd be nice if there was some challenge.

[LongDarkBlues]

I can't imagine how anyone could think the Black hole Sun solo could possibly be hard. It's fairly easy, except for maybe the very end, on a real guitar, and it's easy on here, or ,at least, pretty fitting at the 3 tier of 9 difficulties, and I'd wager that's as much for the note holding on the vocals as much as anything. There's only a handful of hammer-ons in the real thing and it's a lot of repeated single notes, too, so that makes it's game representation fairly straightforward. Most of what sounds like crazy guitar stuff is just a wah-wah pedal.

Almost half of it is:


eb:|-----------------------|-----------------------|-----------------------|-----------------------|
Bb:|---10-10-10-10-10-10---|---10-10-10-10-10-10---|---10-10-10-10-10-10---|---10-10-10-10-10-10---|
Gb:|---9--9--9--9--9--9----|---9--9--9--9--9--9----|---9--9--9--9--9--9----|---9--9--9--9--9--9----|

eb:|-----------------------|-----------19-19-19-19-19-19--|--19-19-19-19-19-19-19-17--/5--
Bb:|---10-10-10-10-10-10---|--10-10-10--------------------|-------------------------------
Gb:|---9--9--9--9--9--9----|--9--9--9---------------------|-------------------------------

[hardyfoster]

im sure harmonix made the game as normal where the songs represent the actual notes on expert. they always make their games with difficulty but they're not going to add in notes like gh3.
plus, we don't know what tier those songs are. they may be early tiers.

i prefer to have fun instead of killing myself at the same time with realism.

if you want something difficult, learn to trade the forex market. that will keep you really busy.

[Catalytic]

I liked the pick up and play on the harder levels feel of the guitar. It was challenging enough to not be a joke, but not so hard that I felt that I needed to go practice the song for hours and hours to be good enough to pass it (as on the other game). I think it is a good balance of challenge and enjoyment.

P.S. My wrists and fingers thank Harmonix for somewhat of a break. Those ***** over at the other game are cruel.

[HeXcoda]

You can still have hard note charts, and have a social game. Just play on a different setting. And in HeXcoda's case, I know he's mentioned (or I think he has) the idea of not being able to unlock everything unless you beat expert, but they could simply change this. Make everything unlockable after beating hard, or have timed unlocks, regardless of the difficulty. That way everyone wins.

Actually, I'm not concerned about that. HMX has already said that even in BWT, everything is accessible on Medium, including the Endless Setlist. They've done right by casual players in not locking content away behind a skill wall -- all you miss when you don't ramp it up to the hardest skills are some bonus challenges specifically FOR those hardest skills. Which I can live without.

GH3 crossed the line on two fronts. One, the highly anticipated Dragonforce song is locked behind a ridiculously luck-based craptastic boss battle that's a pain on any difficulty setting -- and in fact is HARDER on Easy because Lou can't fail out with so few notes! Two, many songs are locked behind coop career mode... if you can't wrangle someone coming in and clearing it with you you will never get to play those songs.

HMX realized... partly... that skill and player counts should not determine what you can access. So they removed the skill wall penalty. However, they have locked BWT mode behind a player count wall, and that I have to call them to the carpet on. Their solo game is an afterthought, a cheap excuse, a bullet point on the marketing checklist and nothing more. BWT is amazing and they are really pushing forward innovation and originality... but it comes at a price. Hopefully they'll learn from this mistake and implement some innovative, original solo play in addition for next year's game.

[Jp7588]

Still, I think it'll pose enough of a GROUP challenge to keep everybody alive and streaking that it won't matter.

I agree with that totally. Especially after playing it tonight (which was awesome). I don't even think that the guitar note charts were watered down, some of the songs just weren't guitar heavy. Should I Stay or Should I Go gets my early vote for easiest song on the game.

I played with a dude that worked at Best Buy who really thought the drums were easy because he could handle them on expert. When in reality he was getting 85-90% and couldn't beat the tough ones like Tom Sawyer, and that's without the bass pedal. And I struggled on a couple of songs on guitar, I'm no expert but I'm decent on hard and I barely got through Tom Sawyer and failed out of another one (can't remember which). So when you think of the fact that more guitar heavy songs are on their way on the main disc and DLC and when you add the band dynamic I think there's going to be a little more difficulty than some are anticipating.

[rockst01]

Black Hole Sun's solo in Rock Band is not easy dude. I was playing expert guitar for it on the tour bus stage today with my friends and I almost failed, There are a lot of RYBYRYBYR hammeron parts in it, and since I was used to guitar hero 3's very loose timing window I was missing everything. Luckily I overdrived that ****, turned on the wah-wah and made it through the rest of the song.