All players must play on same difficulty (to obtain more fans)?

[Zanaflex]

Sorry if this has been answered before, but me and 3 of my friends have been playing Rockband for about 5 hours total from when we got it (yesterday).

The Singer, Guitarist (myself) and bassist all started on medium. While the drummer started on easy (none of us have any drumming experiance, but myself and the singer used to be in a real band). Anyways, very quickly we got 50k fans (or was it 100k) and capped out. So the drummer had to go up to medium. He was not really ready for it. But he did some solo stuff while we were all at work today, came back tonight and was rockin! So within 2 hours of everyone playing on medium, we are capped again at 260,000. So now must we all move up to hard to obtain more fans?

[ZkDotNet]

To answer your question most directly, yes. The lowest difficulty is what counts. It'll be a problem for my household, but whatever.

PS: For what it's worth, we capped out at 49,005 on easy. (Young kids 'n all.)

[Zanaflex]

Arggg, just kind of stinks that all of us must play on the same level just to advance in the game. I mean I understand they need to make it harder to "finish" the game, but to cap out so quickly is bleh.

[polishdog90]

Lame.. I dont know anyone that can sing on expert.

[ZkDotNet]

Lame.. I dont know anyone that can sing on expert.
I almost failed Say It Ain't So on easy.

I suck at singing. :(

[Frederf]

So far I've had no problem being "capped" by someone playing on Easy. You still get money, stars, and fans. I'm sure being the master at RB might be impeded by any Easy player so perhaps you should listen nothing but this album:

http://www.amazon.com/Exterminate-Everything-Around-Restricts-Master/dp/B000VDDBIY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1195730555&sr=1-1

[polishdog90]

Im just saying its lame because I have a friend who plays Expert Drums, another Friend who plays expert bass, and I play expert guitar, but we don't know anyone that can sing so our singer will probably play medium we will get capped. So its 3 Experts and 1 Medium and we will get capped at the medium score because of that. Sort of lame :(.

[druff42]

So far I've had no problem being "capped" by someone playing on Easy. You still get money, stars, and fans. I'm sure being the master at RB might be impeded by any Easy player so perhaps you should listen nothing but this album:

http://www.amazon.com/Exterminate-Everything-Around-Restricts-Master/dp/B000VDDBIY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1195730555&sr=1-1


That's weird, me and my 11 year old brother have been playing since Tuesday, (myself on expert guitar and him on easy drums) and after a few hours the rewards screen said "in order to gain more fans play at a higher difficulty" . Somehow he managed to barely keep up with the medium songs but a few short hours later we got the same message and there's no way he can pull off drums on hard.

This is my only serious problem with the game thus far. I understand why they want you to get better but it really alienates players who don't have the time or skill to learn an actual instrument.

This wouldn't fly in other games i.e. Halo bumping you up to legendary after a few levels.

[eball07]

Im just saying its lame because I have a friend who plays Expert Drums, another Friend who plays expert bass, and I play expert guitar, but we don't know anyone that can sing so our singer will probably play medium we will get capped. So its 3 Experts and 1 Medium and we will get capped at the medium score because of that. Sort of lame :(.
I dunno...makes perfect sense to me. If you had a "real" band and one member was decidedly weaker than the rest, I'd think your fan base would suffer.

Seems as though everyone has been clamoring for a "realistic" game...well, you've got it. ;)

[HeXcoda]

I'm surprised you guys are hitting the caps this early. Supposedly you can finish BWT, getting the Hall of Fame and Endless Setlist, even with everybody on medium... but you cap out medium in 4 hours? What the hell?

Can someone please confirm how far you can get into the game with only medium players? Can you finish the HoF and such, and all that remains beyond Hard is some, well, hard extra challenges?

[jmiscavish]

My wife and I capped out medium after about 10 songs. She can barely play bass on medium and I pretty much suck at the drums on medium. We just want to have fun getting fans. I don't want to have to devote hours to practicing just to have fun with my wife.

The more I play this game, the more annoying nitpicks I find. Still a 9/10, though.

[Young_Nastyman]

You can always pull an Ulrich by saying **** the fans and play for money :p

[KaYotiX]

I REALLY hope this isnt the case....i dont want to HAVE to play on Hard/Expert just to get to the end of BWT.

Can anyone from HMX confirm this??

[toefer]

Can someone please confirm how far you can get into the game with only medium players? Can you finish the HoF and such, and all that remains beyond Hard is some, well, hard extra challenges?

I think your fans cap out at 260,000 on Medium. I've been playing on Hard guitar/vocals and have been doing fine for now (I fail out on singing here and there, but always have Overdrive on guitar ready to go, to bring the singer back). I'm hoping this is as high as you have to get. To force people to all play on Expert to unlock stuff would be kind of unfair. Forcing Hard all around doesn't seem too unfair to me, because of the ability to save people after they lose (unlike in Guitar Hero, if you fail the song, it's game over).

I do wish that the progression was a bit slower. Granted, I've been logging some long hours playing, but it still only took me a few hours to max out on Medium. Also, you can still earn stars and money, without bumping up the difficulty, which will allow you to open up some of the other venues (just not all of them) and buy some of the cool clothes/instruments.

As for the HoF, I don't think that's possible on Medium. I'm not sure what the exact requirement is, but I assume it involves having over a million fans, which just isn't possible on Medium.

[Motorcity_Madman]

Im just saying its lame because I have a friend who plays Expert Drums, another Friend who plays expert bass, and I play expert guitar, but we don't know anyone that can sing so our singer will probably play medium we will get capped. So its 3 Experts and 1 Medium and we will get capped at the medium score because of that. Sort of lame :(.

Just do it without a singer and your golden.

[druff42]

I don't know how the patches or updates work, but does anyone know if there could be a possible update to remove the caps? Not to be a stickler, I love the game but I'm not going to force anyone to play an instrument past their difficulty level just so we can keep getting fans. As for now, I've given up on BWT which is a real shame because of the shallow solo career.

[NattyLight]

Is this a huge problem? if you just want to have fun with your friends, do quickplay.

[Guitarplayer777]

i had to start a new world tour because drums were the leader, i was the best drummer we have, and i couldn't pull off hard. i reccomend that you make a guitar the leader, and if it gets it hard for the drums and singing, and you need fans NOW, do guitar and bass on expert. this is gonna be my plan, but i don't have four people to play it with.

[espher]

Im just saying its lame because I have a friend who plays Expert Drums, another Friend who plays expert bass, and I play expert guitar, but we don't know anyone that can sing so our singer will probably play medium we will get capped. So its 3 Experts and 1 Medium and we will get capped at the medium score because of that. Sort of lame :(.

If you're all strong on Expert, I'm pretty sure you can get a vocalist who can play on Hard. I'm getting 97%+ on everything on Medium and I sound like a cat trapped in a shower.

Edit: You can still finish BWT on Medium, so it's not like it's a crippling problem.

[steelcurtain187]

Can you still unlock all the songs and whatnot in the WT mode even when on easy? I don't really care about having the fans if its just for bragging rights. Anyone know?

[Frederf]

I'm surprised you guys are hitting the caps this early. Supposedly you can finish BWT, getting the Hall of Fame and Endless Setlist, even with everybody on medium... but you cap out medium in 4 hours? What the hell?

Can someone please confirm how far you can get into the game with only medium players? Can you finish the HoF and such, and all that remains beyond Hard is some, well, hard extra challenges?

He was capping out on Easy I think.

[HeXcoda]

He was capping out on Easy I think.

But earlier in the thread, someone capped out on Medium after 10 songs! That's pretty harsh, if that's as far as you're allowed to go before jumping to Hard.

Is there something I'm not seeing..? Are the events generally locked to the Medium fan cap and stars are the more important stat, and that's why you can get to the Hall of Fame on Medium?

I'd just go check myself, but I look to my left, I look to my right, I see no gamers who want to play with me because I'm an adult and we all have very busy schedules. :P I'd like to know for when I get my mike stand and try sing+guitaring this if it's even worth the effort or if I'm gonna get 10 songs of fun and then be stopped cold.

[Rock_Starman]

Can you still unlock all the songs and whatnot in the WT mode even when on easy? I don't really care about having the fans if its just for bragging rights. Anyone know?

Some screens showed that there 5 songs that could only be gotten on hard or expert.

About the leader stuff,isn't bass the easiest? So why not make them the leader?

[Zanaflex]

Why does it matter who is the leader? (I am probably a just noob at this point). Right now our bassist is the leader (just cause we always know he will be there).

Like I said when we first started playing, all of us expect the drummer started on medium (he was on easy) capped out in about 2 hours. Quit for the night, next day we bumped up to medium, did great and capped out @ 260,000 fans in about 2.5 hours. Correct me if I am wrong, but we ALL have to step up to hard now to obtain more fans correct?

I think fans are worth more then just bragging rights aren't they? Could have sworn I read that on a screen in the game that to "unlock whatever place this was" you need X more ammount of fans.

I agree, if this is the case that we all have to go to hard to advance this is way way way to fast. Our group is kind of a strange mix. I am new to the whole guitar hero thing (just picked up GH3 about 2 weeks ago and it is my first GH game played), BUT I have been playing real guitar for awhile. Our singer (my brother) has been playing GH games for awhile now and can 5* hard GH3 and working on expert. BUT he is a really good singer (Can 5* 100% songs that he knows the words to lol on expert). Our bassist has no musical background, but is just a gamer. And will get down pretty much anything. Our drummer has some rhythm background and catches on quick. I know I could step up to hard quickly, same with our bassist, but the drummer (and the same would go for any of us) needs so much more time to go to hard.

IDK, might need some more insight here.

[Seroth]

I'm already capped out on Medium, and I can't play the drums on Hard (and I'm the best "drummer" in my group of friends), so we won't be getting any new fans unless we just decide to not play the drums. I'm not sure how well my friend sings on Hard, and we don't have a bass guitar yet.

But I'm at the point where I need to unlock the Hall of Fame gig thing, and that only requires Stars, not fans...but some venues are locked and require a certain number of fans, so I don't know if those need to be unlocked before getting to the Hall of Fame or not.

Also, it seems even when I lose fans, I can't get them back at Medium... So does that mean I can eventually end up with zero fans and not gain anymore until we start playing on Hard? If so, that's pretty lame.

[Zanaflex]

Yeah there seems to be alot of confusion on this. I think we need HMX to provide some solid answers.

[Frederf]

Why does it matter who is the leader?

Oh man you just asked the killer question. Why does the leader matter? Because the leader is the band and the band is not without him/her.

Want to play the band without that person? TOO BAD
Want to play the band without the leader's instrument? TOO BAD
Want to play the band without the leader's character? TOO BAD

The fact that the leader and the band are inexplicably tied together in a needlessly rigid manner is really awful.

===========


But earlier in the thread, someone capped out on Medium after 10 songs! That's pretty harsh, if that's as far as you're allowed to go before jumping to Hard.

Is there something I'm not seeing..? Are the events generally locked to the Medium fan cap and stars are the more important stat, and that's why you can get to the Hall of Fame on Medium?

Woah woah. You are capped at the number of fans but that's not the "end of the line" at all! In no way does reaching a fan/difficulty cap mean the game just ends. You can get pretty darn far into the game on Easy and can complete the entire thing on Medium save for a few bonus special challenge sets.

Hitting the fan cap is not the end of the world, in fact if the game never told you you hit it, you'd probably never notice. The game doesn't just stop because of such a limit. Chicken Little reporting.

=============


About the leader stuff,isn't bass the easiest? So why not make them the leader?

Because bass is one of the least popular instruments but would always have to be played if you want to play that band at all. There's no sense in making the leader have an easy instrument. The game cares about the lowest difficulty player in the band and couldn't care any less what difficulty the leader is playing on.

Bass is probably one of the worst options as leader unless you ALWAYS have 4 people or your bass guy shows up every time people want to play BWT.

===========


I think fans are worth more then just bragging rights aren't they?

Yeah, stars, fans, and band vehicles are pretty much responsible for all progression in BTW. I don't think there's any that require money.

===========


But I'm at the point where I need to unlock the Hall of Fame gig thing, and that only requires Stars, not fans...but some venues are locked and require a certain number of fans, so I don't know if those need to be unlocked before getting to the Hall of Fame or not.

Also, it seems even when I lose fans, I can't get them back at Medium... So does that mean I can eventually end up with zero fans and not gain anymore until we start playing on Hard? If so, that's pretty lame.

That would depend on if you can get enough stars without needing more gigs open. I'd have to do the math.

When you hit the fan cap it doesn't give you exactly the number of fans at the cap but allows you to go slightly over. Example:

"Easy" band has 74,312 fans.
"Easy" band plays and gets 2,999 additional fans.
Cap is reached (75,000).
"Easy" band has 77,311 fans.
"Easy" band plays and gets 0 additional fans.
"Easy" band fails and loses 250 fans.
"Easy" band has 77,161 fans.
"Easy" band plays and gets 0 additional fans.
"Easy" band fails and loses 5,000 fans.
Cap is no longer in effect.
"Easy" band has 72,161 fans.
"Easy" band plays and gets 100 additional fans.
"Easy" band has 72,261 fans.

So you can't gain fans when you are over the cap but you can gain fans (any amount) when you are under the cap. You have to drop below the cap again before you can start gaining fans.

[thebillyman]

if you cap out, there are still plenty of shows to play. After a 16 hour run we capped out in fans halfway through, but still haven't run out of shows to play.

[HeXcoda]

Woah woah. You are capped at the number of fans but that's not the "end of the line" at all! In no way does reaching a fan/difficulty cap mean the game just ends. You can get pretty darn far into the game on Easy and can complete the entire thing on Medium save for a few bonus special challenge sets.

Hitting the fan cap is not the end of the world, in fact if the game never told you you hit it, you'd probably never notice. The game doesn't just stop because of such a limit. Chicken Little reporting.

THANK YOU. Getting some direct answers helps! I don't mind missing out on bonus special challenge sets... three adjectives I don't particuarly care about in a row, there. :)

I just want to make sure the MAJORITY of the BWT mode is accessible to a Medium band, including the so-called "ending" of the Hall of Fame.

For old school nerds, it's the difference between "Beat Sephiroth, win game, then optionally go beat Ruby Weapon if you play better" and "You can't even approach Sephiroth or Ruby Weapon and win the game unless you play better".

[toefer]

Last night I capped out on hard, at 600,000 fans, so I only played a few more shows on expert, before calling it a night (I was playing by myself, on guitar and vocals). From what I see, the only thing expert seems to be offering is more fans.

All the visible venues are unlocked, though a couple international ones that require a PR firm (and I think there is one venue left, that isn't on my list yet). I think the large international venues had a fan requirement too, but I don't remember what it was (because they said "you need **,*** more fans" and I didn't bother looking at what my current # of fans was at the time), so I'll assume it was ~600,000. So basically you don't have to play on expert, unless you want to become a Hall of Fame band, and I think that unlocks one final venue. Not a huge deal, but enough of a motivation to continue my one-man-band on expert.

[Aybara]

My wife plays on Medium, and won't be able to go further.

So I can't unlock a bunch of venus and such because we are capped at 260,000 fans.

Other than the 'hardcore' who will undoubtedly complain if a Medium level band could go all the way to the Hall of Fame and never stop gaining fans, why was this done?

[ManOwaR]

I dunno...makes perfect sense to me. If you had a "real" band and one member was decidedly weaker than the rest, I'd think your fan base would suffer.

Seems as though everyone has been clamoring for a "realistic" game...well, you've got it. ;)

Really? uh...NO.

There's TONS of bands where one "expert" (For the purposes of this discussion) carry 3 shleps. I bet many of you can come up with examples. (I think of Johnny Cash right off... the guys were fine, but his charm song writing and voice..)

As long as you can "finish" the game with hard guys I'd think this is ok.. But all experts is alot to ask.

[ElvisChapelGuy]

We're having the same trouble. Yes, you can get to the Endless Setlist in Medium mode. However, my wife can't play in Hard mode. So, we will never be able to go to Tokyo, Seattle and some other cities. Not cool.

[Aybara]

They are able to 'tag' what level you complete a song or setlist on.

So if you get a million fans in 'easy' or 'medium' mode. Just tag it on the Leaderboards, or make different leaderboards for the different difficulties.

Why cap it at all? As all that is happening is locking out some content for those who can't devote the time (or may not have the dexterity) to go above Medium difficulty.

I am playing on Hard, but my wife prefers guitar, and it took her THREE Guitar Hero games to even get to Medium difficulty and feel confident.

[FallenAce]

I notice the problem here, but I may see it a little differently than you guys...

It seems a lot of people have their main issue not with the game, but with their bandmates.
Honestly, if you want to continue to play RB with your wife or significant other, it sounds like you just need to help them get to that next level. She's going to get frustrated, as you know, because no matter what, you will be able to pick up the higher levels more quickly than her. However, you already know that's what's going to happen, so you can prepare for it and help her.

I say this because my g/f wanted to drum in the game. She actually picked it up really quickly, but she struggles on the later songs in Medium. She hates the Jet song, which sucks for me, because I love that song (playing the guitar/bass and singing is fantastic on that song - you feel badass) due to the difficulty of drums for that song on Medium. We've only played it 3 times, and the second and third only because I really implored her to play it and remind her that we'll survive.

When you still need to work up to what we all might consider "average" it's terribly frustrating to be doing that while the guy next to you just seems to breeze right through.

So either suck it up and encourage her (or as my mom would say, "offer it up for your sins") or toss her out of the band and find someone else to play with. In all honesty: the game is not going to change to include something so your wife has a better time playing. We all need to take the high road on this one.

[the_spike]

Im just saying its lame because I have a friend who plays Expert Drums, another Friend who plays expert bass, and I play expert guitar, but we don't know anyone that can sing so our singer will probably play medium we will get capped. So its 3 Experts and 1 Medium and we will get capped at the medium score because of that. Sort of lame :(.

Your best choice is to not have a singer. I know it sucks but it's what my band had to do. In addition to that, we can no longer switch around instruments on songs because one of my friends is the only of out of our group that can play on Hard drums. Kind of sucks since I like playing drums sometimes.

Does the game make you move up to Expert or the highest it goes is Hard?

Quick note for you guys that are seriously capped: The only arenas you need more fans for are the big ones, other than that fans aren't that important as long as you still get stars to unlock more sets and stuff. The scores will be judged on what diffcuty you're playing at not the one they want you to so it is possible to 5 star stuff while capped. You should be able to at least go a couple gigs farther. Not sure how far you can go with you fans still being at the Medium cap though.

[Seroth]

When you hit the fan cap it doesn't give you exactly the number of fans at the cap but allows you to go slightly over. Example:

"Easy" band has 74,312 fans.
"Easy" band plays and gets 2,999 additional fans.
Cap is reached (75,000).
"Easy" band has 77,311 fans.
"Easy" band plays and gets 0 additional fans.
"Easy" band fails and loses 250 fans.
"Easy" band has 77,161 fans.
"Easy" band plays and gets 0 additional fans.
"Easy" band fails and loses 5,000 fans.
Cap is no longer in effect.
"Easy" band has 72,161 fans.
"Easy" band plays and gets 100 additional fans.
"Easy" band has 72,261 fans.

So you can't gain fans when you are over the cap but you can gain fans (any amount) when you are under the cap. You have to drop below the cap again before you can start gaining fans.

Thanks. Whew, what a relief!

[Zanaflex]

I guess my big "compaint" (if you could call it that), is not that you need to move up to hard/expert to "beat" the game. Is that you have to do it so quickly, seriously after 4-5 hours? No good.

[hardyfoster]

im in your same boat HEX. maybe harmonix can make a patch where you can move the vocals down nearer to the guitar track so it wil be easier to do both.

anyway, i started guitar and vocals on easy. at one point, it said to gain more fans play on a harder level. so i put guitar on medium and vocals on easy. alot later on it said the thing about to gain more fans, so i put guitar on hard and vocals on easy.
what i'm saying is you don't have to move each player in unison, just one will work. in my case, since i'm doing both (unfortunately hmx) it's works great to do it this way.

when the challenges came up for the van, the bus, roadies etc. In most cases if not all, i picked the section where i could "make a setlist". Then i picked the songs I am best at playing/singing and this made it for an easy win to beat these challenges.

so far, the songs i play alot repeatedly by choice to win challenges...
say it ain't so
creep
wanted dead or alive (bon jovi)
should i stay or should i go

[Aybara]

I guess my big "complaint" (if you could call it that), is not that you need to move up to hard/expert to "beat" the game. Is that you have to do it so quickly, seriously after 4-5 hours? No good.

Bingo on that.

Plus, the whole 'make it to the next level' crap is getting ******ed.

Some people play to enjoy the game. Not everyone wants to become an expert. If I wanted to become an expert guitar player, I'd probably NOT be trying to do it in a video game.

For those of who that have to have your e-peen bragging rights that is fine.

I'd just like to get all the venues, and have 'fun'.

But when it stops becoming 'fun' and becomes a 'chore' the game loses a critical piece of itself.

We played for less than 5 hours. We've maxxed out our fans, and now to unlock certain aspects I'm forced to make co-op players play outside their comfort zone.

At that point it stops being a fun game.

What started out as something that would bring a group of friends together to play has now quickly become something that is not fun.

Glad I didn't actually buy any of the DLC. Because Rock Band stopped being a group game in my household.

[1up]

My friends and I also got stuck after not even 3 hours of play.

I am having problems on some songs on medium on drums, and it wants me to go on to hard already? This forced progression is ridiculous. Any other game you are not forced to go on to the harder difficulty just to finish the game.

You dont start playing DDR on easy for example and then 7 songs into the game it makes you do medium, then 15 songs into it makes you do hard. That just doesnt fly in any other game. Why should it in rockband?

My band had to stop yesterday. We had to stop playing the game made us stop. We could not progress unless we live up to thier desired specifications. Anyone else see something wrong with this?

[jmiscavish]

Yeah, this game has some really, really puzzling design decisions. Forced progression. You can't even beat BWT unless you play on expert (???) One person must have three different avatars for all the instruments. The band leader is locked into not only a band but an instrument so that no one else can ever play that instrument in that band.

I'm not sure there's enough patches for all this stuff. I could probably complete BWT on the expert guitar BY MYSELF!!! I can't even do that. Lame, lame, lame, lame.

[Frederf]

My friends and I also got stuck after not even 3 hours of play.

How exactly were you stuck?

[espher]

My friends and I also got stuck after not even 3 hours of play.

I am having problems on some songs on medium on drums, and it wants me to go on to hard already? This forced progression is ridiculous. Any other game you are not forced to go on to the harder difficulty just to finish the game.

You can finish BWT on medium. You just can't unlock all of the fluff extras.

Not to mention you can still play after you cap out on fans, right?

You just, you know, can't get any additional fans?

[MrSalty]

got stuck? "forced" to play at a higher difficulty? game stopped being fun?

why? seriously - the only thing you can't unlock are some venues, and that has pretty much zero effect on gameplay. if we were talking about not being able to unlock some songs i could certainly understand, but come on... there are plenty of other games out there that require you to have a certain level of skill to unlock extras, so why is it so terrible in this case?

play at whatever difficulty level you want to and have fun. no one is forcing anyone to do anything they don't want to. if the fact some little "number of fans" counter stops incrementing destroys your enjoyment of the game, that's a problem you created for yourself.

next people will be complaining you can't get all the achievements on easy.

[Fully]

Quick note on the topic .. I bought this game for fun played with friends n family and have a blast but its a real bummer to force kids , friends and family memebers to play at a harder difficulty than they are used to. Now all of sudden people are playing a game that makes them play in an uncomfortable way and eventually wont be fun. Competition is one thing and being the greatest band in the world is understandable but leave that to the online ranks and leaderboards not the people that just wanna rock and have fun and move on in the game.

It feels like Rock Band World Tour makes you play a game that isnt so fun anymore by playing on a skill level higher than your capacity. Second its frustrating and of course we all want to play different songs on the World Tour and we mos def want to beat all the songs in our home city Chicago but theres no way me or my family can get on the expert level. Please look into putting more songs for guys n gals that are used to only playing on easy and medium it should be fun and shouldnt be deprived of some of the greatest songs that arent available to us because we are novices or intermidiate players !!!

[stunner1210]

My dad and I just got the message to bump up to Hard to earn more fans. We're being forced, literally, to play on Hard on some events as it only has Hard and Expert highlighted. While we don't have to play those venues, it takes the fun out of playing when you are forced to skip venues because you have to go up a difficulty.

I hope something happens to lessen the requirement a little.

[SlowMotionKarma]

Exactly. I played with my two younger cousins on Thanksgiving day and we maxed out fans on Medium. They aren't hardcore gamers, but they can play on medium pretty well. It was dissappointing to them that we couldn't open up other cities/venues because they would have to move up to hard. They don't care about being a (video game) guitar/drum god. They just want to play songs and "tour the world" with our band. And I own Rock Band, so they can only play when they visit or I visit. Doing it this way makes it impossible for them to get the whole experience.

I know a big "argument" here is, "if you want to have fun, just play on quickplay." but that is no where near as cool as finishing a song and seeing that you made money and gained fans and opened new places to play. "Oooh, we won a jet! Now we can go to London!" I thought that's what Rock Band was all about. The "simulation" of being a real band and rocking around the world.

The leaderboards and ranked matches are for those people that want to "prove their greatness". I just want to be able to jam with my friends and family through BWT. When we hit that "meduim" fan cap, it instantly became a chore for them and me (seeing as how it was no longer fun for them) and we stopped playing. They LOVED the game until that happened.

Sure I can play on expert, and sing (I guess) on expert alone to open up everything, but I'd have a lot more fun just playing comfortably with friends/family.

[jmiscavish]

You can finish BWT on medium. You just can't unlock all of the fluff extras.

Not to mention you can still play after you cap out on fans, right?

You just, you know, can't get any additional fans?

What's fluff to you might be fun to someone else. Like my wife. We have a two person band. It's great fun to see us get more fans after every show. Except, after only three days, we capped out medium. There's no way we can play on hard, so we are STUCK. That's it. The game is FORCING us to up the level. We care about fans because it's fun to get more of them.

Well maybe we should just practice more. Right, because we both have full time jobs with a house and dogs (I can't even imagine if we had kids...), so we can't spend hours a day practicing like some fanboy nerds.

We can't beat the game unless we both start playing expert. That is assinine. Especially since I can't take my guitar skills and play this on solo. (Not that I could use my guitar skills anyway since I'm the band leader and locked myself into drums...)

[hardyfoster]

read this
http://community.rockband.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=10261

[Lord Yod]

THANK YOU. Getting some direct answers helps! I don't mind missing out on bonus special challenge sets... three adjectives I don't particuarly care about in a row, there. :)

I just want to make sure the MAJORITY of the BWT mode is accessible to a Medium band, including the so-called "ending" of the Hall of Fame.

That's some good news right there, the GF and I were worried about it. Does the number of players in the band matter? It's just the two of us.


For old school nerds, it's the difference between "Beat Sephiroth, win game, then optionally go beat Ruby Weapon if you play better" and "You can't even approach Sephiroth or Ruby Weapon and win the game unless you play better".

The fact that this is considered 'old school' scares me. Where I come from, it's not old school if it's newer than an NES...:cool:

[espher]

What's fluff to you might be fun to someone else.

Sorry, we might be having a terminology conflict.

'Fluff' to me is not 'insignificant or of little value' or something like that.

I view content as two things:

Fluff a.k.a. Flavour Text: costumes, outfits, optional (hi)story, bonus features.

Crunchy Bits a.k.a. Gameplay: levels, core story, weapons, and so forth.

Fluff can be great, but it's not necessary to play the game.

[visualdeity]

The fact that this is considered 'old school' scares me. Where I come from, it's not old school if it's newer than an NES...:cool:

I know, man. I remember when that game came out, and it's still one of my favorites. Am I old? :(

I would say that the SNES is old enough to make it into old school status, but not by much.

[espher]

SNES -> Playstation is pretty much when the oldschool -> newschool jump took place.

You also have the Atari 2600ish era (I think we still have a Vic 20 somewhere) which I would call antiqueschool. :3

[Lovecraft]

Strange, I think people have forgotten what it is to have fun.

I am playing guitar (on my GHII Gibson; strat failed after 6 hours). My older son is singing and my younger son is on drums. He can't go above medium and in fact has trouble with some songs so they will switch places sometimes.

Thing is, we got all the way to the Hall of Fame 8 song setlist and beat it without the drums ever going over medium. I don't see a problem here. If you can't beat Halo on Legendary, don't ask them to lower the difficulty level. Get better or play something else. I think this has been a great game and we're looking forward to playing it a lot more.

Just have fun! Don't worry about the statistics. It's about getting past the songs without failing, not getting pissy that you aren't gaining fans.

[Leto]

I actually think the forced progression is a great idea. Are games not allowed to be hard any more? Should you really be able to get to the "Hall of Fame" and have an easy time doing it?

The most fun part of Rock Band is actually playing. Just play on Quick Play if BWT is getting too difficult. It's supposed to be a "story" of a band coming into their own, getting better, and getting famous. If you take the time to practice and actually beat it at the appropriate difficulty levels I'm sure you will feel a sense of accomplishment.

I mean, I bet the last part of Contra might have been fun, but I never got there. And there's nothing wrong with that.

[jmiscavish]

I do see everyone's point because what you're saying makes sense. Nobody wants the difficulty lowered, I just want to be able to get more fans on medium. I could care less about unlocking anything or getting any achievements at all on this game (note my whopping gamerscore of 5000 after a year and a half).

Here's my solution I've been spamming the boards with:
have a graduated fan system. Each player gets a certain amount of fans based on their performance and difficulty level. That way a band of easy/medium would get more fans than an easy/easy band and less than a medium/medium band. Then, everyone gets to play on their own level and really good people (expert/expert bands) would get crazy amounts of fans while us easy/medium groups could still progress at our own pace.

[Lovecraft]

They have that, it's called solo tour :P

Just kidding. I just think of it as one of the absolutes of the game; just like we are expected to hit notes to succeed at songs, there is an expectation that we need to play at higher skill levels to attract more fans. We've been stuck at 260,000 for a while because my son can't play solidly on drums past medium. Will we ever get more? Maybe not until we play for a while without him, but we're not willing to do that; it's a team :)

I think that the fan attraction system is fine as is.

[Angry_Games]

I notice the problem here, but I may see it a little differently than you guys...

It seems a lot of people have their main issue not with the game, but with their bandmates.
Honestly, if you want to continue to play RB with your wife or significant other, it sounds like you just need to help them get to that next level. She's going to get frustrated, as you know, because no matter what, you will be able to pick up the higher levels more quickly than her. However, you already know that's what's going to happen, so you can prepare for it and help her.

I say this because my g/f wanted to drum in the game. She actually picked it up really quickly, but she struggles on the later songs in Medium. She hates the Jet song, which sucks for me, because I love that song (playing the guitar/bass and singing is fantastic on that song - you feel badass) due to the difficulty of drums for that song on Medium. We've only played it 3 times, and the second and third only because I really implored her to play it and remind her that we'll survive.

When you still need to work up to what we all might consider "average" it's terribly frustrating to be doing that while the guy next to you just seems to breeze right through.

So either suck it up and encourage her (or as my mom would say, "offer it up for your sins") or toss her out of the band and find someone else to play with. In all honesty: the game is not going to change to include something so your wife has a better time playing. We all need to take the high road on this one.
wait

my wife is a schoolteacher who has to be up by 5AM, gets home at around 5pm, and goes to sleep at 9:30PM. On weekends we play a few games but we have real lives to lead as well.

my friends all have jobs. None of them are 15 years old without a care in the world.

So what you are telling me is that if my wife nor my friends can "suck it up and do better" then I should kick them out of "the band" and find some kids who have nothing else to do in life but dedicate their lives to video games?

Is that really what you are suggesting? That we just tell our loved ones, ones we spend almost every non-working minute with, that they aren't good enough and so we can't play anymore too bad?

Yeah. That's exactly what I'm gonna do. Thanks for that advice. Who needs friends and/or a wife? Not me!

[espher]

The dramatics are really unnecessary.

[foolosophy]

I realize people have their own skill levels, but it really irritates me to see someone ground themselves on Easy even though I know they can push up to Medium. Some people are afraid of making the jump, but I'll tell you from experience that failing is the most motivating factor. It's frustrating at first, but when you reap the rewards it feels great. Just a persona pet peeve of mine. I like seeing people progress, not stay in a "safe zone".

[Lovecraft]

wait

my wife is a schoolteacher who has to be up by 5AM, gets home at around 5pm, and goes to sleep at 9:30PM. On weekends we play a few games but we have real lives to lead as well.

my friends all have jobs. None of them are 15 years old without a care in the world.

So what you are telling me is that if my wife nor my friends can "suck it up and do better" then I should kick them out of "the band" and find some kids who have nothing else to do in life but dedicate their lives to video games?

Is that really what you are suggesting? That we just tell our loved ones, ones we spend almost every non-working minute with, that they aren't good enough and so we can't play anymore too bad?

Yeah. That's exactly what I'm gonna do. Thanks for that advice. Who needs friends and/or a wife? Not me!

Yes. You have it.

My 16 year old is obsessed with games. He beats some of them in a single day. I, of course have not that kind of time. My younger son is only lightly interested in video games. As a consequence, there is a stratification of our skill levels.

My older son can play guitar on medium/hard AND sing on medium/hard, depending ont he song. I can play guitar on hard and my younger son plays drums on medium. When he can't handle the drumming, the kids switch and the younger one sings and the older one plays drums...

That is also why my older son kicks my butt at Halo.. because he IS a 16 year old who has lots of time to screw around with video games... that is part of demographics...

I know it's not what you want to hear, but if there are already a lot of 'it's too easy' complaints. I am afraid you are experiencing what I have been for a few years now; I just don't have time to be the gaming wunderkind I once was. :cool:

[stickshady2007]

My wife and i capped on easy at 49000 fan and meduim caps at 260,000 or so doubt Ill be able to play on hard but yes this is the way it is. None of my freinds own the damn game how can they practice to be good on expert when i own it and dont have the time. This is the best game ever and this is my only beef with it. So dont give the acheivements just lets us get fans at a slower rate or replay songs so we can get more fans after no more venues around when we get capped.I didnt pay 170 bucks to be done with it in 5 hours cause oh sorry your band sucks to bad to go further cause they are not experts.

[MrSilver1286]

I really dislike how the game capps your fanbase at a certain difficultly. Especially since its the lowest difficulty. Not everyone has a good voice. With practice ur able to get better at the drums and guitar but sum of us are screwed when it comes to singing even with practice. After a couple hours of playing BWT my band capped out on fans on medium. My Gf is the singer in my band [and the best one by far] but she feels out of her comfort zone having to play songs on hard in order for our band to get fans. She loves playing guitar but shes only able to play on medium and it sucks how the game forces you to play on hard to gain more fans. We play games all the time but if i wanna make any more progression in the BWT i can't play wit her. The same goes with my buddies. Im the best guitarist and "drummer" in my group but if i wanna get further in the game i cant play with them. This games core is in the BWT but how fun is it when ur capped after 3 hours and people are forced to play beyond their abilities to get further.

After we hit our cap on medium the game lost its fun for BWT and we just went to play on QuickPlay since there wasn't anyting else we could do in BWT. QuickPlay isnt nearly as fun as BWT even if it is repetitive. Now i need to find better players if i wanna "beat" the game. This really sucks. I had really high hopes for this game.

I hate how the band leader is the band. my 1st band has me as leader on drums but im not able to pull off hard for all the songs. Im doing 95%+ on medium drums but hard is another story. since i cant do hard drums and my character is the leader it means my band is stuck in the westcoast and cant progress. I had to start another band with me as leader on guitar in order to have any chance as progressing. This game has me realy pissed off right now. It sucks that i can't play with my GF and my best friends if i wanna beat the game since im the only one that is able to play comfortably on Hard. I really hope they come out with a patch in order to fix this because i feel bad making my friends n GF play on Hard, even though i know they struggle alot, just to get further in the game.

P.S. I hate the Fender guitar. Its a P.O.S. my downstrum is broken too!!!!

[espher]

I didnt pay 170 bucks to be done with it in 5 hours cause oh sorry your band sucks to bad to go further cause they are not experts.

Pro-tip: If you keep playing the game to improve, you may eventually be able to advance to other skill levels, thus not being 'done with the game'.

The next challenge in your lives might be operating an oven. I hope you can move beyond the microwave.

[hardyfoster]

fan cap has nothing to do with progression in the game.

read this.
http://community.rockband.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=10261

[NattyLight]

Most games reward players who are better than others. You're not missing any of the core gameplay or any of the features if you can't play on expert; however, it would be horrible if companies stopped giving rewards to expert players.

The greatest games of all time (Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, Final Fantasy VII, Grand Theft Auto 3, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) ALL rewarded players who were great at the game. If you sucked at it, you could still beat the game. You just didn't get all of the extras. Even successful party games (DDR, Karaoke Revolution, Mario Party) rewarded really great players. You could play all of them fine if you weren't an expert but you jsut didn't get the little extras.

What's the difference with this game? You can still complete BWT on medium. You lose out on only a few venues. You can do everything else. If those things mean that much to you, how about you stop complaining and spend your time EARNING them.

What's with this sense of entitlement? Just play the game and have a good time. Leave the perks to people that are better than you.

[Lovecraft]

A minor commentary on the state of video gameplay:

Video games, as a genre, were originally a 'let's see if we can make a new program to do x' experiment. At that point, it was only a matter of moments before someone decided that they would be a moneymaker (and oh boy, were they!).

This led to games that were there to challenge the players and get them to feed more and more quarters into machines. Because machines had little memory and were not that advanced, the games were repetitive by necessity and what you did as a designer was you used the same visual pieces and amped up the difficulty. 'Beating' a game was a thing of legend, or an impossibility (see the wikipedia entries on Pac Man, Donkey Kong; they had levels that basically overran registers in their memory and made indecipherable levels).

That is where I came from. I cut my teeth on arcade machines in the 80s, and my first machines were the Vic-20, Magnavox Odyssey and Odyssey 2 (yeah, look them up. I am old). Later my friends got the 2600, Intellivision, Colecovision. Oh yeah, a little thing called the NES came out, as well as the Sega Genesis.

In any case, much later, we now have PC games. The machines have memory and hard drive space to spare. Consoles are now specialized PC variants, sometimes built with actual PC components. The focus of games has changed.

Game focus now is on the experience, not the challenge. I believe that this has led to the sense of entitlement. Rather than saying 'That &@!*$ game, I can't believe I didn't beat it. Have at you!!', many people just want hours and hours of entertainment for their money. They want something that will last and allow them to feel that they got their money's worth.

I don't think one way is right and another wrong, but that's the way things seem. When a really challenging game or section of a game comes up, it kind of tickles me to see someone wanting it to change or be easier. Go grab a compilation disk and spend a few hours with Defender or Joust. Those are challenging games, and there isn't much story on the screen. They were a different kind of fun.

When a game challenges you, remember us old timers who have been playing (and stinking at it, in the case of yours truly), and be thankful that you aren't trying to beat Robotron 2084. Games might be about challenge and they might be about length of experience. To me, a great game blends both. I think this is a great game.

[jmiscavish]

Well put post. Does HMX really want all of our quarters, though? They already have my $170. I just want to be able to enjoy this game with my wife without putting hours into practicing. It's no fun to see 0 fans after every song. It's almost as little fun as just playing quickplay...

You can beat halo on legendary or easy; it's not like bungie stopped you half way through the campaign and said "You're too good, now. You need to up the level or YOU SUCK!!!"

You're right, lovecraft, it's about the experience. The experience isn't fun if I keep failing and failing because the game forces my wife and I to play on expert just to beat it.

[NattyLight]

Well put post. Does HMX really want all of our quarters, though? They already have my $170. I just want to be able to enjoy this game with my wife without putting hours into practicing. It's no fun to see 0 fans after every song. It's almost as little fun as just playing quickplay...

You can beat halo on legendary or easy; it's not like bungie stopped you half way through the campaign and said "You're too good, now. You need to up the level or YOU SUCK!!!"

You're right, lovecraft, it's about the experience. The experience isn't fun if I keep failing and failing because the game forces my wife and I to play on expert just to beat it.

First, you can't get everything (special armor, etc.) in Halo if you don't play on a hard mode.

Second, YOU CAN BEAT BWT ON MEDIUM. How many items does this need to be said? in Super Mario, there were a dozen levels, entire levels you couldn't get to unless you were really awesome at the game. Did you hate that game because you couldn't put it on easy mode? It's a game and the only thing you'll be missing are a few sites. You might as well complain about having to unlock clothing and instruments for your band because it takes you too long.

And playing quickplay is no fun? Did you think that GHI and GHII were no fun because there as no real tour mode? Have you played any other rhythm game?

[soulslayer83]

i seriously dont get what the big deal is about capping out and not being able to get more fans is...

you can still play the game and u cant still get money to buy stuff the only thing is that you wont unlock all the extra things but then agin... GH1 2 and 3 all had a special guitar that u had to unlock by moving up difficulty and special character that there is no way you can afford just of the money you get from playing the game on medium

and there are other games that work the same way depending on how you look at them

[espher]

Rock Band does not have any warp whistles, people.

[Aybara]

Second, YOU CAN BEAT BWT ON MEDIUM. How many items does this need to be said? in Super Mario, there were a dozen levels, entire levels you couldn't get to unless you were really awesome at the game.

Um, unless you knew about the warp zones, you couldn't skip levels in Super Mario.

I played every level in Super Mario and beat it. None of the levels were impossible.

Now if you want to see a sadistically insane Super Mario level, watch this video. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=3C1BSbq5aB0)

I'll tell you now, I wouldn't even attempt that one. As it is beyond expert.

Edited to add link

[Swanton]

I guess having a fan cap makes some sense, but the steps should be much wider. The cap shouldn't happen after a few hours of gameplay. They have pimped the BWT as an somewhat endless career mode, yet it's only really endless unless if you move up to Expert.

I checked a few days ago, and the leader had over 39 MILLION fans. So capping on Medium at only 250,000 (or whatever it is) seems really too low if you can hit that in a handful of shows. Building a fanbase is part of the game's progression in the sense that you are making a name for yourself. I don't see why theywould limit that to only Hard and Expert players.

Seems silly. I hope they can patch this and many of the other isses with the game.

[blue_dragonzero]

Um, unless you knew about the warp zones, you couldn't skip levels in Super Mario.

I played every level in Super Mario and beat it. None of the levels were impossible.

Now if you want to see a sadistically insane Super Mario level, watch this video. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=3C1BSbq5aB0)

I'll tell you now, I wouldn't even attempt that one. As it is beyond expert.

Edited to add link

Best video ever.

[stunner1210]

I already posted in here, and I know someone suggested this, but it just makes too much sense.

There should just be an increase in fan flow for harder difficulties. I understand the "forcing" is to make it more challenging and add a sense of accomplishment, but letting someone play on Medium until they're comfortable enough to move up to Hard or Expert would be better, at least in my eyes. Instead of capping fans, there should just be a steady flow of fans per difficulty based on length. Then, if a member starts playing higher difficulties, more fans start to show up.

The venue I'm stuck on now with my dad is forcing us to play on Hard, and we can't get past Vasoline on the LA Brat Pac. Part of that is because I have a messed up strum bar, so he can't downstrum making bass playing harder, and two because we just haven't progressed enough to where I can beat every song on drums on Hard, same with him. This really is the only gripe I have with the game (other than a faulty guitar on day one). Sitting there playing with him when we kept failing, I looked at him and we both said it takes all the fun out of it. Some people may find fun in being forced to move up, but we can't exactly spend all day learning a new difficulty, and this requirement to do everything sucks the fun out of it.

I don't hate the game or anything, but getting to a spot where we can't continue based on one tiny design choice is pretty frustrating. I just think it would be better if those that wish to jump to higher difficulties rack up more fans, while those that are still trying to perfect a technique can progress just as far venu wise, just not get as many fans. I've hit this cap on both of my bands, and while this is the best game I've played, as I've said, it saps the fun right out of it in that instance.

[jmiscavish]

I already posted in here, and I know someone suggested this, but it just makes too much sense.

There should just be an increase in fan flow for harder difficulties. I understand the "forcing" is to make it more challenging and add a sense of accomplishment, but letting someone play on Medium until they're comfortable enough to move up to Hard or Expert would be better, at least in my eyes. Instead of capping fans, there should just be a steady flow of fans per difficulty based on length. Then, if a member starts playing higher difficulties, more fans start to show up.

The venue I'm stuck on now with my dad is forcing us to play on Hard, and we can't get past Vasoline on the LA Brat Pac. Part of that is because I have a messed up strum bar, so he can't downstrum making bass playing harder, and two because we just haven't progressed enough to where I can beat every song on drums on Hard, same with him. This really is the only gripe I have with the game (other than a faulty guitar on day one). Sitting there playing with him when we kept failing, I looked at him and we both said it takes all the fun out of it. Some people may find fun in being forced to move up, but we can't exactly spend all day learning a new difficulty, and this requirement to do everything sucks the fun out of it.

I don't hate the game or anything, but getting to a spot where we can't continue based on one tiny design choice is pretty frustrating. I just think it would be better if those that wish to jump to higher difficulties rack up more fans, while those that are still trying to perfect a technique can progress just as far venu wise, just not get as many fans. I've hit this cap on both of my bands, and while this is the best game I've played, as I've said, it saps the fun right out of it in that instance.


bingo - graduated fan progression. That way everyone is happy. Those who want to play on expert and feel better than the rest of us can do that and get crazy amounts of fans (39 million). The rest of us can still play medium and just get fans at a much slower rate and don't get the cool achievements or whatever.

[Frederf]

BWUAHAAHAHA, oh man the Most Difficult Mario Level thing is soooo funny. Thank you, thank you, thank you. *wipes tear*

Only slightly less funny is the "ZOMG, the number stopped incrementing. I'm stuck!" Hahahaha, yeah yeah, I was playing Super Mario Bros. and I totally got stuck! Yeah I stepped on a turtle and got 0 points! I stomped on 6 goombas after that, no points! Oh man I was totally stuck. My friend came over and he tried even jumping on 12 bullet bills in a row, still no points. I mean sure you could keep jumping from platform to platform and save the princess, but F@$# man... the nearly arbitrary number stopped incrementing. The game was over man. The game was just F@$#'n over. HAHAHA. *wipes tear*

But seriously, there's a lot of well-trained video gaming psychology going on here. Too many people have been trained over the years to collect everything, do everything, unlock everything, 100% everything. If you try to buy every single piece of clothing in the rock store in every color permutation, I hope you suffocate under the weight of your well-stocked wardrobe so we can move on as a species.

That being said, someone at HMX put a decimal in the wrong place. You gain crap loads of fans and then hit the fan cap well before you finish the game.


Play Tester: "We hit our fan cap on BWT on easy."
Programmer: "Yeah there's a cap, it represents how big your band is."
Play Tester: "That's all fine and good but hit it kind of early."
Programmer: "Oh really? How many times did you go through the sets before you hit the cap?"
Play Tester: "How many times? We've only played 12 songs!"
Programmer: "Twelve songs? And you're not skilled enough for medium yet?"
Play Tester: "Well, no, we've been rotating people in in accordance with the real life testing procedures. Most of the players are only just getting used to the instruments."
Programmer: "Oh I see here. I put an extra 0 in here. You have been getting 10x as many fans per gig as intended."
Play Tester: "Yeah, we thought it was weird to get 1,000 fans when playing at a club that only holds 2,000."
Programmer: "Haha, yeah, that is pretty silly. No, you were supposed to earn 100 in that case. The average easy band should just about hit the cap after playing the game through once or so. Anything else?"
Play Tester: "Well we also found it funny that we were gaining fans like a snowball rolling down Mt. McKinley right up until hitting the limit and then 0 from then on."
Programmer: "Oh sorry, that was beta code from the first build. It's supposed to slow down your fan rate as you near the limit and then taper off after the limit. The encouragement to play harder difficulties is still there but the cap is significantly softened. You could earn a million fans on easy, it would just take a heck of a lot longer. Here I'll just fix that now."
Play Tester: "Cool, there's some issue with the band leader and instruments but I'll talk to you about that later. We'll go back to testing."
Programmer: "Can you pick me up a turkey sandwich at lunch?"
Play Tester: "Cranberry sauce?"
Programmer: "No, I'm allergic."
Play Tester: "No problem."
Programmer: "Thanks!"*

*Conversation fictional and did not actually occur. It simply should have.

Also we need some hard facts about what the fan cap actually does other than deny you as a player that life-affirming number-greater-than-zero (tm). It's probably more in the presentation of the game than the actual content that makes people think they are being "forced" play in a certain way. I mean, the entire game is voluntary.

"I'm forced to play on ____ difficulty." is meaningless and inaccurate.
"I'm forced to play on ____ difficulty if I want _______." is actually meaningful.

[Aybara]

Basically the only thing I can see on the fan cap is this.

In order to unlock the Million Fan Achievement, with the fan cap in place, requires you to be playing on Expert.

So it appears they wanted to have you playing on Expert, get a million fans, and get the achievement.

If the achievement was 'Get a million fans on expert' and there was no cap in place. I seriously doubt anyone would be complaining.

Although it sounds like your fictional conversation hits it on the head.

[shadus]

Lame.. I dont know anyone that can sing on expert.

Guitar is our problem, our singer can eat expert on songs he doesn't know... go go trained vocalist who can or not vibrato at will. Our drum guy sat down on easy, went to medium, flipped up to hard, and then went expert... having never touched a drum set in his life, but to his credit thats largely because of the number of instruments he plays. The two guitar players are between medium and expert, the bassist is maxed out on medium and there are some songs on expert i can't do... some I can. It should just do a numerical average to keep the fun maximized, that way the only real limit would be the dead top end-- expert. In our group we could get up to... 4+4+3(4)+2=13/4 = 3 (hard) equiv until the bassist caught up. But the way they designed it we're capped at medium :(

[jmiscavish]

All to true, frederf. That conversation should definitely have happened before this game went gold. I'm not sure how no one noticed any of these issues prior to the release date.

[Frederf]

Lame.. I dont know anyone that can sing on expert.

And I don't know anyone that can 5-star every GHIII song on expert or can 1000 note streak songs. They are called achievements for a reason. Spend less time in your GamerScore page, less time on the leaderboards and more time playing the game and enjoying it the happier and healthier you'll be.

[Tekkor]

My opinion on how it should be to maximize fun for casuals while still putting the challenge up for hardcore players?

- Keep the easy medium progression as is with all members needing to move up to medium. (perhaps though make its last a little bit longer)

- At the 260k mark make it so the band has to have 1 person play on Hard to continue getting fans. (call it the "Star Atrraction" player).

- Then for those final few venues etc keep the cap at same spot and require at least 2 on expert to continue to get fans etc.

I think this is a more resonable progression and demand out of the players. As long as they have 1 and then 2 "skilled" players you could have a few medium players go along for the ride.

[polishdog90]

And I don't know anyone that can 5-star every GHIII song on expert or can 1000 note streak songs. They are called achievements for a reason. Spend less time in your GamerScore page, less time on the leaderboards and more time playing the game and enjoying it the happier and healthier you'll be.

I didn't even know that was an achievement. I posted this before I even played the game. I wasn't aware of the fact that you can still play A LOT of the game with members on easy/medium. My friends and I have been taking turns singing on easy and its still a blast. Personally I really could care less how many fans I have as long as Im having fun (which I have hardly and fans, but Im having a blast).

Edit:

Btw I can 5 star every GH3 song on expert and 1000 note streak :D. If you need a guitarist for rock band just message me.

[AcesHigh84]

For the guy with 3 expert characters and one medium....you are aware that just the three of you can play wihtout the forth and progress right? I have a roomie who loves to play, but he can only play on easy (never plays a lot) so i dont let him to bwt with us cause we never 5star songs, and me and my actual drummer in rl on drums doing it up on expert. We only have 2 stadiums in europe left to do until we beat bwt. Cant wait to do the endless setless :)

[Frederf]

I wasn't aware of the fact that you can still play A LOT of the game with members on easy/medium. My friends and I have been taking turns singing on easy and its still a blast. Personally I really could care less how many fans I have as long as Im having fun (which I have hardly and fans, but Im having a blast).

1 down, 34,877 to go.

[xXGEOMANXx]

I dont think some people really undestand right here. Being a challenging game makes a game better. Being frustrating doesn't. If you play Halo in it's hardest dificulty, as many other games, gives you all extras in terms of costumes, powers, etc. But you can complete the campaign in any dificulty. you can fight all enemie, visit all locations and sets and everything that composes the game. Only those extra costumes, weapons, powers, you name it, you will open them playing on legendary or whatever it is. But telling me that I cannot play through all sets that were made for the game bacause someone thinks I have to be a virtuoso to get there is cheating the consumer. They should have placed a sticker or an advertisement in the box that read "You must be a music virtuoso to fully enjoy this game and enjoy everything for what you are paying for" or something like it.

I am playing videogames since the atari 2006 and have play almost all the big names in the videogames world(getting all stars, skulls,gems or however you want to name it), but what Rockband's producers always offered was a community and a family experience. They never said you should have to get a group of super time wasters to fully enjoy this game. Since I got married i have had many hard times because my wife doesn't likes me to burn time playing videogames because this is something we cannot do together. Now that I buy a game that was supposed to make us share sometime together and have fun in family, it didn't take 6 hours to turn all that enjoyment into frustration. We got stuck after getting the jet because she couldn't play drums harder than easy, guitar harder than medium, and sing harder than medium. So I had to depend on my nieces and friends (the ones who I usually play Gears of War, COD4, Halo, etc) taking me back to the problem of wasting my time with other people instead of her.

This have been a big disapointment for me and for my wife, and even for my friends because we all but one can play up to hard dificulty. I hope there is a posibility of chaging this with an update. For those hardcore, challenge thirstie gamers who need games to be super hard to feel that they are better than somebody in something, so they they can feel "realized" for one time, reserve other tipe of rewards like a bloody fang guitar, a horn hat or other kind of special goodies and weird costumes, but dont let the others(who are the mayority) to play half way of a game that is probably the most expensive game in history.

Excuse my english...

[Kingfish]

English is good...and i am pretty sure you had a really good point in there but two things...

1) if you break down your huge paragraphs, it might not be correct grammar BUT...it'll be easier to read and therefore, more people will read it.

2) you did pull up an almost month old topic...most of the passion on this has been replaced by the outrage of the Activision PS3 fiasco.

That said, if i guess correctly...I agree. Make people get better is the way to go for 80% of the gamers BUT...and that’s a big BUT...BWT REQUIRES multiple people in the same room.

If you are stuck BEGGING your wife/husband/little bro/sis to play with you so you can experience the tour...you can't MAKE those folks be better and they ain't gonna practice.

If you want to leave the cap then an online BWT is a must. Then you'd have no excuse. Your 6yo baby brother is the only one you can find to play bass...NO, just go online and get with a FULL band!

But, if you are locked into playing with whomever you can beg/plead/bargain with to get them to play with you in your own living room...you gotta give the people a "sand-box" version with no cap as an option. PERIOD.

I am a medium/hard guitar & drummer, hard/expert bass, medium singer at BEST. My wife is a medium/hard guitar & bass, expert singer and won't touch drums. My nephew is a solid medium bass.

We play medium across the board with my wife on guitar AND vocals, me on drums and my nephew on bass. We have a good time but we have been capped for a while and know we will NEVER see the special venues because of the cap and that is somewhat disappointing.

[jmiscavish]

My wife and I kind of stopped playing for awhile because we were capped and didn't much see the point to continue. Sure, we can still unlock stuff, but getting zero fans sucks.

[budxors]

Ok, I can see both sides of this issue. Harmonix really shouldn't have limited it so the game could only be unlocked on hard or better. You could get everything useful in all the guitar heroes on medium difficulty, I don't know why they changed that for Rock Band.

At the same time, the # of fans you have shouldn't really be that big of an issue. These games have always been about playing music together, this whole virtual fan business never existed before rock band and people still enjoyed playing fake instruments without them. If you can play all the songs then you have what this game is truly about and you should focus on enjoying that instead of some random # they added to the genre.

All that being said, I still would like harmonix to patch it so everything can be gotten on medium difficulty. I was on medium for a long time in the guitar hero series before I was competent enough to consistently beat hard songs. Venues and songs should be unlockable through medium play, or at the very least it shouldn't be based on the lowest difficutly player.

[JimJolly]

I bet Paul McCartney would have been able to make better music with Billy Preston on keyboards instead of his wife when he was with Wings. It may have cost them a few fans not having a more competent keyboardist in the group.

So it goes with my RB band. I could probably find a better singer. But it's more fun to get wifey involved and I get more playing time since she's sharing in my game time fun.

[xXGEOMANXx]

They had to give the player the oportunity to choose before begin the world tour wich dificulty they want to play so they be more challenged in the reqirement of fans but giving the oprotunity to play trough all the world (venues) at your own dificulty.

The way they did it is like you are penalized holding you from playing more than the half of what you pay for. Imagine if you were hold from playing chapters 3,4 and 5 in Gears of war just because they were reserved for the hardcore and time burners.

What has made the Nintendo's succes is being open and support the hardcore and the casual. Life is short and I dont want to waste one year of my life trying to fight frustration because I bougt a game as expensive as this one and feel I could not enjoy it at its maximun.

Give me what I paid for..

[espher]

... You got what you paid for.

I, for one, thought I bought a rhythm game, not a screensaver or doll collection.

[xXGEOMANXx]

You just said it, I bougth a rhythm game not a real life, profesional band simulator.

[G_tarRoCK3R]

You just said it, I bougth a rhythm game not a real life, profesional band simulator.

....but isn't that the point of a game simulator to simulate the game as a substitue for the real thing??

[xXGEOMANXx]

Yes, but the main reason should be the fun. If people want to do the real thing they can get into music because it is not forbiden for no one. I have no problem with the challenge factor because i can can play through hard wiht no major dificulty in the solo tour.

My main concern is with the cooperative world tour that was the main promotional point for the game, and I cannot play for more than 5 or 6 hours because my wife and the majority of my friends doesn't have the skills and the time to develop it. So a game that should be a multiplayer madness turn out to be a sigle player game because of the cap factor.

If anyone have the grace of having a lot virtuosos to choose from, good for them. I choose my wife and friends as limited as they are, but no one can hold me from feeling cheated as I spent 172 bucks for one third of a game.

Rockban is a GREAT GAME!!!, far above its competition if its open to whomever wants to to ejoy it a its full.

[xXGEOMANXx]

Ohh, by the way, it is not a simulator. Its just a rhythm game. The closer to being a simulator are the drums at expert, at its best.

[G_tarRoCK3R]

Yes, but the main reason should be the fun. If people want to do the real thing they can get into music because it is not forbiden for no one. I have no problem with the challenge factor because i can can play through hard wiht no major dificulty in the solo tour.

My main concern is with the cooperative world tour that was the main promotional point for the game, and I cannot play for more than 5 or 6 hours because my wife and the majority of my friends doesn't have the skills and the time to develop it. So a game that should be a multiplayer madness turn out to be a sigle player game because of the cap factor.

If anyone have the grace of having a lot virtuosos to choose from, good for them. I choose my wife and friends as limited as they are, but no one can hold me from feeling cheated as I spent 172 bucks for one third of a game.

Rockban is a GREAT GAME!!!, far above its competition if its open to whomever wants to to ejoy it a its full.

No offense but you can BEAT the game on medium. The only thing that you are held from is 10 venues. Fans don't mean anything, why does that have to hinder your fun factor? I get fun from beating hard songs and saying TAKE THAT! Games are for a challenge, but you dont have to take that challenge because you only need to play on medium to get everything. Someone said this on another thread and Ill say it here. Think of it like Final Fantasy 7 when you beat sethiroth, you beat the game. Then you can go to beat Ruby and Emerald, plus get the knights of the round as a side quest for gratification of "beating everything there is to do".....

This is exactly the same thing with BWT. Getting more fans to get to the EXTRA 10 venues gives you gratification that you can accomplish the feat of getting to the side quests. Besides, on the last 10 venues you can only play on hard or expert anyway so you need the 600,000 atleast to get there.....IMO I don't think the fan cap should have an effect on your fun factor with the game at all. Alot of people should rethink it. HMX thought BWT mode through completely and made it for the casual gamer as well as the hardcore gamer. The last 10 venues are no more special than the previous venues, they are just more bigger setlists for the harder challenge of yourself.

[xXGEOMANXx]

Have you liked if you could never have fought Ruby and Emerald because you depends on someone that lacked the skill to help you to get there. As I said before, I have no problem at all on the solo tour because I have to rely only in myself,but when your progression depends on someone elses skills it ends the fun.

You are telling me that I spent 172 bucks on a game that is supposed to be enjoyable in multiplayer just to play a solo career because the multiplayer limits me. Big mistake.

I dont know your age and if you are married or have kids or whatever but, maybe we are looking thigs from diferent perspectives, and of course, see them of a diferent color.

[G_tarRoCK3R]

Have you liked if you could never have fought Ruby and Emerald because you depends on someone that lacked the skill to help you to get there. As I said before, I have no problem at all on the solo tour because I have to rely only in myself,but when your progression depends on someone elses skills it ends the fun.

I tried it like twice and then I never tried again, I never beat Ruby or Emerald. I have also not tried to get the knights of the round. You just have to accept that you are not great at it and either get better or not try; I decided to give up.


You are telling me that I spent 172 bucks on a game that is supposed to be enjoyable in multiplayer just to play a solo career because the multiplayer limits me. Big mistake.

The progression of WBT only requires medium. I really don't see why people are making a big deal about the fans blocking progression. So what? you get a message that says you gained 0 fans, BIG DEAL! Play the game for the stars, the check marks. The satisfation of beating a setlist of 58 freakin songs! lol

If your saying you want to have "fun" playing with a group of people who "don't want to commit to hours and hours of practice" then in all honesty you shouldn't be playing BWT. The mode that best suits that type of interaction is the quickplay function. I see BWT as a mode for those that want to "progress and get better;" This is what the fan cap is for. BWT is for the commited people that want to beat the game for what it is, not try to change what it is.

BWT doesn't limit you per say, it presents to you an extra challenge, a push if you will, to get better. The point of BWT is to start small only to make it to big time, the huge venues, the longer setlists, and MORE FANS! :) All this can be reached with medium, except the side quest of the 10 venues. How is that limit you? Its an extra.


I dont know your age and if you are married or have kids or whatever but, maybe we are looking thigs from diferent perspectives, and of course, see them of a diferent color.

What would my age or if I'm married have to do with my opinion? Just curious. If I was older or if I was married/not married I would probably still have he same opinion. I don't think the game should be changed because "its too hard." That is the reason there are difficulties. As for little kids playing the game....I don't have a problem with it, they just play on easy mode. Just because they can't pass a song or get to the hardest venues should cause the game makers to make it easier. The game is rated Teen.

I'm not married, I'm 21.

[fatmumuhomer]

As I'm reading through this thread, the only thing I keep thinking is this:

People are focused on the wrong thing in this game. The game is about playing songs and having fun. It's not about playing in every venue in the game or unlocking every single piece of clothing.

When I go back and play GH2, my only choice is to play the songs over and over and practice them and get better. This is the reason for playing the game. I didn't expect to be able to play on Hard the first time I played GH2. Heck, I had to start on easy. And I've never made it to Expert.

I keep seeing the comment "I didn't know I would be done with this game after 6 hours when I got capped." I'm sorry, but that view is seriously flawed and it's your own fault for not enjoying the game. Did you really think you'd be able to "beat" the game and unlock all of the venues after 6 hours? For $170 would you want to? For $170, I want this game to last me quite a while. That includes providing a challenge and something to aim for. I am playing Hard on guitar/bass, medium on vocals, and medium on drums.

If my friends all play together, we usually get capped on medium. And yet we continue to play. "Why is that", you ask? Because the point of the game is playing different instruments and different songs and just having fun. We ignore the fans because it doesn't stop us from playing the core game. Besides, on medium we are now at the Hall of Fame tour. We have a PR Firm, body guards, a jet, a bus, a van, a sound guy, all that. We can even do the endless setlist if we wanted to. ON MEDIUM.

I don't know if the issue that too many casual gamers bought this game or what. But it's getting irritating to see these complaints over and over because you are MISSING THE POINT OF THE GAME.

[G_tarRoCK3R]

As I'm reading through this thread, the only thing I keep thinking is this:

People are focused on the wrong thing in this game. The game is about playing songs and having fun. It's not about playing in every venue in the game or unlocking every single piece of clothing.

When I go back and play GH2, my only choice is to play the songs over and over and practice them and get better. This is the reason for playing the game. I didn't expect to be able to play on Hard the first time I played GH2. Heck, I had to start on easy. And I've never made it to Expert.

I keep seeing the comment "I didn't know I would be done with this game after 6 hours when I got capped." I'm sorry, but that view is seriously flawed and it's your own fault for not enjoying the game. Did you really think you'd be able to "beat" the game and unlock all of the venues after 6 hours? For $170 would you want to? For $170, I want this game to last me quite a while. That includes providing a challenge and something to aim for. I am playing Hard on guitar/bass, medium on vocals, and medium on drums.

If my friends all play together, we usually get capped on medium. And yet we continue to play. "Why is that", you ask? Because the point of the game is playing different instruments and different songs and just having fun. We ignore the fans because it doesn't stop us from playing the core game. Besides, on medium we are now at the Hall of Fame tour. We have a PR Firm, body guards, a jet, a bus, a van, a sound guy, all that. We can even do the endless setlist if we wanted to. ON MEDIUM.

I don't know if the issue that too many casual gamers bought this game or what. But it's getting irritating to see these complaints over and over because you are MISSING THE POINT OF THE GAME.


This is exactly my point, I don't get it either.

[xXGEOMANXx]

I meant no to offend you asking your age or if you are married. I asked just because when I was that age I spent hours and days with my friends playing videogames all day and night. We were working, Syudying or playing videogames. And I am pretty sure that in that time I was thinking just like you.

In fact, I think like you in many respects. I agree with all the axtra challenge and the thing about giving the best to be better. But when somebody like my wife that is manager of a videogames store (Gamestop) who after a day of work doesn't want to know nothing about games, and now is atracted to play a game with me, as hard as she tried she can play guitar in medium with dificulty is frustrating.

In my case almost all my friends have limited time and likes to play games like GOW, hslo, COD4, GHIII,etc. Only one or two bought RBand because is too expensive so I cannot play with no one besides my wife and nephews. This is where this fan cap holds me back. I cannot carry them.

This is where I think this option of fan cap is a great one, but it should have been optional. When years pass by you start to enjoy more other things than challenge. This days I complete games but doesnt have time to get all the stars, gems, skulls, etc.

I know I am just one in a universe of gamers but I also know this is the feeling of A LOT of people out there.

By the way , I am 34, married and with one 6 year old kid. Have PS3, Xbox360 and Wii

[G_tarRoCK3R]

I meant no to offend you asking your age or if you are married. I asked just because when I was that age I spent hours and days with my friends playing videogames all day and night. We were working, Syudying or playing videogames. And I am pretty sure that in that time I was thinking just like you.

In fact, I think like you in many respects. I agree with all the axtra challenge and the thing about giving the best to be better. But when somebody like my wife that is manager of a videogames store (Gamestop) who after a day of work doesn't want to know nothing about games, and now is atracted to play a game with me, as hard as she tried she can play guitar in medium with dificulty is frustrating.

In my case almost all my friends have limited time and likes to play games like GOW, hslo, COD4, GHIII,etc. Only one or two bought RBand because is too expensive so I cannot play with no one besides my wife and nephews. This is where this fan cap holds me back. I cannot carry them.

This is where I think this option of fan cap is a great one, but it should have been optional. When years pass by you start to enjoy more other things than challenge. This days I complete games but doesnt have time to get all the stars, gems, skulls, etc.

I know I am just one in a universe of gamers but I also know this is the feeling of A LOT of people out there.

By the way , I am 34, married and with one 6 year old kid. Have PS3, Xbox360 and Wii


I wasn't offended don't worry :) lol I completely understand where you are coming from, and as you said before we have different views. Which is why we have opinions :) Perhaps you should look past the fan cap though and I think you will find yourself and wife (maybe kid?) having alot more fun. It is about the music after all!!

When your friends come over, maybe that would be a time to just play quickplay. I'm just trying to be helpful you know? Don't think the game isn't fun because you cannot get fans. Its not all about the fans.

I play BWT with two groups of friends, one group can play expert guitar, other can play MAYBE hard bass/guitar, I can play expert guitar/hard drums (minus a few select songs). The other group is me and a girl who can only play medium although I try to push her to do hard so she can get better and I got her to realize that easy was TOO easy for her. She doesn't like to do hard so she will most likley default back to medium. But as you see......I won't be able to get her to play hard on the harder levels and so we cant get more fans. I'm totally fine with that as we are still having fun. I don't need fans.:cool:

[espher]

You just said it, I bougth a rhythm game not a real life, profesional band simulator.

Well if that's the case, I fail to see what the problem is.

[xXGEOMANXx]

It's as simple as this. If the fan cap was optional for the ones who wanna be more challenged as a group, we were all talking about what close to perfection this game is. It's a GREAT game, with a very good fun factor that is interrupted with some frustration for the ones that finds themselves playing the same tracks for eternity without advancing a step.

I dont know if this will be the case of the majority but there are too may who feels this way.

[espher]

I'm just not understanding how you didn't get what you paid for. *shrug*

[shesnana]

hmm.. not to sound like a jerk, but I think people really need to get over not getting more fans due to the fan cap.

First of all, the fans are just a number and if you claim that you just want to play for fun and can't dedicate time to the game, don't, just block out the first line of the results. It's not like you can actually sit there and see all of your fans anyhow.

Second, the venues you don't get to play are just the same songs again, but harder, so obviously you're going to have to learn to play harder if you want to play harder songs.

Third, the venues are just a background, and you're probably too busy trying to hit the buttons to really look at what's going on around you.

Fourth, it's not like you don't get to play all of the songs, the most the game is really asking of you is Medium.

I personally play on medium/hard drums, medium guitar, and expert singing, and the people I play with can barely get along on medium, but it doesn't really bother me because its not like I'm going to get fanmail either way.

[fatmumuhomer]

...interrupted with some frustration for the ones that finds themselves playing the same tracks for eternity without advancing a step.

I still don't understand how you are "playing the same tracks for eternity without advancing a step." Remember that fans have nothing to do with unlocking songs. If you really want to make sure all of the songs are unlocked immediately, do the solo tour. I did it on drums on medium to get everything unlocked. Then the problem of having others around to play doesn't matter until you go back into BWT.

Unless you meant that you're playing the same songs over and over and are referring to all of the songs in the game. In that case, I'm afraid you misunderstand what the the draw of these games really is. In that case, I could see why you wasted your money because this isn't the game for you.

[Xx SteameR xX]

Let me see if I can wrap this all up in a nutshell for all the naysayers. I know this is long, but bear with me for just a moment...

Let's play "what if". What if the cap is removed. and you guys are able to advance at your current skill level. What then?

If you are getting capped after only 6 hours, How long do you think lt would be before you "beat" the game? Firstly, this game is not about "beating" it.

Secondly, imagine paying $180 for a chia pet. After that thing grows its little alfalfa sprouts, are you gonna clear it all out and start the process all over again? Doubtful. So effectively you would have wasted your $180 on a one-time-use gimmick of a product.

Same thing applies. The guys at Harmonix want you to be playing this thing forever. If there is no cap you would have no incentive to keep playing the game and you would shelf it.

Here's how we do it: My friends come over to play, We have not hit the cap except when I was the only one on medium (drums). It didn't take long either, we hit the fist night we decided to do the world tour. But they all did bump up to medium. We figured it would be that way on all skill levels.

But just like a real band, of which neither of us is a part, sometimes we don't go on WT. Sometimes we just practice the songs that we were having trouble with. When we're ready we will go back on tour. THIS MAKES THE GAME LAST MUCH LONGER.

Guess what I did in the meantime: I practiced in solo. My wife does, too. I wound up completing my tour in solo and unlocked a bunch of songs. Now my friends and I can play these unlocked songs. So by playing the game as intended we got what we wanted, and in the process I got better. Some of the songs that used to give me trouble I can now do on hard. Any of my friends who practices even a little will get to where I was and we will be able to go further.

So even though I completed my goal to unlock all the songs, I'm not done with it. See how that works? Now I can personally have a new goal to reach for and will still be able to enjoy this game for quite some time.

[Shaiangyl]

I stopped raiding with WoW awhile back, and that means that I can't access the amazingly uber gear for my characters because I can't enter the end-game instances. But there are still other things in the game that I can do. If I had the time, and was in a good guild, then the opportunity is waiting there for me to advance further. However, in the meantime, I can still play the game and have fun. Wonderful parallel for RB.

There are so many things to do in this game *aside* from obtaining fans, that perhaps those that are "capped" out at obtaining more at certain levels and are frustrated might consider some of the other things that give you a sense of achievement. And you can do most of these on any level solo or with band members.

Like others have mentioned, why not just try and get as far as you can and unlock all of the songs. Out of my friends, I'm the lowest player at medium. But we can play every song in the game.

Try your hand at competing on the leaderboards. Either solo or band. It's exciting to see yourself or your band move in the ranks.

Sooner or later, you'll get an option to play the endless setlist. Heh, something else you can do at medium.

Play for stars instead of fans. Bet you haven't gotten perfect 5 stars on every song...

If you need to play by yourself, and you're good enough, then compete with the best for gold stars.

Dress up your characters with the money you're earning. Yes you're not getting fans, but you are still getting money, right? Can you get enough to buy the silly outfits in each category?

RB gave people more than enough things to keep them busy if they can't currently open up everything in the World Tour. So instead, find something else that makes it fun for you. Remember that most manufacturers would like their games to be somewhat challenging. Keeps you reaching for a goal and stems the boredom.

If you really, really need to unlock the other venues, then consider making some friends online. Hell some others in this thread seems like they are in similar boats. And go for broke unlocking them, understanding that like others said, the venues still require you to play at higher difficulties. But hell, if all you wanted to do was collect them, well they're there now.

Enjoy yourself. =)

[nificant]

I really think it should be optional. When you make your band the game should ask you if you want your scores and fans posted to the leaderboards and if you do, then you get fan capped, and if you don't, then no fan cap.

That would still give incentive for improvement, while not having to be a buzzkill.

[zerogeo3]

I really think it should be optional. When you make your band the game should ask you if you want your scores and fans posted to the leaderboards and if you do, then you get fan capped, and if you don't, then no fan cap.

That would still give incentive for improvement, while not having to be a buzzkill.

No, it just gives things away with no incentive for improvement. The fan cap is there, its not going to change. You can stil "Beat" the game by getting into the hall of fame on medium. Fans would not want to see 2 great performers and 2 sub par performers, you would cap out on fans, people who do not improve or level up should not have access to venues the same that those that do and can....:eek:

[rayps23]

ok well i for one think that the game should be playable to the end in every level. But here is what i think should happen.
Easy be able to play to all venues. But as a draw back you will not get any unlockable songs,clothes, equipment, no endless set list, and no hall of fame(what ever bonuses you get playing med-expert). to me i do not have the time to sit and practice for 10 hrs a week . Plus if you beat the game in easy mode then you will have enough practice to hopefully be able to do it in medium.

[xXGEOMANXx]

Thats preety much as I think. Maybe because my primary language is not english I could not explain myself.

[Parodygm]

I just don't understand the complaining going on here. Gathering stars is all you need to do to advance in BWT mode. That can be done at Medium. In then end you can get your "endgame" achievement with the Hall of Fame.

Okay, so the fans are capped. Pushing fans to the maximum is the incentive for highly skilled players. Can't get any more fans at Medium or Hard? That's a shame... get better or live with it? Honestly, how does the accumulation of a statistic that has no bearing on your progression through the game whatsoever really affect your collective enjoyment?

Isn't that a little of something for everyone?

[Frederf]

The fan cap is there, its not going to change.

As politely as I can, I would like to invite you to travel directly to the antithesis of Christian heaven, do not pass Monopoly's "GO" square, and do not collect $200. The one line of argument I cannot abide is "Won't change, don't try." Firstly, it's hardly so certain that some sort of change won't happen either in a patch or sequel, and secondly it's complete in the spirit of these forums to discuss change for the better.

Personally I support the basic concept of limiting whatever game statistic based on difficulty and having some sort of restriction on some set lists based on that statistic. I like a game that challenges me and Rock Band certainly delivers as-close-as-makes-no-difference the full experience on Medium difficulty. I have no problems with the game asking me to play a harder difficulty or not being beatable by the less experienced in a week. It's definitely a journey and not a destination.

However you must admit that the fan system has huge flaws unrelated to its eventual purpose in the game. There's a long list of annoyances with the fan system that could be remedied without violating the concept of the fan caps (and in some cases making the fan system in greater agreement with the spirit of the idea).

Example 1: Your band plays a set list and gets 3-stars on easy (black checkmark). Subsequently the band hits the easy fan cap and the game says "Play on a harder difficulty to earn more fans!" So the band, ever loyal to the print on the screen attempts the very same set list on expert (previously only barely passed on easy)... and amazingly gets 5-stars!

Guess how many fans that band gets for that amazing accomplishment... go on guess. Answer? Zero. Notta. Zip. Zilch. Goose egg. Tell me that is consistent with the spirit of the fan cap with a straight face, I dare you.

I could design a fan system 10x better than what's in place and it would neither make the game easier, nor harder, just more palletable.

A simple graph of my band's fan count over time would be a huge red flag as to the idea that something is dreadfully wrong with the game. Bands don't gain fans in huge spurts and maintain them exactly =/- zero for long stretches in between spurts.

[Zach Attack]

I can play on Expert with Guitar. My friend can do Expert on Bass. But if my girlfriend wants to sing, and can't sing on Expert, then we have to make a choice between advancement and having more people. This is just bad game design.

This is a social game. Adding more people should never hurt you. Period.

[ZkDotNet]

Seriously, you all care about your fancy backgrounds and 'advancing' way too much. It's a casual game *because* those things are just fluffy little extras that don't really affect the real game... which *is* playing the songs, on whatever difficulty you feel comfortable with.

BWT can be 'beaten' on medium. Everything beyond that is just fluff (for that matter BWT is *all* just fluff)... backgrounds that are barely even looked at while playing. Fans are just an arbitrary number that don't really mean anything unless you're trying to work your way up the leaderboards.

Play the songs, have fun and stop sweating the really friggin' small stuff.

[Frederf]

But if my girlfriend wants to sing, and can't sing on Expert, then we have to make a choice between advancement and having more people.

The equating of gaining fans with advancement will stop someday in a glorious light of intelligence, but for now it's definitely cloudy.

Perhaps the day after that people still start thinking as a band and not as individuals.

[Zach Attack]

That's a patently false argument. Harmonix put fans in the game for a reason, as a carrot and as a symbol of advancement.

You're saying I shouldn't care about fans? Then why did Harmonix give them to me as a stat? Why are their fan leaderboards? The "you shouldn't care about fans" argument is idiotic. Especially since fans are the big indicator of band success once you've gotten into the hall of fame.

Social games should never penalize you for adding more players. I want to see how many fans my band can amass. I want to play with my girlfriend. Right now, I can't do that at the same time. I have to kick her out just to advance further in the game. And yes, it's advancement. It's a personal challenge to see how well I can do, and how far I can push it. Right now, two of us can play on Expert. She'll probably never be able to sing on expert, so it's either play with her or get more fans. That sucks. And you argue I shouldn't care about the primary method of band advancement after you get into the Hall of Fame? That strikes me as fanboy apolgisim. I love Rock Band. I think Harmonix did an amazing job. But Harmonix doesn't walk on water, and there is room for improvement.

For instance, what if higher difficulties gave fan multipliers instead of having a cap? Then, there would be incentive to play with people on higher difficulties, but not everyone would have to be playing on the highest?

The bottom line is, social games should never penalize you for adding more players.

I repeat, social games should never penalize you for adding more players.

[Shaiangyl]

ok well i for one think that the game should be playable to the end in every level. But here is what i think should happen.
Easy be able to play to all venues. But as a draw back you will not get any unlockable songs,clothes, equipment, no endless set list, and no hall of fame(what ever bonuses you get playing med-expert). to me i do not have the time to sit and practice for 10 hrs a week . Plus if you beat the game in easy mode then you will have enough practice to hopefully be able to do it in medium.

That is essentially what they already have, which is what people are complaining about. Maybe not to the excess that you suggested, but basically you're saying that if you can only play on a certain level, you only get access to X, right? They do that, only right now, without going past medium, people can't access a handful of venues.

It would have been nice to have the fans scaled differently, because yes it is really easy to hit the medium max fan base. But it doesn't prevent players from finishing out the game. It just gives an annoying message. If they didn't put that up to let you know (after awhile I just keep hitting green to get to the next song how about you?), most probably wouldn't even have noticed and it would be a non-issue. They'd be happily playing at the level they currently are at. Maybe be pleasantly surprised if they get a venue now and again if they venture out into a different level. At least they let you know how to advance the game. =)

[the_finn]

yeah, kinda sucks that if anyone plays on 'easy' (my gf singer, who's tone deaf *sigh*.. ) that the fan-base caps out at 49,005 (confirmed).. and i only play (guitar/bass) at medium (and can't even do a few songs at that)--yeah, we're not great... BUT all i really care bout is playin the songs i/we like, that is, i play for the social and music experience, not to 'finish' the game.

i do realize that it's more satisfying playing at higher difficulties cuz it comes 'closer' to playin the song accurately and realistically, but bleh, i still enjoy the game and to me, thats what counts.

[bazutti]

What about changing so that it's based on the highest difficulty set, not the lowest? That would let young kids play while the parent plays on higher difficulties. The kid might have fun just playing, but the dad might enjoy the progression. This way it all could happen and everyone gets what they want out of it, while still being able to play as a family. I don't know, I think that would be the best result.

Or, instead of capping the fans gained, why not just scale the number of fans gained. You gain more on expert than hard. So instead of hitting a fan wall, you just gain them at a slower rate. So eventually, maybe you need to be on hard to 100% the game, and leave expert for those seeking a pure challenge and maybe some other unlockables.

Having it cap on the lowest could make the person who isn't that great feel that way. Instead of feeling progression (via a scale of fans) they feel "I'm holding others back".

And before anyone says "Well a real band would be this way etc, etc, etc" it's not a real band. It's a game. It's entertainment. If you want things to behave like a real band, go make one.

[espher]

Maybe they should just get rid of fans altogether and scale things based on difficulty like we used to see.

After all, it is a trivial number that serves to do nothing more than shatter fragile egos.

[xXGEOMANXx]

What about changing so that it's based on the highest difficulty set, not the lowest? That would let young kids play while the parent plays on higher difficulties. The kid might have fun just playing, but the dad might enjoy the progression. This way it all could happen and everyone gets what they want out of it, while still being able to play as a family. I don't know, I think that would be the best result.

Or, instead of capping the fans gained, why not just scale the number of fans gained. You gain more on expert than hard. So instead of hitting a fan wall, you just gain them at a slower rate. So eventually, maybe you need to be on hard to 100% the game, and leave expert for those seeking a pure challenge and maybe some other unlockables.

Having it cap on the lowest could make the person who isn't that great feel that way. Instead of feeling progression (via a scale of fans) they feel "I'm holding others back".

And before anyone says "Well a real band would be this way etc, etc, etc" it's not a real band. It's a game. It's entertainment. If you want things to behave like a real band, go make one.


This is exactely how its supossed to be to everybody feel happy....

[nificant]

If fan numbers are so trivial, then why defend the fan cap at all? Why not let those of us who do care about it play without the cap?

[espher]

If fan numbers are so trivial, then why defend the fan cap at all? Why not let those of us who do care about it play without the cap?

Well, if they're trivial, we shouldn't have fans at all or people really shouldn't care if they do hit a fan cap.

If they aren't trivial, then obviously they have some worth, so why shouldn't there be some sort of scaled advancement system?

You can really approach it from all angles.

[Frederf]

You're saying I shouldn't care about fans? Then why did Harmonix give them to me as a stat? Why are their fan leaderboards? The "you shouldn't care about fans" argument is idiotic. Especially since fans are the big indicator of band success once you've gotten into the hall of fame.

Social games should never penalize you for adding more players. I want to see how many fans my band can amass. I want to play with my girlfriend. Right now, I can't do that at the same time. I have to kick her out just to advance further in the game. And yes, it's advancement. It's a personal challenge to see how well I can do, and how far I can push it. Right now, two of us can play on Expert. She'll probably never be able to sing on expert, so it's either play with her or get more fans. That sucks. And you argue I shouldn't care about the primary method of band advancement after you get into the Hall of Fame?

No one says you shouldn't care about fans, I never said that and never will. There is a difference between acknowledging that fans are a form of achievement and stating that without gaining fans advancement is impossible. Gaining fans is a form of advancement among many, and no, it's not the primary form. I've been under the medium cap for pretty much all of the game and have not stopped advancing once. Not once.

The very idea that you seriously consider playing Expert alone or with less achievement with your girlfriend speaks volumes about your derangement. The concept of individuals is no longer valid once you enter the band experience. Your band is only a "medium/hard/whatever" band and it will be treated as such by the game. It's too bad if a member happens to be above the band's level.

If I was to play Splinter Cell in single player and complete pwn face at it and then play cooperative with another player and have the enemy kill us... by your logic the game is punishing me by adding another player. Instead I view it as a completely different game wherein "he" and "I" have lost meaning and there is only "us." No one considers the option of throwing your friend off a cliff and going back to single player seriously.

I'm not saying the game is perfect, reasonably far from it, but this "The world is ending!" cries whenever a secondary statistic stops incrementing are indicative of a failure to correctly read reality. People who are under the easy cap... HMX does expect you to grow out of it eventually.


What about changing so that it's based on the highest difficulty set, not the lowest? That would let young kids play while the parent plays on higher difficulties. The kid might have fun just playing, but the dad might enjoy the progression. This way it all could happen and everyone gets what they want out of it, while still being able to play as a family. I don't know, I think that would be the best result.

I really don't think that's too viable. That just encourages individualistic behavior and not challenging oneself. Maybe an average, but not the minimum. The social aspect comes a lot from the camaraderie of accepting the group's reward as your own.

[shesnana]

Alot of people are saying that they want to just have fun and play, but then you say that you want to get high up on the hall of fame. You can't just have that given to you or it undermines the effort that other people put in.

Yea it sucks that you hit a fan cap, but it really only matters if you're trying to get up on the leaderboards. AND if you keep saying that its just for fun blah blah blah and that you don't want/can't spend time getting better. well, sorry. Little kids aren't going to cry about not getting more fans unless you sit there and stare at the screen that says you got zero more fans and you say, "oh we didn't get more fans". If it bothers you so much, just keep pressing the button.

And yes, it is a game. But so are sports and chess etc, and being sore loser and not trying to put time into it isn't going to make it any better or easier. If you think its so trivial to put time into a video game, then you really need to lower your expectations about playing. No, I'm not saying that the game shouldn't replace your life. But if you really want somthing, you're going to have to either figure it out or forget it.

And yes it is a statistic that they put in, therefore it "must" be important, but the number of three point shots in basketball is a statistic too, doesn't mean that everyone need a high number to play the game. Just more stats.

Sorry it was so long =). And I really don't want to sound like I'm lecturing, but its just my opinion.

[Zach Attack]

No one says you shouldn't care about fans, I never said that and never will. There is a difference between acknowledging that fans are a form of achievement and stating that without gaining fans advancement is impossible. Gaining fans is a form of advancement among many, and no, it's not the primary form. I've been under the medium cap for pretty much all of the game and have not stopped advancing once. Not once.

The very idea that you seriously consider playing Expert alone or with less achievement with your girlfriend speaks volumes about your derangement. The concept of individuals is no longer valid once you enter the band experience. Your band is only a "medium/hard/whatever" band and it will be treated as such by the game. It's too bad if a member happens to be above the band's level.

Derangement? Despite the fact that you've sunk that low and therefore your argument barely merits a response, I'll bite.

Whatever else you say, when I play with one friend, our band gets more fans. When I play with two friends, we don't.

This is a social game. It shouldn't penalize me for adding more people.




I really don't think that's too viable. That just encourages individualistic behavior and not challenging oneself. Maybe an average, but not the minimum. The social aspect comes a lot from the camaraderie of accepting the group's reward as your own.

The game does that now, more or less. If two people can play on Expert, they can still advance, so long as no one else plays with them.

Everyone, repeat after me. Social games shouldn't penalize you for adding more people.

[ixFatalDeathxi]

That's not cool at all.

[SSPWOLF]

Funny, all the people arguing the problems with the fan cap and the game penalizing them for being "social"


I've found the most "fun" way to play the game is to have everyone play each gig on whatever level they are comfortable with.

Seems like there are distinct types of gamer categories when it comes to Rockband:

1) The "damnit we need to play on expert!" gamer who doesn't realize that you can do everything in the BWT except a few gigs (that don't unlock anything other than more gigs) on medium.

2) The "Why can't I keep playing on easy?" gamer who only wants to play on easy because they can get 99-100% on almost every song. This is the gamer who thinks anything below a 95 "sucks". They move up to medium and complain until they start getting 98s and higher, then they don't want to move up to Hard because they get 70s and 80s when they first start.

3) The "let's just jam and have fun" gamer who realizes that even after you beat Endless Set and HoF on Medium that you still have hundreds of gigs you can play on medium.. and that you can go back and re-beat the ones you beat on easy, and once you move up to hard you can re-beat the medium ones.. etc.


the problem with the game is that everyone looks at it from the wrong perspective. You shouldn't be playing to see arbitrary numbers increase on the upper right hand corner of your screen. You should be playing it to have fun with your friends. If you play GH3 on coop.. you can beat it on you and your friends difficulty level in one sitting. Then.. there's nothing left to do but keep playing the same songs over and over to try and tweak the score. BWT is HUGE there's hundreds of gigs. My wife and play almost every day for hours on end and we still have dozens and dozens of gigs to do. We haven't even gone back to re-beat the ones we beat on medium, we're still doing the ones on hard. Over 1,500 stars and still no end in sight.....

[Kingfish]

And yes it is a statistic that they put in, therefore it "must" be important, but the number of three point shots in basketball is a statistic too, doesn't mean that everyone need a high number to play the game. Just more stats.

But in that example, everyone on the court CAN shoot 3 pointers...some hit them with ease while others hit maybe 1 in 100.

The same should be true of fans in Rock Band. If you are playing on expert you should be DRAINING the 3's and thus getting 1000s of fans...but if someone is on Medium they should be hitting 1 out of a 100(or a 1000)...maybe they get 10 fans.

Fact is, a band starts on medium, they scream up the charts playing the same 10-20 songs over and over until they have 260,000 fans...then SUDDENLY, no likes them?

Now, I am not an advocate of eliminating the cap entirely thus leveling the playing field for everyone. That would remove incentive to get better. Besides, I think if you are playing on hard/expert, you SHOULD be getting more fans, its a reward...but it doesn't make sense to say a band that’s playing gigs and getting 4/5 stars would suddenly cease to win anymore fans.

Fail out of a song...drop below cap and then BOOM...next gig you win all your fans back. To quote Cartman, "That does not make sense."

They should have based fan acquisition on BOTH lowest playing difficulty AND the song quality.

Expert = x2 fans; Hard = x1; Medium =x.1; Easy =x.01
then apply the following modifier for the total
On a set 5*=X1; 4*=.8; 3*=.5; 2*=.3; 1*=.1

If a song would award between 3,000-4,000 fans...lets say a random roll determines 3400 fans are the reward.

A band of experts get 5*s = 6,800
A band with a hard as lowest diff gets 5*s = 3,400
A band with a medium as lowest gets 5* = 340
A band with an easy gets 5*= 34

A band of experts get 4*s = 5,440
A band with a hard as lowest diff gets 4*s = 2,720
A band with a medium as lowest gets 4* = 270
A band with an easy gets 4*= 27

A band of experts get 3*s = 3,400
A band with a hard as lowest diff gets 3*s = 1,700
A band with a medium as lowest gets 3* = 170
A band with an easy gets 3*= 17

Those performing at high levels on the higher difficulty gets great rewards...but even the lowest of the low get something.

What my figures show is, a band with a medium member getting an average of 300 fans per song...to reach 1,000,000 fans (after the 260,000 medium "soft" cap kicks in) would be almost 2500 songs with no failures. That would be, for most medium playing folks, MONTHS of playing.

With that much time on the game a medium player would eventually increase to hard(maybe beyond) and until they make the move, it would "FEEL" like you are still struggling and striving for fans.

Just one persons opinion...

[Parodygm]

Fact is, a band starts on medium, they scream up the charts playing the same 10-20 songs over and over until they have 260,000 fans...then SUDDENLY, no likes them?

No, suddenly they've gained as much exposure as they're going to get as a medium tier band. Make sense?

[Maggot_Brain]

Why should the 5% of players in real life that are expert get all the rewards while 95% of all RB players get the shaft? Doesn't make sense from a business perspective. It's been mentioned many times what a buzzkill the fan cap is.

[SSPWOLF]

No, suddenly they've gained as much exposure as they're going to get as a medium tier band. Make sense?

Yeah I agree with you on that one too.

In response to the same poster as the quoted response was:
Just because you "cap out" doesn't mean people stop caring about you. It just means "new" people aren't being drawn to you.

If you are so entrenched in "real life comparisons" just look at my favorite rapper: Aesop Rock. He'll never go platinum, he plays gigs with crowds ranging from 50 to 6000 or so people. Doesn't mean his fans "don't care" about him. Just means he doesn't have the mass appeal to draw in "new fans" that say... 50 Cent does.

In real life there's thousands of ways for an artist to get fans. Gimmicks, luck, talent, etc. etc. etc.

In the game there's TWO: Play well and play on a higher difficulty.


So.. the 'comparison' is that if you are playing "Medium" then you aren't doing "what it takes" to get "new" fans.

Makes sense to me anyway.

[whofan]

There's nothing stopping you from continuing on the BWT while just at the top of the fan cap. You still get money for gigs, clothing, etc. You can do the R&R Hall of Fame Induction and Endless setlist on medium.

It's nothing big, you just can't play some arenas, big whoop.

I've been playing through on hard/medium (bass/vocals) by myself (I am not a singer at all) and I reached the cap pretty quickly so I attempted hard vocals and did miserably (constantly 2 or 3 starring songs) so went back down to medium. I completed the R&R HoF last night without issue and as soon as I get more stars I'll tackle that beast of an endless setlist too.

The fan cap isn't really a cap, it just prevents you from getting into some of the arenas

[Parodygm]

Why should the 5% of players in real life that are expert get all the rewards while 95% of all RB players get the shaft? Doesn't make sense from a business perspective. It's been mentioned many times what a buzzkill the fan cap is.

But that's not true. The rewards they get are a fans gained statistic and a few extra gigs. You want to remove every incentive to play at a higher level than Medium?

I just don't understand where you guys are coming from. The fan cap is almost no practical impediment at all. Hall of Fame available at Medium? Check. Endless setlist available? Check.

Why can't people leave something completely trivial alone for those who are playing at the highest level of the game? When I'm playing my one-man band I can only do select Expert guitar/Expert vocals. I'm hovering at a little over the 600,000 fan mark (the Hard cap) and I could care less. I'm gaining stars right?

[Kingfish]

No, suddenly they've gained as much exposure as they're going to get as a medium tier band. Make sense?

But...bands all the time get fans from unexpected ways. The fans you get from a gig isn't the fans that were there that night. They come from radio air play, word of mouth of other fans...

I JUST descovered a band called Wilco...never heard of them before two weeks ago...now i am a fan. Would you say someone in the band decided to suddenly kick it up a notch and started playing on Hard?

To say a band at ANY level SUDDENLY can't get ANY fans...is kinda crazy. Happens all the time...I am proof.

[SSPWOLF]

Why should the 5% of players in real life that are expert get all the rewards while 95% of all RB players get the shaft? Doesn't make sense from a business perspective. It's been mentioned many times what a buzzkill the fan cap is.

What shaft?


Here's what expert players get by getting more 'fans':

More fans.


I could be wrong, but as far as I've seen.. there are no gigs that require you to play on EXPERT. As far as I know from my own BWT Tokyo (may be different if you start in a non-us city) is the highest gig and you can play all the songs there on HARD.

I unlocked every "upgrad" in the game on Medium. Van, Bus, plane, roadies, bodyguard, PR firm, Endless setlist, Hall Of Fame.

If memory serves me correctly, I was able to even unlock every city on Medium, just couldn't play all the gigs on medium.


As far as the game "fun stuff" goes, I did it all on medium.


The gigs I HAVE to play on Hard/expert on the ones labelled things like "Ultimate Challenge" and "Vocal Legend" and "Bass Legend" and what not.

another poster at some point in time pointed out the following, which I paraphrase:

There's nothing you CAN'T do in this game on Medium. You can play EVERY SONG on Easy or Medium. You can "beat the game" on Medium. (if you consider getting all the accolades in BWT beating it.)

What is restricted to Expert/Hard are certain CHALLENGES. You can play Green Grass And High Tides, Run To The Hills, and Won't Get Fooled Again any time you want. You can even make your own setlist in BWT and play them.

You can't play the "Guitar Legend" gig with those songs (I'm just throwing those out there, I didn't check to see if they were actually the ones in it) unless you play on Hard Or Expert. It isn't a gig called "Guitar Medium"

So play those songs all you want on medium.

Play through BWT and enter the HALL OF FAME!

unlock the cool white icon on medium, get the clear instruments on medium....
You can do all that.


Here's what Harmonix is SHAFTING YOU WITH:

1) a few gigs that are meant to be CHALLENGING to the expert player (whether an expert player is really challenged is a different issue, but they are MEANT to be)

2) Different achievements (rightly so, you should get different achievements for different difficulties)

3) A different 'Icon change" for different difficulties.


You aren't getting shafted, you are getting rewarded no matter what difficulty you play on.


In almost EVERY other video game there's a "better" ending or something if you beat it on "hardcore" or "extreme" or something.

This game actually let's you experience the whole game on Medium. EXCEPT a few gigs designed for the expert player..


Just like Guitar Hero... you can't cry about not getting 10 million points on a song if you are playing on Medium. You just get MORE points on Expert than Medium. Same thing with fans.. you just get more fans on expert.

[Parodygm]

But...bands all the time get fans from unexpected ways. The fans you get from a gig isn't the fans that were there that night. They come from radio air play, word of mouth of other fans...

I JUST descovered a band called Wilco...never heard of them before two weeks ago...now i am a fan. Would you say someone in the band decided to suddenly kick it up a notch and started playing on Hard?

To say a band at ANY level SUDDENLY can't get ANY fans...is kinda crazy. Happens all the time...I am proof.

Oh for gawd's sake, it's a game mechanic. I don't think they intended to accurately model popularity.

It's like everyone against the fan cap completely forgot that collecting stars is the measure of score in BWT mode.

[SSPWOLF]

I forgot to mention.. I don't play on expert very much. I can only get through the first half of the song tiers on expert, I'm more comfortable on Hard. So is my singer.

Right now my BWT is stuck on hard. When we hit our first "cap" on Medium I had never even played on hard. First thoughts were to be angry because we "assumed" the game wouldn't let us progress.... then we realized we could keep playing gigs. We took a concensus and decided to TRY Hard. After stumbling a bit... we kept trying. When we got frustrated we'd go and 4/5 star some gigs on Medium to have "fun" again.

After awhile 5 starring a gig on medium wasn't "fun" any more. It was boring as hell. When we started 5 starring gigs on Hard the "woots!" and high fives started coming out, which meant we were having fun again. Right now.. playing on expert is a pain in the butt. We try songs on expert, pass some... fail some... then go back and 4/5 star some gigs on Hard to have "fun" again. I predict soon we'll be bored with 5 starring gigs on Hard around the same time we're consistently getting through gigs on expert.

The fan cap mechanic doesn't STOP you from doing anything... but it sure has HELPED us have more fun by getting better.

[dfjdejulio]

No, it just gives things away with no incentive for improvement. The fan cap is there, its not going to change.

A decent compromise might be to remove the fan cap in "RYBRRBBRYB" mode -- enter the cheat code that unlocks every song and venue but that also completely disables saves and network play, and the fan cap goes away. You can noodle around without saving with no fan cap for as long as you want, but any progress will be ephemeral.

I mean, both sides have validity to some extent. Seeing "you get 0 fans, lrn2play noob" is a buzz kill, but there's something to the idea of saving some progression for the better players. What other compromizes might work?

[Maggot_Brain]

You know, we had a massive poll on this and 75% of people wanted the fan cap gone.

[Parodygm]

Fan cap = incentive to improve = increased time to master game = sense of achievement.

Good job SSPWOLF, glad you're enjoying yourself! :)

[Parodygm]

You know, we had a massive poll on this and 75% of people wanted the fan cap gone.

I bet you'd get similar figures in a poll to nuke various countries during times of duress. Honestly, this is getting to a point of "my argument is losing steam, let's go with the majority of the deluded masses agrees clause".

I'm glad Harmonix made it the way they evidently wanted to make it.

[dfjdejulio]

To say a band at ANY level SUDDENLY can't get ANY fans...is kinda crazy. Happens all the time...I am proof.

Yeah, this is why my first idea for a compromize regarding the fan cap was, never report 0 fans gained. Report fans gained for every gig, but just don't actually add them to the total -- pretend you lose just as many somewhere else. Someone else followed up to my suggestion saying they should report "this many graduated, this many moved away" et cetera, so that the total stayed the same, but you were still reporting a number of fans gained for the gig.

Yet another compromize would be to simply not mention fans at all once you're at the cap. But seeing that big "0" there in the report is a bit of a buzz kill.

My own solution? When we play here at work, we just use quickplay most of the time. Then nobody is even thinking about it. I only invite people to join me in BWT mode when I know they won't mind the restrictions. I'm a bit excited because later this week the only other person at the office who can play on Expert gets back from his paternity leave, and I can finally break my own current fan cap... but in the meantime we have fun at lunch every day blasting out songs and singing poorly. At least I get practice!

[Kingfish]

Oh for gawd's sake, it's a game mechanic.

Oh really? Well, I am saying its a bad one(unrealistic) and you don't have a problem with it, and thats fine...all we can do is agree to disagree on it.

[SSPWOLF]

You know, we had a massive poll on this and 75% of people wanted the fan cap gone.

In the spirit of conversation amongst intelligent people, I'd like to hear you reasons why you'd like it removed. Because, I don't play on expert, nor does anyone else in my band.

The "buzzkill" of "play on a harder level to gain more fans" has no "ACTUAL" effect on gameplay. As I've very poigniantly stated, there's no "in game" effect. So it's an emotional thing, you get in that "Rock Star" mode and you play the game and have fun pretending, and then you're rock star fantasy is shattered by the whole "you just busted your butt playing 8 songs in a row and didn't get any fans because you suck" message... which I PERFECTLY understand can piss you off.

I was pissed too.

Then I started getting more stars and gigs and ignoring that message. Then we were FINALLY able to move up to hard.. and lemme tell you how SWEET it was to work so hard for those next 350k fans we got.


So.. my point would be, I appreciate the "fans" I got on hard much more than the fans I got on medium. Yeah, I failed some songs on medium, but for the most part... playing on medium was only a minimal challenge for us. Playing on Hard was an exercise in sweat and luck (at first) but it paid off.

When we beat the HoF on medium we were happy. When we went through a 14 song set on Hard for the first time we CELEBRATED (especially when we got FANS again.)

So.. what exactly does the cap take away? I'm honestly interested in hearing your side.

[Maggot_Brain]

I'm glad Harmonix made it the way they evidently wanted to make it.

Let's put it this way: They found out that most people don't like it. Now, I'm hoping they listen to their fans and change it.

[Parodygm]

Then I started getting more stars and gigs and ignoring that message. Then we were FINALLY able to move up to hard.. and lemme tell you how SWEET it was to work so hard for those next 350k fans we got.

[snip]

So.. what exactly does the cap take away? I'm honestly interested in hearing your side.

The difference seems to be that you enjoy the larger picture of the game - gradual improvement, rewards matching risk/effort and the separation of fans (a non-restrictive game mechanic) and stars (a restrictive game-mechanic).

And Maggot, they've found out once again that most people are vocal when they don't like the status quo rather than when they do. Not surprised that only a handful of people can be bothered to actively defend the way it is.

Wolf, you'll argue until you're blue in the face against the "instant gratification" crowd and this is as good a point to stop for me as there'll ever be. :p

[Maggot_Brain]

It's all been said by now..... I'd like to mention once again that each difficulty level already has a difficulty gradient built in. IE: later medium songs are notably more difficult than earlier ones. When you add a message that you've maxed out fans before you even get to 1/3 of all the songs and must kick it up to hard to "advance" that's just unrealistic for most people. (Especially all the casual newbs that want to play the game but are never going to put in the time and effort to get better than easy or half of medium, say.)

[Kingfish]

...each difficulty level already has a difficulty gradient built in. IE: later medium songs are notably more difficult than earlier ones.

QFT!

Go to quick play, select an "Impossible" song on easy and look at the way it plays out...it will look a LOT like the medium songs in the Warmup List. That continues with Medium diff. On the later songs medium is harder than hard songs on that warmup list(was that as convoluted as i think it was?)

[SSPWOLF]

Let's put it this way: They found out that most people don't like it. Now, I'm hoping they listen to their fans and change it.


That's a loaded statement, no offense. Any internet poll on a forum is going to be one-sided based on the people interested in the thread. If you post a thread about "fan caps" it's going to get looked at by people with a problem with the fan cap.



If I opened a poll right now that said "what's better rap or rock?" I guarantee rock would win.

If I posted the same poll on the forum for EA's game "Def Jam Icon" I guarantee that rap would win.


Demographic skewing is usually reserved for politicians ;)


------

I suppose I can see your point about the "never want to move off medium" crowd being burned by the fan cap.

I don't understand why anyone would never WANT to move off of medium though. I understand not being ABLE to play on hard. I am not ABLE to play on expert. I won't be ABLE to for quite awhile because I don't have the time to practice and dedicate to video games. But I sure as hell WANT to.

The game didn't stop me from doing anything at the level i'm ABLE to play at. It just gave me a fun small incentive to play at the level I WANT to.

Unlike.. say.. Halo3. Which, I'm not ABLE to play on Legendary, and to be honest... there's not enough instant gratification to play through on legendary for me.. I'm not going to spend weeks just to get the damn achievement and (is there a different ending???) whatever else on Legendary. I beat it on normal and that was good enough for me because I'm not a hardcore gamer.

If Rock Band didn't offer SOME kind of instant gratification for me to move up to Hard... if there was nothing other than an achievement at the end (like GH3) I would probably have never moved up to Hard.

Let me tell you though... playing on Hard is a lot more fun though. I feel more and more like I'm playing "the real song" than I ever did. I can't wait till I can FC some songs on expert.

Soo... I still can't see any downfall to the fan cap other than that "buzz kill" which really means nothing unless you don't WANT to play on higher level.

[teh_roc]

Well put post. Does HMX really want all of our quarters, though? They already have my $170. I just want to be able to enjoy this game with my wife without putting hours into practicing. It's no fun to see 0 fans after every song. It's almost as little fun as just playing quickplay...

Numbers are the bane of all gaming. Since when did Rock Band become about the fan count? Isn't it the songs themselves that are the main attraction?

Play when you can, learn something new. I know I did and I got better and better everytime. I started with GH2 on 360 on easy difficulty and now I can play half the expert level. Eventually you and your wife will get better, just be patient.

[SSPWOLF]

QFT!

Go to quick play, select an "Impossible" song on easy and look at the way it plays out...it will look a LOT like the medium songs in the Warmup List. That continues with Medium diff. On the later songs medium is harder than hard songs on that warmup list(was that as convoluted as i think it was?)

I agree with this. But it's not a fan cap issue.. it's actually more of a STARS issue. I've gotten to the point where the venues I've recently unlocked (due to STARS not fans, as I capped out at 600,000 fans a long time ago) I can't even attempt most of the gigs on expert because they are impossible/nightmare songs. We even fail a lot of the "mystery set lists" on hard because I'm just not ready to play blackened on hard...

This is where the fan cap actually helps. Because we capped out so fast at Medium we started experimenting with "Hard" difficulty around the time were playing "Here It Goes Again" and "Paranoid". If we would have capped around the time we were playing "Enter Sandman" and "GGaHT" regularly we probably wouldn't have tried hard more than once.

If you are capping out on fans after 10 songs chances are you are getting 5 stars more often than not.

Personally.. I think the learning curve from medium to hard (on all instruments) is beastly and a little bit TOO hard. When I can FC a song on Medium I would expect to at LEAST pass a song on hard my first time. First time I tried hard I went from FC on just about any song I played to failing every damn song. (on guitar and vocals)

These are legitimate issues I agree with, but once again.. I honestly think the fan cap helped us in this respect. Motivating us to move up early was a good thing. HOWEVER I also think it's a nasty balance between not getting bored playing the same OLD songs in EVERY city and knowing that once you get overseas you are going to be playing hard as hell songs ALL THE DAMN TIME.

I don't know what the resolution for this problem is.. but it is starting to get annoying to have to go back to replay old gigs just to be able to practice songs on a higher skill level, as opposed to just failing every damn song in the city of London on expert because I play on hard.

Either way.. .long convolute post aside, IMO it's not a fan cap issue.

[ManOwaR]

I don't get why people care if they hit a fan cap?!?

eventually if you keep playing I imagine you'll get good enough to play higher levels....the game is still fun regarless of # of fans... what am I missing?

[SSPWOLF]

I don't get why people care if they hit a fan cap?!?

eventually if you keep playing I imagine you'll get good enough to play higher levels....the game is still fun regarless of # of fans... what am I missing?

I "get it", but I just think they are wrong.

I relate how they feel to how I felt when I played GH3 online. I used to get so pissed off when I would go into 7 song battles on medium. I'm getting like 98 percent (OCCAISONIALLY a 99 or 100) on the songs I pick while almost EVERY SINGLE ***** I play against it getting 100 percent on every song no matter who picks it. It's a blatan case of someone who plays on expert trolling around on medium to pad thier stats/achievements. Instead of making me want to play better to beat them it just made me not want to play online.

The difference is.. because of my lack of skill I was punished by not being able to ever win on xbox live (losing 10 matches in a row is a very souring experience) because it was almost impossible to find someone playing on medium (all the medium players battled on easy) who should be playing on medium.

Rock band isn't punishing me for not being able to play at a higher skill level, not one bit. I just get rewarded if I do. Unfortunately people look at the "O fans" message and go "THIS IS BS! IT'S STOPPING ME" they don't realize fans are just a "score". It doesn't STOP you from doing anything.


Like I said.. I see where they are coming from, it's just not the right place to be coming from in this game.

[espher]

Wolf, you'll argue until you're blue in the face against the "instant gratification" crowd and this is as good a point to stop for me as there'll ever be. :p

This.

You're arguing with people who think that having something like 300 people (I can't remember the exact number) complain on a forum means that 75% of people who own/play the game think this is a bad idea despite it not being a good representative sample because the only people who are going to vote against those 300 are people who have already been posting here and like the mechanic (or have no problem with the mechanic).

Cutty McGratification is going to fly onto the forums to throw a hissy fit when he hits this virtual glass ceiling and his ego is shattered like someone hitting a brittle piece of frozen taffy against a wall.

Someone who has no problem with it isn't exactly going to fly out and go "Hey Harmonix, this is a cool mechanic and I'm glad you implemented it this way to reward people for taking the plunge and trying to improve."

Odds are if you hit the fan cap on one difficulty you can probably handle the next, but probably not with your hands tied behind your back. The comment about people not wanting to jump to the next level because they perceive getting less than 95% as bad is probably very true.

[Kingfish]

I don't get why people care if they hit a fan cap?!?

eventually if you keep playing I imagine you'll get good enough to play higher levels....the game is still fun regarless of # of fans... what am I missing?

Not to be argumentative...but, I don't see why people care that I care.



I "get it", but I just think they are wrong...Rock band isn't punishing me for not being able to play at a higher skill level, not one bit. I just get rewarded if I do.

Like I said.. I see where they are coming from, it's just not the right place to be coming from in this game.

How is that? Sure, if I play I still get stars...this opens venues and I can basically do 70-90% of the venues in the game capped out at what, 260k fans...but, that’s not the point either.

If you view the fans gained as a score and that’s all you see...don't you think seeing a score of "0" when you get to the end of a song hurts? Try to explain to the only person you can get to play with you.

I'm on hard and she is STRUGGLING on medium..."why didn't we get any fans?" Look at them and say, "Cause you're playing on medium." See the look in her eyes when she realizes that on medium she's STILL falling out half the time on "Joker & the Thief"...knowing she will NEVER be able to practice enough to catch-up to you.

If its just a personal score...what’s it matter to those who have a problem with lifting the cap?





Someone who has no problem with it isn't exactly going to fly out and go "Hey Harmonix, this is a cool mechanic and I'm glad you implemented it this way to reward people for taking the plunge and trying to improve."

But, i ask again...how does this affect any of you that’s not setting in the same room with me? Why does anyone care how someone else plays the game?

And I am truely touched by all those professing your deepest desires that, those playing less than Expert, should just get better...and you're seeing the cap as the "carrot" to do that. Works a great majority of the time but for a few, its just arbitrary rule hurting the over all "fun" of the game.

Really tho, all they need to do is lift the cap and make the leaderboards an "Expert ONLY" leaderboard...the ubers get there’s and those that want to play "sand-box" style, get to do that too.

[SSPWOLF]

Fact is, I don't care about leaderboards or score at all. I'm all for the fan caps because they motivate me to play on harder difficulties. You take away the fan caps and the fans are TOTALLY arbitrary, because you already have a score that is solely based on perctent * combo * difficulty * overdrive. Without a fan cap fans are as pointless as points in "Who's Line Is It Anyway", because then they're just another word for "score". With the cap they at least have SOME purpose.

My wife is the same way, she got mad when we started getting 0 fans. Didn't want to play. Cussed out the game for trying to "force her to play at a higher difficulty." I just said: Hey we have 200,000 adoring fans as it is. I say we play gigs for them, and try to get five stars on every gig. I pointed out that it was our 200,000 fans singing along on all those songs.

Eventually she lightened up and now she's about completing gigs and getting good enough to get more fans.

They can do whatever they want with the leaderboards, but lifting the fan cap would just mean I have to compete for two "scores" and as it stands I couldn't tell you what our "BWT Score" is... or what we get on any given song for "score". I can tell you exactly what my high percent is on any skill level for any song though, and I can tell you exactly how many fans we have, what gig we got our last fans at, etc.

Once again, without the cap.. fans have NO meaning, because they are based on your score.

[Kingfish]

Hey Wolf, thanks for the reply.

I have a hard time with this one. Part of the reason I LOVED Logic and Rhetoric classes in college was that I can argue both sides of anything based on my own whim...but I can also be persuaded by good arguments.

I know there are really good reasons to leave the cap in...and I also live with a really good reason to raze it.

I do wish they would make a 'trickle' effect on the fans after cap is reached tho. "Look we got 32 fans this time! Better than the 80 we lost when we had that sub 3* performance last time huh?"

I mean, at 10-100 fans +/- every show after cap...you virtually will never get that far into the next "level" before everyone advances to it and the cap is basically lifted anyway.

A medium only group would have to play about 2 years CAPPED to get to a million fans...and by that time(you'd HOPE) they would have advanced to hard anyway.

Just my opinion...but i do see both sides. Thanks for taking the time to explain your situation. I will tell the wife about it. :)

[SSPWOLF]

Hey Wolf, thanks for the reply.

I have a hard time with this one. Part of the reason I LOVED Logic and Rhetoric classes in college was that I can argue both sides of anything based on my own whim...but I can also be persuaded by good arguments.

I know there are really good reasons to leave the cap in...and I also live with a really good reason to raze it.

I do wish they would make a 'trickle' effect on the fans after cap is reached tho. "Look we got 32 fans this time! Better than the 80 we lost when we had that sub 3* performance last time huh?"

I mean, at 10-100 fans +/- every show after cap...you virtually will never get that far into the next "level" before everyone advances to it and the cap is basically lifted anyway.

A medium only group would have to play about 2 years CAPPED to get to a million fans...and by that time(you'd HOPE) they would have advanced to hard anyway.

Just my opinion...but i do see both sides. Thanks for taking the time to explain your situation. I will tell the wife about it. :)


I can definitely see your point about the trickle effect. It would serve everyone's needs.

Ironically, I was just discussing this with MY wife and I asked her why she cared about fans anyway? (not that I doubt, but I care more about gigs unlocked than fans) and she said "Well, they make me. Those challenges "Play for double fans if you get 5 stars" and stuff make me care."

That sort of swayed me a "little" bit too.

So... I still feel the exact same way about the cap..

HOWEVER.. the fan system itself seems pretty "after thought" or "didn't have time to do what we really wanted to me now."

The answer is simple though, IMHO; They should have had something 'else' in the game to let you trigger fans.

Something like "events" where you could just have a simple menu with options "Sign autographs, trash hotel, do website interview, record song for video game, etc. " and there could be a risk/reward randomizer that would award or subtract fans.

Even if it was extremely basic (like Smackdown Vs Raw), as long as it was not connected to the SONG based fan cap it would have made everyone happy.


As it stands.. the tiny challenges for fans or money that they already have are absolutely meaningless unless you are struggling on medium. Cash? I'm sitting on a quarter million that I have nothing to spend it on. Fans? Those challenges only matter to people who don't cap out, which means experts... and that doesn't matter to them.

So.. yeah, the cap is right.. it's the whole fan system that's wrong. That's my opinion now.


Kudos King, glad to have a "conversation" instead of an "argument"

[Lareden]

For the record, I love the way they did it.

I never really pay that much attention to how many fans we get. No matter what difficulty, you hit the cap pretty fast (except expert). All we care about is stars. "Did we 5 star that venue? We got 4!? Ack, we'll have to come back there later." Besides, you can play through a bunch on medium, then re-do a couple shows on hard to gain a bunch more fans, if you really want fans. I like that they lock out lower difficulties in certain important gigs (such as the hall of fame show), it should be a challenge. The hall of fame show is like a boss battle.

You can get through maybe 80% on easy. But in order to finish the game you have to step it up to medium, just like the solo career, and a lot of other games out there. Easy is like training mode.

At my house nobody has any problem with someone playing at the lower difficulties. Some play on expert simply for the challenge, some on hard just to have fun, some on medium because they're still trying to get the hang of it, and some on easy. Nobody ever complains to the person who picks easy or medium. Maybe it's just my upbringing, but encouragement should always be given, no matter how the accomplishment ranks with our own skill-set. For some people, playing on easy is just as hard as it is for me to play on expert.

I see nothing wrong with having extras given to players who step to to hard and expert. However, I would see something wrong if hard and expert had no extra rewards. If a system was implemented where you still gain fans no matter what (but perhaps proportional to the difficulty played), I would then want a system in place that locks out those expert venues unless you perform 'x' shows on hard.

[Maggot_Brain]

I don't get why someone cares that I enjoy the game differently than they do. I don't understand why they fight against having another way to play the game.

[SSPWOLF]

I don't get why someone cares that I enjoy the game differently than they do. I don't understand why they fight against having another way to play the game.


There is ANOTHER way to play the game: Band Quickplay.

No offense but I could care less how YOU enjoy the game. I care how *I* enjoy the game. And removing the fan cap would make the game less enjoyable for *ME*.

As I said before, IMO, removing the fan cap would render the fans COMPLETELY worthless. At least now I'm looking forward to getting more fans when I move up to expert. Cash on the other hand? If a gig offered 100 million dollars and the gig next to it offered 10 extra points on the song score... I'd take the 10 points. Cash truly is meaningless after you make enough money to buy everything in the game in 20 or so gigs.

[espher]

Honestly, I feel that if your focus is on fans earned after you finish a song, you're doing it wrong.

As an aside, you can argue that the 'fans' total is representative of a number of things, and for one example, if you want to use a score argument as a point as to why it should not cap out, most games will give you a higher score on a higher difficulty and you usually can't get the same scores on a lower difficulty that you could on a higher difficulty. ;)

There are enough arguments for this sort of thing both ways and these discussions just end up going in circles.

[Kingfish]

I can definitely see your point about the trickle effect. It would serve everyone's needs...like "events" where you could just have a simple menu with options "Sign autographs, trash hotel, do website interview, record song for video game, etc. " and there could be a risk/reward randomizer that would award or subtract fans.

Thats a great idea...something that could make you feel like you're progressing...albeit SLOWLY, would be the way to go.

And find me something to spend some cash on too! Let me buy new Stage effects or jets or gifts for the ladies(my wife would love me saying that). Also, how kewl would it be to also get messages saying a member of the band will be in a movie or to receive a message saying one of our songs have been selected for a soundtrack of the next BLOCKBUSTER movie! This might be a way to get fans that’s not related to playing songs.

What about doing something more with the cover of the magazines...Rolling Stone, Guitar Player...exc..., Maybe we are discribing RB2 tho...oh well.



Kudos King, glad to have a "conversation" instead of an "argument"
Same here!

[Kingfish]

There are enough arguments for this sort of thing both ways and these discussions just end up going in circles.

Agreed...and I am really stuck. The cap is making me better...at least I am going from Med to Hard...but I also see(and live with an arthritic) that CAN'T physically do much better than she is.

So I see both sides and am really torn by it.

[Lareden]

There is ANOTHER way to play the game: Band Quickplay.

No offense but I could care less how YOU enjoy the game. I care how *I* enjoy the game. And removing the fan cap would make the game less enjoyable for *ME*.

As I said before, IMO, removing the fan cap would render the fans COMPLETELY worthless. At least now I'm looking forward to getting more fans when I move up to expert. Cash on the other hand? If a gig offered 100 million dollars and the gig next to it offered 10 extra points on the song score... I'd take the 10 points. Cash truly is meaningless after you make enough money to buy everything in the game in 20 or so gigs.

Exactly.

Changing the mechanics doesn't affect just one person, it affects everyone.

And I think giving a trickle of fans after the cap seems like it would just produce the same problem. Instead of saying "you gained 0 fans, play at a higher difficulty" it'll say "you gained 15 fans, play at a higher difficulty..." You still hit a cap either way. I'm fine with making the fans gained proportional to the difficulty and relate to how well the set was played, IF they lock out the extras that require 'x' fans and instead make them require that 'x' gigs be played on hard instead. Fans wouldn't be worthless because they'd still count as "points" on the leaderboards.

I wish there was some way to keep spending my character's money, aside from changing hairstyles. I'll probably focus on buying every single item in the game, since I've already bought everything I wanted.

[Nate Finch]

I wish the caps were much farther away than they are. We hit the easy cap in the first day, the medium cap on the third day of playing..... I think that you shouldn't hit the easy cap until you've played most of the gigs on easy. Ditto for medium and hard. Instead, we skyrocket up in fans and then wallow with zero until we're practiced enough to bump up a difficulty.

I like the pressure to go up a level, I just don't like that it comes so quickly.

[Superfro]

Does anyone know how fans are calculated once you get past the million mark? My wife and I play on Expert guitar/bass and are at the 27-28 million fan mark right now. Sometimes we'll play 1 song and get 900,000 fans, then do a set of 5 songs, 5 star them all, and only get 500,000. Does anyone know how it's determinded? :confused:

[sporkBrigade]

I've sat out this round of Fan Cap debates for the most part. But since the passion is dying down, I wanted to inject a few points.

First, I really wish the Leaderboards would never be brought up again. I've scanned this entire thread, and I haven't seen the Leaderboards brought up by anyone who was defending the Caps. The Leaderboard thing is officially a Straw Man arguement. A Straw Man arguement is when one side of a debate builds up a weak and hollow case that no one really cares about, then spends half their time bashing it to bits with logic. No one cares about the Fan based Leaderboards, we never did. Every arguement for Fan Caps falls generally into two camps. The tiny camp of small brained elitists, who may have actually brought up Leaderboards at some point in the past, but their opinion really doesn't matter for much these days anyway. The other camp, and the larger one, thinks that BWT as is creates a deep gameplay experience that may not be so friendly to party atmospheres and extremely young/old/wifelike people, but provide an extreme amount of enjoyment for those looking for a longterm gameplay experience. So if you really want to debate with someone, debate with the latter camp. And just to be clear as possible, we don't care about Leaderboards either.

Second, in another thread it was suggested that people actually don't have a problem with BWT. They have a problem with Quickplay. Where one way to see this is to take away a fancap, I say you add a fan stat to Quickplay that doesn't tie into gameplay. You want to make Tokyo easier to unlock, I say you want Tokyo added to Quickplay. The fact is, BWT isn't a party mode. It's a campaign mode. When I have 10 people come over to play Halo, we don't start trudging through the story/campaign. We load up some slayer, Halo's version of quickplay. That's the party game. I think the entire "We want a better Party experience" camp will be way better off if they shift all that passion and focus from "Dumb down BWT" to "Please make Quickplay better!" That's the party mode, and that's what's lacking.

Finally, since the last time this debate flared up I've played a lot of BWT. And it's all been under the Hard cap. I've unlocked everything, and there's one thing I've been convinced of. The flex-Fan system has merit, but not for any buzzkill reasons. I'm tired of not having fans to gamble with. Seriously, I want to be able to take all those offered Fan gambles that pop up, and lose me some fans over it. But there's never any reason to. Half the money for twice the fans? 2x0=0. So while no one here will ever convince me you should get to play in Tokyo on Easy, you sure as hell can convince me that the flow of fans need to be tweaked. Just not for the same reason as you. :P

[xXGEOMANXx]

When we hit our first "cap" on Medium I had never even played on hard. First thoughts were to be angry because we "assumed" the game wouldn't let us progress.... then we realized we could keep playing gigs. We took a concensus and decided to TRY Hard. After stumbling a bit... we kept trying. When we got frustrated we'd go and 4/5 star some gigs on Medium to have "fun" again.

This is how some of us feel right now. You have the oportunity to have some guys who have the time to play for who knows how many time to improve and get better. We, the ones who plays with relatives who doesn't have the time, skills or the time to develop it fell frustrated as the fan cap hits our band traveling bus.


After awhile 5 starring a gig on medium wasn't "fun" any more. It was boring as hell.

Thats exactelly what we are saying. Thats what you as others are denying by defending the fan cap blindly.

I think the fan sistem is a good adition to this kind of game, but it has to be re-think and more flexible in some way. Why limiting your progresion and your band based on the lowest instead of the sum of your bandmates. There have been some bands that have constructed a massive fanbase depending in a GREAT guitarist, or bassist, singer, etc. Not every famous band are an all "virtuosos" phenomenon.

Why we are forced to be.

[Frederf]

I <3 sporkBrigade.


For the record, I love the way they did it.

I never really pay that much attention to how many fans we get. No matter what difficulty, you hit the cap pretty fast (except expert). All we care about is stars. "Did we 5 star that venue? We got 4!? Ack, we'll have to come back there later." Besides, you can play through a bunch on medium, then re-do a couple shows on hard to gain a bunch more fans, if you really want fans.

This may come as a shock, but... no you can't go back and get more fans. Once you check mark that set list, even on Easy, it's "tapped" and you could play it on Expert till you're blue in the face and not gain a single new fan on that set list.

One of the reasons the original poll was completely useless is that question that was asked is not the question that most everyone read. "Do you want the fan cap removed? (Y/N)" was what the poll asked but everyone read it as "Do you want the fan system to be changed? (Y/N)" Totally different questions. You might as well should have had two options (and my apologies for the Nazi reference):

1. All German decedents should be burned at the stake.
2. All nations should celebrate Hitler day and all the grand stuff he did.

I mean there's no right answer in my wacky fictional poll above or the fan cap poll. To myself, a rather lingual literalist, I had to answer "No. I don't want the fan cap removed." That's not to say I am 100% happy with how HMX did the fan system. I think I can name about a dozen flaws in / potential improvements to the fan system without removing the cap aspect.

Flaw 1: Fans accumulate too rapidly relative to the cap levels.
Explanation: Fan accumulation happens at a furious pace, exceeding what one would expect given the size of the venues. Fan caps are reached in a small fraction of the average "skill up" time for the player.
Solution: Simply slower fan accumulation so caps are reached longer into the game.

Flaw 2: Fan caps are reached very very abruptly.
Explanation: Fan accumulation goes like gangbusters one second and is 0 the next. This confuses the player.
Solution: Fan number should approach whatever limit gradually.

Flaw 3: Fans are only gained on the first check marking of the set list.
Explanation: Once a set list is check marked it is impossible to get more fans from it, even if playing on a harder difficulty level. This discourages going back to the easiest/most-familiar songs when increasing difficulty level which would help the transition and also increases the time spent at the fan cap.
Solution: Fans should have the possibility of being gained (if not under a cap) playing any set list that has been played before. First-time set lists should achieve a bonus the very first time they are played on each difficulty.

Flaw 5: The fan cap is an obvious game limitation.
Explanation: A lot of Rock Band's appeal is in the rock and roll fantasy. The current fan system breaks immersion by being a very obvious game mechanic instead of a consequence of play.
Solution: Fan accumulation should become harder as the player(s) near the cap so the limitation feels more like the end of their ability and not an arbitrary game parameter.

Flaw 6: There are only 3 distinct fan cap numbers in the game.
Explanation: Having only three fan cap numbers strictly relates easy/medium/hard difficulty settings and does not make the players comfortable with overcoming caps and further breaks immersion by having widely spaced arbitrary limits.
Solution: Fan cap numbers could be factor of average band difficulty or (inkeeping with the weakest link philosophy) by the number of cities/venues unlocked. This creates a smoother and more convincing cap-number vs amount-played curve.

I had a 4 but I lost it in copy paste and it's late.

[Katdaddy]

Well, I was confused about the message when my 2 daughters and I tapped out fans at medium difficulty. I thought (until I read this god-awfully long post in its' entirety today) that we were "stuck" as well. No more progression in BWT. I can easily cruise through vocals on Expert, but asking an 8-year old to crank out Hard/Expert on any instrument is asking quite a bit. GGHT on the drums kicks me in the arse on hard...My kids panic when they see that many colors rolling down the screen.

It's nice to know that we can continue to play on medium and get through the remainder of BWT, although I am concerned about some of the later songs. Last night, we muddled through GGHT, Highway Star, and Won't Be Fooled Again on medium, and all were ecstatic when we finally finished (we "saved" each other like a SOB)...hopefully, it doesn't get too much harder for them than that later on down the road...they get somewhat easily frustrated when a song whips them 3-4 times in a row. My 8-year old daughter scored 100&#37; on vocals in medium last night singing "I'm So Sick" (amazing!), but really struggles with "Say it Ain't So"...trying to explain to her the difference between "octave" vs. "pitch" is a little daunting...

That being said, the kids and I love it. It's a little unfortunate that we cannot unlock every venue...THAT'S what my kids like to see...the different arenas/places to play...they care nothing about the fans. To them, continually dressing their avatar differently and seeing the differing places to play is gratification enough. Mind you, my 8-year old is cranking out the vocals, and my 10-year old daughter is playing guitar...I'm drumming, and it's boatloads of fun.

Now, we can move forward...maybe eventually, they'll want to try to up the difficulty "ante". However, when they spend 30 minutes in the "Rock Shop" playing "dressup", you can quite quickly see where they have the most fun. ;)