no, I'm atalkingfish. the atalkingfish.
The number of notes it takes to raise a multiplier is roughly based on this:
(# of notes in a gated section)
/
(Some number (I've heard it theorized at the # of parts in the section * 2 or 3) * 3 (for the 3 x limit of increases)
There's some floor for a minimum level of notes you need as well (in my experience, it's at least 4, possibly higher), and if there are notes in a section, it counts as something you need to raise to score usually unless the total number of notes in a section is below some minimum (at least supposedly).
The exact formula? I'm sure someone at HMX knows, but it's not been too obvious outside of what I've mentioned.
I think the multipliers are incredibly broken when it comes to DLC.
I've had times where there are literally two bass notes before the first checkpoint and that track isn't shown as a "greyed out" one you don't have to play. So it ends up not increasing my multiplier at all since the bass doesn't start until that first checkpoint.
Obviously Harmonix can't program these for every DLC song, but it just seems pretty broken to me.
From what I can tell, they have it set that you don't need to play a certain track to advance the multiplier IF there are no notes at all before the next checkpoint. If there are more than, say, two, it will require it and you'll be unable to boost your multiplier. Exception of the Blitz included songs, but I'm referring to DLC.
Dude I saw you Euphoria invisible 100% video. You're a music game legend!
Between each checkpoint:
- There has to be a minimum of 5 gems to raise the multiplier.
- You have to be able to raise the multipler at least once.
If there are at least 5 gems we compute how many times you COULD raise the multiplier if you only played that track, and we scale it based on how many active tracks are in that section:
- 1 track : 3.1x
- 2 tracks : 6.2x
etc
- 5 tracks: 15.5x
Dividing total gems by total multiplier per track between checkpoint gives us multiplier progress per gem.
It should never happen that there are only 2 gems, the track is active, and you can't level it (if you give us a song name we'll check it out).
It CAN happen that there are, for example, 7 notes, in which case you can increase the multiplier +1 but not +2 (because there's a 5 note minimum, but we don't enforce the fact that you can boost the multiplier by 3x between every checkpoint).
Hope that makes sense.
Let's say you have two tracks. Track A has 60 notes and track B has 35 notes between two checkpoints.
Since there are two tracks active we use a max multiplier of 6.2 as your target (assuming you play perfectly you could max out both tracks, which adds to 6x, then we add a little breathing room).
So each note on track A you hit would get you 1/60th of the way to 6.2X, or .103x (roughly 10 notes to 1x increase)
Each note on track B you hit would get you 1/35th of the way to 6.2X, or .177X (roughly 5.6 notes per 1X increase)
Now in practice you will spend half your time on track A, hit 30 notes, which works out to around 3X, and half your time on track B, about 17 notes, which also works out to 3X.
So the more lanes you try to play the more forgiving things are, but also the more likely you'll miss notes/ skip sections/ have non-playable parts on the tracks you need, so it works out in the end.
Foreplay/Longtime on the PS3. I think after the solo there are like 2 or 3 Vocal gems and you can't increase the multiplier (There are several sections where you can't get 3X accros the board in that song, and I might just have the wrong place).
There's at least one more, including I think 1 Blitz song (I want to say "Once Bitten, Twice Shy", but I'd need to replay it again).
I've encountered it on several songs, though I'll check again just in case I missed that there were more gems.