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Originally Posted by thatmarkguy

Out of curiosity... theoretically, *can* gold star cutoffs be changed from server-side tweaking? Or is the GS calculation baked into the software and with no means to override via server communication?

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I feel like they've altered GS cut-offs in the past, but that it was via patch. I can't imagine that'd be server side since the GS appears during gameplay. Unless they load it via Rock Central in that brief moment it tries to connect before the song starts.

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Originally Posted by Meat-Popsicle

Will some high scores fall now, directly because of these changes? Yep. Will people get furious about it? Yep. "It's just a game" ... but some people take their gaming very seriously.

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I think as long as they don't NERF the rest of the power-ups things will be okay, as the same three power-ups will still produce the same results as they did previously.

What I find interesting is if they can tweak power-ups via the server....can they also add new ones at some point?

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Originally Posted by hmxhenry

Yes, Gold Star cut offs are still the same. The only things changed were the effectiveness of the Power-ups listed above.

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Cool. Thanks for the reply.

Now I might be able to get those last 3 GSs

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Originally Posted by T-Hybrid

I feel like they've altered GS cut-offs in the past, but that it was via patch. I can't imagine that'd be server side since the GS appears during gameplay. Unless they load it via Rock Central in that brief moment it tries to connect before the song starts.


I think as long as they don't NERF the rest of the power-ups things will be okay, as the same three power-ups will still produce the same results as they did previously.

What I find interesting is if they can tweak power-ups via the server....can they also add new ones at some point?

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The reason I doubt that they would alter GS cutoffs on the server side is that the Offline mode, crippled as it is, does award stars in the same way as songs played online. But ultimately, that just means that there is SOME formula to allow the stars to be calculated in the core software. That doesn't necessarily mean that the server couldn't override that formula at the time a song starts. Given the fact that the function of the powerups appear to be completely driven by values fed in from the server, I can't see any technical reason why they absolutely couldn't adjust the star cutoff formula (or fixed values, perhaps) in the same fashion. It just depends on whether they care about consistency with the offline mode, in which it's only even possible to gold star songs in theory (with very few exceptions) because of the absence of powerups.

EDIT: And as for adding new powerups server side, I suspect it may be possible, but it probably depends on how the software was written. If the game stores the images and text descriptions for the powerups locally and then just checks for the RC connection to allow them to display, then probably not (at least not without a preparatory software patch.) But if it actually loads that info in from the server at the runtime, then they definitely could. We just don't know quite to what extent the server is driving the software under the hood.

I'd be interested from Nord or someone on a bit more info on how they changed. thatmarkguy's point (no pun intended) about Point Doubler has me wondering which are point changes vs OD amount changes. We could try to compare old YouTube videos with new runs, but it'd be easier to get the info from the source.

I'm kinda glad that bottle rocket is being made a bit more powerful. It's fun to use, and it was made basically pointless after road rage was unlocked.

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Originally Posted by thatmarkguy

if some songs prove impossible to GS by the current rules, can HMX re-strike the GS threshold on a per-song basis on the server side?

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On that note, I wonder if anyone with sufficient skill has run into a song yet where it looked impossible to GS.

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Originally Posted by T-Hybrid

I wonder if the Bottle Rocket now triggers Blast Notes. That seemed to be one of the primary issues I had when using that instead of Road Rage. And there are somes songs where Blast Notes would be a much better fit if they did.

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Bottle Rockets (and Road Rage) have always been able to trigger Blast Notes.

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Originally Posted by thatmarkguy

Out of curiosity... theoretically, *can* gold star cutoffs be changed from server-side tweaking? Or is the GS calculation baked into the software and with no means to override via server communication?

It's been something some people have been curious about... if some songs prove impossible to GS by the current rules, can HMX re-strike the GS threshold on a per-song basis on the server side?

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I don't believe Gold Star cut offs could be adjusted manually. It's based off a scoring algorithm that applies to all songs. While it's likely that there will a handful of songs that defy the algorithm and Gold Stars won't be possible, it's unlikely that's 1% of the total songs available. It's more likely that the Power-up value could be raised to allow for even high scores, but that would mean raising the scores for 99% of the songs to allow for slightly higher scores on the remaining 1%. It's not completely out of the question but it's unlikely.

So... Runaway Notes is still pretty much unused then?

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Originally Posted by NightmareLyre

So... Runaway Notes is still pretty much unused then?

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I used them fairly heavily at first, but then I realized that Flame Notes are much more to my liking while operating in a somewhat similar manner.

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Originally Posted by NightmareLyre

So... Runaway Notes is still pretty much unused then?

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That's what I thought would be a high contender for rebalancing. I don't think the 10,000 point bonus makes up for the OD notes you end up missing out on during the chasing process. I never use it because I haven't found it feasible for high scores, but I do like that power-up so it's kind of a shame.

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Originally Posted by thatmarkguy

People still aren't going to use Pinball for normal 4+ track legitimate play

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Huh?

Pinball + Bandmate is what I use 99% of the time.

I mainly use Road Rage and Blast Notes. I don't have much trouble gold starring the majority of my songs, so it must be a pretty good combo.