Figured I'd weigh in here. Prior to the nerf, Flame/Jackpot/Super was my go to loadout. Since the nerf hit, I've been severely unmotivated to play Blitz. I spent quite a few hours trying to beat my old scores and friends/leaderboards, and now I can't touch most of those scores.

Case in point, I made this video: Here. Clint Eastwood, I currently hold the #9 spot on 360 at 650,000 points. Couldn't even come close, and this was the best run I managed. Didn't try pinball because I don't find it fun at all. I have a few #1 spots too, so I'm not exactly bad at the game. I just...had my main tool taken away, I suppose.

Hopefully HMX will pump flame notes back up once the tournaments are over. I'd personally prefer sooner, but I suppose that's really unlikely to happen.

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Originally Posted by HMXPope

It was a measure to try to level the playing field in a way that would encourage the maximum amount of people to try the Tournaments out. I realize this in itself is a topic of debate here, but at least understand that was our intention.

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Level the playing field in exactly what way? Look at the scores that Magnet, ketchup and I posted. Hint..we probably used the same loadout. Also the one thing that could counter and compete against what we used was removed. This did the EXACT OPPOSITE of leveling the playing field. It made the best players of the specific play style which is controversial(it's pinball) dominate everyone else and no one else can even have a prayer of hope. Maximum people to try out the tournaments? Lots of top players I know have either gave up on blitz completely or have no interest or chance to compete in the tournaments because of the silly move you guys did.

I've been competing against flame scores for awhile now, so flame notes were not dominating everything. There were other loadouts that can either destroy flame scores or put up a good fight. The tourney scores are proof. It's combos involving sync. I believe I was the 2nd person ever to break 500k on Raise Your Glass and I did that after the nerf. If flame notes were way too overpowered and dominant..wouldn't have plenty of other players have achieved a score that high on that song? I don't think anyone has beaten my current score on that song with jackpot/flame and only 1 player has a higher score with band/flame.(MasterMO)

The top Shout scores from a few days ago look about identical to the top jack/flame scores on that song. I don't think anyone could have "easily" destroyed ketchupyoshi's Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me score with original flames. The best loadout for Holiday doesn't use flames...

Powerups such as Blast Notes, Sync, and Pinball can all destroy player scores that rely heavily on Jackpot/Flame depending on the song.

If people were all playing rigidly with flame notes, then that's just how they decide to play their game, but I was able to destroy most flame scores without using flame notes..and so can others. They were a top powerup but not the best for everything. I feel like there was pretty good balance before the nerf for the kind of game that blitz is. It's certainly more unbalanced now.

The game should have some imbalance with a few power up selections being significantly more powerful than others. Jack/Flame, Band/Flame and even Pin/Sync SHOULD outscore players who use road rage/blast because they all require more skill to pull off. If those combos didn't then no one would ever use easy combos like road rage and blast notes.

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Originally Posted by HMXPope

As for the level that the Flame Notes are at right now, that’s likely where they’ll stay for the duration of the tournaments. We’ve spent countless hours discussing alternatives with the Production and QA teams, pushing many of the suggestions that came from this thread, and this is honestly the least disruptive to the core game play experience.

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More like the most disruptive to the core game play experience. Flame notes were a large part of the core game play experience. From the beginning loadouts such as Bandmate/Flame were popular and the loadouts that used Flame Notes had variety and gameplay style to them. I believe the loading screens and official blogs even recommended the band/flame loadout. It was a very good loadout but now I don't think anyone can take that loadout seriously anymore.

Flame notes were an amazing powerup for game play, and had a lot a depth. No..the least disruptive to the core game play experience would have been to leave how everything is. You can choose to leave flame notes where they are now, just know that this is now who can get the best pinball run. or in some rare cases..blast notes. If you were worried about the best band/flame players winning..I don't see how the best pinball players winning is any different at all.

The proper solution for a fair tournament would have been dependent on the songs that you picked. For example the reason why it's possible to get over 800k on Buddy Holly is based on the following factors:

it's a 4 lane song
Overdrive drains very slowly giving enough time for bandmate to destroy it
overdrive refills very quickly
the patterns of that song are overwhelmingly simple and easy so it makes perfect sense that you can use a killer band/flame strategy to completely mock that song. Good job MasterMO!

If you were worried with players doing that on all the songs, you could have made specific powerup loadouts or song choices where the same combo wouldn't dominate everything. Band/Flame is garbage against songs with fast OD drain and really high density. Jack/Flame requires spawn rate and player skill. Pinball relies on how dense the chart is and the player skill of keeping it in play for as long as possible.


If you don't know what kinds of songs are effective on what kind of powerups then players such as myself and others would have gladly give you suggestions and fill you in on what strategies are most effective on what kind of songs from our several hundred hours of experience and testing. Having locked based powerups on specific songs would have also make interesting competition. Much better than the easy approach that you guys decided to go with. Check out how Scorehero handled their Blitz League. I congratulate JCirri for handling it and making it a very fair and interesting league. Also take his suggestions that he made in this thread. They are very valid.

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Originally Posted by HMXPope

With so many alternatives suggested in this thread, we simply can’t address them all individually, but nearly all of them weren’t possible for either technical reasons or because of production bandwidth. Buffing all power ups would have so drastically decreased the value or standard notes that the plate spinning mechanic would have been worthless compared to chasing power ups. Buffing Blitz mode in addition to the other power ups would have completely devalued Gold Stars and made them achievable very quickly. Tightening the hit window is a major change that would have drastically altered both the difficulty of the game and the enjoyment for the majority of players who are significantly less skilled than the forum community. And the more things we try to change, the greater the risk we run of breaking something in game and the greater the need for tester time, which is already very difficult as additional resources are being moved on to developing other titles.

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When you nerfed flame notes, you made pinball the killer strategy. Guess what that strategy involves? Chasing the powerup and ignoring everything else. I try to still get my percentages in the 90s and hit every note I can, but it's easier to outright ignore everything. A buff in blitz mode would actually encourage pinball/sync players to hit all their notes and focus more on keeping a streak than outright ignoring everything else.

Gold Stars were already pretty much devalued to anyone who was capable of staying in blitz mode anyways. The players who really struggle with 5*ing/GSing the majority of songs aren't likely going to benefit from a skill based buff like Blitz Mode anyways. For players who can lane shift and hit lots of sections without dropping blitz..gold stars are already meaningless to us except on a few obscure songs. And Runaway Notes is a skill based powerup with a completely useless reward. Why not buff that? That would add new "killer" strategies to the competitive scene and make for more interesting gameplay. Try to expand the gameplay and not reduce. I suggested alternatives in the paragraph above.

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Originally Posted by HMXPope

The intent of this change is not at all meant to be punitive, and we, of course, understand that those of you with the highest scores have likely committed the most gameplay time to getting really good. The idea was this, we hoped: if the best players are the ones most directly affected by this, they will also likely be the ones to figure out new, killer strategies for high scores quickly after the change. I’ve already seen some posts (and Tournament scores) to reinforce this hope.

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Well I have gotten better with strategies involving pinball, seeing how it's the only powerup that gives variable scoring to your skill level of using it. It was a lot more fun when I had like 10 strategies to use instead of 2-3. Game is a lot more dull and shallow now. Runaway Notes are capped at 10k, and blast notes are limited to luck and low point values anyways. Yeah pinball is a killer strategy..because it's the only strategy to win most songs now.

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Originally Posted by HMXPope

We completely understand the concern about the leaderboards and previously logged scores now being unattainable. We’ve polled several segments of the community about whether or not scrubbing the leaderboards would be a preferable solution, and there are strong opinions on both sides. We’ve considered everything from targeting specific scores for removal to color coding leaderboard scores to reflect the Power-up combo used by that player. But, for right now, leaderboards will remain as is. We’ll continue to track feedback and if it remains a strong concern for those invested in leaderboard scores we’re open to the possibility of restoring Flame Notes to their original value when Tournaments are concluded.

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Well I am glad you guys thought out those solutions through because they would have all been terrible if you decided to do them. Tagging leaderboards based on powerups will remove the "strategy" aspect in the game and remove the fun on trying to figure out how that person achieved the score. It's fun to have a little mystery. Besides I believe the Peek feature in score wars was enough.

Removing leaderboards would also have been awful. Best to keep the leaderboards where they are right now because once you remove them, you can't go back. I will also have 0 interest in playing the game and uploading new scores if a reset like that happened, and so will a lot of other competitive players.

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Originally Posted by HMXPope

Tournament participation has already been stronger than expected for the first 24 hours and we hope many of you join, experiment with different power up load outs, and take a shot at both the Tournament leaderboards and the prizing we’re offering. Feel free to continue to post your feedback in this thread and we’ll continue to pass feedback up the chain and submit proposals to the Production / QA team to see if there are other minor adjustments we can make along the way.

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Technically I shouldn't even be allowed in the tournament because of my region, but the app let me in anways. I am only participating for you because I want to have some fun and I am pretty much the only one that's putting up a good fight with the other 2 players dominating everyone else however I would love to be proven wrong and see other players topping the songs. If flame notes were still viable there would probably be 3x the amount of top players competing then they are now. All I see right now is ketchup and Magnet. There is a few different power up load outs, but there would have been a lot more to choose from if you didn't nerf a very important aspect of the game play. and believe me..participation would have been much higher if flame notes were still viable. I could see about 6-8 top players fighting over their spots instead of just 2.

The reason why I made such a long post and being critical on everything in your post is because I greatly care about the direction of this game. It's a fantastic game and I really don't want to see the blitz experience dying out soon. I hope you will take the suggestions that people made in this thread seriously and use the new data you have received from people who are still playing the game to evaluate whether nerfing flame notes was a good decision or not.

I don't think I will ever make a post this long again. wow :D

A little late to when this post would have been more relevant, but this post has been eating at me so I figured I'd take the time to write it out.

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Originally Posted by HMXPope

1. Regarding the "exploit" in RB Blitz, whether you want to consider it an exploit or not is a bit of semantics. Using it does severely unbalance the game, though, so you are right in suggesting the Flame Note change was partially in response to that.

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As far as balance goes and the idea that "two notes, one timing window" (abbreviated 2N1TW for the rest of this post) unbalanced the game, I believe the flame nerf was made very prematurely.

Look at the timetable. December 6th is when 2N1TW was first discussed in detail. December 26th is when flame notes were nerfed. That's a 20 day window.

2N1TW is a technique that anyone can use, regardless of loadout. Certainly, bandmate/flame benefits a lot more from 2N1TW than most loadouts, but it could be adapted to other loadouts to achieve higher scores. What would happen to jackpot scores if players had the guts to use 2N1TW while jackpot was active? Would point doubler be viable compared to jackpot if you were consistent enough to hit more than 3/4ths the notes in two lanes compared to all the notes in one lane? Who knows, until the community puts in the effort to find out.

I didn't learn 2N1TW overnight. It took months of playing the game to get it down, and I've still got room to grow. You gave the rest of the community less than three weeks to take the technique and adapt it. That simply isn't enough time to properly gauge the new balance such a discovery brought about.

Call 2N1TW an exploit if you want. Does it matter? All the talk of exploit makes it sounds like being an exploit means it's inherently bad. But look at other competitive games and you'll see exploits being utilized all the time.

Look at fighting games - for example, Super Street Fighter 4 AE2012v. Top level of that game currently involves unblockable setups, something clearly not intended. What has resulted from that is a large change in the tier list so dramatic that characters previously considered low-tier have started winning tournaments. Look at Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Infinite combos were discovered for many characters last year. Despite some clamoring for a patch fixing them, they have remained in the game and are tournament legal - if you can pull them off, you are welcome to attempt them. And if you successfully pull one off, then you can be sure the crowd watching is going to go nuts.

Alternatively, look at the speedrunning community - a bit more informally competative, but comparable all the same. They downright embrace the usage of exploits in the games they play, so much so that the community ignites whenever a new, useful glitch is found in a popular game. The Awesome Games Done Quick charity marathon is in its final 24 hours and as I write this over 30,000 people are watching runnerguy2489 make an absolute mockery of Ocarina of Time. These people aren't upset by the glitches and exploits, they are enthralled by them. The glitches make the game more exciting to watch than just a normal, glitchless, developer-intended playthrough.

The youtube videos I've posted of my Blitz gameplay, while not lighting the world on fire by any means, has gotten similar response. Many of the comments on my videos have been positive or in amazement of what is possible in the game outside the "intended" way of playing. I haven't gotten any negativity from all the Xbox Live messages I've gotten from other Blitz players, either. Really, the only place I've seen negativity in regards to 2N1TW is on these forums.

In my opinion, the mark of a good competitive game is one that evolves over time, not because of developer intervention but because there is enough depth in it that new things can be discovered in it over time. 2N1TW was that new discovery that would have helped evolve the game. Whether it changed for the better or worse, time would tell. Either way, it would have been exciting for the next while.

By nerfing flame notes, the evolution of this game has been stifled. It can still grow, as 2N1TW still exists and can still be adapted to many playstyles, but now there are less options. That is in direct opposition to what Harmonix has said the goal of this nerf was.

The only problem with 2N1TW is that the score differential between a mashing bandmate/flame and a skillfully-executed bandmate/flame that results is too small on most songs. That's what should be addressed - be it by buffing blitz mode or excluding 4-lane songs from the tournament. Ruining flame notes for everyone who used them, no matter how they used them, was not the answer.

I really hope Harmonix is considering making further changes to the game while the tournaments are going on, whether that involves reverting the nerf or changing other things. If their goal was balance, they clearly have not achieved that and need to go back to the drawing board. The possibility that the nerf could be reverted after the tournament is better than nothing, but personally I consider that too little too late.

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Originally Posted by zage1337

Technically I shouldn't even be allowed in the tournament because of my region, but the app let me in anways. I am only participating for you because I want to have some fun and I am pretty much the only one that's putting up a good fight with the other 2 players dominating everyone else however I would love to be proven wrong and see other players topping the songs. There is a few different power up load outs, but there would have been a lot more to choose from if you didn't nerf a very important aspect of the game play. and believe me..participation would have been much higher if flame notes were still viable. I could see about 6-8 top players fighting over their spots instead of just 2.

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I wish ya the best of luck Zage in getting a 1st/2nd placement in any songs of the tournament, I'd really laugh my ass off for someone outside the US getting placed, even if its just to highlight how stupid a restriction it is when considering the game is played World Wide.

EDIT to clarify: I don't mind that the restriction for tournaments is US only as I understand this is for legal reasons, my problem is the fact that by doing this for the tournaments, it seems to me like Harmonix is saying we can only accomodate this change for x% of our player base and if your not in said x% then its your own tough luck, just deal with it.

I dabble a bit in conspiracy so I'll lay out what I think is truly at work here.

Its a test. Harmonix is testing us.
They are trying to string people along. They are likely testing the waters by poking the community to see how they respond as well as where the community is in terms of scope and awareness.

Very early on in the thread they pretty much admitted to using us for data anyway.

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Originally Posted by hmxhenry

3) Keep playing. If you don't think this was an effective change, you can help by showing us. Keep playing and we can track power up use, scores, leaderboard progress, etc. Having more data to work with will help us make a more informed decision about how to handle this in the future.

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I just find it odd that Harmonix is coming up with baseless reasons for the decision to nerf flame notes and really dodging the issue by giving nonsensical solutions as if they are honestly trying to have a brainstorming session with the vocal forum minority. They contradict themselves with every post.

I'm thinking this is tied to something bigger than just the tournaments, although it was also taken into consideration. Its a matter of gauging interest in their games. This decision was a test to see how many people would come out of the woodwork to come on here and complain. They are tracking the traffic of score posts as well. They know if there has been a dip in players because of the change. They collect data on everything.

And since they now have a game that gets more data than any other. as well as the ability to pull strings by changing point values without the need of a patch. to see a very visual and direct cause and effect chain makes me conclude it was all a test. The longer they withhold from reverting flame notes back, the better picture it paints in the data.

My theory is that flame notes will revert back.
If its once tournaments conclude in March like they say; it will likely come with an announcement of some kind. Maybe even a teaser for their next project they are working on. All in efforts of reeling you back in.

If its sooner than that. Then they are truly concerned of their diminishing fanbase as well as customer relations and how it will carry onto their future projects and DLC support.

So they are walking a line here and are waiting it out for more concrete data from us before making a decision either way. they must of igured we have no right to complain because they are running a tournament with prizes and freebies.

And I have a strong feeling many of the people that participated in this thread complaining will receive a free dlc voucher from the tournament as a "random" pick so long as they actually participate of course. Because they know you are bummed and ticked so they are trying to coax you down to a soft landing to be back on their side. A bribe of sorts.

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Originally Posted by hmxhenry

We're not looking to "keep things quiet", as should be evidenced by the fact that thread remains open and we've continued to engage over the last several weeks, but we are trying to keep the rest of the forums organized. If you've got an issue with a moderation call, please either PM the dev / mod directly or report the post with your comments, as that's much more effective than posting a complaint in the middle of another thread where we may not get that feedback.

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I apologise if I came across in an unfortunate way. I know that Harmonix are one of the very best developers there have ever been for supporting their user base.

I merely wished to see if there had been an update after 2 weeks without wading thru a load of virtually identical posts.

My frustration stems from finding a game that I really really like (a rare thing), spending A LOT of money on that game - far more than 99.9% of your users I should think, and then finding it completely ruined for me overnight for no good reason. I'm not an elite player, I try to get into the top 1-5 % of every song and was 12th on career score. I am not interested in using pinball to get competitive scores so there is no reason for me to play or purchase more songs until something is finalised. I am also outside of the USA and can't even enter these tournaments.

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Originally Posted by zage1337

I don't think anyone could have "easily" destroyed ketchupyoshi's Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me score with original flames.

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Before the nerf I had the second highest score on this song with 553,195. I used Jackpot/Flame. I played the song enough to know there wasn't much higher I could have got. It took a great run of flames just to get that score. The kid above me had 679,686. I always believed he used a different loadout to beat my score as I couldn't get close to it using Jackpot/Flame.

Than when they had the song in the tournament Ketchup destroyed my score getting 635,725. We all know what he uses. And I would have considered Don't let the sun go Down a great Jackpot/Flame song. But it obviously got destroyed by a couple of good pinball runs.

If anything pinball was unbeatable before the nerf and now nothing can touch pinball.

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Originally Posted by MaximusDM

I dabble a bit in conspiracy so I'll lay out what I think is truly at work here.

Its a test. Harmonix is testing us.
They are trying to string people along. They are likely testing the waters by poking the community to see how they respond as well as where the community is in terms of scope and awareness.

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You might be right but I have always believed this was a legal thing. Proven more by the fact that they said they would revisit it down the road.

Whenever companies go down the road of giving out prizes they open the door to plenty of legal issues. I am sure they were told by their lawyers that they should not give out prizes if those prizes could be won using a potential "exploit."

And even if there is no legal issues there is certainly enough there to cause a controversy. Look the mess 2k got in to with their Million Dollar perfect game challenge for mlb2k12. It was proven that many of their finalist to win a million bucks had cheated. It was a mess for 2k. I am sure for Harmonix it was easier to make a bunch of people angry about a nerf than have a tournament they run be accused of rewarding those who are cheating by a bunch of websites, blogs, and media.

Gotta love how Zage was crying bloody murder when Magnet first revealed how he played now he's boasting that he and Magnet are the top two. Anyway Zage brings a valid point: his strategy is unaffected and nothing can really touch it now. So basically top scores are only attainable by having a small seizure on your controller.

I doubt Harmonix will let it fly for long.

For a move that was supposedly to bring more people into the tournament, seeing the top scores (probably) all be pinball and me not being able to even come halfway to that score on Charlene just made me give up after a few tries on that and Shout.

I have no room to talk as my scores using them aren't anything good, but Flames really were the best show of skill in the game. Pinball doesn't really have anything to DO with actually playing the song. Just hit the ball, do correct Synchs, and button mash your way to happiness (kudos to those who can do all that juggling and not actually button mash though).

The tournament might have better if there were restrictions on the power-ups chosen and just outright ban pinball and flame notes from it. Better yet, to show real equal test of skill, force a specific set of power-ups on a song, like only using point doubler and no purple notes for a 'classic' RB contest.