Majority, minority, I'm still trying to imagine any chunk of the population that would even hypothetically be in favor of reducing the point value of flame notes. I don't understand how it benefits anyone at all.

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Originally Posted by Bront20

Just to point out, again, that you're assuming you're in the majority. There is really little real evidence to say if you are or aren't.

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Let's clarify that statement with facts please. There is no evidence that I am in the minority. There is some evidence that shows I am in the large majority.

And any one who has played this game and understands what the game was built for (achieving high scores) would understandably be upset that the most popular loadout (Harmonix's words not mine) gets nerfed and is now useless.

So you can once again go with this failed argument that somewhere out there in the Rockband stratosphere there's this huge contingent of people dancing in the streets because the evil Flame notes have finally been nerfed.

But I will stick with my logic that in March when the tournament ends Flame notes will return to be worth 1500 because the game has seen a large population drop off starting on December 26th.

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Originally Posted by MaximusDM

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.

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Well, I played consistently for the first couple of months the game was out then stopped. I only came back becasue I saw "Tournament!" "Prizes!" and thought "ooohh, I was good at that game and really liked it! I should get back into it and try to win stuff...this will be fun!"

After finding out the most competitive elements were removed and high scores could now be had by casuals mashing pinball I complained in this thread and haven't played again. I keep checking this thread about every week to see if the game has been tweeked to be competitive again during the tournament period but am consistently disappointed. Sadly I'm starting to think I won't play this game again as I can't even get close to high scores I never got and have no desire to reclaim my high scores if the LBs are wiped. From what I've seen I'm not the only one with this experience. If this was all part of some sort of grand plan to get people back into the game, from my point of view, it was a complete failure.

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Originally Posted by cowboys282

Let's clarify that statement with facts please.

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Sounds good.

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Originally Posted by cowboys282

There is no evidence that I am in the minority. There is some evidence that shows I am in the large majority.

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K, where is it?

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Originally Posted by cowboys282

And any one who has played this game and understands what the game was built for (achieving high scores) would understandably be upset that the most popular loadout (Harmonix's words not mine) gets nerfed and is now useless.

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1) So, you're questioning the understanding of the game for anyone in this thread who agreed with the decision while 2) misquoting HMX, who said it was not very popular with most people. (Their quote was something about understand people being upset when their favorite loadout got hit or something to that effect).

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Originally Posted by cowboys282

So you can once again go with this failed argument that somewhere out there in the Rockband stratosphere there's this huge contingent of people dancing in the streets because the evil Flame notes have finally been nerfed.

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I never said there was. I just said you can't assume you're in the majority either. There's no real evidence of this. Forum outcry is from the few, and even then, people upset by this are more likely to be vocal than people who are unaffected or even for the change, so any use of the forum reaction is anecdotal at best.

So, where's your evidence you're in the majority?

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Originally Posted by cowboys282

But I will stick with my logic that in March when the tournament ends Flame notes will return to be worth 1500

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It might. Wouldn't surprise me, though I'd expect it to be closer to 1000 than 1500. We'll see.

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Originally Posted by cowboys282

because the game has seen a large population drop off starting on December 26th.

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Got proof that 1) This is happening and 2) it's due to the flame note change and not other issues (general game fatigue, the discovery of the flame/band timing window 'exploit', people being busy over the holidays, etc)?

You're welcome to your opinion. Present it as the majority and as the only correct one is what I object to (and pretty much why I've generally ignored your arguments in this thread).

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Originally Posted by Danger Boy

After finding out the most competitive elements were removed and high scores could now be had by casuals mashing pinball...

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I've tried using Pinball on a few 3-lane songs and I couldn't get gold stars that I could easily get with Blast Notes. I can't imagine Pinball on 5-lane songs being any easier for "casuals".

I've been mostly staying out of this because my weapons of choice are Road Rage and Blast Notes; I mostly used Flame Notes for slower songs and songs with a lot of solos/1-lane sections where Blast Notes wouldn't do anything. As I understand it, the main reason for the nerf was the track-switching exploit that completely took all the fun out of the game, and they didn't want to reward people who did that with actual physical prizes. Maybe they should have nerfed Pinball a bit as well, but at least that is working as intended. People have brought up powering up everything else, but the problem with that is that it's already way too easy to get gold stars, and they can't do anything about the base notes that would become pretty much useless.

Whatever happens, the leaderboards should stay, especially if they're the only record of personal high scores, particularly for people past the 1000-song limit. I like looking at the friend leaderboards when I finish a song, and it's mathematically impossible for most people to top the global leaderboards.

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Originally Posted by Bront20

Sounds good.

K, where is it?
1) So, you're questioning the understanding of the game for anyone in this thread who agreed with the decision while 2) misquoting HMX, who said it was not very popular with most people. (Their quote was something about understand people being upset when their favorite loadout got hit or something to that effect).
I never said there was. I just said you can't assume you're in the majority either. There's no real evidence of this. Forum outcry is from the few, and even then, people upset by this are more likely to be vocal than people who are unaffected or even for the change, so any use of the forum reaction is anecdotal at best.

So, where's your evidence you're in the majority?
It might. Wouldn't surprise me, though I'd expect it to be closer to 1000 than 1500. We'll see. Got proof that 1) This is happening and 2) it's due to the flame note change and not other issues (general game fatigue, the discovery of the flame/band timing window 'exploit', people being busy over the holidays, etc)?

You're welcome to your opinion. Present it as the majority and as the only correct one is what I object to (and pretty much why I've generally ignored your arguments in this thread).

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The evidence is in the 464 posts of this thread. You can keep discounting this as evidence but I hate to tell you but it is. We are up to about 80 unique users, the majority of them against this. I will say again we have no evidence to the contrary.

So yes a group of hardcore players posting on the forum might not be overwhelming evidence but it is something. There is no shred of evidence that anyone on here has seen that says anyone was for the nerf.

So with my little bit of evidence I have, and common sense, I am predicting that when the tournament ends Flame notes will be returned to 1500 in order to please the masses that were upset by the original decision. Once again this is my opinion based off of a little bit of evidence and common sense.

After all who would want to play a score based game when they cannot beat their own previous high scores?

But please unless you can prove to me that I am wrong this really isn't worth either of our time. The are about 70-80 people in this forum who are against the nerf. Until you can say you know of a bunch of people who are for it there really is no debate.

I will sum this up for you. Your position is based on no factual evidence what so ever. My position is based off the reaction of 70-80 forum users who posted their displeasure.

Hey Harmonix can come prove me wrong anytime they want. Let us know the unique visitors, and repeat visitors these last few weeks post nerf compared the the same time period pre nerf.

Launching tournaments with free prizes along with press on websites about the tournaments, and those who bought the game for Christmas, traffic should be at a record high. Right?

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Originally Posted by agentnnc

This guy, someone give him a medal. This is a solution I support.

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Ditto this. I entirely thought that the idea and concept built around tournaments was selection of songs where the only scores that would qualify for those tournaments were particular power up combos or restricted to particular power up loadouts or even Sophies' Choice related loadouts (you can pick two kinds of power ups to have a score register, but not all 3).

Instead we have the leaderboard scoring mechanic v.2, with less potential participants, a nerf on one item and still pulling your rivals on the meter from your friends list instead of pulling rivals from the tournament entry.

Dunno, not my game. Should be the community's game, but certainly feels like a lot is out of our control.

For a product that's bragged about as having all the benefits of the cloud and tweakable by the home office, it's appalling that the fanbase wasn't even consulted ahead of time; you don't have to do what we say because we totally can be wrong, but it's good to get our input since we, you know, spend hours a day playing it, probably surpassing the time QA dedicated to it pre-launch. By now, anyway.

You can't say that we've not been communicated with because there's far too many of us.

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Originally Posted by cowboys282

The evidence is in the 464 posts of this thread. You can keep discounting this as evidence but I hate to tell you but it is. We are up to about 80 unique users, the majority of them against this. I will say again we have no evidence to the contrary.

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Try counting the unique users who have specifically said "I am against this" or some variation of it. Not all 80 people have complained about it.

Beyond that, it's not a significant sample size for other reasons that have been mentioned before (not a good cross section of players, and folks upset are more likely to be vocal).

So yes a group of hardcore players posting on the forum might not be overwhelming evidence but it is something. There is no shred of evidence that anyone on here has seen that says anyone was for the nerf.

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Originally Posted by cowboys282

So with my little bit of evidence I have, and common sense...

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Your common sense is colored by your own personal wants and desires. There is very little about this entire situation where common sense applies.

Note, I've already said I don't disagree with you about the Flame Note point value changing.

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Originally Posted by cowboys282

But please unless you can prove to me that I am wrong this really isn't worth either of our time. The are about 70-80 people in this forum who are against the nerf. Until you can say you know of a bunch of people who are for it there really is no debate.

I will sum this up for you. Your position is based on no factual evidence what so ever. My position is based off the reaction of 70-80 forum users who posted their displeasure.

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My position in this particular arguement has been "You don't have enough evidence to say that the majority of players are upset by what happened". Honestly, I believe the majority of players are indifferent, but I have no proof, other than perhaps the fact that only 80 unique people have posted in this thread rather than several hundred, but even then, not everyone of those 80 are upset with the nerf either.

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Originally Posted by cowboys282

Launching tournaments with free prizes along with press on websites about the tournaments, and those who bought the game for Christmas, traffic should be at a record high. Right?

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Tournaments in which you had to either be following the forums or use the facebook app to even know were happening on a game over 3 months old that's not a disc based game, so not likely to be given a huge boost in Christmas sales (because people aren't being given the game specifically).

Of course, that's just speculation. No real facts here on either side as to why people may or may not be playing (or if the number of people playing has changed drastically one way or another).

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Originally Posted by cowboys282

Hey Harmonix can come prove me wrong anytime they want.

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Lack of proof you're wrong does not mean you're right. You're assuming you're in the majority, that the number of players has decreased specifically because of this issue, and that because of this, they'll restore the nerf after the tournament. Heck, you even say 70-80 people in this forum agains the nerf after saying there are 80 posters in this thread. Not everyone in this thread is against it, and I'm very sure it's not 7/8ths of all the posters in this thread.

Anyway, my point is that you're making several assumptions that you're right and therefore everyone agrees with you and therefore things will happen as you expect them to. Lots of assumptions leading to more assumptions there.

For what it's worth, I was against it at first, but now I'm kind of neutral. I'm at least in favour of it for the duration of the tournaments.

I'm also in agreement for the change while the tournament is running, but I also think it's vital that flame notes is returned to its former glory after this is all over.

I think most of the frustration from players now is because of the lack of communication for awhile. It'd be pretty much over if Harmonix came in here and said 'After the tournament we'll be returning this, don't worry' or 'We'll see statistics a few weeks after the tournament is finished and judge from there'. The few posts Harmonix have made have been insightful though, and it's more than most devs would have gone to, I think this is mostly separation anxiety we're seeing right now.

As a side note, the suggestion that future tournaments should have hand-picked power-ups is a very nice solution. Blitz is waaay too radical a game for the power-ups to ever really be balanced, and while initial worries might be 'But I want to play in my way!' I think we'd see a much more creative spread if there were multiple songs in these events with unusual power-up choices that wouldn't normally be considered for those tracks (Providing runs on the track were still satisfactory, of course). Sounds good to me!