Oh, they cared, and they tried, but it didn't work out like they intended. And now Harmonix is moving on from Rock Band so it's not a problem they are going to put any effort into fixing at this point. Disappointing, sure, but these things happen. Obviously the job of balancing the power-ups is not as simple as it appears. It was unbalanced before (Flame Notes) and it's unbalanced now (Pinball).

I keep trying for the random participation prizes but haven't gotten lucky yet.

Well, there's a bit wrong with that, I think. The problem is that since our arguments and counter-arguments were laid out, there hasn't been any response on them. I also believe they've gone on record as saying that changing values is a very brief process. I think Zage put it best in the other Pinball topic:

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Originally Posted by zage1337

If you honestly cared about the tournaments being balanced you would shut down RB Central right now and change that value back to 1,500 for flame notes then boot it back up. Seeing how these tournaments have been going on for 2 months now and every win used the same powerup and playstyle for every song, it's clear that you guys really don't care about the tournaments being balanced. Otherwise you would have realized the mistake you've guys made and attempt to correct that mistake.

Pinball would crush flame notes on many songs and vice versa. There so flame players and pinball players would each have their shot at winning their song. What you did was give flame players the giant finger.

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If they switched back to the way it was before, then many of the high scores that were made using the current scores would no longer be attainable, and that would "ruin the game" for many people.

You mean just unnerfing Flame Notes? Wouldn't that be the other way around, with unattainable scores being in the past? The only thing that would ruin the leaderboards now is nerfing Pinball.

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Originally Posted by grace_pressure

You mean just unnerfing Flame Notes? Wouldn't that be the other way around, with unattainable scores being in the past? The only thing that would ruin the leaderboards now is nerfing Pinball.

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If they just change flame notes than the game won't be further tarnished. Flame note enthusiasts will be able to hit their scores and possibly compete with the pinballers.

Oh, so pinball was never increased in power, it's just that it became relatively awesome when flame notes were nerfed? And that was the only change that was ever made (after the first week or so)? Just making sure I've got the details right.

Pinball was buffed during the first rebalancing of power-ups (unclear on the specifics), and then flame notes was brutally nerfed before the tournaments as a solution to potential abuse (Bandmate and hitting all notes in two other lanes).

(Edit: Whether or not it's abuse was debatable.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by grace_pressure

Pinball was buffed during the first rebalancing of power-ups (unclear on the specifics), and then flame notes was brutally nerfed before the tournaments as a solution to potential abuse (Bandmate and hitting all notes in two other lanes).

(Edit: Whether or not it's abuse was debatable.)

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It was buffed, it speeds up slower, allowing for it to be kept in play longer.

Haha, what's funny is the speed change might be considered a nerf, now that people are wicked good at it, which was possibly demonstrated in the one day last week it was bugged to speed up fast (see the pinball thread), when at least I was able to get some higher scores. Was it just made slower, or were there any point tweakings?

The Pinball Tournament will end in about 3 hours. I am greatly looking forward to hear about the powerup re balancing from HMX tomorrow. I'm pretty much completely burnt out of Pinball and would love to use flame notes competitively again.