What Happened to Flame Notes In Rockband Blitz?????

[DaLynxEffect]

just get over it that flame notes were OP and had to be toned down especially since the exploit or stay offended for a few weeks until you realize how utterly addictive this game is and why you've played it for so long

You are missing the point completely. The leaderboards are now worthless in a game that is 100% about leaderboards.

You CANNOT invoke a nerf that renders scores unbeatable.

[HeyRiles]

Yes you can, and if you've ever played any racing game, it's been done

[DaLynxEffect]

Replace CANNOT with SHOULDN'T then!

[Mircosoft93]

You are missing the point completely. The leaderboards are now worthless in a game that is 100% about leaderboards.

You CANNOT invoke a nerf that renders scores unbeatable.

HMXshill hinted that the leaderboards will be reset, unfortunate for lots of us but better than it is now

[Epsilon82]

first off: thanks HMXshill for your detailed statement, I'm the 1% thats happy about the nerf



why did this nerf happen? Because of an exploit. I can't believe ppl still arguing about some discussion that has ended weeks ago. If your good at juggling between two lanes it will still reward you with some more points instead of those crazy 1.3 mil-points-on-Bang Your Head-scores who stand in no relation to your skill

You have to be kidding me if you think that people who can juggle between two lanes virtually simultaneously, playing every note in each lane without button mashing has no relation to skill. The problem wasn't the value of the flame notes themselves. It was a combination of the fact that there's no penalty for button mashing along with the fact that flame notes can spread indefinitely. Now, there were four things Harmonix could have done to address this problem.

1) Alter the timing windows so playing notes in two lanes simultaneously is impossible.

2) Change the way flame notes spread so that the pattern doesn't result in infinite flame spawns, or cap the total number of successive flames that can spawn in one "chain."

3) Mitigate the button mashing problem by dramatically buffing the points given from Blitz mode, which would also encourage clean play in general.

4) Nerf Flame Notes into oblivion, inadvertently destroying the entire risk/reward balance of the powerups in general.

The first two options were probably not feasible at all, because they would almost certainly have required a software patch and a lot more testing than they probably have the resources or desire to do.

The second two options were things they could do from the server side (unless there's some quirk in the system that makes Blitz mode a hard-coded value in the software, but that would be highly inconsistent with everything else we've seen them adjust.) Instead of doing the one that would preserve the competitive integrity of the game (option 3), they chose option 4. I would just like a compelling explanation beyond some ridiculous notion that killing off Flame Notes will somehow make the tournaments more competitive, or anything other than half-assed Breakout contests with Pinball and Sync.

just get over it that flame notes were OP and had to be toned down especially since the exploit or stay offended for a few weeks until you realize how utterly addictive this game is and why you've played it for so long

Just out of curiosity, what powerup combos did you normally use before this nerf? I can tell you one thing for sure, if you took the time to get skilled at Jackpot/Flame, or even Bandmate/Flame, going back to noob combos like RR/BN would be like being forced to play RB3 on Medium after you've spent ages playing on Expert. It's just not even the same game.

[zage1337]

If the leaderboards are reset, then what is the damn point in playing this game? Eventually people will start complaining about blast notes being overpowered or lucky pinball runs destroying everything. Are you going to nerf those and reset the leaderboards again? What is the damn point in score chasing when you are going to constantly change the leaderboards and rules of the game. You can't do that. Not without pissing your customers off and that's exactly what they are doing.

You see how silly this whole thing is? The game was fine and no one was really abusing band/flame to the extreme. 1 or 2 players getting crazy outlier scores is much better than having balance and skill gameplay removed entirely. I was able to beat a wide variety of flame users with combos that did not involve flame notes, and game imbalance is important.

RoadRage/Blast is a FOO strategy. Which is it will give you decent scores for almost very little skill demanded. It's great if you want to GS songs and if you are new to the game and don't want to have horrible 4* scores on everything. That's the purpose of strategies that involve Point Doubler and RR/BN. They are safe and fun strategies to get decent scores without much risk, however they will not be the best and if you want to take it to the next level, that's when you have to stop using Automatic and learn Manual. And once RR/BN scores prove ineffective to how high you want to go, that's when it's time to learn harder but more effective strategies such as jackpot/blast then eventually jackpot/flame. I went from RR/BN for the first few weeks, then evolved to jack/blast, then jack/flame and I recently started getting good at band/flame but I can no longer continue improving my jack/flame and band/flame skill because of this silly move HMX did. It's sad that my good jack/flame runs are giving me lower scores than what I was getting within the 1st week of getting the game.


Having Blast Notes be the best powerup is not wise either. This will just end up having people reset the song several times in order to get blast notes to spawn on a tricky checkpoint or in overdrive segments which makes a huge difference in score and has nothing to do with skill. It's 100% luck. Nuking flame notes just nuked most of the skill in this game.

[Epsilon82]

If the leaderboards are reset, then what is the damn point in playing this game? Eventually people will start complaining about blast notes being overpowered or lucky pinball runs destroying everything. Are you going to nerf those and reset the leaderboards again? What is the damn point in score chasing when you are going to constantly change the leaderboards and rules of the game. You can't do that. Not without pissing your customers off and that's exactly what they are doing.

You see how silly this whole thing is? The game was fine and no one was really abusing band/flame to the extreme. 1 or 2 players getting crazy outlier scores is much better than having balance and skill gameplay removed entirely. I was able to beat a wide variety of flame users with combos that did not involve flame notes, and game imbalance is important.

RoadRage/Blast is a FOO strategy. Which is it will give you decent scores for almost very little skill demanded. It's great if you want to GS songs and if you are new to the game and don't want to have horrible 4* scores on everything. That's the purpose of strategies that involve Point Doubler and RR/BN. They are safe and fun strategies to get decent scores without much risk, however they will not be the best and if you want to take it to the next level, that's when you have to stop using Automatic and learn Manual. And once RR/BN scores prove ineffective to how high you want to go, that's when it's time to learn harder but more effective strategies such as jackpot/blast then eventually jackpot/flame. I went from RR/BN for the first few weeks, then evolved to jack/blast, then jack/flame and I recently started getting good at band/flame but I can no longer continue improving my jack/flame and band/flame skill because of this silly move HMX did. It's sad that my good jack/flame runs are giving me lower scores than what I was getting within the 1st week of getting the game.


Having Blast Notes be the best powerup is not wise either. This will just end up having people reset the song several times in order to get blast notes to spawn on a tricky checkpoint or in overdrive segments which makes a huge difference in score and has nothing to do with skill. It's 100% luck. Nuking flame notes just nuked most of the skill in this game.

This. A thousand times this.

[Mircosoft93]

I never said it is the best solution, but it's definitely one that improves the game

Just out of curiosity, what powerup combos did you normally use before this nerf? I can tell you one thing for sure, if you took the time to get skilled at Jackpot/Flame, or even Bandmate/Flame, going back to noob combos like RR/BN would be like being forced to play RB3 on Medium after you've spent ages playing on Expert. It's just not even the same game.

I used jack/flame almost every time because I know that I'd get a top 10-score with that combo first try. It's definitely fun and rewarding, but there is a point where you can't improve by a lot anymore.

I might get used to pin/sync or try out the underestimated bottle rockets, jack/blast still requires skill although not as much as jack/flame. Way more variety than before

...

Looking at this discussion you can't say ppl don't care for this game which is a good thing, right?

Originally posted by zage1337
It's 100% luck.

randomly spawning flame notes are skill then, aren't they?

[metalkorn]

You are missing the point completely. The leaderboards are now worthless in a game that is 100% about leaderboards.

I guess score wars and RB World Challenges aren't a reason to play then? They are the main reason i play.

[Epsilon82]

I never said it is the best solution, but it's definitely one that improves the game



I used jack/flame almost every time because I know that I'd get a top 10-score with that combo first try. It's definitely fun and rewarding, but there is a point where you can't improve by a lot anymore.

I might get used to pin/sync or try out the underestimated bottle rockets, jack/blast still requires skill although not as much as jack/flame. Way more variety than before

...

Looking at this discussion you can't say ppl don't care for this game which is a good thing, right?




randomly spawning flame notes are skill then, aren't they?

There will always be a point where you can't improve a lot any more in any game of this nature. That's not a reason to completely destroy the most logical high-scoring combo in the game when considering the quotient of skill required for effective use.

And you better get used to Pinball/Sync, because it's pretty obvious that these tournaments are just going to devolve into who has the best/luckiest run with that. Pinball shouldn't even be in the game, IMO, because it's completely divorced from anything remotely related to interacting with the music. It's a funny little novelty but the notion that it now is probably the most practical route to a high score in a beatmatch rhythm game is ludicrous beyond belief. If they're going to nerf Flames like this (which in 99% of use cases were a completely legitimate part of the game), they'd better nerf the utter crap out of Pinball, because it's a skill that has nothing to do with interacting with music.

Also, I don't think Zage intended for that 100% luck comment to be taken literally. Of course there is always a baked-in element of luck involved in the game to a certain extent. Sometimes my Jack/Flame runs will be better or worse based on where flames happen to spread during an activation. That's part of what keeps it fresh; otherwise, it would devolve into a simple pattern memorization exercise. But the key fundamental point he's making is that it's completely wrong for a combo like Road Rage or Bottle Rockets with Blast Notes to be more prolific than even an expertly executed Jackpot/Flame run. I don't see how anyone can argue against that, unless they literally have no interest in separating skilled players from novices, which is completely contrary to the entire notion of a competitive scoring game.

EDIT: Also, if Harmonix is concerned about keeping Tournaments competitive, why not just implement some kind of system that disallows certain powerups for that particular tournament? Or do some number crunching to determine levels of eligibility so there could be Novice/Mid-Range/Expert tiers for each Tournament? All of these suggestions would be infinitely better than what they've done.

If you skin your knee and are worried about it getting infected, there are a range of possible solutions. You can pour hydrogen peroxide on it and bandage it up. Or you could drink a bottle of Scotch, bite on a towel, and chop your leg off with an axe, Walking Dead-style. Those are not equally valid solutions. Harmonix essentially chopped Flames completely out of the game.