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

[Cipher_Peon]

I want to put in my 2 cents and say that I disagree with the decision and feel like Lowlander is correct. However, I wouldn't say that it ruins the game for me, but I do feel that making previous leaderboard scores impossible to obtain/beat is quite bothersome. Besides that, there's not much I want to say that hasn't been said already, except for

In this thread: the 1% complaining about changes that benefit the 99%. Since we're all geeks here, I'll quote Spock too: "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." And if HMX is going to stage a tournament, they're going to aim for maximum participation: score and powerup parity. In this case, the powerup that got nerfed was the bud that needed to be nipped.

I just had to stop and say you are one very self righteous and arrogant person.

[hmxhenry]

It absolutely takes into account a disconnect in skill level. Regardless, the reason why most people weren't picking up more than 4 stars in the beginning was because all the power ups were locked and they had to get over this coin system hump of purchasing load outs.

So not to get sidetracked into talking about that; Once players better learn the intricacies of the game and learn to make better educated decisions on power-up load outs, gold stars come rather easy.

I think that was the point that Pope was making, that most players don't ever get to that point. It's similar to the core RB experience where, even now, almost 6 years into the franchise, the vast majority of people still play on Medium.

[SheSaidSheSaid]

It's similar to the core RB experience where, even now, almost 6 years into the franchise, the vast majority of people still play on Medium.

Hunh. Interesting to know that that's still the case.

[metalkorn]

Hunh. Interesting to know that that's still the case.

I know I still play medium guitar and such, some hard. To me missing and fumbling was never much fun and I cared more about having fun then mastering the game. My focus is on vocals though on expert.

[Epsilon82]

I think that was the point that Pope was making, that most players don't ever get to that point. It's similar to the core RB experience where, even now, almost 6 years into the franchise, the vast majority of people still play on Medium.

If that's the case, then how exactly does nerfing Flame Notes accomplish anything of note with respect to the Tournaments? The people who are struggling to get Gold Stars on songs in Blitz know that they have no prayer of competing for high scores in the Tournaments no matter what powerups have the highest scoring potential.

Again, I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how effectively taking Flame Notes out of the game (and make no mistake, using Flames under the current circumstances makes sense only if you care absolutely nothing about scoring of any kind) does anything to encourage players who can't even get Gold Stars to compete in Tournaments.

Who are these players that play Blitz at such a casual level, never scoring anywhere near the top of the leaderboards, that are sitting there saying, "Boy, I would suddenly compete in Tournaments if it weren't for the fact that some people can get really high scores with Flame Notes. If it weren't for Flame Notes, I'd be able to do really well all of a sudden, for reasons that have no logical basis!"

I'm not trying to be a wiseass...I just genuinely don't understand the logic here at all, especially since it's patently obvious even in the nascent stages of this change that the only remotely competitive powerup combo now is Pinball/Sync. I can't possibly fathom how anyone with even a basic understanding of the mechanics of the game could think that killing off Flame Notes in order to force high-level play virtually exclusively to Pinball would make Tournaments more inviting to the average player.

Again, I can understand the theory behind wanting to encourage diversity in powerup selection. I just don't see how utterly destroying the utility of all powerup combos that included Flames, leaving only a single plausible high-scoring one remaining, does anything to further that goal. Especially when that remaining combo requires even more razor-sharp reflexes and technical ability than using Flames ever did.

To say on one hand, "We have to kill off high-level play (except for Pinball) to get more people to play in Tournaments," and then on the other "Eh...most people can't even get Gold Stars so they have no prayer of placing high in Tournaments anyway," leaves me wondering: what exactly was the point of any of this?

[MaximusDM]

I was going to post something similar to Epsilon82. They are trying to give merit to something that really has no basis.

The casual player that isn't getting gold stars probably has no idea flame notes were even nerfed. Casual player probably isn't even linked up to the facebook or visits this forum and has no idea the tournament even exists.

The real motive was that there was a tournament coming and they saw the video of Magnet spamming button pushes to achieve great success. It was a genuine problem. They handled it wrong and are trying to pull more reasons out of thin air for this botched nerf job that should of never happened.

Whether or not they are willing to admit it.

They knew high scores would just be handed over to the next best power up which is pinball which is technically better if you are able to juggle that thing past normal human means. They must of figured that juggling a pinball is easier than juggling 2 note highways so a broader spectrum people could stand a chance at coming out on top. When in reality, they don't. And they never did.

If you are willing to try to put more casual players up on a pedestal by trying to give more casual load outs better score turn outs in comparison to the rest. Then why would making a gold star easier to obtain worry you? I would be achieving the same exact result.

[pelemerengue]

Yeah, I'll go ahead and parrot the above two posts. How exactly does nerfing Flame notes encourage more people to participate in the tournaments? It doesn't make any sense. Having effectively eliminated the usefulness of several power-up loadouts, all that was accomplished is now a handful of elite players are dominating the tournament leaderboards using Pinball instead of Flame notes.

If this change was made for players who are only getting 4 or 5 stars on most songs, I don't think devaluing a power-up is really going to level the playing field at all. if anything, it just provides them with fewer avenues to a good score.

But all I really care about is this: it's personally not fun for me to play this game with Pinball. And with Flame notes nerfed, I don't see the point in using them, even though that's the play style I most enjoyed. Having already played almost all of my songs, the only reason I would replay them would be to compete for high scores, which is no longer fun for me.

I hope the value of Flame notes is restored after the tournaments. Otherwise... well, it's been fun.

[cowboys282]

The real motive was that there was a tournament coming and they saw the video of Magnet spamming button pushes to achieve great success. It was a genuine problem. They handled it wrong and are trying to pull more reasons out of thin air for this botched nerf job that should of never happened.

Whether or not they are willing to admit it.

They knew high scores would just be handed over to the next best power up which is pinball which is technically better if you are able to juggle that thing past normal human means. They must of figured that juggling a pinball is easier than juggling 2 note highways so a broader spectrum people could stand a chance at coming out on top. When in reality, they don't. And they never did.

If you are willing to try to put more casual players up on a pedestal by trying to give more casual load outs better score turn outs in comparison to the rest. Then why would making a gold star easier to obtain worry you? I would be achieving the same exact result.

And yet looking at the current tournament there is Magnet anyway 1st in two songs and 2nd in the other. The same exact people who were at the top before the Flame nerf are the same now. Just as myself and many others predicted.

So I will ask just like everyone else what was the point of nerfing Flame notes?

[zage1337]

Originally there were 4-5 dominating powerup sets.

Bandmate/Flame/Super
Jackpot/Flame/Super
Jackpot/Blast/Super
Bottle Rocket/Blast/Sync (i don't really use this one)
Bottle Rocket/Pinball/Sync (sometimes road rage but rarely)

all 5 of these combos had their place in achieving the top score on the leaderboards. They were significantly stronger than any other load out in the game despite being harder to use than a combo like road rage/blast/super. These combos all have their advantages and disadvantages and it was up to the competitive player to decide which of these load outs would be most effective on the song. I've used all these loadouts maybe with the exception of Bottle Rocket/Blast/Sync on nearly all of my 1st place scores.

However after the nerf I have greatly reduced my choices to

Jackpot/Blast/Super
Bottle Rocket/Pinball/Sync

and I use the Pinball Sync combo far more often. I probably use it 95% of the time now because the other high scoring strategies are now useless. The skill sets for accurately chasing flames around the track and not missing have been deemed worthless. The skill set for juggling flame notes on 2 tracks at once are now worthless.

I've also recently gained the ability to hit adjacent notes with some degree of consistency and the only use i have with that now is to gain additional overdrive and level up tough tracks which I don't really need all that often.

The good and addictive thing about this game was that, there were always multiple ways, choices, and strategies in achieving the goal you wanted to achieve. Whether it's a 5*, Gold Star, 1st place, cross plat 1st..etc

The only thing the nerf manged to do was eliminate 2 very valid and skillful strategies in obtaining high score and greatly reduce the variety, strategy, and fun in this game. Not to mention the slower and shorter songs where Band/Flame scores are off the charts and now are completely unobtainable.

If the nerf was for making the tournament more balanced..well here is a reality check for you. The top 2 scores on Shout are over 740k and I believe they were only 5 people ever who managed to log a score higher than the top score in the tournament by using flame notes. If flame notes were truly unbalanced do you think a lot more people would have scores on Shout that are above 750k? The top scores in the tourney are not any higher than what flame users would get. 1,500 per flame note was a lot more balanced then you might think it was.

[Supplenuts]

(first post)

I think the scoreboards should be reset, plain and simple. There are some scores that are *actually* impossible to beat now - having just ONE score that'd be impossible to beat should warrant a score reset, imo. You've completely changed the way the game is strategized, so clean it up accordingly.

That said, WHAT THE BALLS DID KETCHUPYOSHI DO TO DONT LET THE SUN GO DOWN ON ME?! I was happy with 4th place... until I saw that.