Rocksmith discussion thread - New real guitar game.

[Ryder35]

I don't think it does work as designed because it should indicate clearly the first note of the arpeggio and it does not, meaning there is no real way to tell what to play other than trial and error?

[mikeyts]

I don't think it does work as designed because it should indicate clearly the first note of the arpeggio and it does not, meaning there is no real way to tell what to play other than trial and error?

It looks as though it's something that they've acknowledged as a problem which might be addressed in a patch--see this.

[tnevaker]

Better than RS's not having any notation to denote when you should be doing an arpeggio or what the arpeggio is.

i haven't played RS yet, but my disappointment with RS's notation system as a whole has been well noted in this thread. i would imagine arpeggios in RS notation would be pretty chaotic and confusing-looking.

So it works as designed, but you don't like the design. Not something you can expect to be patched, unless HMX comes to agree with you. The only thing in your list that's an actual bug is the XMB crash.

i guess, if the design was intended to force you to guess the first note of every arpeggio. actually, i think it was "designed" to work that way with chord numbering off, where the player is supposed to play based on the shape of the wave thingy, but with chord numbering on it should show you the actual numbers of the notes on every chord, and it doesn't. so i think it was overlooked when they put chord numbering in, which we know from elsewhere was kind of a last minute addition.

also, who said it has to be a "bug" to be fixed in a patch? from the description of this RS patch, it sounds like a lot of the updates are not bugs either, like the number of lives in the riff repeater or the clunky menus.

[mikeyts]

also, who said it has to be a "bug" to be fixed in a patch? from the description of this RS patch, it sounds like a lot of the updates are not bugs either, like the number of lives in the riff repeater or the clunky menus.

Certainly I didn't say it. I do think that you can only have strong expectation of a patch containing changes for bugs. Even RB has had changes in patches for things which they decided should work differently, like the everybody-must-have-the-pro-guitar-chart-to-play-a-song-in-an-online-band-with-a-pro-guitar-player change (actually, I think that they changed it so that if anyone has the pro guitar chart for a song everyone has to have it, whether anyone is playing pro guitar/bass or not, which was goofy).

Every patch they make has a risk of breaking other working features, so the likelihood of patching something decreases as time goes on. Patches to add or alter current features become very unlikely. RS is 3 months old and RB3 is 15 months.

[tnevaker]

well, whether it's a bug or a design choice is just semantic. bottom line is, it makes pro guitar songs with arpeggios much more difficult and less fun to play. i seriously dread playing songs with arpeggios in RB because of it. i mean, go look at this video, about 1 minute in, the F6 chord, and tell me what note you think you're supposed to play there. yeah, if you pause it (something you can't do in RB and still see the chart, but that's another "bug/design choice" we don't have to get into) you might notice that the little bar over the open G string is highlighted... but try figuring that out at full-speed, or even at 60% speed in the trainer, when you're brain automatically registers the "1" on the low E string and wants to play that instead. everything in RB conditions you to play what you see on the chart, and then you get that thrown at you, and i don't think anyone can see that and go through the process of deciphering the chord shape (especially one like this, that involves a chord shape mixed with open strings) and then picking out the string that's highlighted and still have time to form the chord and pick the right note all in real time. i love the smiths, they are one of my favorite band, and yet i avoid that song just because of how wonky that section is with the arpeggio notation. to me, that one thing really ruins the playing experience on a lot of songs.

but i know it will probably never get patched at this point, so i'm resigned to it. i just hope if there is an RB4 at some point, and if it still has pro guitar, they will fix it then.

[Ryder35]

Actually I find RS charts much more intuitive than rb in general even though I thought they would be worse when I looked at videos prior to release. Mainly because you are not having to mentally rotate the chart 90 degrees. If a note is to the right on screen you move your hand to the right. However the way arpeggios are dealt with is worse than rb because you have to really try hard to work out the chord shape you have to make by looking at the little boxes on the fretboard overlay. If they gave you the chord name it would help.

[mikeyts]

well, whether it's a bug or a design choice is just semantic.

I suppose that's true if your viewpoint is relative to your personal experience. But a bug is something that doesn't work the way that its supposed to (whether people like it or not and I've seen many "bugs" that users enjoy ). A design choice that you don't like is just a difference of opinion with the designers. If enough users don't like it, a case develops for changing it, but doesn't turn it into a bug, just a poorly designed feature. IMHO, RS is far more riddled with poor design choices than RB. It is, in fact, one of the very worse designed and frustrating software UIs that I've ever used--in the bottom 5 for sure. And yet, as long as what it does is what they intended for it to do, the plethora of its features that I don't like can't be called "bugs".

[tnevaker]

I suppose that's true if your viewpoint is relative to your personal experience. But a bug is something that doesn't work the way that its supposed to (whether people like it or not and I've seen many "bugs" that users enjoy ). A design choice that you don't like is just a difference of opinion with the designers. If enough users don't like it, a case develops for changing it, but doesn't turn it into a bug, just a poorly designed feature. IMHO, RS is far more riddled with poor design choices than RB. It is, in fact, one of the very worse designed and frustrating software UIs that I've ever used--in the bottom 5 for sure. And yet, as long as what it does is what they intended for it to do, the plethora of its features that I don't like can't be called "bugs".

right, i meant subjective, not semantic. that is, while some are obviously one or the other, some are kind of borderline and you can't tell whether they are intentional or not unless you were part of the design team, so it's just a guess whether it's a bug or a choice. i think the RB arpeggio notation is an example of one that could be either/or, in my opinion it seems more like a bug (unintentional) though.

haven't played RS, but at least from a UI perspective it definitely sounds more poorly designed than RB. i totally agree that the notation system was a poor design choice. on the other hand, i'd also say that HMX's decision to go with a custom-built, expensive guitar like the squier, instead of a more universal technology like RS, for pro mode was a pretty poor design choice on their part.

[toymachineSH]

You should actually play Rocksmith before you comment on the UI. It's one of those hands on type dealy-o's

[raynebc]

So it works as designed, but you don't like the design.

I don't use chord numbering, but I agree that it is a bug. Not all bugs are crashes, some of them are incorrect program behavior or not fully implementing a feature in all places where appropriate. That Twitter post also indicates Harmonix considers it a mistake, along with the most/all players that use the chord numbering feature.