Bottom Line - If You Want to Have the Top Score in Blitz, Become Lucky

[uppyb0t]

There is no way to master this game in its current state. That seems a bit anti-leaderboard.

There are randomly placed power-ups, that react randomly and can completely rock your score or give you nothing useful.

I've played a song twice. The first time I got a pretty decent score, though I messed up quite a bit.
I tried the song again, and did much better and kept my routine standardized, so that I could improve upon what I had learned. Strangely enough I scored less while doing better and using my controllable power-ups in the same areas.

What happens is the middle powerups are so random that they can either make you or break you or just do nothing at all to help.

This makes beating top scores or even your old score just a roll of the die. Who the hell wants to base skill off of luck?

That's like saying you're a good poker player. You have absolutely no control over the cards, the only thing you can control is how much you lead on and your betting.

So you're a good bluffer or know how to read people. There's no such thing as being good at the game itself, because it is completely random. And even with these talents you can still lose if it isn't in the cards.

I'm playing Rock Band, not DnD or cards. Random no so enticing here. Especially when going for Gold or top scores.

[atalkingfish]

That's like saying you're a good poker player.

You don't play a lot of poker, do you?

[uppyb0t]

Let's just say that you can be the best and still lose on chance. Not my cup of tea. I'm not a gambler. Casinos aren't built on winners.

[cinnfull]

Let's just say that you can be the best and still lose on chance. Not my cup of tea. I'm not a gambler. Casinos aren't built on winners.

Your poker analogy is bogus. Poker is a game of skill. The house has no action in the game. The house collects "rake" and doesn't care who wins or loses.

Hell, even a federal judge agrees that poker is a game of skill.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/enter...ng-judge-rules

[uppyb0t]

No, not really. I like playing games that aren't random.

I like games that require more intelligent challenges or require quick action and logic.

You could play poker with dice if you wanted to and depending on the person's reaction you could take a stab at it. Tons of games require this talent and are far more entertaining.

I do win at poker, because I'm very hard to read and am very unpredictable. I have won with the lowest cards at times, but in the end I'm not having much fun.

[CloudWolf]

No, not really. I like playing games that aren't random.

Poker isn't random. Sure, the cards you get are semi-random, but the way you use them is based entirely on skill and deception. Hell, the best poker players can even effectively predict what kind of cards they're getting next by calculating the chances of a certain card appearing.

Rock Band Blitz kinda works the same. The placement of the purple notes and OD is semi-random, but whether you get a high score completely depends on how you use the power-ups.

[Odin Force]

So a shooter shouldn't have leaderboards because you can respawn at random locations?

[JQTNguyen]

So a shooter shouldn't have leaderboards because you can respawn at random locations?

Yeah, that's totally all luck as well. /sarcasm

@OP: There's an element of "luck" based on when Purple Notes appear for you, but the game isn't entirely luck based. Note placement is constant, Overdrive allocation is static, and so are the bonuses from the Track Power Ups that you select. That being the case, it's really only the appearance of Purple Notes and your ability to react to them that's the major variant between players. That's under the assumption that all other things remain equal. You could certainly have a "very lucky" run on a song and I could find a Power Up combination that works out better and totally obliterate your score.

tl;dr: While some of the higher leaderboard scores surely had some luck with Purple Power Ups, no leaderboard score was acquired through luck alone.

[Magnet]

What's the alternative? Hand-placing note power-ups for nearly 4,000 songs doesn't seem feasible. Removing them would make the core gameplay quite a bit less interesting.

I don't think this game needs to be 100% skill-based. Not every game does. I like replaying songs and having a somewhat different experience each time. It keeps things interesting in my book.

[LuigiHann]

What's the alternative? Hand-placing note power-ups for nearly 4,000 songs doesn't seem feasible. Removing them would make the core gameplay quite a bit less interesting.

It's completely possible to "seed" the generation of a "random" number in a way that, when the seed is reused, the same number occurs. So it would be possible to seed the powerup note placement based on some concrete variable pulled from the song data so that they're effectively random yet still consistent each time the song is played, across all players.

Not saying that they should have done it that way, but it would be feasible. And with so many variables in terms of powerup selection and track jumping, every playthrough could still be different even if the chart was set in stone.