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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[GNFfhqwhgads]

There's little fun in bright, arcade gameplay with non-random aspects. Finding optimal paths would be boring, and ruin all the enjoyment of seeing Pope get tossed out of first place on Always by someone managing another 80k on top of his score that has stood since pre-launch.

[Lowlander2]

The note powerups are not completely random. They are seemingly based on a formula which will dictate how often it shows up, and this actually varies between powerups as well. There really was no other way to do it, it works more than it doesn't, and if the formula messes up, it's probably not going to make a difference of more than 10,000 points, which is nothing in any song that goes over 4 minutes.

So no. Skill still prevails.

[xzeldax3]

I'm playing Rock Band

No, you are playing Rock Band Blitz.

[jibjqrkl]

so i did a score war the other day

the other person started, put a score down. which i beat with about 60.000 in 1 try
next day, i see he beat me again, he has 5.000 points more. it took him 20 tries.

i play it once more, and beat his score by 20.000.



so what you are saying that in 1 run, i simply got "luckier" than any of his 20 runs, and that that has nothing to do with skill?

[RyRobo]

I think the purple notes can make a world of difference much larger than 10,000 points, especially since getting blast notes during a unison bonus late in the game has topped my overdrive to max on some runs and with jackpot that's utterly game changing.

I agree this isn't ideal for purple notes, but I don't really see any alternative they could have had. Perhaps they could have removed the random chance from the formula, I dunno, and I agree that randomness doesn't have a place in Rock Band but I just don't really see the alternatives. They've not been placing purple notes in the charts so how else are they expected to do it? I can't think of a single cue that's in the DLC files that Harmonix could go off. Perhaps drum fills, but then I can't help but think they'd be way too predictable.

I agree it's not ideal, but the game is much more fun with purple notes and these powerups being random are a small (And necessary) price to pay for the extra fun they add. I can't see a better alternative, and Blitz (As of current) does rate on skill a whole bunch more than luck. It could be a problem in the future going for top 50 places, but you not topping the leaderboards isn't right now because of purple notes. Trust me.