Coin Economy Tweaks

[Meat-Popsicle]

Massively overestimating indeed. Sure, I'm not the most talented or obsessive member of the Rock Band community, but I have only ONE gold star song, total, at this point. I can give you 4 stars all day long though!

I also have a ridiculous number of coins from completing goals by playing in RB3. The coins were a nice idea that now have no meaning at all because HMX felt bad for the people that can't / won't start a Facebook account. I'm not saying that was the wrong decision for them to make, or that the coins were ever a seamlessly-integrated part of the challenge of the game, but they have become essentially pointless. Well, that's not quite true, they DO keep people from quitting a song in the middle a dozen or more times in an obsessive attempt to maximize a song score.

I have complete faith in Harmonix to come up with new and more organic-feeling elements to add complexity to their next rhythm game (or maybe even with tweaks / radical patches to this one, though I can't really imagine how at this point). And Blitz remains a very fun game.

[RyRobo]

If you're normally landing 4*'s and not struggling with coins I think the problem is just you don't play Blitz enough. What's wrong with you man!?

Yes, some players on these forums are capable of achieving gold stars consistently, but we're in the vast minority if you check the leaderboards. Look, it's 50 coins profit at this point. The only way Harmonix can make the coin system feel 'winnable' is if it's always possible to achieve a profit no matter how you play. This is about as tiny profit as it can get to, and it's out of the vast, vast majority of players reach.

I think an organic solution to coins is just more uses for them in the future, and I believe we'll see this. Coin numbers are manipulated all through their servers, and it makes me think we'll soon see uses for them on Rock Band World, or future Rock Band games.

I think they'd be best off, going forward, keep coins off the gameplay side of things and instead put them towards more cosmetic or creative uses. I'm not talking free DLC or whatever, but I'd like to see players being able to gamble them in competitions between other players, spending them on stuff to kit your band out or give your profile on the forums/Facebook stuff a unique look. I think this kind of stuff lends itself to the coin system a lot better. That seems like an organic solution that coin fans would enjoy to see, and I'm sure it's stuff Harmonix is already looking at.

[Meat-Popsicle]

If you're normally landing 4*'s and not struggling with coins I think the problem is just you don't play Blitz enough. What's wrong with you man!?

That's exactly what's going on ... when I played Blitz, I found myself thinking, "this song would be even more fun to play on a 5-button instrument, or on Pro Drums". And so I do - I've been playing even more RB3 than usual since Blitz came out. But yes, I've been playing Blitz too, just not enough to come close to mastering it, not yet. Being able to join goals with others (hooray!) will help drag me in a bit further.

[joseph5185]

(I had a rather long post, but then I realized I wasn't signed in and it didn't save.. =/ .. so I'll try to summarize)

Guys,

I would like to point out that this isn't the only game/company when it comes to these kinds of "issues".

It would also appear that most people are very delighted with this tweak and many will play Blitz more because of it. TRY to remember, as hard as it may seem, we are NOT the majority, we are the minority. One would expect that we would have all the passion, concerns, issues, and frankly, skills .. when it comes down to tweaks.

The coins are not "meaning-less" even if your fortunate enough to have an abundance of them. Besides the HMX developer himself stated that this is an on-going solution and very well may not be permanent. I'm thinking "wow..MAYBE I should play through as many of these songs as I can since acquiring coins is pretty sweet right now" (knowing/expecting that this will change).

Is anyone familiar with Bejeweled "Blitz" or PopCap Games, (most likely yes.. I'm not sure if HMX borrowed this name or not, but either way..good move IMO)

In short, you have a maximum of .. you guessed it 3 power-ups, which of course cost coins. With luck and avid game play, I have managed to collect over 2 MILLION coins. Does this mean that I'm able to use full load-out every single time without thinking twice and score anywhere between 500-750K weekly on the leaderboards..YES. With that being said, I never felt that the coins were "meaning-less" per say, I just had the advantage..which is awesome as far as I'm concerned..

And I agree with stars, I can 4 star songs all day, 5 .. sometimes, gold.. once.
With that being said, I have not TRIED specifically to go out of my way and gold star any song with a particular effective power-up load-out.

Being a purist, breaking blitz or chain/combos just to switch tracks and hit another purple power-up gem to maximize score .. seems a little .. what's the word guys? I'm not sure. I try to tread lightly and remain pretty respectful at all times. I'll just say I don't know or think this is EXACTLY what HMX had in mind.

It should be interesting to see the types of responses/comments that come from this post. I look forward to it and I'll be watching and hopefully able to comment back.

=)

[Magnet]

Being a purist, breaking blitz or chain/combos just to switch tracks and hit another purple power-up gem to maximize score .. seems a little .. what's the word guys? I'm not sure. I try to tread lightly and remain pretty respectful at all times. I'll just say I don't know or think this is EXACTLY what HMX had in mind.

On the contrary, I think that's exactly what HMX had in mind. They give people the choice to risk breaking their Blitz mode bonus/missing some notes to go after the purple note. Plus, the pinball and runaway note power-ups all but ensure you'll be breaking out of Blitz mode during their use if you want all the points they have to offer.

Sometimes I'll go after a purple note and miss it, and other times I'll hit it and it will destroy a long chord sustain that I would have gotten more points playing through. I think the whole idea is that you have to manage a balancing act with all of the possible ways to score points, trying to maximize each aspect of the game that nets you points.

[joseph5185]

On the contrary, I think that's exactly what HMX had in mind. They give people the choice to risk breaking their Blitz mode bonus/missing some notes to go after the purple note. Plus, the pinball and runaway note power-ups all but ensure you'll be breaking out of Blitz mode during their use if you want all the points they have to offer.

Sometimes I'll go after a purple note and miss it, and other times I'll hit it and it will destroy a long chord sustain that I would have gotten more points playing through. I think the whole idea is that you have to manage a balancing act with all of the possible ways to score points, trying to maximize each aspect of the game that nets you points.

Very well stated..

Is it fair to say that breaking Blitz mode is that much of a game-changer?
I don't know the sure mathematics involved.

[Epsilon82]

Very well stated..

Is it fair to say that breaking Blitz mode is that much of a game-changer?
I don't know the sure mathematics involved.

Blitz mode is one of those things that is much more important for players shooting for the highest spots on the leaderboards than those who are just trying to get Gold Stars, for instance. It's something that can make a big difference if you are good enough to keep it going for most of or all of the song, but for 99% of players it's not worth obsessing over at the expense of failing to fully level up each track or not chasing after OD or purple notes.

As I've played more, I've noticed my typical Blitz score bonus gradually increasing as a proportion of my total score, as I've steadily improved at managing to switch efficiently between tracks to hit the blast notes and isolated OD phrases without breaking streak as often. But in the early going, it's generally much more profitable to go ahead and chase the purple notes even if you know it's going to break your streak because the extra points associated with those purple notes usually vastly outweighs that of ignoring them and keeping Blitz mode, especially later in the song when your multipliers are higher.

And I completely agree with Magnet that this is exactly what Harmonix was shooting for. One of the inherent "weaknesses" with the more traditional music simulation gameplay of earlier Rock Band titles is that fundamentally, you're doing the same thing every time you play a song. But with the lane-changing, varying powerup loadouts, and semi-random purple note and OD phrase placement, there will never be two runs on the same song that will be identical. Not only are you playing an abstracted form of the music via the beat-matching, but you're constantly looking ahead on the note tracks to see where a cluster of notes will help raise a multiplier, seeing where the overdrive phases are, where the purple notes are, and trying to formulate a plan at any given juncture as to how to most efficiently maximize the situation. It's compelling not just as a music game, but also as an action-based puzzle game like Tetris or Lumines, and that combination has been insanely addictive for me and many others.

And as for the "ideal powerup loadout," I've found that a very good all-purposes loadout for people who aren't super-experts at the game (or are pretty good but just want a decent loadout for sightreads that has a solid chance of netting gold stars) is Road Rage/Blast Notes/Super Guitar. Road Rage is generally good because it not only can score a lot of points on its own, but it affects multiple lanes at once so it makes it easier to fill up all of the multipliers more quickly. It also has the added benefit of having the chance to hit the Blast Notes for you, which also help you fill the multipliers more quickly, and lets you focus more on staying on the Guitar lane, which I find is usually the best choice for the Super, because most solos are on Guitar, and it's not only in the middle of the track to help you spot upcoming blast notes and OD phrases to shoot for, but is also adjacent to Vocals, which can tend to be the most likely culprit for failing to hit enough notes to raise a multiplier.

Once I started using that combo, I pretty much started Gold-Starring almost everything I played on my first try, and I still use it often, even though it's becoming obvious that on songs that aren't as busy or are longer in length, judicious use of Jackpot can be much better.

[bigmf]

It also has the added benefit of having the chance to hit the Blast Notes for you, which also help you fill the multipliers more quickly, and lets you focus more on staying on the Guitar lane, which I find is usually the best choice for the Super, because most solos are on Guitar, and it's not only in the middle of the track to help you spot upcoming blast notes and OD phrases to shoot for, but is also adjacent to Vocals, which can tend to be the most likely culprit for failing to hit enough notes to raise a multiplier.

This is the most awesome sentence in the history of awesome things.

[Epsilon82]

This is the most awesome sentence in the history of awesome things.

Heh...I should probably re-read my posts before actually submitting them. That sentence makes me sound like a nerd on a sugar high, when in reality I'm just a nerd.

At least it was technically grammatically correct, I suppose, if nothing else.

[joseph5185]

I couldn't agree more..

I have recently switched to Road Rage / Blast Notes / Super Guitar (before reading your post..sorry =P)
and I have been gold starring songs on sight-read.

However, sometimes it's still 5..although VERY close to "The Duke"!