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

[SheSaidSheSaid]

I just don't understand why this happened. It seems like HMX is dead set on Blitz being the world's most egalitarian game. I mean, it's the same 10 or 12 people at the top of every leaderboard in RB3, but no one's ever seemed to think that was an issue.

[GaggyRogers]

I personally think that all note powerups should have a set number of notes that appear based on the note:length ratio of the song played. The placing can still be random, but the number should always be the same. I'd say that solves the flame notes (assuming they are buffed back to their original value or so) and allows for concrete buffs for blast and runaway notes.

On that note, it seems that runaway notes are actually really useful now.

[hmxhenry]

In the interest of collecting as much info as possible before meeting with the team to discuss further, I thought it would be helpful to float a few short questions to posters in this thread. Please respond if you have a moment, it'll be really helpful in defining the overall temperature of the forum community.

1) What do you think Flame notes should be worth? It seems that most posters in this thread aren't opposed to the suggestion that Flame notes were previously over powered... but where do you see the balance between "over powered" and "under powered"?

2) If the Flame note values remain as is would you rather see the leaderboards reset or see them remain as is?

3) How often do you use Flame notes when playing Blitz? Never, sometimes, all the time?

4) How important are top leaderboard scores to you on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being "never think about them" and 10 being "they consume my every waking moment"?

I'll pass along any responses that pop up before Wednesday and will flesh these out to full fledged polls if we need more definitive stats. Thanks all.

[SheSaidSheSaid]

Don't really have an opinion about 1 or 2. As for the others:

3) I mainly alternate(d) between Jackpot/Blast and Road Rage/Flame. The former for more note-light songs, the latter for more note-heavy songs. I know Blast is sort of wasted on note-light songs, but I'm not skilled enough to do Jackpot/Flame, and Road Rage/Blast seldom gives the sort of scores that either of those two combos do/did. I never use Shockwave, Bottle Rocket, Pinball, or Synchrony unless it's a powerup goal for RB World (would like to see more of those, BTW).

4) Is 0 an option? I like to get good scores simply because I like to do well. It doesn't matter so much to me how I do relative to other people, especially considering my only regular Score War buddy has quit the game due to the Flame nerf.

[grumblevolcano]

1) Try half way between the original and nerfed values.
2) Don't mind if reset as long as the stars next to the songs don't disappear.
3) Generally switch between Road Rage/Blast and Jackpot/Flame, since the nerf I've replaced Flame with Blast.
4) 1, I use the leaderboards to essentially track my own song progress without having to do it manually via RBW.

[zage1337]

1) Original 1,500 points. However I have a suggesting later in this post. I agree that flame notes are overpowered, but you can't nerf powerups this late in the game without pissing everyone off with a leaderboard wipe or pissing off the hardcore players when they can no longer beat their scores. the answer eventually is to buff other powerups. Rather have outdated scores then deleted/unobtainable scores.

2) I would like neither to happen. As long as flame notes remain I will no longer use flame notes and avoid songs with unobtainable scores. if leaderboards are reset I will probably avoid blitz altogether..maybe even delete it off my HDD.

3) I use Flame Notes probably 60-70% of the time to be honest, I find jack/flame very engaging and fun, and I was just starting to learn and focus on band/flame until you ruined the flame note powerup.

4) 8-9. It's the primary reason why I play Blitz other than also enjoying the music that I play. I have almost no interest in goals because I rather just play however I want instead of having goals telling me what specific song to play. Take this point with a grain of salt though cause this is just me and I know most people will have a completely different view and look at this game. If it wasn't for leaderboards and the position I was in (able to get 1st on the majority of songs that I play and only a few select players I know have scores I can't top. MaximusDM being one of them. This is PS3 though.) I wouldn't have logged over 400-450 hours in this game and play it instead of RB3.

Suggestions:


I think if it is possible, if you can have separate point values for the Tournament Mode vs the main game. Make Flame Notes worth 500-750 only when you are playing a song in the Tournament but make them worth 1,500 in regular gameplay. If that is possible I think that would be the best solution. The tournaments can't be cheesed as much and all the leaderboard scores can still be obtainable. You might have to wait until your finished with the tournament on a particular song. I also think Blitz Mode needs to be buffed because 500 points per 10 notes become almost meaningless on most songs towards the end. A buff in blitz mode would even out jack/flame and band/flame and with both having flame notes slightly nerfed(not an 80% extreme like now), non flame users will still have a chance to experiment.

Runaway Notes also needs a boost. All this looks possible but this is stuff that should have been considered well in advanced before the Tournament. I think it's too late now to do all these changes for the Tournament so you might have to bite the bullet and just use the original values for this one and for the next one, you will have more time to make it balanced. Or just hold off the Tournament altogether and accept that the timing is off.

EDIT: Made it less tl;dr..it's still pretty tl;dr but it's no longer an extended essay

[MaximusDM]

1) What do you think Flame notes should be worth? It seems that most posters in this thread aren't opposed to the suggestion that Flame notes were previously over powered... but where do you see the balance between "over powered" and "under powered"?

They should be worth what they were. From my data, that is 1500. However, I don't know if that is exactly what it was because there is no official data released by Harmonix. They are overpowered. But they have reason to be.

Keep in mind they were overpowered on a MAJORITY of songs. Not ALL of them.

2) If the Flame note values remain as is would you rather see the leaderboards reset or see them remain as is?

This is like a trick question; Neither.
They aren't a usuable powerup with its current value to let them remain "as is".
Its amazes me that you are even courting the idea of reseting leaderboards.
Hypothetically, if I had to choose. I would say reset the leaderboards. If that happened however, I highly doubt I would ever play Blitz again because:
I just wasted my time playing over 1000 songs, some multiple times to achieve higher scores.
There is nothing from stopping you from doing this again.

3) How often do you use Flame notes when playing Blitz? Never, sometimes, all the time?

All the time.

4) How important are top leaderboard scores to you on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being "never think about them" and 10 being "they consume my every waking moment"?

8. I never kept on top of most of my scores, I usually try to hit #1 and moved on. The beauty of the facebook application, was that if I ever wanted I could easily see where I needed improvement by seeing my worst song performance. My plan was to finish playing the songs I own and then perpetually improve on my old scores. This as come to a complete halt. I understand the value of leaderboard scores and spots.

[jibjqrkl]

1) What do you think Flame notes should be worth? It seems that most posters in this thread aren't opposed to the suggestion that Flame notes were previously over powered... but where do you see the balance between "over powered" and "under powered"?

original 1500 was fine.

2) If the Flame note values remain as is would you rather see the leaderboards reset or see them remain as is?

wiped, but i won't play anymore

3) How often do you use Flame notes when playing Blitz? Never, sometimes, all the time?

80% of the times

4) How important are top leaderboard scores to you on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being "never think about them" and 10 being "they consume my every waking moment"?

7, anything top #100 is good enough for me.



The only solutions i see that can fix the "exploit" while maintaining kinda the same possible scores (excluding the "exploit" ones obviously) are to make bandmate not hit the flame notes, or as others suggested stop the flame notes after a while (when they start spawning right next to each other). Buffing blitz mode will help, but will still make it possible for this to happen.

or maybe also stopping flame notes if you lose Blitz mode, making it kinda like the purple note "jackpot"? seeing as the most profitable way to use flame notes is by combining it with jackpot, most players won't have too much of a problem with that i think.

don't know if any of these are possible, but just lowering flame notes value is not an option for me.

[MasterMo]

1) I would much prefer other power ups and blitz be balanced upward instead of flames balanced downward. I recognize that is tougher to do, but if you want proper balance, that effort should be put forth.

If you insist on still nerfing flames, the "ideal" nerf in my head has been one where flames depreciate in value as more in a series are hit. First note hit is worth 1500, second note hit worth 1450, third 1400, and so forth until the series is dropped, at which point the value resets for the next series. Such a tweak hurts jack/flame a bit, hurts band/flame much more, and ideally balances the two loadouts to still be viable without being excessively overpowered. Don't know if it will work out in practice, but it has to be better than flames being worthless as it stands now.

2) if the value doesn't get reverted, then a leaderboard reset should go down. Having leaderboards with scores that can't be broken isn't fair to those that still play and hope to reach the top. That said, I doubt I will feel compelled to replace many of my scores.

3) Very rarely do I not use flame notes, only on songs where it doesn't make sense to do so. I find flame notes more fun to play than the other note power ups.

4) About a 7 or 8. I play the game because it's fun. Being able to top the leaderboards certainly adds to that fun, giving me a way to challenge myself. But my most played songs are ones I'm already at the top of. Very rarely do I drill a song until I get first, and when I do I tend to stop having fun along the way.

The problem right now isn't that I can't top leaderboards, it's that I can't come close to my old scores even if I perform better technically. That drains the fun for me. And a leaderboard reset won't fix that: I know what scores I should be getting when I play.

Honestly, though, I'm not even upset at this point. Disappointed, certainly. But I got 200 hours of fun out of the game and no nerf can take that away. It's unfortunate that I might not be able to get more of the same level of enjoyment out of the game, but I can't be that upset when I've gotten more out of this game than I do with most other games.

[Thisnameislame]

1.) Put them back to 1500, or if you must have it lower, no less than 1000.
2.) I'd say wipe them, though I'm a bit more concerned with star cutoffs than leaderboards.
3.) Pretty often, but not always
4.) 6