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

[JCirri]

I'm honestly surprised not to see more concern from average players about the absolute loss of another viable power-up option from the game.

My friend and I go back and forth sniping at each others' scores, but without declaring a Score War against each other. He plays Jack/Flame, and I prefer Bottle Rockets or Road Rage (song-dependent), Blast, and Sync. Pre-nerf, we were pretty even. Now it just takes him way out of the game. Nerfing Flame took the air out of the friendly competition between ourselves.

Comments like that (coming in that case from someone that initially very adamantly supported the nerf) would be what I'd expect as more common casual player reactions.

When I started out I mostly used blast notes but enjoyed being able to use flame notes for variety with the potential to earn comparable scores. I was disappointed to discover runaway notes weren't a worthy option, and I could only imagine I'd be equally disappointed with flames in this state.

Though most who play probably will never see this thread to understand what happened, nor possibly even notice that a nerf took place unless they feel the effect due to friendly competition or a personal preference for flames. The result will simply be playing through the game for the most part without the use of flames.

The only positive tradeoff for completely removing flame notes as a realistic option for every player (casuals and hardcores alike) was to remove the mostly theoretical possibility of an unintended playing technique claiming top ranks on 4-lane songs.

My feeling from what I've seen is the change was prompted by two factors: 1) The thread which revealed the bandmate/flame exploit; 2) Upcoming tournaments with real prizes on the line.

I keep coming back to the same point, but that exploit is only possible for 4-lane songs. With less than 4 lanes anyone who can manage a streak can keep flames alive continuously. For 5-lane songs, playing every note in 2 lanes still isn't good enough, and without proper reaction flames will very quickly die out. It's also much more difficult to keep pinball alive in 5-lane songs for long periods.

This is why I believe the best solution for everyone involved would have been selecting 5-lane tracks for the 30 tournament songs while potentially figuring out a better long-term fix.

[grace_pressure]

Just to chime in here, Epsilon82's point was salient, and he's not overstepping anything. It's not the first time in this thread that he's made an analogy or that argument.

Also, like they say in radio, for every casual player sad about this nerf that commented (like myself), there are many more. This is true for a variety of reasons (not on forums, all arguments have already been fleshed out, don't want drama, etc.)

[bmdbmd15]

Anyway, it's time for football.

Harmonix must be Bama fans. Nerfed Notre Dame's Blitz mode.

[Lowlander2]

Silly, selfish me, wanting to have a fighting chance at scoreboard rankings, without having to dedicate dozens of hours to my limited free time to mastering a scoring exploit so I can boost my ego by having a score so high that a casual player has absolutely no hope of beating it, thereby alienating said casual player from wanting to play the game at all.
I apologize on behalf of all the other gosh darn "casuals" such as myself.

Not the issue. The issue here is that the install base affected by this, even outside the forums, eclipses that which does not care. Even with RB's broad reach on many social network sites, it takes weeks for DLC to pick up steam. Rock Band World, the only place to access the tourneys, is niche by its very nature.

And apparently there's this huge subset of people who didn't even play Blitz, necessitating the re-released material. They certainly aren't going to be interested in the tournaments.

Also, and I'm actually interested in this statistic, because there used to a pretty heavy leaning in this and I want to see if this has kept up, only one country (maybe Canada as well?) has proper access to the tourneys, which will keep every European customer out.

The forums, by their nature, might be the 1% in regards to DLC and game discussion, but I have doubts the majority is aware or interested in the tournaments, much less knows about the implication their inclusion had on the fundamental mechanics of the game.

[charliesmile]

And the fact is, jackpot/flame and ("legit") bandmate/flame are still crippled and "exploiting" with pinball is still just as dominant, so could you explain to me why you feel better that flame notes were nerfed? The way I look at it the leaderboard toppers just moved on to pinball while the hardcore players who played "legit" just got their options greatly limited.

Ideally, I would like to see both Flame Notes and Pinball both get nerfed.

[BachiG]

**** it. They should nerf everything and just give everyone the same score.

[RyRobo]

Ideally, I would like to see both Flame Notes and Pinball both get nerfed.

What do you think is the best solution to the leaderboard problem, should even more of the useful power-ups be nerfed, when they become full of unbeatable scores?

In addition, you realise that nerfing power-ups like these arguably makes the game more skill based and increases the boundaries between a weaker and a stronger player, because then the game becomes more about keeping Blitz mode activated and less on luck-based mechanics (IE, keeping the pinball in play past reflex-possible speeds, or button mashing flame-bandmate?). I thought you wanted an 'equal playing field' that doesn't require much learning because other people don't have lives but you still want to compete on that level? Surely this is a step away from your desired impact?

[Hairlooksgreat]

Ideally, I would like to see both Flame Notes and Pinball both get nerfed.

And then you'll ask for JP to get nerfed. Then RR because the better players can load up their bar faster than you by juggling lanes. Then super guitar because the better players can 100% difficult solos. Then BM because better players launch it at the most opportune time. Need I continue?

[MaximusDM]

- Change the timing windows so adjacent lanes cannot be played simultaneously
- Change the flame spread pattern or limit number of spreads in a chain
- Some combination of the above
- Nerf Flame Notes to the point of complete uselessness in ALL contexts

Requires Leaderboard reset.

thus making all powerup combinations totally incapable of even approaching Pinball/Sync, with the additional consequence of rendering the leaderboards meaningless and filled with unattainable scores

All of the above listed do, not just nerfing a point value. Nerfing ANYTHING changes the rules and makes scores unobtainable.

- Buff Blitz mode to heavily penalize button mashing

Buffing Blitz doesn't so much penalize button mashing but rather encourages not button mashing. The amount Blitz would be buffed it really the key number though.
Hopefully if it ever happens, it isn't the same guy who came up with the magic number 350 for flame notes.

Any sort of introduced penalty for losing combo or overhitting is bordering on leaderboard reset. I however am not against it. To be fair though, it would need a leaderboard reset.

- Adjust other powerups upward

Viable and does not require a leaderboard reset.

But Harmonix says its too hard, and it will make achieving gold stars too easy thus eliminating their value to a casual player. Or so they say. Hypothetically of course.

Because that would mean Harmonix knows what casual players were actually thinking and they:

- still play 4.5 months after release
- don't have all the loadouts unlocked
- don't know how to use power-ups in a semi efficient manner
- rarely achieve gold stars

And yet they still play it why?

Because of an obscure tournament for Americans who have their account linked to a facebook account and hopefully visit rock band world or Rock Band forums and actually own the songs viable to enter. And since flame notes were finally nerfed, they finally feel they stand a chance at coming out on top.

I guess Harmonix has a lot of faith in these mystery "casual players".

If a casual player jumped through those hoops I'm not so sure I'd classify them as casual players anymore.

[Graffin]

I guess i'd consider myself a casual player. I only play the game every couple of weeks, and only managed to gold star a few of the Blitz songs.

It was certainly a lot easier and more fun when the game first came out (I played it daily then), but now that they've crippled the power-ups, i'm actually struggling to get 4 stars on some of the songs that I gold starred.

It's sucked all the fun out of it. I think I could practice til the cows come home and will still find it incredibly difficult to ever 5 star/gold star all of the Blitz songs to get the final few trophies (achievements).

When I first bought it, I thought, great, this will be the first Rock Band game i'll actually 100%, but that's rather unlikely now.