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

[jibjqrkl]

How do you know that? The Rock Band World page only shows the top 5 scores.

well you could get a 0 score on one of the tournament songs and see how high it ranks.

^

[Hairlooksgreat]

The score is actually 500 (finale bonus for a 5 lane song) but same result.

[Thisnameislame]

I'm not sure I understand all this minority/majority arguing. The majority are probably apathetic, as has been stated, but I feel like it's taking away from the actual arguments as to why the nerf is a good idea or bad idea. This isn't a musical taste issue like the majority want Nickleback while the forums want Muse (substitute the artists of your choice), this is something that can be looked at through the lens of good game design.

Good game design is also subjective of course, but there are a lot more objective ways to analyze games than there are music. For instance, there were 3 viable note powerup choices, and now there are 2. Players used to top the leaderboards with scores unobtainable by nearly everyone else, and now they still do. People have set scores that can't ever be realistically beaten by themselves or their friends using the same strategy as long as the nerf stays in effect. The flame/band exploit was only viable on certain songs, pinball is seemingly viable on all of them. Flame/Jackpot was a powerful but difficult combination that no longer works because of what was possible with an entirely different combination. Those things are all reasons why the nerf hasn't done any good for any kind of player that are generally pretty hard to argue with, whereas equally strong arguments as to why the nerf is good, from a casual perspective or otherwise, are a lot more scarce.

In short, instead of saying that for all we know the majority is for the nerf, why not put yourself in their place and explain why they would come to that conclusion, because there are already plenty of reasons offered why the nerf would probably benefit no one. I know if the majority are for the nerf, they don't feel that way just for the sake of contradicting the forum population they don't know or care about.

[cowboys282]

I'm not sure I understand all this minority/majority arguing. The majority are probably apathetic, as has been stated, but I feel like it's taking away from the actual arguments as to why the nerf is a good idea or bad idea. This isn't a musical taste issue like the majority want Nickleback while the forums want Muse (substitute the artists of your choice), this is something that can be looked at through the lens of good game design.

Good game design is also subjective of course, but there are a lot more objective ways to analyze games than there are music. For instance, there were 3 viable note powerup choices, and now there are 2. Players used to top the leaderboards with scores unobtainable by nearly everyone else, and now they still do. People have set scores that can't ever be realistically beaten by themselves or their friends using the same strategy as long as the nerf stays in effect. The flame/band exploit was only viable on certain songs, pinball is seemingly viable on all of them. Flame/Jackpot was a powerful but difficult combination that no longer works because of what was possible with an entirely different combination. Those things are all reasons why the nerf hasn't done any good for any kind of player that are generally pretty hard to argue with, whereas equally strong arguments as to why the nerf is good, from a casual perspective or otherwise, are a lot more scarce.

In short, instead of saying that for all we know the majority is for the nerf, why not put yourself in their place and explain why they would come to that conclusion, because there are already plenty of reasons offered why the nerf would probably benefit no one. I know if the majority are for the nerf, they don't feel that way just for the sake of contradicting the forum population they don't know or care about.

This thread has been going on for 21 days and about to hit 50 pages. I agree with all the reasons you state and I promise you I and many others have been making the same points. But after 50 pages there is only so many times you can say the same things.

It does matter if the majority of people are against the nerf and have stopped playing the game like I believe they have. The only way this gets fixed is if everyone had stopped playing. If the game population stayed the same after the nerf why would they put it back?

In the end 217 players have played a song that came with the game in the tournament that was the reason behind the nerf. So the game has been compromised for 217 people? And the same people who are winning the prizes?

We all know why this was a bad idea. The only thing to discuss that's left is who is even playing the game anymore. Judging by the low population of the tournaments my guess is not very many.

And now I read they are having trouble retrieving data about the winners on Facebook. This means they have to waste developer hours to fix this. I wish I could be a fly on the wall at Harmonix cause although they would never admit it I can't imagine they still think this whole tournament thing was a good idea. Seems to be turning in to a disaster.

[CJHobbes]

We all know why this was a bad idea. The only thing to discuss that's left is who is even playing the game anymore. Judging by the low population of the tournaments my guess is not very many.

You can't judge how many people are playing this game solely from the tournaments. I still play Blitz, but I have no interest in joining the tournament. Partially because I'm not a fan of the songs that have been chosen so far, and partially because I know I'll never win one and I don't really care about being selected randomly.

[Epsilon82]

glad to see the same old arguments are going on a week since I last visited. This is starting to become a very pointless thread. It's only serving for some people to eventually say I was right and claim some victory that will make them feel better.

Or it could just be that people want to play a game that isn't hideously unbalanced or at least remotely fun to play. Like the one that existed before this asinine nerf.

Carry on, i'll continue to be indifferent to this and carry on playing the game for fun and enjoyment as I always have.

So indifferent that you feel the need to make a post complaining about other people repeating themselves, only to yourself repeat your completely baseless assertion that people upset about this somehow don't play the game for fun and enjoyment? Why else would we be complaining? The game was a lot more fun for us before this nerf.

[zage1337]

Well Flames had to be nerfed because the tournament would otherwise be dominated by the same players. They need as much participation as possible and not have unbalanced mechanics where the same players get over 100-200k above everyone else. I'm glad it's all fixed now. Like look at the Tournament standings now. Completely different people every time using a wide variety of loadouts. And no one is dominating everyone with 1 loadout!


..not!

[Bront20]

So Bront20 let's review our facts. 70 people in this thread are against the nerf. 10 are for it. Only 217 people are playing in the tournament song "Raise your Glass." And that song comes with the game. Everyone who owns Blitz has that song.

Not ignoring you, and obviously you and I aren't going to agree on this. But I will address this issue.

1) Without counting hard, I've seen more than 10 people in this thread either say they are indifferent or for the change, or are HMX Staff members, who don't count. On the other hand, the people who are against this are the most active members of this thread, making it appear that folks are angrier than they are. Ultimately, I think the number is closer to 50-60 people in this thread, but I don't know how many people have participated since HMX mentioned Why either, which may have changed their perspective. I don't argue that the majority of people in this thread dislike the change, simply that it is not reflective of everyone who plays Blitz.

2) I'm curious how accurate the count is for how many people have participated in the tournament, simply because that number is hard to reliably obtain. Yeah, score 4-500 points and see your rank, but I don't know how it handles ties, nor is that likely to be accurate until the tourney closes up shop on that song.

3) Even if it is somewhat accurate, it's a US only participation that requires you to be using Facebook (literally, you can't even see it's happening inside the game) and opt in. Problems of why that's a bad thing aside, that's also not necessarily a representative sample of who's playing. Plenty of people can choose to simply not play the tourny because they don't like the song, don't want to opt in, think HMX is trying to track their personal info (they're not anymore than they already can from your XBL/PSN account, and you can create a fake account if you're that worried), don't like in the US, or some other reason. At best, it's a floor to know that at least that many people still play, but the number is likely a lot higher.


Just to reitterate my position on the nerf, is that I think Flame Notes and Synch needed a nerf, but not a very big one, and I'm not sure what the best way to do it would be. I don't mind Flame notes being powerful, but it was too powerful IMHO (and they went way over to the other end of the spectrum on this nerf). That said, my biggest worry is the timing window exploit, and I think something needs to be done about that (maybe notes in that timing window being removed when you hit a note if they're not effected by any other power up). Ultimately, I don't envy HMX's position, whatever shakes out.

[Hairlooksgreat]

3) Even if it is somewhat accurate, it's a US only participation that requires you to be using Facebook (literally, you can't even see it's happening inside the game) and opt in. Problems of why that's a bad thing aside, that's also not necessarily a representative sample of who's playing. Plenty of people can choose to simply not play the tourny because they don't like the song, don't want to opt in, think HMX is trying to track their personal info (they're not anymore than they already can from your XBL/PSN account, and you can create a fake account if you're that worried), don't like in the US, or some other reason. At best, it's a floor to know that at least that many people still play, but the number is likely a lot higher.

I would actually think the number is lower than 217 and here's my reasoning.

1. Just because you have to be in the US to claim a prize, doesn't mean you have to be in the US to post a score on the leaderboard. From what I understand, Zage is in Canada and is on the board.

2. Multiple gamertags. What would prevent someone from creating multiple e-mail addys, FB accounts and gamertags? So one person might have 2-3-4 or more scores posted in an attempt to boost their chances at winning the lottery.

3. The chances of ties with only 217 scores posted is remote at best and in fact I would guess the only tie that would occur would be 400 or 500 score and I doubt many people have done this.

[Epsilon82]

1. Just because you have to be in the US to claim a prize, doesn't mean you have to be in the US to post a score on the leaderboard. From what I understand, Zage is in Canada and is on the board.

Heh...not just on the board, but at the moment on TOP of the board on all three songs. Gotta love it. Even the official rules and the flame nerf can't stop this guy.