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[FyreWulff]

Looks like their double coins system is more flexible than I thought. Only applies to Green Day songs released as DLC so far, and not the rest of the export.

 

[AlphaTwo00]

Looks like their double coins system is more flexible than I thought. Only applies to Green Day songs released as DLC so far, and not the rest of the export.

im sure they're tagging guch DLC packs works. The export is just another DLC pack with a specific name.

 

[FyreWulff]

im sure they're tagging guch DLC packs works. The export is just another DLC pack with a specific name.

I thought it was just done with "if artist = GREEN DAY then mark as double bonus". I'm not sure if Rock Band is actually aware of what packs a song came from.

I guess what I mean to say is they have to ability to mark specific songs instead of being limited to marking the artists.

 

[jgkspsx]

Alright. I think I think I have everything I really want. I might add another handful of songs. I hope whatever Harmonix is doing next uses these...

 

[FyreWulff]

http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=232028

Since launch we’ve been keeping a close eye on the trends in player behavior in Rock Band Blitz. As we expected would be the case, in the weeks post-launch, we found people leaning more heavily on certain Power-up loadouts than others, and falling into pretty rigid playstyles. In response to this, we have rolled out some tweaks to our power-ups this week that should help level the playing the field a bit for some of the previously under-powered items. We hope this will give you a greater range of power-ups and playstyles to try out and play with, thus also further extending the time you spend with Rock Band Blitz!

Allow me to allay some worries right off the bat. We’re only tweaking these things in the positive. That is, your favorite power-up is not being maimed or gimped in any way. You just may start to see a little more competition for your top leaderboard spots from some folks, so keep a look out!

Power-Ups Affected:
-Point Doubler
-Bottle Rocket
-Shockwave
-Pinball
-Instrument Bonuses (including Synchrony)

Play around with try these out now, you may find you have a new favorite loadout! We’ll continue to keep a look out for any play anomalies and work to keep right the ship in such cases that it’s deemed necessary. Thank you all, as always, for being our eyes and ears on the frontlines. I hope this will bring an air of freshness to your RB Blitz play sessions! See you on the Leaderboards!

edit: I can't tell the difference in the Super ___ powerups but Synchrony went from 100 points if you switch with no notes around to 500, and 1000 points if you switch with notes.

 

[jgkspsx]

I tried some different loadouts, and was not impressed. Went back to my usual (Road Rage/Bottle Rocket, Blast Notes, Super X) and was doing well again.

I think the nature of the other powerups (Flame and Runaway especially) encourages poor playing, unless you have crazy fast reflexes anyway. I should try Jackpot + Synchrony, but does Synchrony compare to Super X even now pointswise?

Up to 246 individual songs. I can't imagine how you nuts got to 300 in a week. I don't know if the game will last that long, but I have to admit I enjoy just listening to music I like and having something to do with my hands. I guess I could, like, try playing guitar along with the songs, but that gets depressing pretty quickly.

By the way, keyboards ruin most songs for Blitz. I swear it's impossible for more than half the keyboard songs to level up the keyboard tracks with long slow held notes AND level up the other tracks as well.

 

[AlphaTwo00]

I tried some different loadouts, and was not impressed. Went back to my usual (Road Rage/Bottle Rocket, Blast Notes, Super X) and was doing well again.

I think the nature of the other powerups (Flame and Runaway especially) encourages poor playing, unless you have crazy fast reflexes anyway. I should try Jackpot + Synchrony, but does Synchrony compare to Super X even now pointswise?

Up to 246 individual songs. I can't imagine how you nuts got to 300 in a week. I don't know if the game will last that long, but I have to admit I enjoy just listening to music I like and having something to do with my hands. I guess I could, like, try playing guitar along with the songs, but that gets depressing pretty quickly.

By the way, keyboards ruin most songs for Blitz. I swear it's impossible for more than half the keyboard songs to level up the keyboard tracks with long slow held notes AND level up the other tracks as well.

Agreed on the commentary on the tweaks and game stuff...

The problem with the power-ups they're tweaking re that they're things that "sway" you from your current lane, which is the opposite of what you want to do in the game by focusing on note scoring. In the case of pinball, runaway and flame, it would end up as a distraction for most. Synchrony is in that same boat, and unless a song is evenly distributed in notes on all tracks, then yeah, it's pretty weak compared to a strong instrument track.

As for Keyboard ruining songs: did you notice that the songs that were included in RBB felt more balanced for Keyboard? They did choose some of those in there for that reason. The problem with music in general is that musical tracks aren't always balanced for "play". And there are many examples of tracks in there that forces you to abandon note filled lanes just to level up a weak vocal track.

(forget the sustains though, they're really only for additional points, and it feels pretty useless unless your multiplier is high enough)

 

[Hop]

I tried some different loadouts, and was not impressed. Went back to my usual (Road Rage/Bottle Rocket, Blast Notes, Super X) and was doing well again.

I think the nature of the other powerups (Flame and Runaway especially) encourages poor playing, unless you have crazy fast reflexes anyway. I should try Jackpot + Synchrony, but does Synchrony compare to Super X even now pointswise?

Up to 246 individual songs. I can't imagine how you nuts got to 300 in a week. I don't know if the game will last that long, but I have to admit I enjoy just listening to music I like and having something to do with my hands. I guess I could, like, try playing guitar along with the songs, but that gets depressing pretty quickly.

By the way, keyboards ruin most songs for Blitz. I swear it's impossible for more than half the keyboard songs to level up the keyboard tracks with long slow held notes AND level up the other tracks as well.

Flame pairs very well with Bandmate. Charge that up, then when a flame note comes drop it on your least-leveled track (so you can keep up with multipliers) and then focus on the flames. You won't need to move as much, and you'll usually get two or three flame notes on a lane in a row by the end of the Bandmate, all without really sacrificing multiplier.

I guess 300 was easy if you had the exports and do those RBW goals. >_> But that's supposed to be the grindy, "you play this a lot" one anyway.

And yea, keys frequently don't work too well. :/ Partly because Vocals creates a sort of mental barrier and makes you forget that they're there. I've actually found power metal songs work best to that extent (subtle RBN plug there), since keys often mirrors guitar in activity instead of being just boring sustains. Overall it really helps to pay attention to tiers, with keys higher tiers frequently mean higher activity.

 

[AlphaTwo00]

http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=232028



edit: I can't tell the difference in the Super ___ powerups but Synchrony went from 100 points if you switch with no notes around to 500, and 1000 points if you switch with notes.

Just popped the game in, maybe the sustains are now giving more points? Not quite sure.

 

[FyreWulff]

They should have put Keys on the far left. When they're over on that far right, they reside next to another sparse track (vocals) so if you're over there trying to level up, there's not many points to be had to switch between both lanes.

If it were next to drums, you could get more points and get the track leveled up while working on keys. Basically, have the most likely density of notes more towards the middle, and put the sparse tracks out on the ends.

I should write my review up for this thread...

 

[AlphaTwo00]

They should have put Keys on the far left. When they're over on that far right, they reside next to another sparse track (vocals) so if you're over there trying to level up, there's not many points to be had to switch between both lanes.

If it were next to drums, you could get more points and get the track leveled up while working on keys. Basically, have the most likely density of notes more towards the middle, and put the sparse tracks out on the ends.

I should write my review up for this thread...

But no matter how you put it, it's still highly song dependent. And at the worst case would still be a 4 lane jump.

 

[FyreWulff]

But no matter how you put it, it's still highly song dependent. And at the worst case would still be a 4 lane jump.

Yeah.. I guess. The only other thing you could do is make it sort the tracks by note count from the center outwards, but then the lanes are no longer in a consistent order.

Another thing I could say is they could have standed to adjust the "not enough notes on this track" filter where it doesn't display any for that track if not enough notes are present. On Polly this works out great (drums are there, but no notes). But then I still run into songs where there's just enough notes to level it up, or actually not enough notes at all, with like.. 4 or 5 right before the gate, limiting you to a level cap +1. Not sure what's going on there.

fakedit: and as an aside, some songs come out weird. A lot of Satch Boogie's held notes become regular notes for no apparent reason.

 

[FyreWulff]

Also doubleposting, but whatever. Has anyone else figured out that you can play notes next to each other on a track without Synchrony?

Example:

If I play the note on the Vocals track then IMMEDIATELY switch to guitar and press the correct button to hit the note on Guitar, the game will allow me to 'hit' it even though it's behind me. I've gotten good enough at this to maintain combo on two side-by-side tracks on certain songs and 100% both of them for an entire phrase. It's a total mindfuck to keep it going, though :lol

 

[Hop]

Also doubleposting, but whatever. Has anyone else figured out that you can play notes next to each other on a track without Synchrony?

Example:

If I play the note on the Vocals track then IMMEDIATELY switch to guitar and press the correct button to hit the note on Guitar, the game will allow me to 'hit' it even though it's behind me. I've gotten good enough at this to maintain combo on two side-by-side tracks on certain songs and 100% both of them for an entire phrase. It's a total mindfuck to keep it going, though :lol

Yea, that's thanks to the note hitbox stretching a bit behind the visible note. The downside of it is switching into another lane right after the note and breaking combo when it doesn't visually seem like you should have.

 

[jgkspsx]

I guess 300 was easy if you had the exports and do those RBW goals. >_> But that's supposed to be the grindy, "you play this a lot" one anyway.

I have 718 (@_@) songs in my library and have been doing almost all of the RBW goals :|

Only up to 252.

 

[FyreWulff]

Yea, that's thanks to the note hitbox stretching a bit behind the visible note. The downside of it is switching into another lane right after the note and breaking combo when it doesn't visually seem like you should have.

Yeah, there seems to be a lack of clarity between what is visually shown and what the engine thinks is happening. Like I attempt to deploy bandmate in the guitar lane and then go to switch to bass very quickly, but it seems like it "comes with me" and deploys on bass and I'm like "SON OF A BITCH".

 

[U2NUMB]

This weeks tracks.. 311 in RBB.

311-Down

311-Beautiful Disaster

311-Amber

 

[FyreWulff]

This is a cool challenge. Power up-specific.

Bandmate on the Run

New goal type! Now we can set goals with specific Rock Band Blitz Power-ups! Get 80,000 points on Paul McCartney & Wings' "Band on the Run" with the Bandmate Power-up to complete this one!

edit: there's a bunch of new ones with specific powerups requirements.

 

[Hop]

edit: there's a bunch of new ones with specific powerups requirements.

And they're a bit tough. That score they specify is how many points that powerup has to earn you in a single run. Pinball Wizard wasn't too bad, but Message in a Bottle was a bit rough to pull off.

 

[FyreWulff]

And they're a bit tough. That score they specify is how many points that powerup has to earn you in a single run. Pinball Wizard wasn't too bad, but Message in a Bottle was a bit rough to pull off.

I had to do two tries on Pinball, since the first one I was too attached to trying the song normally, second time i just kept the ball in play. Then I got lucky with the placement of the.. whatever the thing you hit notes with is called, and it bounced off the theater 4 times at the end.

edit: bug report: It seems completing these challenges just keeps the goal up with the countdown, instead of moving down to Completed Goals. Shows completed and everything when you click on it, but still says "6 days remaining" with the full bar.

 

[Hop]

I had to do two tries on Pinball, since the first one I was too attached to trying the song normally, second time i just kept the ball in play. Then I got lucky with the placement of the.. whatever the thing you hit notes with is called, and it bounced off the theater 4 times at the end.

edit: bug report: It seems completing these challenges just keeps the goal up with the countdown, instead of moving down to Completed Goals. Shows completed and everything when you click on it, but still says "6 days remaining" with the full bar.

Moved fine for me. Might just be taking a bit to propagate.

 

[FyreWulff]

Moved fine for me. Might just be taking a bit to propagate.

Whoops. Now they moved. NEVERMIND

 

[jgkspsx]

So this thread is dead, eh?

Since the scoring adjustments, I'm beating you lot on a number of key songs. Mua ha.

Just got "Party at your Place." That only leaves "Gold Star Everything in RBB" to go, and I don't know if I'm up for that.

 

[FyreWulff]

I'd post more, but don't want to double post.

Willing to bet your last Gold Star is going to be Shout or Death on Two Legs.

 

[FyreWulff]

Holy shit this was a pain in the ass to GS.

 

[FyreWulff]

Triple post. Yeah, I know, but this fits more in here than the Rock Band DLC discussion thread even though this is fairly dead now.


It's possible to play too much Blitz:

http://rockband.scorehero.com/forum...3&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

 

[Hop]

Triple post. Yeah, I know, but this fits more in here than the Rock Band DLC discussion thread even though this is fairly dead now.


It's possible to play too much Blitz:

http://rockband.scorehero.com/forum...3&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

For those concerned, it takes about 1,000 songs played to do that.

 

[FyreWulff]

Some specific clarification from Harmonix:

To recap, what's happened is that affected users have generated a save data file that is larger than the servers are able to gracefully process. This file size is loosely tied to the number of unique songs played in Blitz (as many of you noticed it around the 1,020 song mark), but that's not a hard set number as there are other factors contributing the the save data file.

What we've done is roll out a server side fix that eliminates some of the burden on the save data file. This should allow previously affected users to play and log scores just as they had been able to previously. The only drawback is that affected users will no longer be able to see their in menu star count. At first glance it may appear that star data has disappeared, but rest assured that your stars, scores, leaderboard rankings, career score, coins and cred should all be exactly as they were previously.

Your star count should still be fully visible on Rock Band World on Facebook, and your score should still display in the Global Ranking pane to the right of your setlist. All that data is still being stored server side and should still be viewable everywhere except as stars in your setlist.

For those of you that have already been affected, you should be able to sign in and play again now. Give that a shot, let me know how it goes and I'll pass feedback along. Next steps for those of you unaffected or soon to be affected should be pretty painless: just wait. At around the 950 songs played mark [ED : later he says it's more like 875] you'll receive an inbox message letting you know that you're approaching this save data issue. You'll receive another message around the 1,000 song mark informing you that we've applied the server side fix to your account. That should mean no further interruptions in game play for anyone else creeping up on this.

 

[Mr. Enigma]

What we've done is roll out a server side fix that eliminates some of the burden on the save data file. This should allow previously affected users to play and log scores just as they had been able to previously. The only drawback is that affected users will no longer be able to see their in menu star count.

How fucking pathetic.

 

[jakeellis01]

Google Plus introduced communities and since there was no Rock Band community thought I'd create one.

Any google plus users might want to check it out: https://plus.google.com/communities/...27747563328984

 

[FyreWulff]

So I have a capture card now. Synchrony abuse!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMeX1at44qY&feature=youtu.be

I'm considering sometime early next year following in the steps of np / newelisoncruz and recording each week's new DLC in Blitz when I start getting my bigchecks(tm)

 

[FyreWulff]

So they just nerfed the crap out of Flame Notes. Went from 1500 points to 350.

http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=233095&p=4952311&viewfull=1#post4952311

Hey all, thanks for your patience. As you may have seen, yes, we are planning to launch a series of tournaments for Blitz via RB World. The intent was to announce both the tournaments and the flame note re balance in the same announcement, but due to a scoring bug in the tournament system that's been further delayed. But, rather than make those affected in this thread wait any longer, I wanted to post some additional clarification here. Below is an excerpt from the announcement that will go out when tournaments are officially launched:

We’ve rolled out a small, targeted Power-up rebalance in conjunction with the Tournament system that will tone down the Flame Note Power-up. We want these Tournaments to be as level a playing field as possible so you all feel compelled to join, and this is a step towards that.

As you probably know, we've already deployed a rebalance like this before, and it's possible we will again in the future. Doing this is all in service of keeping the game as fair and competitive as possible, but also to prevent everyone from settling on one single loadout for their Blitzing pleasure.

Before digging in any deeper, I want to highlight the beginning of that last paragraph: we have done re balances like this before and it's possible we will again. Nothing is set in stone and we are 100% ready to listen to feedback from users of all experience levels. Please keep that it mind before reading on.

So, why is this happening? We've tracked a ton of user feedback (here, on Twitter, on Facebook, in email, etc) and a ton of in game data, and it became clear that Flame notes were overpowered. Compared to other power ups, compared to scores logged using other power ups, compared to the regularity with which users selected other power ups... it wasn't as balanced as it should be.

Why is this happening now? With Tournaments planned to launch this week, we were looking at a string of leaderboard driven competitions with real world prizing with a significant cash value. It was essential to us that these tournaments were as balanced as possible for those participating. Leaderboard bragging rights are one thing, but with consistent prizing on the line as well, we wanted to ensure a more level playing field.

Why weren't other power ups raised instead? The launch date for tournaments left us with a rather narrow margin of time to implement in game changes. Add in the holiday, and that leaves significantly less time. In game changes aren't as simple as flipping a switch, and every change means additional rounds of testing, additional errors to consider, additional side effects in other areas, etc. That means implementing a re balance on 10+ power ups, versus a re balance of 1 was a huge timing issue for us to consider.

What about leaderboards? We're aware of potential leaderboard / high score / gold star / score dependent Goals side effects and we're actively discussing that with the dev team. We don't want to leave any goals unattainable / any songs un gold starrable / any Goals impossible to complete, etc. There are a number of possibilities, and as I mentioned above we are totally open to feedback.

I hope that helps shed some light on the reasoning behind this change. There's nothing sinister going on and we're not looking to ruin Blitz game play for anyone. We'll likely be posting more in the coming days once tournaments are fully online, we can track participation, and Pope is back in the office to help steer things a bit. I know that people have a lot of time and emotion invested in this game and that can lead to a lot of passionate feedback. That isn't lost on anyone here at Harmonix. But rest assure that Blitz isn't broken, and nothing is broken that can't be fixed. That's one of the advantages of having Blitz so connected on the server side, being able to react to community feedback on anything ranging from the in game economy to Goals to power ups. We'll continue to track feedback in this thread and in the usual venues for discussion, so please keep posting.

 

[firehawk12]

So, necrobump, and I have no idea if anyone is still even thinking about this game anymore but I grabbed it since it was on sale. So how exactly does the economy work? You need to link up to Facebook to get more coins in order to use power ups that let you get more than 3/4 stars in a song?

 

[FyreWulff]

So, necrobump, and I have no idea if anyone is still even thinking about this game anymore but I grabbed it since it was on sale. So how exactly does the economy work? You need to link up to Facebook to get more coins in order to use power ups that let you get more than 3/4 stars in a song?

I still play it daily, but the community is fairly low population.

You don't need Facebook to get coins, but it helps you get more coins via goals. most of which require DLC or exports. Coins are slow at first. Stick to the Blitz tracks while unlocking the starting powerups.

Every new song will give you double coins for the first play.

The powerup you can most easily get high stars/gold stars and only with that one powerup is Synchrony. It'll give you 1000 points per activation, so if you stay on top of doing that especially on shorter songs, easy gold. The second is Pinball, Pinball will give you 1000 for each time you bounce it back, then 2000, 3000 etc the longer you keep it going.

Once you get a good enough coin buffer and get your brain around the game, you should never really run out of coins again. It does suck though when you're starting out. Should have been addressed more than they did.

 

[firehawk12]

I still play it daily, but the community is fairly low population.

You don't need Facebook to get coins, but it helps you get more coins via goals. most of which require DLC or exports. Coins are slow at first. Stick to the Blitz tracks while unlocking the starting powerups.

Every new song will give you double coins for the first play.

The powerup you can most easily get high stars/gold stars and only with that one powerup is Synchrony. It'll give you 1000 points per activation, so if you stay on top of doing that especially on shorter songs, easy gold. The second is Pinball, Pinball will give you 1000 for each time you bounce it back, then 2000, 3000 etc the longer you keep it going.

Once you get a good enough coin buffer and get your brain around the game, you should never really run out of coins again. It does suck though when you're starting out. Should have been addressed more than they did.

I unlocked Synchrony, but I have no idea what it means - do you get points every time you up the multiplier and then switch tracks?

Also, the 360 pad really is the worst thing to use for this game. Using the sticks or the d-pad doesn't feel good unfortunately.

 

[FyreWulff]

I unlocked Synchrony, but I have no idea what it means - do you get points every time you up the multiplier and then switch tracks?

Also, the 360 pad really is the worst thing to use for this game. Using the sticks or the d-pad doesn't feel good unfortunately.

There's other button schemes you can try.

Synchrony means you look for the little switch arrows at the end of each measure and switch to the next track. You'll see a "1000" "1500" "2000" or "2500" pop up if you did it right.

Example of synchrony abuse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fSZZjVd9YU

You can play this entire song switching at the arrows and playing NO notes and will get gold.

 

[firehawk12]

There's other button schemes you can try.

Synchrony means you look for the little switch arrows at the end of each measure and switch to the next track. You'll see a "1000" "1500" "2000" or "2500" pop up if you did it right.

Example of synchrony abuse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fSZZjVd9YU

You can play this entire song switching at the arrows and playing NO notes and will get gold.

I don't think I understand what's going on in there - he seems to just stay on the rhythm track for the entire song and gets points for basically doing nothing?
Is the idea that you just want to be on the track with the marks on it, except that in this song, it just stays in the same track?

 

[FyreWulff]

That's me actually, ha. Forgot I was doing that in the video. Sorry.

Bit of a stupid thing you can do where you can switch tracks then IMMEDIATELY hit the other direction to switch back to the track you're on, so it looks like you never leave. Here's a better video that shows synchrony being used as intended:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2OiHcQjpDc

 

[firehawk12]

Hah, yeah, I think I figured out that you were doing that when I was mashing the triggers in a frenzy. But yeah, it's a crazy power up. I just doubled my scores on some songs.
Still really don't care for the 360 controller, but what can ya do.

It's nice to give some life to the hundreds of songs that I bought over the years, but I guess they never did bother figuring out a RB3 or Beatles export option. That'd make it the complete experience at least!

 

[FyreWulff]

Beatles is never happening due to licensing. It's unfortunate no RB3 export is in the works, the official reason is that Blitz wasn't set up to handle import codes, but I have a feeling no RB4 to export 3 to is closer to the truth. I miss the RB3 tracks while playing Blitz.

This game definitely extended the life of my Rock Band DLC for me, I play it near every day. Have over a million coins and I'm way up there on a lot of leaderboards. Shame it didn't do well commercially. When you finally "get" the game it's really fun.

 

[firehawk12]

You know, if only Blitz was "broken" like RB3 and supported customs. It'd really open up the game.
(Funny, because it read my customs. It just crashes when you try to use them!)

Either way, it's a nice little send off for the whole franchise. And for a fiver, it's a great deal.

Oh yeah, has anyone ever compiled a list of songs that qualifies for each Facebook goal? You'd think that the goals on Facebook would just list all songs or the game itself would let you sort by goals, but nope...