ROCKMETER RETHINKING

[tgrecu]

I found that the rockmeter goes up too slow if compared to guitar hero or rock band... and it doens't care if you're playing a chord or single notes... that means it's too hard to play, cos you're always down on the rockmeter and always losing. i think this will make it similar to guitar hero

[derelict68]

This has been discussed before and Callisto has done all he can to make it emulate GH3 as close as possible, however I have thought this same thing. However, it is not enough to just say "the rock meter doesn't work right". If you would really like to see this get implemented, please do a little research for us with actual numbers and tests to compare the two and see if you can find what exactly needs to be changed.

It has already been determined that the meter goes down too fast during starpower, btw.

[CJB100]

other than going down too fast in sp, it has been PROVEN W/O A DOUBT that the rock meter works EXACTLY like gh3's. PROVE to me AND callisto AND the entire score hero forums (that's how we figured out how the rock meter for gh3 works) that without a doubt in the world the rock meter doesn't work like it should and then we'll talk.

BTW i notice no difference watsoever between gh3 rock meters and gz2 rock meters at all and in fact play both constantly. like everyday. it feels fine. and it doesn't matter in either game whether the note you hit is a chord or not the rock meter goes up (and maybe down) the same amount. although as it has been said it goes down faster in sp than in gh3. maybe what you are talking about is note windows or board perspective, these have a tendancy to throw people off. if you srsly believe the rock meter works differently, than find us absolute proof.

[Tean]

I was thinking about this last night actually -- I think the rock meter isn't the issue. I think some of the windows for notes may be. I can get pretty good scores on the GH: Aerosmith 360 demo, but playing the same songs in GZ2 I can't even finish sometimes. That being said, I think the windows may be different enough to cause the issues, which is the root of the problem.

[CJB100]

my thots all this matter also. the hopo note windows need to be very slightly smaller, and the regular note windows need to be very slightly smaller. Also, the hopo note window and the window that hopo's have to be strummed, the actual window for hopo's needs to be smaller than the strum window for it, this way you can strum and the note is less likely to disappear b4 hand, and also, it makes more sense that a note you don't have to strum needs to be hit more precisely.

this is all imo of course, except the last little bit about hopo acutal and strum windows, i personally believe that needs to be true of all gh and rb clones, because it is true of all the games out excluding gh3, which has totally unrealistic hopo's.

[tgrecu]

man you talkin bout windows and hopos dunno what ya sayin
i played guitar hero 1, 2, and rock band before and i found that rockmeter is too slow going up
OTHER PROBLEM if you miss a note in guitar hero, i mean you don't even try to play it, rockmeter usually goes down less than if you try to play it and you do it wrong

btw can you please tell what hopos and windows are? thank you guys

[derelict68]

Moved because its not a request unless somebody provides some proof it's wrong.

With how adamant CJB is that it's right, I started to wonder what could "feel" different about it. It goes along the previously stated point about played and non-played notes. Could it be that in GHIII if you try to play a note, miss, that it counts as a single miss in the rockmeter, where thinking about it from a programming POV, those would be 2 seperate events therefore count as 2 misses?

tgrecu - What we mean by proof is provide numbers for how you feel the rock meter is wrong. Say play 5 good notes, 5 bad notes, then don't play anything. How many notes does it take to fail? Now do the same thing in GZ2, is it any different? Now do the same scenario only instead of waiting for notes to kill you, try strumming a lot. How many strums does it take to die? Is it the same in GZ2? The only way to do this properly is with videos I'm sure to make sure you're counting is correct. However, CJB alludes to some SH discussions about the topic regarding the GH rock meter and how it behaves, which is what we used as a pattern. You will want to read over there to determine how they came up with the numbers they did, and see if you agree with their method. ( I have never read anything over there except for feedback stuff, so I can't comment)

[canped]

No, if you play a wrong note or strum with no note pressed, the meter goes down MORE.

HOPOs are hammer-ons and pull-offs, note windows are the space of time before and after the note in which you can still hit the note (early or late).

[derelict68]

Are you sure there isn't a window around notes that you can miss it by that will be a miss of the note, but not register it as an extra misstrum as well?

I'm not saying this is how it works BTW, just asking because something definately feels "different". Not wrong per se, just enough off that sometimes when I lose I feel ripped off... but at the end of the day if I can't do something, I'll just go play in practice mode. That's what its there for.

[fude]

Oct 1, 2008 12:43:16 GMT -5 derelict68 said:

With how adamant CJB is that it's right, I started to wonder what could "feel" different about it. It goes along the previously stated point about played and non-played notes. Could it be that in GHIII if you try to play a note, miss, that it counts as a single miss in the rockmeter, where thinking about it from a programming POV, those would be 2 seperate events therefore count as 2 misses?

This actually exactly what i've been thinking while wondering the problem of the 'extra' difficulty in gz. I can't prove if it's right or wrong, but it describes the problem perfectly.

I've played Guitar Hero III for months and it was the game which teached me to get the skills to pass expert songs. I've had many, many situations where i've struggled painfully long on red (before i forget, i started to hate the song and especially the bridge part cause i replayed it so long). And it let me do it. Now when im trying same songs in gz, its like a sudden death; when i reach the difficult point, it's impossible to begin struggling to get past it cause im already failed.

These difficult sections are normally fast strumming and notes switching at the same time, so for me many note misses are obvious. That is why this 'double-miss count' theory what you've pointed out could be the possible issue?

I know someone has discussed that on starpower, the meter decreases too fast, but in my case its irrelevant cause usually on the difficult sections i have no starpower available, that's when it is truly 'struggling'.

[CJB100]

No, if you play a wrong note or strum with no note pressed, the meter goes down MORE.

exactly. canped is EXACTLY right.

i know the game is harder. think with me tho... i know exactly what the problem is, i have known for a while, although it seems that some people simply go on "feelings" about how the rock meter is wrong and not real thots or facts. what fude and derelict came up with is not bad, built around logic, and it may or may be not right. idk i haven't checked it too much. i never had too much of a problem between gh3's and gz2's difficulty in this aspect. and i know for sure that gh3 goes down more if you strum incorrectly than if you just let the note pass by. however i never checked gh2 or rb for this, and if it does work like that, (which you mentioned something about the pov in rb guitars) then we might need to look into it further.

but the MAIN PROBLEM tho is that the NOTE WINDOWS are tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttooooooooooooooooooooooooo freaking big. they're bigger than gh3's, which is really saying something. in parts where fast strumming is involved, or hopo streams, the note window is so big that if you don't hit the note very close to exactly, the strum will actually count AHEAD of the note you would be trying to play. see what i am saying??

so let's say you have a long sequence of green notes, you strum very slightly over the normal speed for like half a second, then the note AHEAD one place of the note you were TRYING TO HIT disappears and the one you were TRYING TO HIT flies off screen causing you to loose your streak. same thing with hammer-on's and pull-off's although i think that one of the recent beta's greatly helped hopo timing. songs like the metal, if you go slightly ahead for a few hopo notes, the note window is so big that it will count the note even when it's really freaking far away. but eventually you try and hit a note so far away that the game decides to screw you over and not count the note you were aiming to hopo, which throws you off. and the effect only worsens as the hopo streak's speed gets faster.

now somewhere i posted this not too long ago.

we need to make the regular note windows very slightly smaller than they are now, maybe make them smaller by like 1/5 or 1/4.

the hopo note windows really need to be made smaller, maybe even up to 1/2 their size now for gh2 style hopo's. i'd think somewhere between 1/4 or 1/3 smaller would suffice tho for sure and it would at least improve gameplay.

now here's a part that might be confusing. it seems like there is a certain amount of leverage the game gives you for overstrumming a hopo. so when you put your finger down the hopo disappears and you have a certain amount of time where you can strum and the game won't count a double strum. but this is sloppy. in fact the game might be better off without this. or maybe it could be made much smaller, smaller than the regular hopo note windows. idk too much about this function of the game since it hasn't been brought up too much, but it just seems like there would be a more efficient way to figure this out. like have a hopo be strum-able for a certain amount of time before gaining hopo qualities. so for example, you have a note window for when the hopo can be strummed, and it is the same as the other regular note windows, and you can't hammer on or pull off a hopo note during this time, just strum it. then you have a window much smaller than the regular note windows which also applies, in which the hopo can be... hopo'd. however this still presents us with the current (overstrumming) problem, but it would be less likely to get really off-speed with hopo's than it is now, and it seems as if it would work better than the current system, which simply disregards double strums for a short amount of time.

[lunchboxdave]

I really like the slacked HOPO window style like in GH3. It makes for a smoother game play, and less frustration.

[CJB100]

i agree with you, but as it turns out, a lot of people don't, and it might be a bit hard to program the hopos exactly like in gh3, although they are very similar now (because of how big the note windows are). in gh3 you can lay your finger on the fret like miles ahead of a hopo, and as long as you hit the note before it, and hit the hopo... well there's pretty much no way to miss or overstrum a hopo in that game. unless you just hit the wrong button.

[lunchboxdave]

Well i dont really think GZ2 is much off. I just know it isnt as hard as the GH 1 and 2 windows.

[CJB100]

true, i don't feel like it is all that far off now either (back in beta 5 it was horrible [well that's my opinion] but callisto made them 10 ms tighter and added in the double strum function like i said above, and it isn't bad at all now), in fact it's pretty close, we just need to tighten up the note windows slightly and that should "fix" it. i just brought up the current hopo system cuz i wasn't sure what you guys thot about it, i rele wasn't sure if you guys even realized how it worked. whether this system is good enough or not is not up to me, or anyone else, ultimately it's up to callisto, i just thot i'd share that info with you guys and see what you thot about it. and it's not tooo bad, i just think it could be made way better.

[lunchboxdave]

Yeah i know exactly what you mean. Ive played the game enough and done my fair share of research in the forums.

[CJB100]

cool.

hey you only got 13 posts?? thot you had more than that...

[lunchboxdave]

I dunno whats up with that. But ive tapped into "rocker" status. [censored] yeah!

[lunchboxdave]

damn i forgot the filter hahaha