Topic: Do you advocate a "medium and a half" mode for Guitar Hero/Rock Band?

[Maverick]

I remember someone around here (Mr. Jack, maybe?) mentioning how they would really like to have an only four button guitar hero that still played at faster speeds with more button presses... I think it was in the Talkback thread for "GH:  On Tour".  Anyways, I was playing a bit of solo Rock Band yesterday as the new NIN track pack was just released, and I had to get in on that action, especially for "Last".  I found myself incredibly bored with "Medium", but as is always the case, as soon as I try to move up to Hard, well... it's hard.

I don't have the time or desire to actively "practice" fake guitar to the point of seamlessly transitioning down to that extra button at lightning speeds (Seeing as I have a real guitar I need to practice on more and all.), but I would REALLY enjoy a sort of "medium and half" mode where the speed and number of notes was increased, but allowed me to stick to my lazy gamer four button ways.

Does anyone agree?  Or would that sort of thing kill the allure of "mastering" the plastic guitar?

[EasyCure]

yeah i'd advocate that. I can do a majority of songs on Hard and i've beat a few on Expert (GH3 is my first GH, to own anyway), but i started on easy and worked my way up. I wouldn't mind a a harder "medium" mode because sometimes it is a pain to hit that last button, and i play a real guitar so i'm used to stretching my pinky out, but on the GH controller its just a pain.

[Morari]

Yes, but in an opposite manner. I would rather have the fifth button added, but the speed and note count remain simpler. Perhaps then one could learn to use that invisible finger of theirs without being bombarded by difficult note streaks not even fathomed in Medium. It's a helluva a jump in difficult from Medium to Hard, and nothing too akin to what it's like going from Easy to Medium.

[Nick DiMola]

Nope, wasn't me. I have played way too much Guitar Hero in years past and I'd probably be all for adding a few more buttons to up the ante.

[Maverick]

Sorry Mr. Jack, I don't know why I thought it was you.  It was insanolord:

I'd love a harder 4-fret game, I've tried and tried but I can't get the hang of playing with 5 frets and medium keeps getting easier and easier, I want a challenge. I'm not paying 50 bucks for a game with that few tracks that doesn't work right, though.

Morari, what you mentioned doesn't sound so bad either.  If it was at a slower speed and less complicated but still included the fifth button that could work as well.  Something to get you used to using that fifth button before catapulting you into brickwallville.

[bustin98]

I am still getting comfortable with medium so I have no experience with hard. But I've heard that on hard you keep your fingers on the bottom 4 buttons and reach up for the green, for two reasons: its easier to stretch the pointer than the pinky and the green is used less often than the others.

Any truth to that? I also heard strumming up and down rather than in one direction all the time is better for the harder difficulties.

[Ian Sane]

I like both ideas: the faster notes without the fifth button and the slower notes with the fifth button.

Are you supposed to just move your pinky over?  I try to move my whole hand over like I would when moving bar chords on a guitar and I just get totally f*cked up.  I don't stretch often when playing real guitar, I just slide my hand but maybe that wasn't the design.  To be fair a lot of guitar playing is very unconventional in finger positioning.  I've never met anyone who does an A chord with the finger positioning I use.

When playing Guitar Hero I think I would prefer eight buttons instead of five but in two rows so I can go up and down them like scales.  Typically when soloing you're more likely to be doing that then moving up and down the neck.

[Morari]

bustin98, that's what I try to do. It usually works alright until I have to hit a red button then a green button, or vice versa. My main problem is that none of the songs seems to provide adequate practice grounds for one's fingers to get used to Hard. It took a while for me to stop hitting yellow when I meant blue, and blue when I meant yellow upon moving up into Medium, after all.

My brother plays adequately on Hard, doing so by keeping his index finger on green at all times and shifting the rest of his hand up and down the buttons when needed. So say, you needed to hit the red button, he'd keep his index on green and move every other finger up one, thus positioning his middle finger on red. That just confused my fingers even more though.

I don't even really play the game much nowadays. It was great fun for the first month or two I had it, but I guess it's just too repetitive to firmly hold my interest for too long. Now when I do occasionally pick it up, I'm kind of crappy even on Medium because I'm out of what little practice I did have.

[EasyCure]

I am still getting comfortable with medium so I have no experience with hard. But I've heard that on hard you keep your fingers on the bottom 4 buttons and reach up for the green, for two reasons: its easier to stretch the pointer than the pinky and the green is used less often than the others.

Any truth to that? I also heard strumming up and down rather than in one direction all the time is better for the harder difficulties.

That works on some songs, but not all. I've noticed its easier on songs that have more riffs and solos with higher octaves because they replicate the higher notes with the strings higher on the faux guitars neck (as in a real guitar) so if you're playing something like "Black Magic Woman" you're best bet is to leave your finger off the Green fret and stretch your index finger to it when needed, other than that though i just stretch my pinky out to reach the Orange fret.

they need a better way of identifying frets by touch, that one raised line in the middle just doesnt cut it. On a real guitar you have your fret markers and you can look down at your neck whenever you want, you can't do that when playing these games because you have to stare at the tv constantly so being able to find the fret with your finger w/o missing is a big deal here.

[vudu]

I'd like to see two difficulty options--first you pick the number of fret buttons (3, 4, or 5) and then you pick the difficulty level (easy, medium, or hard).

I'm in the same boat as the topic creator--I'm really good at medium, but I don't really have the desire to jump to hard. 

[UltimatePartyBear]

On the off chance that someone from VV or Harmonix stumbles across this thread, I'd like to voice my wholehearted agreement with vudu.  I can ace songs I've never heard before on medium, but hard just slays me.  There is a definite need to separate the difficulty level from the number of buttons.

[EasyCure]

On the off chance that someone from VV or Harmonix stumbles across this thread, I'd like to voice my wholehearted agreement with vudu.  I can ace songs I've never heard before on medium, but hard just slays me.  There is a definite need to separate the difficulty level from the number of buttons.

i'm surprised.. i thought the majority of these boards would be guys who could whoop my butt on expert while i'm just barely getting thru hard. Its the reason i havent actively traded FC's for this game. Now i want to exchange them to whoever has GH3 here because i know i stand a chance!

[Morari]

I'd like to see two difficulty options--first you pick the number of fret buttons (3, 4, or 5) and then you pick the difficulty level (easy, medium, or hard).

I'm in the same boat as the topic creator--I'm really good at medium, but I don't really have the desire to jump to hard. 

I like that idea. It would possibly complicate fretting the songs from a development standpoint however. Instead of just having four (slightly) different charts, you'd have to have twelve. It might be a little too much to ask for. I definitely like the basic idea however. Separating the number of buttons from the difficulty selected would be great.

[shammack]

I guess a "medium and a half" couldn't hurt, but I don't really feel it's necessary.  I did originally have some trouble making the transition from medium to hard in GH2 (it's much harder than going from hard to expert), but it's really just a matter of practice, and my feeling is that once you get the hang of using all five frets, that's when the game really starts to get fun, so if you just want more notes with four frets, you're really doing yourself a disservice.  "Medium and a half" is basically what GH: On Tour is on hard and expert, and it's ... not that good (though the crappy strumming may be tinting my view of it somewhat).

For playing with all five buttons, I recommend staying in "second position" most of the time, and when you need to hit a green note, either just stretch your index finger over or slide your whole hand over, depending on the situation.

[S-U-P-E-R]

Maybe instead of an upper-baby mode you should just get better at the game

Are you supposed to just move your pinky over?

It works better if you move your whole hand down and use that as the default position, reaching up with your pointer.

[Maverick]

Maybe instead of an upper-baby mode you should just get better at the game

Owe, my pride.

[Morari]

Maybe instead of an upper-baby mode you should just get better at the game

I'd pick up my real guitar and practice with it before I put the amount of time in required to be great at this videogame.

[bosshogx]

Amen to that idea brother.

My crew and I were playing RB last week and I made the same remark after scoring a 94% on Medium and failing out three times on Hard.  I noticed that not only are they adding the orange button and increasing the speed, the heartless bastards add a ton more notes in addition to adding multiple button presses.

I can handle hitting two buttons next to each other, but when there is a space between them it takes me a second to wrap my brain around it.  When the are coming at you at a million miles per hour, you can just get ready to start the song over.

I guess that's one of the reasons I main the mic.  That and none of the other guys will do it.  A few songs maybe, but on the whole they'd rather play without the mic then sing.  Cowards.  Real men sing.

[EasyCure]

Amen to that idea brother.

My crew and I were playing RB last week and I made the same remark after scoring a 94% on Medium and failing out three times on Hard.  I noticed that not only are they adding the orange button and increasing the speed, the heartless bastards add a ton more notes in addition to adding multiple button presses.

I can handle hitting two buttons next to each other, but when there is a space between them it takes me a second to wrap my brain around it.  When the are coming at you at a million miles per hour, you can just get ready to start the song over.

i don't mind with the three frets as chords when they're either all together (ie G/R/Y) or when they resemble a power chord (ie G/Y/B) but i always seem to mess up when they're inverted (G/R/B). its one of those issues where the game just can't replicate something easily done on a real guitar.

[UltimatePartyBear]

Maybe instead of an upper-baby mode you should just get better at the game

I need the upper-baby mode in order to get better at the game.

[matt oz]

Maybe instead of an upper-baby mode you should just get better at the game

I agree.  In GH3, I moved up very steadily from easy to expert.  It was my first GH game, but I was used to the gameplay because I was AWESOME at Amplitude, one of Harmonix's previous titles.  Maybe that made it easier for me to grasp everything, but like I said, it was a steady progression, and I was playing decently on hard in a few weeks.  As it stands now, I can complete any song on hard, and maybe half the songs on expert.

As for Rock Band, I found Hard mode in guitar to be much easier than GH.  The whole time I played, I failed one song, and that was in the final tier.  Compare that to GH, where it took me dozens of tries to complete Knights of Cydonia or Raining Blood on Hard, and it's easy to tell which game has the more robust note charts.

And for the record, I find it much easier to stretch my pinky, so I play in the first position on the guitar.  I know it sounds weird, but all of my pinkys are extremely... stretchy?  Like, they can stretch really far away from the rest of my fingers.  I include my toes in that, too.  My pinky toes can move independently about an inch away from the fourth toe.  Isn't that interesting?

[Morari]

And for the record, I find it much easier to stretch my pinky, so I play in the first position on the guitar.  I know it sounds weird, but all of my pinkys are extremely... stretchy?  Like, they can stretch really far away from the rest of my fingers.  I include my toes in that, too.  My pinky toes can move independently about an inch away from the fourth toe.  Isn't that interesting?

Not just interesting, it's also very sexy!

[EasyCure]

Maybe instead of an upper-baby mode you should just get better at the game

I agree.  In GH3, I moved up very steadily from easy to expert.  It was my first GH game, but I was used to the gameplay because I was AWESOME at Amplitude, one of Harmonix's previous titles.  Maybe that made it easier for me to grasp everything, but like I said, it was a steady progression, and I was playing decently on hard in a few weeks.  As it stands now, I can complete any song on hard, and maybe half the songs on expert.

As for Rock Band, I found Hard mode in guitar to be much easier than GH.  The whole time I played, I failed one song, and that was in the final tier.  Compare that to GH, where it took me dozens of tries to complete Knights of Cydonia or Raining Blood on Hard, and it's easy to tell which game has the more robust note charts.

And for the record, I find it much easier to stretch my pinky, so I play in the first position on the guitar.  I know it sounds weird, but all of my pinkys are extremely... stretchy?  Like, they can stretch really far away from the rest of my fingers.  I include my toes in that, too.  My pinky toes can move independently about an inch away from the fourth toe.  Isn't that interesting?

i can only do that with my right foot i try and try but i've never gotten lefty to budge!

[S-U-P-E-R]

I think it would be better just to introduce the orange fret from earlier on or possibly the beginning. You learn bad playing habits when you don't use it, like getting used to never moving your hand.

[Maverick]

I think it would be better just to introduce the orange fret from earlier on or possibly the beginning. You learn bad playing habits when you don't use it, like getting used to never moving your hand.

This is true.  Perhaps easy and medium modes should just be a "speed and number of notes" type of thing rather than excluding buttons.  It takes a lot of work to re-train your brain once they introduce that fifth button.