|
|
View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
krispykreme
Joined: 14 Apr 2007 Posts: 66
|
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 9:17 am Post subject: |
|
|
Ya, I really don't know how to explain the gap's on Say It Ain't So Expert. I have picture proof if it's needed. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
dfan
Joined: 25 Sep 2006 Posts: 167
|
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 3:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
violinhero86 wrote: | I think I might have figured out why this happens.
Many of the drum fill sections coincide with actual passages in the song that end with cymbal crashes and accompanying kick. If you hit the cymbal crash early at the end of a drum fill, then you have a small window to play that last note from the normal chart.
This explains why playing the kick pedal late gets you extra points while playing it early doesn't. It also explains why hitting other pads either doesn't do anything or breaks combo; there are no other pads on that note hiding under the cymbal crash. Finally, it explains why it doesn't work in all songs; as pointed out in another thread, not all cymbal crashes have an accompanying kick. Some of the drum fills might end at this kind of note.
To get further evidence for this hypothesis (what can I say, I'm a scientist), I double-drummed the green pad at the end of the fill (once to activate OD, another for the "hidden" green note) in addition to hitting the kick pedal late, and lo! I got 600 more points than the current top score, and three more notes in my streak [Edit: on I Think I'm Paranoid]. That means that the cymbal crash at the end of the drum fill is not the same note as the cymbal crash hiding underneath in the normal chart! |
Yep, that's got to be what's going on. Sigh. Nice catch, guys.
You should give the QA guys a break though, if it took hundreds of thousands of people playing it for over a month before it was noticed out in the field.
I'll fix this for any future projects but it's really unlikely that the people in charge here at Harmonix will think it's worth meriting a patch for (and as people on this thread have noted, it would mean either having unachievable scores on the leaderboard or wiping the leaderboards, either of which would suck). I think players who want to get to the tippy-top of the leaderboards are probably going to have to learn this exploit.
Many apologies,
Dan (beatmatch gameplay guy) |
|
Back to top |
|
|
alexonfire
Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 521 Location: milwaukee, wisconsin
|
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 10:14 pm Post subject: |
|
|
violinhero86 wrote: | alexonfire wrote: | and did you have 4x overdrive activations throughout the song? because 3rd place has an FC with 4 notes less than you. |
Yeah, I FC'ed it. He probably has a streak of four fewer notes because he successfully got the kick on two of the three OD activations, and none of the extra cymbal crashes.
The "base" FC score for I Think I'm Paranoid (assuming you activate every time a fill comes up and don't hoard energy instead) would be 145,275 with a streak of 1227. Each extra kick or cymbal crash gets you an additional 200 points and one more note for your streak. You can do this once at each fill, and there's the possibility for three fills in this song, so the max score (assuming this OD path is optimal and that there isn't anything left to be discovered about OD usage) would then be an additional 1200 points with a streak 6 notes longer, i.e., a score of 146,475 and a streak of 1233. Does that make sense? |
yes, that makes sense. but could you explain what you did a little more clearly? did you hit the green once by itself, slightly before the green OD activation note, then again right after with a bass hit? or did you just hit the green with a bass hit for every activation? _________________
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
violinhero86
Joined: 18 Nov 2007 Posts: 376 Location: Brown University - Providence, RI
|
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 10:40 pm Post subject: |
|
|
alexonfire wrote: | yes, that makes sense. but could you explain what you did a little more clearly? did you hit the green once by itself, slightly before the green OD activation note, then again right after with a bass hit? or did you just hit the green with a bass hit for every activation? |
I hit green once by itself during (not before) the OD activation note, and then immediately after that I hit green again along with a bass hit. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
brian0153
Joined: 31 Dec 2007 Posts: 108
|
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 2:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
SO, your getting an extra hit for hiting bass and green on that green note that activates overdrive, or just anyware in the fill? |
|
Back to top |
|
|
brian0153
Joined: 31 Dec 2007 Posts: 108
|
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 2:31 am Post subject: |
|
|
ok i get it now your hiting the green activating note then directly aftarwards hitinga green and bass my only quest ion is shouldnt this give you 2 extra note sence notes are regestered individualy on drums? |
|
Back to top |
|
|
TheGlow
Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 2748 Location: J Train Brooklyn!
|
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 3:01 am Post subject: |
|
|
brian0153 wrote: | ok i get it now your hiting the green activating note then directly aftarwards hitinga green and bass my only quest ion is shouldnt this give you 2 extra note sence notes are regestered individualy on drums? |
Nod, thats why I believe he said theres 3 activations and should give him 6 extra notes.
G to OD, G+Bass x3 = 6 extrar n0tez |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Echelar
Joined: 26 Feb 2006 Posts: 1246 Location: Fort Wayne, IN
|
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 3:06 am Post subject: |
|
|
So I went back to get the extra points... came out with a 1232 streak and 145775. I have to conclude that all 5 of my 6 "squeeze" notes were not under overdrive.
My guess is that overdrive starts on the measure line that ends the fill section regardless of when you hit the crash. So, you have to put your "extra" hit in after that to get full points. _________________
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
violinhero86
Joined: 18 Nov 2007 Posts: 376 Location: Brown University - Providence, RI
|
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 5:32 am Post subject: |
|
|
Actually, when I played around with it, I found that OD was activated right when you hit the cymbal crash the first time, not necessarily on the measure line, so there's going to be some squeezing on the other end, too, when overdrive fades.
You have to balance hitting the first crash late enough that you can get that one extra note at the end of OD with hitting it early enough that you're still within the window of the notes hiding under the end of the fill. It took me quite a few tries to get the score I did. ;-)
Edited for clarification. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
disquette
Joined: 12 Dec 2007 Posts: 82
|
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 4:38 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Can someone confirm that these are the scenarios for getting extra notes? I'm going to assume you have a 20ms timing window for each hit.
Code key:
* = 10 milliseconds of empty space, underneath drum fill
g = phantom note you should play if it wasn't hidden because of drum fill
c = where you *actually* hit the cymbal
f = drum fill
x = places where the last cymbal hit will register
n = note you should play, not covered by drum fill
$ = fill ends. any note after this is counted against you as a combo break
method 1 - playing a phantom note at the end of a drum fill
Code: |
g*******|g*******|g******$|g |n n |n...
ffffffff|ffffffff|fffffxcx|xx | |...
|
In this case, you hit the cymbal where I have the c, and hit the g note where the $ is. This way, the overdrive is activated (on the c), and the g registers because it's within the two * timing window of where you should hit g, and because it's after overdrive has been activated.
method 2 - extending the overdrive by a note or two
o = overdrive active
u = overdrive stops
Code: |
|g******$|g |n n |..playing in overdrive..|n n |nn n |
|fffffxxx|xcoooooo|oooooooo|.. overdrive going ..|oooooooo|oouuuuuu|
|
In this case, you extend overdrive 10 milliseconds by registering the cymbal hit to end the drum fill at the tail end of it's timing window. As a result, those two n's which would usually be out of overdrive are now covered by overdrive. In addition, because the timing window is 2 units/letter's worth, you might even be able to squeeze that 3rd n into the overdrive by playing it early.
Summary
First of all, I'm making up numbers like 10 or 20 milliseconds because I don't know the actual ones. These are being used for demonstration only. You traditionally *wont* have notes only 10 milliseconds apart, as shown in the 2nd example, but again, that's just for illustration.
I guess what this all means is that you can get higher scores via memorization. If you know that a drum fill you're playing has note hits at the end of it, you can use method one for a fairly safe extra note. If, however, you know that the drum fill wouldn't end on a note if it were uncovered, you can time the last cymbal hit a bit late to give yourself a few extra milliseconds on overdrive. This combined with hitting a note a teeny bit early as your overdrive is about to end could be enough to squeeze in extra points on the tail end of over drive.
Method one is pretty safe, since the drum fill will keep you from breaking a combo, and could be extra helpful in situations where you have both a bass and a red/yellow hit that is lying underneath the tail end of a fill. Method two is pretty gutsy, and requires a great familiarity with the note chart if you want to do it accurately (as opposed to just lucking out, which certainly will also increase your score - it's just not planable as easily as method 1).
I'd be very interested to know if I've described the conclusions of the discussion here accurately, or if I have misinterpreted some of the info, so thanks in advance for any confirmations or corrections. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
violinhero86
Joined: 18 Nov 2007 Posts: 376 Location: Brown University - Providence, RI
|
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:15 pm Post subject: |
|
|
What you have for method 1 is correct. For method 2, I haven't tested exactly how late you can hit the OD activation note. In particular, I don't know if the window for the activation note is the same as for a regular note, although I don't see why it wouldn't be.
In addition, there will be cases where you want to use both methods at the same time. This happens for all three fills in I Think I'm Paranoid, for example.
In such a case, you want to do something like this:
Code: |
|g******$|g |n n |..playing in overdrive..|n n |n n |
|fffffxxx|c!oooooo|oooooooo|.. overdrive going ..|oooooooo|ouuuuuuu|
|
Activate OD on the c, which is as late as you can activate while still having window left for the phantom note. Play the phantom note (in the case of I Think I'm Paranoid, it's a cymbal+bass) on the !, since it's still less than two *-widths from the g. Then overdrive will last just long enough to get that first n past the bar. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
disquette
Joined: 12 Dec 2007 Posts: 82
|
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Very cool, thanks for the follow up. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
NumberCruncher
Joined: 07 Dec 2007 Posts: 93
|
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:14 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I think it's also possible to get notes in at the beginning of a fill, too, not just at the end.
I haven't gotten to test this much, but I broke streak shortly before a fill, continued playing the normal pattern into the fill, and my streak circle incremented one at the very beginning of it. It's possible the display just updated slowly and I misinterpreted it, but I don't think so.
Also, I may have hit the phantom note a little bit early. So, one possible explanation is that I snuck into the note's timing window before the fill deactivated it.
Continuing to play the pattern correctly (I think) did not increase my streak any further. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Whitespace
Joined: 26 Dec 2007 Posts: 13
|
Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 10:08 pm Post subject: To take it further |
|
|
I bed if you increase (or decrease) the screen lag to either extreme, you can exploit this further.
Also, if someone makes a special pad that sends a signal for the green cymbal and then immediately green+bass (any maybe others), they could easily exploit this.
Of course, someone could always make an auto-play, so we can't totally prevent cheating jerks, but this sounds like bad news to the legit players out there. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
someguy913
Joined: 23 Dec 2006 Posts: 970 Location: Dallas, TX
|
Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 7:25 am Post subject: Re: To take it further |
|
|
Whitespace wrote: | this sounds like bad news to the legit players out there. |
Indeed it does. When I first played with the drum OD system, I was thinking "Thank God! Set activation points! Now I don't have to worry about all that ridiculous and tedious squeezing crap like on Guitar Hero." But no, now the scores on all of the easy to intermediate songs will be decided by who can best exploit the timing window and cram in the most phantom notes. *sigh* _________________
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Copyright © 2006-2024 ScoreHero, LLC
|
Powered by phpBB
|