Danny Cowan, Press (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} sardius_) wrote,@ 2008-04-22 04:43:00 |
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Outsmarting Rock Band's Online Quitters: A Half-Assed Essay (Assay)
My brother hated to lose.
I learned quickly that playing competitive games with an eight-year-old was futile. The second my brother would fall behind in Mario Kart 64, up would come his pause menu and he'd quit. If he lost all of his lives in Contra and ran out of extra ones to steal from me, he'd reset the NES.
Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey for the N64 was the worst. Pull a few goals ahead of him -- at any point, ranging from a few minutes into a match to the very end of the third period -- and he'd pause and quit in an instant. He had "pause, highlight 'quit', press A" down to a rhythm that took less than half a second. It was amazing. Infuriating, too. To this day, all I remember about Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey is the way the announcer would suddenly and cheerfully declare, "That's the end of the game!" at the premature conclusion of every match.
Playing Rock Band on Xbox Live takes me back to those days. It's like my brother never grew up, and there are now millions of him all around the world, ready and willing to ruin my fun at a moment's notice. It used to be that quitting early would be punishable by a punch in the gut. Xbox Live affords no such luxuries.
Rock Band features a barebones online experience in comparison to Xbox Live's typical team-based racial slur-athons. Instead, Rock Band randomly pits you against a player of your skill level for a one-time, one-on-one match. It's Dreamcast-like in its simplicity, and I love it. It's quick, it's easy, and -- aside from the occasional unintelligible bursts of headset chatter attempted by sore losers -- it's blissfully free of angry teenaged nerds.
For all that Rock Band does right in its online modes, though, the "get five online wins in a row" Achievements (one for each of the two available competitive modes) may be the worst parts of the game as a whole.
There's nothing wrong with them in theory; a skilled player could play through and win five songs in less than half an hour, and any wins at all count toward the "get 20 online wins total" Achievements, so no matter what your skill level, it's time well spent, right?
You'd think otherwise after having the other player quit out of the game seven minutes into Won't Get Fooled Again.
If your opponent quits early in Rock Band, the song you're playing ends instantly. It doesn't count as a loss for them, and it doesn't count as a win for you. It's nothing. It's like the last few minutes of your life evaporated, never to be enjoyed again.
It also makes for quick annoyance when you're trying to earn five wins in a row. The first time I played Tug of War mode, I racked up four straight wins, with only one person quitting early. Cool, almost there!
I start my sixth match, and after a minute or so of me beating the holy hell out of the guy, he quits. Okay.
I try again, and get another player who puts up a good fight for a several minutes, but then loses his combo at a note-heavy part and I pull decently far ahead. He also quits.
The third time I try for my fifth win in a row, I'm matched with someone else. We play Blitzkrieg Bop. I space out and miss one note. He misses none.
Goodbye, winning streak. I'd technically won the previous seven matches, but three of them didn't count. I didn't quit when I was losing, so I lost all of my streak progress.
My second attempt at the Achievement birthed a weird sort of metagame, made up of equal parts skill and psychology. It was like it was 1997 all over again, and I began to formulate new mind-game strategies similar to the ones I used against my brother in trying to prolong a game of Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey.
I became aware of the other player's side of the screen, watching for inconsistent, agitated play and dreading the moment when he would start missing several notes in a row -- a sure sign he's reached for the controller's guide button and is about to quit the game. I began to make mistakes on purpose, to ensure close matches. Any time the tug of war bar would fill halfway on my side, I'd miss a note and reset my score multiplier, allowing the other player to catch up slightly. I theorized that if my opponent perceived an evenly matched game and thought that I stood a chance of making further and more damaging mistakes, he'd be less likely to quit early.
I couldn't win too much, you see, or else I wouldn't win at all. Much like I'd allow my brother a free goal or two to keep a game of Wayne Gretzky alive, I'd introduced a self-handicap system to fix Rock Band's online play.
It took a few tries to find the right balance. Sometimes I'd miscalculate the number of notes I'd be given to refill my combo meter, allowing a crappy player on a streak to eventually pull too far ahead for me to catch up. Other times, I'd pull ahead too early -- the trick is to pretend to be a mediocre player for the first half of the song, then start nailing every note at the last minute, giving the other player less time to quit. This trick wasn't bulletproof, though. I've had quitters in the last fifteen seconds of some songs.
The Overdrive multiplier was also a major issue -- should I trigger it at a bad place intentionally, to make sure that I waste the opportunity for a higher score? Should I not trigger it at all? What about the opponent's Overdrive bar? Is it full because he doesn't know what it's for, or is he saving it for a huge scoring opportunity?
The randomly assigned opponents, coupled with the fact that the game doesn't tell you their skill levels until the end of a match, ensure that no matter how much psychology or skill you put into an online game of Rock Band, the results are mostly unpredictable. Pretending to be a worse player than you actually are does pay off in the end, though. After honing my suck/not-suck ratio, I finally got both online streak Achievements over the weekend, after a few lost matches and several early quitters.
(I also theorize that playing as a female character gave me a slight edge. It's well known that if you play enough online matches with a girl -- and maybe let her win a few times -- she will want to have sex with you.)
I don't know if I'll go back and try for the accumulated wins Achievements. It'll be less stressful now that the streak Achievements are out of the way, but the thought of playing against 14 quitters in a row is enough to turn me off of online play forever.
I don't mind losing. It's part of any game. Winning or losing doesn't come into play in Rock Band, though. Playing Rock Band online is less about rhythm and more about psychoanalyzing XxDragonWolfxX and wondering if he'd be less willing to quit on you if you dressed your character up in leopard-print pants.
I just want to play some fake plastic guitar here, man. Is that so much to ask?
My brother hated to lose.
I learned quickly that playing competitive games with an eight-year-old was futile. The second my brother would fall behind in Mario Kart 64, up would come his pause menu and he'd quit. If he lost all of his lives in Contra and ran out of extra ones to steal from me, he'd reset the NES.
Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey for the N64 was the worst. Pull a few goals ahead of him -- at any point, ranging from a few minutes into a match to the very end of the third period -- and he'd pause and quit in an instant. He had "pause, highlight 'quit', press A" down to a rhythm that took less than half a second. It was amazing. Infuriating, too. To this day, all I remember about Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey is the way the announcer would suddenly and cheerfully declare, "That's the end of the game!" at the premature conclusion of every match.
Playing Rock Band on Xbox Live takes me back to those days. It's like my brother never grew up, and there are now millions of him all around the world, ready and willing to ruin my fun at a moment's notice. It used to be that quitting early would be punishable by a punch in the gut. Xbox Live affords no such luxuries.
Rock Band features a barebones online experience in comparison to Xbox Live's typical team-based racial slur-athons. Instead, Rock Band randomly pits you against a player of your skill level for a one-time, one-on-one match. It's Dreamcast-like in its simplicity, and I love it. It's quick, it's easy, and -- aside from the occasional unintelligible bursts of headset chatter attempted by sore losers -- it's blissfully free of angry teenaged nerds.
For all that Rock Band does right in its online modes, though, the "get five online wins in a row" Achievements (one for each of the two available competitive modes) may be the worst parts of the game as a whole.
There's nothing wrong with them in theory; a skilled player could play through and win five songs in less than half an hour, and any wins at all count toward the "get 20 online wins total" Achievements, so no matter what your skill level, it's time well spent, right?
You'd think otherwise after having the other player quit out of the game seven minutes into Won't Get Fooled Again.
If your opponent quits early in Rock Band, the song you're playing ends instantly. It doesn't count as a loss for them, and it doesn't count as a win for you. It's nothing. It's like the last few minutes of your life evaporated, never to be enjoyed again.
It also makes for quick annoyance when you're trying to earn five wins in a row. The first time I played Tug of War mode, I racked up four straight wins, with only one person quitting early. Cool, almost there!
I start my sixth match, and after a minute or so of me beating the holy hell out of the guy, he quits. Okay.
I try again, and get another player who puts up a good fight for a several minutes, but then loses his combo at a note-heavy part and I pull decently far ahead. He also quits.
The third time I try for my fifth win in a row, I'm matched with someone else. We play Blitzkrieg Bop. I space out and miss one note. He misses none.
Goodbye, winning streak. I'd technically won the previous seven matches, but three of them didn't count. I didn't quit when I was losing, so I lost all of my streak progress.
My second attempt at the Achievement birthed a weird sort of metagame, made up of equal parts skill and psychology. It was like it was 1997 all over again, and I began to formulate new mind-game strategies similar to the ones I used against my brother in trying to prolong a game of Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey.
I became aware of the other player's side of the screen, watching for inconsistent, agitated play and dreading the moment when he would start missing several notes in a row -- a sure sign he's reached for the controller's guide button and is about to quit the game. I began to make mistakes on purpose, to ensure close matches. Any time the tug of war bar would fill halfway on my side, I'd miss a note and reset my score multiplier, allowing the other player to catch up slightly. I theorized that if my opponent perceived an evenly matched game and thought that I stood a chance of making further and more damaging mistakes, he'd be less likely to quit early.
I couldn't win too much, you see, or else I wouldn't win at all. Much like I'd allow my brother a free goal or two to keep a game of Wayne Gretzky alive, I'd introduced a self-handicap system to fix Rock Band's online play.
It took a few tries to find the right balance. Sometimes I'd miscalculate the number of notes I'd be given to refill my combo meter, allowing a crappy player on a streak to eventually pull too far ahead for me to catch up. Other times, I'd pull ahead too early -- the trick is to pretend to be a mediocre player for the first half of the song, then start nailing every note at the last minute, giving the other player less time to quit. This trick wasn't bulletproof, though. I've had quitters in the last fifteen seconds of some songs.
The Overdrive multiplier was also a major issue -- should I trigger it at a bad place intentionally, to make sure that I waste the opportunity for a higher score? Should I not trigger it at all? What about the opponent's Overdrive bar? Is it full because he doesn't know what it's for, or is he saving it for a huge scoring opportunity?
The randomly assigned opponents, coupled with the fact that the game doesn't tell you their skill levels until the end of a match, ensure that no matter how much psychology or skill you put into an online game of Rock Band, the results are mostly unpredictable. Pretending to be a worse player than you actually are does pay off in the end, though. After honing my suck/not-suck ratio, I finally got both online streak Achievements over the weekend, after a few lost matches and several early quitters.
(I also theorize that playing as a female character gave me a slight edge. It's well known that if you play enough online matches with a girl -- and maybe let her win a few times -- she will want to have sex with you.)
I don't know if I'll go back and try for the accumulated wins Achievements. It'll be less stressful now that the streak Achievements are out of the way, but the thought of playing against 14 quitters in a row is enough to turn me off of online play forever.
I don't mind losing. It's part of any game. Winning or losing doesn't come into play in Rock Band, though. Playing Rock Band online is less about rhythm and more about psychoanalyzing XxDragonWolfxX and wondering if he'd be less willing to quit on you if you dressed your character up in leopard-print pants.
I just want to play some fake plastic guitar here, man. Is that so much to ask?
