I'd say if it ain't broke, don't fix it. However, if you are finding a lot of broken streaks due to little misses, you might be inadvertently over-strumming when the HOPO was already caught.

Yea I did notice that. But man... I really don't wanna have to re-learn my technique by changing.... It's almost like I don't trust the HOPO to take affect. LOL I do like how its easier to tell the HOPO notes apart.

Let me also gush over the change in the single player experience. My biggest complaint in RB1 (and GH, for that matter) was the fact that I'd play for a while on Hard and get stuck at a point in the Career/Solo Tour. When, at that point, what option do you have other than quickplay and practice? You can't do much. And to move on on a lower tier, you'd have to start all over!

I love that this is fixed and I can see what Tour songs and Challenges I've done and in what configurations. I'm getting as many Xs as I can until I just can't go anymore and then will happily start playing for Hs for practice that might actually be attainable.

Fantastic.

Fuck yeah! I said that earlier, Eye of the Tiger and Livin' on a Prayer are easily my favorite song on drums so far. I've probably played both of them like 5+ times already, whereas most others I have unlocked only once.

Can you unlock song in solo player?

yup

Actually, I really get a kick out of playing Pump it up on Hard drums. I haven't tried it on Expert yet, but on hard it's a fun little pattern.

I have a question about the Challenges, if anyone knows.

Is there a set number of Challenges to be had - i.e. only what shipped on the disc - or are they automatically updated based on what content you have? I ask because I haven't seen anything in there that is related to on-disc content yet. There were the 4 initial challenges (Band, Guitar, Drum, and Vocal Warmup Challenges). Beating the guitar one opened up the apprentice Guitar and Bass Challenges as well as the Warmup Marathon 1 - which led to WM2 and then Apprentice Marathon 1.

Are the new/dynamic Challenges merely part of the BotB section or can I expect more single-player Challenges in the future that I can use to get to the magic number of 25 Expert Challenges completed?

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ck-band-2.html
So, any ideas or is this just the AC/DC stuff that hasn't been announced yet?

I have only unlocked a few of the challenges, but I have a "PAX Collection" challenge waiting for me since I bought all of the PAX songs.

They've said that if you beat a challenge and a DLC is added to it later on, you just have to play that one song and it considers the challenge beaten again.

Guess we'll know in a month, no use getting psyched now.

Reading the complaints about the Guitar portion of the game has me worried, as that is by and far the biggest draw to these games still. Hope it holds up alright in the long run. Of course, I didn't play RB1 on Guitar much after GH3 soured me on the genre.

The drums are a blast thus far.

After one letdown after another, I think its pointless getting our hopes up over any potential bands/songs.

Regarding the "steel bladder" achievement (get through the Endless Setlist without pausing or failing)... It's known that you can't hit the X-Box button and still get it, but what happens if the batteries in the guitar go dead and you have to change them? I know someone will say "just put fresh ones in", but if that happens and you can still get Steel Bladder, I'm looking for a way to take a break .

A Harmonix rep just mentioned this on the ScoreHero forums Re: empty drum fills in online play:

Does that not bring up the user's blade and effectively pause the game anyway? Seems you're going to want to make sure you have fresh batteries before you go for it.

Can you define this for non-drummers? Is it just a drum fill that has no activating crash at the end?

I read somewhere that the "Steel Bladder" ESL is actually a separate set list. So maybe if thats the case it disables pausing (even when a controller is removed). I don't know if that is true about being a separate set list however.

Exactly. "Something BIG is coming." We got the PAX pack. Yee-ha. But sooner or later one of these "big" announcements has to be true, doesn't it?

I would imagine it's AC/DC info.

I don't get some of the achievements.

I've completed 7 expert challenges. Yet I haven't received my Challenge Novice Achievement.
I had to go back and complete my Flawless Fretwork challenge on tour. Eventough I did it previously on the same song during the Apprentice Marathon II Challenge.
And how does one get the Along for the Ride achievement? Beat an instrument-specific challenge while playing another instrument? I remember on tour saying they would switch out instruments on the last song. Like the set where the DW guy is there to check out your drumming, but I never had to switch from guitar to drums for that last song in the set?

Not sure about some of those - but the Along for the Ride might be if you enter a Bass challenge with a band, but you are on guitar or drums or vocals.

If you go back a few pages to Saturday night those are the exact complaints I had, and the exact two songs I enjoyed on guitar. Weird. Of course, I'm still only a dozen songs in... hopefully that will change tonight.

Along for the Ride is easy. My daughter is into drumming lately, so she did the Drum Warmup challenge under her band. I threw on the guitar and played along with her. I got it because I played guitar on a drum challenge.

I've really enjoyed the guitar and bass parts so far. I've gone through the challenge tracks on each to the last tier, just to unlock the songs but haven't attempted either set list. I'm fairly certain I'll pass the bass set without failing but I think the guitar one will get me a couple of times.

I also noticed quite a few solos when going through the guitar challenge path as well. One of the challenges is songs that all have solos.

I got Along for the Ride by playing guitar when we did a drum challenge.

I really dig the guitar solo at the end of Alive. I wish more songs had that right mix of fun and challenge.