Friday, September 28, 2012

Rocksmith Journey II - Night 2, Event 6: I Got Mine!

Still pretty unhappy about having to restart the whole tour again, but Journey II is proving that I've made a lot of progress as a guitar player in the past 10 months since I started playing Rocksmith.

On my original Journey, I refused to play any song in an event until I got the song score over 70,000 points. I'm not doing that this time around. But, because I worked everything so hard the first time around, I'm seeing scores above 70k on my first or second run this time - even on songs that I haven't played for months. After two nights, I've played exactly 30 songs, including two unlocked SSC songs, Space Ostrich and Six AM Salvation. Of these 30 songs, half (15) are already over 70k.

All but 5 songs are already back above 40k, and 4 of those 5 low-score songs were encores which I have only played once since the restart.

Last night I qualified 5 songs for Event 6 (all on the first try) and unlocked Scale Runner. I played Event 6 at 363 Brannan and got Song 2 as an encore. I scored 80,193 on the encore which was apparently good enough for a double encore. I Got Mine (ironically?) was my double encore song. I got my second SSC unlock - Six AM Salvation. Also got promoted to Level 5, National Support Act.

One interesting change from Journey p.I is that I finally got to play Well OK Honey. On my first Journey, I played every single song plus a bunch of DLC at least once, but Well OK Honey NEVER came up on any event setlist. I had never played it before last night! Weird.

Event Location363 BrannanNotes
Date Played9/27/2012Unlocks:
SongArtistScoreTone, Woo Hoo
Unnatural Selection - Combo 58081Pedal, Stereo Phaser
Well OK Honey - ComboJenny O. 44104Venue, 3d St. Lounge
Outshined - Combo 2Soundgarden53101Song, Six AM Salvation
Freebird - Combo*Lynerd Skynerd29037Guitar, Vintage Gibson Melody Maker D
Play with Fire - ComboRolling Stones58888Total Score to date: 4259734
Song 2 - ComboBlur80193
I Got Mine - ComboThe Black Keys45377
Minimum RSP85,700
Event Score: 3687812,744,191 RSP

After this event, two songs on my next setlist were already qualified for Event 7, so I only had to qualify two new songs for the next event: Me & the Bean and When I'm with You. Got both of those qualified with no problems and unlocked my final Technique Challenge - Barre Chords. It was late, so I opted not to play the event but instead started getting my Technique Challenges caught up.

I got Sustains and Shifting up to Gold in two tries each. I got 123,884 on Sustains and 92558 on Shifting. I don't think I had either one of those up that high before. Never really paid attention before but last night I realized that the points you earn in the Technique Challenges count toward your RSP total. That was an easy bunch of points!

The BASS Bug - Will it Bite Me on Restart?
One concern I have now is whether the bass bug is going to bite me. It's known that SSC songs which were unlocked on guitar prior to installing the bass expansion pack cannot be played or unlocked on bass. That's why I was never able to play Space Ostrich on bass. I thought there just wasn't a bass arrangement for that song, but there is. I just couldn't play it because I had unlocked it on guitar before I installed the bass expansion.

Well, nobody seems to know if this problem comes up when restarting Rocksmith AFTER installing the bass expansion. Guess I'll be the guinea pig on that issue! I have already unlocked 2 SSC songs on guitar and I have not played bass since my restart. Tonight I'll see whether I'm able to play those two SSC songs on bass.

If The Bass Bug keeps me from playing those songs on bass, I'll have a tough choice to make: live with it and just never play those two songs on bass; or, start over AGAIN and unlock the SSC songs on bass FIRST before picking up the guitar. Stay tuned.



3 comments:

  1. Now that i am FINALLY playing, i think i am going to just play it more like a game and do the events as i qualify for them - like your bass and round 2. i am willing to slow down my progress for a little more fun.

    I did notice that i can get a passable score and totally miss the solo.

    I got a couple of encores, but no doubles.

    Have fun,
    Tim

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am convinced that the double encore is completely random (or at least something controlled by the software - like you only get one on certain levels or something). I have absolutely kicked ass on a couple of encores but didn't get a double. They say you've got to get 80-90% of the qualifying score on the encore to get a double - but I've had encore songs which didn't even have a qualifying score on them yet. So, I'm not sure what that 80-90% represents. And, at any rate, the "official" conclusion on doubles is that even when you make the score it's a 50/50 chance. I don't like that. I love having the unlock songs in the game and wish they'd insert more to keep things fresh once we reach Level 11, but if they're going to do it they need to make the unlocking process objective and predictable. Or, completely random. But, not a mixture of skill and chance.

    Anyway, Tim, enjoy and keep me (us) posted on how things are going. (I actually found that by just playing events and not obsessing over each song my progress through the game sped up a lot. But, it's much more fun.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well the summary of my progress is this: Friday night i played just over 4 hours and made it thru to level 4. Sunday morning i played another couple of events and am now at 3.1 million RSP and level 5. It has taken roughly 6.5 hours (according to the Steam tool).

    I can usually qualify a song on a single play thru and then do better when playing the event. That said, I only have a few tracks over 70K and most tracks in the 40 to 50k range. As qualifying and the songs gets harder, i expect that i will have to work harder.

    My 2 day take away is that RS tab (and i play inverted) is probably the best digital method for learning fast runs. I.e. to learn to play sunshine of my love, i think the clarity, the amount of info, and the size makes it really intuitive. The hardest part is mentally mapping the colors to the strings. OTOH, i do not find the RS style as easy as tab for chords. I don't know why, but it seems like when a chord comes down the highway, i am just struggling to convert it into something my fingers can play. RS highway is definitely easier to play than the Rock Band highway for all things.

    Finally, i haven't done anything other than qualify and play events. I will have to get into the technique and guitarcade section soon to get that RSP and see what i can learn.

    Later,
    Tim

    ReplyDelete