Boost Shields are a Broken Mechanic

[Big Ducks Out in Amish]

The boost shields are a terrible mechanic, and need to be fixed.

I can't tell you how many times I have gotten a chain up, and I go to hit the shields, but they simply don't register the hit. I've tried moving the shields, I've tried different angles. Nine times out of ten, I simply can't hit them, and end up losing the boost. To compensate, I've moved them closer to the drums, but then I often end up hitting them inadvertently, and triggering a "HOOOOO" from the rowers ever five seconds. There really is no happy medium with this setup, due to the peripheral nature of the shields.

Add this to the fact that on the harder levels, there often simply aren't enough breaks in the song to feasible utilize the boost. If you try to hit it, you'll inevitably miss a note, and end up losing the boost. That's a maddening, flow-breaking anti-feature.

The boost shields, while good theoretically, simply don't work in practice.

The devs could resolve this by simply binding the trigger on whatever controller the user is using into the "activate boost" button. Get rid of the shields entirely. They look good, but they're no fun, often break the pace of the songs, and end up leading to a LOT of frustration.

[Nettlefingers]

I have resorted to placing the shields 6-12 inches diagonally above my own head. That way, a more pronounced 'upswing' movement will trigger the boost, so that my downswing can land on the next note.

[ChooHeHimLVL3]

Originally posted by Nettlefingers:

I have resorted to placing the shields 6-12 inches diagonally above my own head. That way, a more pronounced 'upswing' movement will trigger the boost, so that my downswing can land on the next note.

I love this idea. I might try it. There are times I'm really consistently hitting them, but with the inside-out tracking on my Rift S it seems that sometimes the prediction isn't as accurate as I would like.

[Draz]

Originally posted by Nettlefingers:

I have resorted to placing the shields 6-12 inches diagonally above my own head. That way, a more pronounced 'upswing' movement will trigger the boost, so that my downswing can land on the next note.

Yup, this works really well.

[Bella Ortiz]

I tend to dramatically upswing kinda always. lol I will give this a go. But I do think that binding it to a trigger would be nice.

[WarOnHugs]

I have them placed above my drums but it still really messes up my rhythm and is a 100% chance I'll break my combo if there isn't a break. Which makes it feel pretty terrible to lose your combo and thus your possibility to boost while trying to boost. All of the times I stop playing it's because I get frustrated with the boost mechanic.

[DetoxBKG]

Agreed. I would love to see an alternate score mode that removed the boost mechanic entirely and focused on getting perfect hits as the main success metric. No matter how I've tried to position the boost shields, there is a very high chance the hit won't register when it feels like it should have. This could very well be due to my lack of skill, or the poor tracking of the G2 controllers, but it's distracting and frustrating nonetheless.

[Nettlefingers]

Originally posted by DetoxBKG:

Agreed. I would love to see an alternate score mode that removed the boost mechanic entirely and focused on getting perfect hits as the main success metric. No matter how I've tried to position the boost shields, there is a very high chance the hit won't register when it feels like it should have. This could very well be due to my lack of skill, or the poor tracking of the G2 controllers, but it's distracting and frustrating nonetheless.

I had the G2 and it is absolutely terrible for this game. I sold it. Better to get the Q2 or Index.