Horrible scoring method ruins an otherwise great game

[BlueRaja]

87% of your score for hitting a block depends on the angle of your sweep. To get full credit, you need to make ALMOST an entire half-circle sweep, with the block in the second-third of the sweep.

This is fine for downward and side-to-side motions, but for swiping up, it requires you to point the saber behind you, then uncomfortably twist your wrist and swing it up into the air. It's extremely uncomfortable, to the point that doing it repeatedly (and quickly, during a song) is physically painful, and extremely bad for your wrists.

Furthermore, since the sweep angle is worth such a huge percentage of your score, you can literally miss a ton of blocks and score significantly better than someone who hits every single block but doesn't know about the weird scoring method. I've shattered most/all of my friends' records playing like this, despite missing many blocks. It seems against the spirit of the game, and is not fun for me or them.

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MY SUGGESTION: Sweep angle requirements should be significantly lower (like, 30-degrees in and 30-degrees out). Also sweep-angle points should be weighted less important, like 25%. Another 35% for hitting the block with good accuracy (currently worth 13%), and a final 40% for hitting the block on beat with the music (which is currently worth nothing; strange for a rhythm game).

This meshes much better with the way people naturally play, and the way people intuitively feel that someone is "doing well". And it doesn't require people to make uncomfortable movements to maximize their scores.

As evidence, see the video on your very own Steam Store page. Intuitively, the player seems to be doing very well. However, in actuality their score will be fairly poor because their swings (especially their upward swings) during the fast parts are not nearly wide enough.

[[MCML] Netherite Shovel]

sounds like a great solution, i too find that on the upwards swings i can never seem to get 115s

[infinity]

good ideas, but the 40% 'on beat' would be a pain to implement for every community map and very confusing if you didn't realise you had audio sync issues

[Tenor Sounds]

Personally, I find the scoring system to be super fun and refreshing when compared to other rhythm/music games. It may take an adjustment if you're used to traditional music games, but I don't think that means they should change it.

Trying to tie the score to the beat would change the game significantly, since right now the focus is on stringing together movements to the music rather than hitting notes perfectly to the beat. The latter makes sense for most rhythm games because your timing and input is binary, you're hitting a button or pulling a trigger in time to a beat. With Beat Saber, the whole goal is to get you moving and stringing together bigger swings to the music, and I like that. It means high score is more about overall technique and not focused as much around pure reaction time.

As for upward swings, based on my experience getting full points comes down to practice more than anything else; nothing awkward about it unless you're focusing most of the movement on your wrists and not using your arms to help get that extra distance. The only issue with up-swings for me are those custom songs that have super dense "up/down/up/down" sections like they're trying to get me to drum at high speed, and I'm not going to fault the scoring system for bad map design. Pretty much all of the official tracks in the game work well with the scoring system imo

Edit: Why is missing notes but getting a higher score than someone who doesn't know the scoring system "against the spirit of the game"? It seems like the game is incentivizing and rewarding technique over hit-count, so if anything making it the opposite would go against the current spirit of the game. It still sounds like trying to turn Beat Saber into DDR or Guitar Hero just for the sake of it, when it's not really trying to emulate that kind of game.

If anything, my criticism is that Beat Saber could be better at visually indicating a "good" hit vs. a "bad" hit so players intuitively start to go for bigger swings rather than assuming it doesn't matter/is based on timing only. It wouldn't be that the scoring system is inherently flawed.

[BlueRaja]

Originally posted by InfinityIO:

the 40% 'on beat' would be a pain to implement for every community map

Community maps shouldn't have to change. If the map doesn't match the song, it's going to feel weird, but that's true already.

Originally posted by InfinityIO:

very confusing if you didn't realise you had audio sync issues

There's already an option in-game to check for and fix audio sync issues.

[TheWinRar]

To the OP:
Just change your grip to get better score for the up swings without snapping your wrists. Figure it out AYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Originally posted by Tenor Sounds:

If anything, my criticism is that Beat Saber could be better at visually indicating a "good" hit vs. a "bad" hit so players intuitively start to go for bigger swings rather than assuming it doesn't matter/is based on timing only. It wouldn't be that the scoring system is inherently flawed.

I agree that they should implement something like that, but in the meantime theres a mod that's listed on mod assistant (HitScoreVisualizer)which gives you color grading for this and then a count on the score screen with how many of each cut you did!! It's amazing imo

[Tenor Sounds]

Originally posted by §§™ TheWinRar :

Originally posted by Tenor Sounds:

If anything, my criticism is that Beat Saber could be better at visually indicating a "good" hit vs. a "bad" hit so players intuitively start to go for bigger swings rather than assuming it doesn't matter/is based on timing only. It wouldn't be that the scoring system is inherently flawed.

I agree that they should implement something like that, but in the meantime theres a mod that's listed on mod assistant (HitScoreVisualizer)which gives you color grading for this and then a count on the score screen with how many of each cut you did!! It's amazing imo

Thanks for the recommendation! It's a shame you need to already have the game and be aware of these mods though, since this problem (not knowing how scoring works) is really only an issue for new/casual players. Personally, after I pretty much got my technique down I just play with the HUD off. I get distracted easily.