I find it really tough too.. slightly easier if you kind of get to know the tune a bit and you like it I suppose.

Believe it or not, there is actually a metronome.. without knowing it's there it's almost impossible to see, but the aiming reticule sort of scans round and round.. of course with it moving all over the place it is difficult to follow, but knowing its there might help you?

I only found out about it the other day and haven't had much time to practice, but I will be trying to hit fire when its around 6 or 9 o'clock, something like that I'd imagine.

i also noticed the metronome on the reticule but it was too hard to focus on and i cant actually tell if it works or not when i tried to test it

either way if i have to really on a very difficult to see metronome that is constantly moving the game isnt fun

yeah, I mean it seems to me that the devs came up with something pretty original for "PC" and it's not going to suit everyone.

The game "not being fun" because you can't hit the max score every time, not sure.
It says on your profile you've spent 1 hour playing the game, I don't think that's enough time to give it man. Like.. you probably quit at the first "boss" being the sandworm thing.

I nearly quit too, but there's something special here. I hope you can find it.

Be well!

Hey there. Thanks for getting in touch. I agree, it's a weird mechanic but it's super fun when it clicks, it's just hard to explain! I like to use this video from Strider as an example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt2Y5dDlL1k&t=3s

Hang on... I've thought of another way of counting it... maybe....

*edit*
Dammit, auto formatting ruined my explanation. I'll have to do an image in Photoshop... gimme 5 mins.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1648725812

As a drummer, I was taught to count in syllables, as shown on the chart. Sixteenths were pronounced 'one ee and ah two ee and ah three ee and ah' etc.

You should shoot on the 'ah'.

All this said, actually counting along as you play isn't what I designed for. It's about getting the feeling of 'ShhBoom'. As I've said before, it's like the action before the bat hits the baseball or he stick swings towards the drum head.

I hope I didn't just make it more confusing.

It's all about the 'ShhBoom'! That's the main thing here. :D

Just tried out the game for an hour or so. Best description I can give is a spiritual successor to Rez. My biggest issue (I've played piano and guitar, plus have done composing) is trying to find the beat. It doesn't seem to go off of the bass hits. Despite trying to count the beat it still feels off.

Just an idea for a potential solution, would an option to enable a small controller vibration on each beat be out of the question?

Also wondering if it's potentially audio latency causing issues? I'm running off of an USB wireless headset (no other options), which would in theory have a higher latency than a dedicated soundcard.

Aside from the issues with shooting (and the tutorials) this game really is something great.

I've only started playing and my understanding of the mechanic is that you don't want to fire on beat, but rather the shots will hit their targets on beat. If you fire on beat you are already too late and they won't land until the next (unless you have near-frame-perfect timing).

As Foxache has said, it's difficult to explain 'when' to fire, because it's more of a gut feeling. However, getting into that mindset is difficult because rhythm games tend to compel the player to act on beat, and this mechanic goes against that internal feeling. It's not a bad or broken mechanic, it just takes adjustment.

The game rewards you for being early period. lets say 60bpm 60 fps frame 0 15 30 45 are locks 60 is hit. Maybe this isn't exactly how the game works but its close enough to get my point across.. So frame 52-53 is what you want to aim for... but see I am horrible at the game and I shot 30 frames early so the game should punish me it does, I miss out on 2 locks. So I get gud, and fire 10 frames late... and get punished more? you miss 3 locks lol. The window isn't equal. It is like DDR but if you are late at all you get miss, It is like baseball with the whole right field as out. You better swing that bat early. It is also a very awkward ideal frame.

There is a reason why every other music game I have played has on beat and equal windows. Anyone can say what they want, but the shooting for me kills the game. I don't want to learn it because it will through me off on every other music game I play.

It's okay though, chillout mode will be enough for me, I'll just hear the music and see the levels and be on my way to the next game. Still plenty of good things I can say about it.

I really like the game but this whole "fire before the beat" thing is throwing me off. :/

I wish there was an "on the beat" mode for people like me too used to traditional rhythm games.

shhhBOOM

I got the Monstercat DLC and one of the tracks has a particularly heavy and obvious beat during the fight sequences where I found it much easier to get a feeling for the shooting

https://youtu.be/xzNKlvuaxU0

Thanks guys, just started and was curious.

I found practicing on the first song to help alot it claps ever other beat letting you get a feel for it. that said I do wish the metronome was a bit more visible when you were aiming, because it blends in with the background a lot.

See, that video in the game is terrible at explaining this. So from what I gather it's divided into 16th notes and you want us to fire on the one just before the beat. What if you had it so it was just the off beat in 8th notes? So instead of "1 ee and ah" it's just "1 and 2 and" . At least on normal difficulty. That would still be different enough to be interesting but also not alien enough, especially to non-musicians, to throw them off completely.

I think what I said makes sense, I'm not that smrt.

I am struggling with Master levels for now (so I already beat all levels on lower difficulties, having 5 stars + most of levels on Master which I passed, are also 5star for me).
Cannot get through Alpha Centauri, as I am shooting too slow (due to lack of 'perferct' timing).
Reading through this thread didn't help a bit. I also watched a video of some guy mastering this track on PS4 and I cannot get rid of impression, that drum track is much more exposed in his video than it is in my gameplay. Therefore, I could totally catch when to shoot watching the video and listening to drums, while playing on my own drums are much more silent and hard to distinguish from the rest of music. WTF.