Pretty much got it in one there.
Which is funny, because for me Mono is actually harder - more pure speed and hand-eye coordination, and less planning ahead. Not to imply that Mono players are less cerebral - I'm just aware of the upper bound on my response time. That, and it's extremely dissatisfying to me to hit one gray and be screwed out of the bonus for the rest of the song. (Not knocking the way the game was made - I just choose other modes where, unless it's really close to the end of a song, I can generally recover from any mistakes made.)
I did complain about Eraser, though since I have learnt Eraser and play that with a combination of Pusher. I can see the strengths of each.
It's always annoying to get dethroned, regardless of the character. I guess what I'm asking here is, are you annoyed because it seems easier for Eraser to beat your Pusher scores? If you're good with both, why not just do a run with Eraser and show 'em who's boss? Does the annoyance stem from the fact that it seems like this is just an "Eraser song", and Pusher can't seriously compete?
Though Vegas is still OP, but since leaving Pro for Elite, it's bothered me less, except for the occasional dethrone email on pro.
I wondered at first why there wasn't a Vegas Elite, because that would be fun to play, but it would obviously be unfair to the other Elite characters. But, as noted above, I would still surmise that a lot of those Vegas scores (perhaps not all) are beatable by really good Pusher/Pointman/Eraser players, depending on the song. I have a few slower songs that I've played to death with Vegas and still cannot beat the Pointman guy at the top (not like I'm the best Vegas player out there, but still - fewer blocks seems to mean lower occurence of freakishly good bonuses).
I can see what you mean by instead of complaining try the others out
I don't want to take away anyone's right to complain. Complaining is fun! I was just expressing something that I was just figuring out for myself for the first time - that maybe some songs are better built for certain characters.
but I stand by saying that all characters should have an equal potential
Overall, yes. But I think it would be extremely hard to equalize them at all levels of track speed and traffic. I think this is analogous to other games where you have your pick of characters with different strengths/weaknesses, and you can get through each level with any of them, but only certain characters can really excel at specific levels, and part of the skill is matching the character to the level. (Maybe if you're
really good, you can brute force a really good score or outcome with a character ill-matched to the level, but that would take a lot more effort. It would also get you more bragging rights, I guess.)
and it is in fact a challenge of skill (of your chosen character) for the throne instead of hot-swapping characters as suits.
I think it's an incentive to learn the various characters and use them as tools. Keeps the game fresher over time. It's not like a really good score that you can't beat with Pusher is gonna be a piece of cake with Eraser if you don't know Eraser that well.
Alternatively, you're absolutely free to keep going with the one character you love - just realize that there are selected songs that you'll be hard-pressed to get the top scores on. (Which may be more or less frustrating depending on the amount of variance in the songs you choose to play. Since dabbling with Pointman Elite a little more instead of my usual Vegas, I've learned to appreciate the mid-tempo material more than the fast-and-furious stuff that generally creates a fun, frenzied run for Vegas. Some of those same songs are the ones where I got my Vegas scores demolished by Pointman Pro players. I could keep playing Vegas 50 times on those and hope for the jackpot - which honestly gets tedious even though it is a possible way of beating it by brute force rather than true skill - or I could get better at Pointman and do it the way that other guy did it.)
If as you say you should change characters based on the song, then the boards will be dominated by one character alone and if you don't play that character you have no chance.
I wouldn't say no chance. I would say your chance is much smaller. But to equalize it, there are other songs where your preferred character is king. And then some in the middle where it's a bit of potpourri - just about any character besides Mono has a decent shot at the top (notwithstanding that annoying Vegas person who got 7x21 Red three times).
But I'm speaking in hypotheticals here - maybe we should take a look at the boards for some popular songs that are intensely fast and dense, some that are slower and more sparse, and some that are in-between, and see who typically owns the Elite scoreboards on those. My hunch is that Pointman won't be at the top of a lot of the high-traffic songs, and Eraser won't do so hot on a lot of the slower songs. (But this data could also be skewed based on which players are used most often.)
Where as I would say the throne holder should be the player with the highest skill of their character.
But that's like saying I should be able to hit the farthest/most precisely on the golf course with only one club, regardless of the lie. That putter isn't gonna do crap for me at the tee, and trying to drive my way out of a sand trap probably isn't going to work terribly well, either.
