A Guide to GH3 Co-op Squeezing

[zsjostrom35]

Introduction:

A little over seven months ago, my friend Josh (acatisfinetoo on SH) and I thought it would be fun to start a GH3 co-op team, since we were both pretty good at the game (Josh more so than I). We started playing through the setlist, looking up paths for all the songs along the way, and before long we started coming up with some first place scores. Of course, this got us very excited about our team’s prospects, so we started going for first place scores on everything. Along the way, we developed and got rather good at some fairly advanced co-op squeezing techniques, which I intend to share with you as best I can in this guide.

Just to reinforce the point made in the above paragraph and in the title, this guide is for GH3 only. I would guess that at least some of the methods still apply, but as I've never played co-op in any other game I can't be sure.

My hope in writing this is that some other teams might start caring about stuff like split squeezes and multiplier exploitation and therefore start challenging and beating some the current first place scores. While more competition would make for fewer high ranks for the few teams that currently do care, it would also make for a lot more fun. And really, why else are you playing co-op, if not for fun?

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
   
   
2. Preliminaries
   
   
3. The Basic Method
   1. Front Ends
      1. Normal Front Ends
      2. Non-Simultaneous Front Ends
      3. Front Ends Without Notes
      4. Hammer-on Front Ends
      5. Side Tip: Don’t Be Tied to Your Roles
   2. Back Ends
   
   
4. Split Squeezing
   1. Front End Split Squeezing
   2. Back End Split Squeezing
   3. Combination Split Squeezing (Or, How to Do Sabotage)
   
   
5. Multiplier Squeezing
   
   
6. Miscellaneous Advice
   1. Don’t Trust Paths From the Forums Implicitly
   2. Take Your Time FCing Songs
   3. Be Open to Switching Parts
   4. There’s No Such Thing As an Insignificant Number of Points
   
   
7. Conclusion
   1. Thanks

Preliminaries:

First of all, if you’re going to contend for top scores on the majority of songs in GH3 co-op, both players on your team need to be familiar with all techniques of that game’s single player squeezing and able to execute them at a reasonably high level. If one or both of you isn’t, you need two things: HoorayItsMike's guide to Absolutely Everything You Need to Know About Squeezing and practice. From this point on, I’ll be assuming that you are a reasonably competent squeezer. Second, you should at least have a basic idea of how co-op star power works. Here’s a quick overview if you don’t (which you can skip if you already know how to activate in co-op):

Just as in single player, you need a half-bar of star power to activate, which you can get either from collecting SP phrases (still a quarter bar each), whammied SP sustains (40 beats for a full bar, not 30 as it is in single player), or some combination of the two. When the required amount of SP has been accumulated, either player can ready it by either tilting the guitar or pressing the select button, which opens a window lasting a few seconds in which the other player can activate. Prolonged tilting or repeated pressing of the select button on the first player’s part can extend this window indefinitely, but it will still close a few seconds after the tilt is removed or the last press of the button. If the window closes before the second player activates, the star power reverts to its original state and must be readied again before it can be activated.

Now, on to co-op squeezing.

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The Basic Method:

Front Ends:

Normal Front Ends:

In single player squeezing, there are a lot of different kinds of front end activations. However, by far the most common is a simple squeeze of a strummed note in a section slow enough that you can exploit the timing window as much as you like. Unsurprisingly, the analogous co-op situation (both players attempt to activate on a strummed note in a slow-ish section) is the most common type of co-op front end, and so that’s what we’ll be learning first.

Of course, the idea here is to activate late while still getting both notes under star power. Unfortunately, the nature of co-op activating makes this more difficult than simply having both players execute a normal squeeze on their notes. Think about it: if one player hits select followed immediately by hitting the note, and the other player does the same a split second later, the first player won’t get the front end under star power since the SP won’t actually activate until the second player hits select. The only way this could possibly work is if both players hit select at the EXACT same time, which quite frankly isn’t going to happen. Of course, they could delay their hitting of the notes until a bit after pressing select, but that wouldn’t make for very good squeezes. The solution Josh and I found (I’m sure other co-op teams have come to the same conclusion) is to have one player (which I will call the “passive squeezer” from here on out) pre-tilt in advance of the activation, so that the other player (which I will call the “active squeezer”) can execute a normal squeeze of the desired note. The passive squeezer must then squeeze his note in after the active squeezer activates, which ensures both notes are hit under star power.

In order to make this method work, you and your co-op partner must decide in advance which role each of you is going to take in activations like this. My advice to you is to make your better pure squeezer (i.e. whichever one of you is better at straight-up timing window abuse) the passive squeezer. This may seem counterintuitive, but Josh and I found out the hard way that you can lose a lot of points by oversqueezing (having the active squeezer hit his note and activate after the passive squeezer hits his note, causing the passive squeezer’s note to be hit outside the star power). By having the better squeezer take the passive role, the active squeezer is free to squeeze his note as much as he likes since he knows the passive squeezer can outsqueeze him. Granted, this is something of an oversimplification (since it’s almost impossible for both of you to squeeze with perfect precision every time), but the more you gain experience with these types of activations the more you’ll become familiar with each others’ squeezing abilities, which leads to better and more reliable front ends.

Non-Simultaneous Front Ends:

It will likely come as no shock to you that not all front end activations consist of simultaneous strummed notes in easy sections where you both players can squeeze to their hearts’ content. Situations where one player must activate on a note while the other has either a sustain or empty space are also very common. These are even easier to do than normal front ends, however; just make the player without any notes the passive squeezer and the other player can activate as usual.

In the specific case where one player has a sustain on these types of activations, your team can get more points if that player hits the sustained note late, thus moving ticks to the end of the sustain where they’ll be under star power. Also, if the back end squeeze of the activation is not too big, the active squeezer should take care not to squeeze his front end too much, which would also cost ticks needlessly.

Front Ends Without Notes:

Occasionally, you will run across an activation where neither player has a note at the desired location. Since sustains and empty spaces are not generally worth a lot of points, these activations are rather rare, and usually involve activating in the middle of one player’s whammied SP sustain so as to avoid an overrun. If that is the case, make the player who is not whammying the active squeezer, since the activation will need to be done with reasonable precision to avoid losing points or overrunning. If neither player is whammying, stick with your usual roles.

Hammer-on Front Ends:

If both players have a hammer-on at the desired activation spot, you can just activate as normal and try your best not to miss the front end (definitely consider moving the activation in that case if you can do so without losing any points). More commonly, however, just one player will have a HO/PO front end, and in those cases it’s usually best to make that player the passive squeezer (of course, if your normal active squeezer is proficient at HO/PO front ends there’s no need to switch). Josh and I have found that executing a moderate HO/PO front end is actually not too difficult when you don’t have to worry about activating the star power yourself, so the passive squeezer's front end should be fine as long as the active squeezer doesn’t go overboard with his squeeze.

Side Tip: Don’t Be Tied to Your Roles

It’s very important to remember that the advice I’m giving about how to decide who should be the active squeezer and who should be the passive squeezer is just that. What I’m offering is nothing more than general guidelines that I feel should work for most co-op teams. However, you don’t need it to work for most co-op teams; you need it to work for your co-op team. For example, I said that when one player has a note at an activation point and the other doesn’t, that player should be the active squeezer. However, some players can’t activate well in fast sections, and if that’s the case you might be better off just letting the other player be the active squeezer. Probably the most glaring instance of this is the activation in Cliffs of Dover Intro Solo B, where bass has no notes underneath lead’s very difficult part. Most lead players aren’t going to be able to activate precisely there, so just let them pre-tilt and the bass can watch their notes for the correct spot. You might miss a few hundred points from activating too early or too late, but it’s better than missing a note. Of course, not all potential switches are going to be this obvious, but if you start having trouble with an activation you should always consider whether reversing roles might make it easier.

Back Ends:

Unlike the front end, the back end of an activation in co-op functions just like it does in single player. Each player should squeeze (or reverse squeeze, to avoid an overrun) as necessary independently of what the other player is doing. The only difference is that the passive squeezer may not know how good the front end squeeze was, so the active squeezer should make it a habit to inform the passive squeezer roughly how good his front end was on each activation. This allows both players to determine how large a back-end squeeze is necessary. However, none of this will be helpful at all if you don’t know which note is supposed to be squeezed, which leads to my major piece of advice here: Know Your Back End. It sounds obvious (and it is), but co-op paths are not always completely accurate, and it’s very easy to get lazy and not pay attention to where your star power ends during the course of a run and miss a few hundred points. That generally doesn’t seem very important, but it adds up fast and you can easily cost yourself several thousand points on a longer song. If you want to get really good co-op scores, you need to learn where every back end is (which you can only do in real runs) and make sure you squeeze them properly. Usually these squeezes aren’t hard at all, but you can’t hit them if you don’t know they’re there.

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Split Squeezing:

Unlike the basic method outlined in the previous section, which really was more or less an extension of single player squeezing to the co-op setting, split squeezing is something completely unique to co-op. The basic idea is that there’s no reason both players should have to squeeze their notes in the same direction all the time, a technique which in some (admittedly rare) cases can be used to get more points than normal squeezing would allow.

Front End Split Squeezing:

This type of squeeze is easiest to illustrate with an example, so let’s look at think13’s Prayer of the Refugee co-op path. If you examine the first activation (measures 29-35), you’ll notice that it ends in blank space for the lead part and on a single note for bass. If you could somehow move that activation back a note to last RB chord for lead in measure 28, you would gain 400 points on the front end while losing only 200 points on the back. A split squeeze allows you to do just that without overrunning the last note of the bass SP phrase in measure 28. Here’s how it works:

First of all, if you’re split squeezing to avoid a front end overrun the player without the SP phrase must be the active squeezer (in the case of Prayer of the Refugee that would be the lead player). Second, the player with the SP phrase must know exactly which note is the last one in his phrase, and hit it early while pre-tilting in advance. This gets the star power early and readies it immediately, so that the when the active squeezer unloads the SP and hits his note (late), you’ve already got the full bar. Both players then hit their back end a note earlier than what is indicated on the chart, and you’ve got yourself an extra 200 points. It usually takes some practice between co-op partners to get used to the timing involved here, but to the true squeezing addict, the extra points are worth it . This video shows the split squeeze hit correctly about 45 seconds in.

This type of split squeeze can easily be reversed to deliberately overrun a phrase that you don’t want. Examine the first activation on this My Name Is Jonas path (again due to think13). If you were to collect both star power phrases ending in measure 8 before activating, the star power would last for 4.5 measures and overrun the two phrases beginning in measure 13. Much better is the split squeeze marked on the path: make lead the active squeezer, bass should hit the last note in measure 8 early while pre-tilting, then lead can do a normal squeeze of his last note in measure 8 to overrun his phrase (note that you could switch roles here and have bass overrun, but it’s better to get lead’s chord under SP than bass’s single note). Watch about 30 seconds into this video to see the split squeeze in action.

Back End Split Squeezing:

Thankfully, this is a good deal simpler than front end split squeezing. The basic idea here is that when one player has a star power phrase near the end of an activation and the other doesn’t, the best path may involve running the star power right up to the first note of the phrase in question. The player with the phrase can then reverse squeeze that note to avoid the overrun while the other player executes a normal back end squeeze to get the corresponding note on his chart under star power. As an example, look at the second activation (measure 36) on this Black Magic Woman path from Undeadfil13QC. If bass allows the lead to whammy just a tad more than is marked before activating (remember, bass should be active here since he’s got no notes and lead has to whammy), it’s possible to get the SP to last until lead can squeeze the first BO chord in measure 40, while bass can reverse squeeze to avoid overrunning.

One important thing to note is that you should be cautious about attempting a back end split squeeze when the phrase you wish to get starts on a sustain. Reverse squeezing in those situations will cost you whammy, so it’s usually not worth it unless you can get your front end so precisely that no reverse squeezing is necessary but the other player can still squeeze enough to get his back end. The reverse squeeze is fine in the Black Magic Woman example since that phrase involves compressed whammy anyway.

Combination Split Squeezing (Or, How to Do Sabotage):

Sabotage is unique among co-op songs in that proper execution of its optimal path requires you to be able to do a split squeeze front end so well that you can also split the back end without overrunning. As if that weren’t hard enough, it requires you to do it TWICE. Let’s have a look at this fiendish path (by anterth): http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/4196/sabotagecoopexpertio8.png. We’ll focus solely on the first of the difficult activations, which is in measure 17 (the second one, in measure 21, is pretty much the same). You should recognize that the lead player must be the active squeezer, since the bass player is the one collecting the star power phrase that makes this a split squeeze. Now, part of what makes this activation difficult is that (unlike the Prayer of the Refugee and My Name Is Jonas examples) you won’t actually have enough star power to activate until the bass player finishes his phrase. This makes it extremely important for that phrase to be finished early, because sometimes there’s a slight lag between when the phrase is hit and when you can actually activate when bass is pre-tilting. The lead part of the activation is no less difficult: he must select activate on the first GR chord in measure 17 very precisely; too late and the reverse squeeze in measure 21 will be almost impossible for the bass player, too early and the star power won’t even activate at all. I was playing lead when Josh and I did this, and I’ve found that if your bass player is skilled (mine was ), the best spot is VERY slightly after the chord passes the strike line. That enabled us to get the activation very consistently with a manageable reverse squeeze.

Very important note: although it seems like a double pre-tilt would be ideal for this sort of activation, it doesn’t work. For whatever reason, you can’t double pre-tilt in co-op.

If you make it through the front end and manage to activate properly, just make sure you know where your back end is, squeeze it as well as you can (lead early, bass late), and hope for the best. And don’t let up focus; you have to do it again at the end of the next measure.

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Multiplier Squeezing:

While you’ve still got that Sabotage path up, look at the beginning of the song and start counting notes. You’ll notice that the GRY chord in the lead part and bass’s corresponding G are the 19th and 20th notes of the song, which you may recall from single player being the point at which your multiplier changes from 2X to 3X (19th note at 2X, 20th at 3X). It’s exactly the same in co-op, which means you can exploit the timing window here for some extra points. First, let’s see how the scoring will go for the first twenty notes if lead hits that GRY chord before bass hits the G:

Lead has two trip chords at 1X and a trip chord at 2X (since it’s the 19th note hit), for a total of 2*150*1 + 1*150*2 = 600 points
Bass has seven single notes at 1X, nine single notes at 2X, and a single note at 3X (since it’s the 20th hit) for a total of 7*50*1 + 9*50*2 + 1*50*3 = 1400 points
Total points scored for the first twenty notes is 600 + 1400 = 2000

Now, do the same thing, but assume that the bass player hit his G before lead’s GRY:

Lead has two trip chords at 1X and a trip chord at 3X (since it’s the 20th note hit), for a total of 2*150*1 + 1*150*3 = 750 points
Bass has seven single notes at 1X and ten single notes at 2X (since the last is the 19th hit) for a total of 7*50*1 + 10*50*2 = 1350 points
Total points scored for the first twenty notes is 750 + 1350 = 2100

Just like that; points from nowhere. These kinds of squeezes are very easy to hit once you know they’re there, and they’re not at all hard to find with a little bit of chart inspection before you start taking runs. Just check to see if the 9th/10th, 19th/20th, or 29th/30th notes are simultaneous lead and bass notes, and if so, see if one of the notes is worth more points than the other (usually it’s a chord against a single note, but sustains against single notes will also work). Then, just have the player with the more valuable note squeeze late and have the other player squeeze early for easy points.

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Miscellaneous Advice:

This last part of the guide is a collection of tips that I’ve learned in the course of my co-op experience with Josh. They may not be strictly related to co-op squeezing in the traditional sense, but they’ve all helped us get more points in the past (or cost us points for not following them). Hopefully they’ll do the same for you.

Don’t Trust Paths from the Forums Implicitly:

Before you even start playing a song, you should approach the path with the attitude that it’s wrong and you need to fix it. Most of the paths you’ll find are reasonably accurate, but if you see a way to change it that looks like it might be worth some more points, run the numbers yourself and see what comes out. Maybe there’s a large activation that can be split more profitably into two smaller ones; maybe there’s a phrase in a point-heavy section that ought to be overrun rather than collected; you’ll never know unless you experiment.

You should continue with your skepticism when you actually start playing the song. Very rarely will a path have all the activation lengths perfectly accurate, so you should be on the lookout for path tweaks that may net you a few more points from extra squeezes. This also goes for compressed activations; use the path as a guideline but figure out for yourself how much whammy you need.

Take Your Time FCing Songs:

Co-op songs have a LOT of star power as a general rule (almost no songs have fewer than six activations on their optimal path, and most have ten or more), and it will likely take you several runs just to get the path down. Furthermore, you need to be learning back ends and figuring out compressed whammy (remember, don’t trust the path on these), which will also take a while. It’s no coincidence that some of Josh’s and my worst co-op scores were on songs that we FCed very quickly; the worst case was when we FCed Black Sunshine on our THIRD run and consequently got the worst FC score entered here (we didn’t even have the path memorized). Don’t let this happen to you.

Be Open to Switching Parts:

Most co-op teams operate with one player always playing lead and the other always playing bass, and they’ll switch ONLY if the lead part is easy and the bass player can’t FC his part. This is usually fine, but my advice here is that if both players can FC both parts you should consider switching out of your usual roles if doing so can help you execute the path better. This usually happens when the nature of the song forces one part to be the active squeezer a lot when your default player of that part is also your default passive squeezer (or vice versa), but there may be other situations specific to your co-op team where a switch can help. As an example, even though I’m the passive squeezer on our team, Josh is a lot better at front end HO/POs than I am. Thus when we came upon Can’t Be Saved, the bass part of which is riddled with such front ends, we switched Josh over to bass and got a VERY good score.

There’s No Such Thing As an Insignificant Number of Points:

This tip really can be boiled down to a basic admonition: Don’t Get Lazy, which sums up most of this guide in a nutshell. All of these things you’re doing are for small numbers of points at a time, but you need to do them if you want great co-op scores. Yes, it takes effort to learn the location and squeeze size of every back end in a song. Yes, it takes effort to look at the chart to pick out multiplier squeezes. Yes, it takes effort to repath songs and delay your FCs of them for a bit so you can tweak those paths. Yes, it takes effort to think about whether you want to switch parts on a song, and even more effort to switch when you’ve already learned your activations from one perspective. The thing is, though, these points add up and make the difference between being a good co-op team and being a dominant co-op team. Heck, it even takes effort to hit random tick squeezes in the middle of songs, but it was because I care about those points that I put a HUGE reverse squeeze on the green sustain in measure 69 of Hit Me with Your Best Shot, a squeeze that probably made the difference when we got to the end of the run and discovered that we were in first by four ticks. Take pride in your work while you're FCing songs, because only then can you take pride in your scores when you're done.


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Conclusion:

Well, that’s pretty much all I know about co-op squeezing. If you’ve got any additional tips that you’d like to share, please post them and I’ll add them to the guide. You can also feel free to post any other suggestions, questions, comments, or criticisms that you may have, and I’ll address them as best I can.

I hope that this inspires some of you to go out and take some firsts of your own. The scores are there for you to beat if you’re willing to try hard enough; happy squeezing!

Thanks:

• First and foremost, I must thank my good friend and co-op partner Josh, without whom this guide would not exist. I’m also thanking him in advance in the hope that he won’t kill me for revealing all our secrets.
  
• Thanks to the Nesquik Fanatics (co-op team consisting of Undeadfil13QC and JoelC151), whose excellent scores were a big reason we had to develop some of these advanced methods. Despite our best efforts, they’re still the top of the GH3 co-op pack.
  
• Thanks to Plesant Burning Sensation (co-op team consisting of elScarecrow and FDXCpinballwiz) for putting additional pressure on our first place scores. Again, competition breeds quality, and we got a lot of competition out of them
  
• Thanks to HoorayItsMike, whose excellent guide on single player squeezing I linked, and who gave me advice on a clarifying point for the introduction
  
• Thanks to think13, Undeadfil13QC, and anterth, whose paths I used to illustrate examples in this guide
  
• Thanks to Tenac (co-op team consisting of Daveiac and eske), whose My Name Is Jonas FC video was linked to illustrate a split squeeze
  
• Thanks to NfskMjmMal2 for error correction
  
• Thanks to everybody who posts paths in the co-op star power forum. Pathing completely from scratch is a pain, and even paths that aren’t completely correct can save a lot of time.
  
• Thanks especially to Undeadfil13QC, who has posted paths for a LOT of songs, and whose paths are nearly always right
  

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[zsjostrom35]

Introduction:

A little over seven months ago, my friend Josh (acatisfinetoo on SH) and I thought it would be fun to start a GH3 co-op team, since we were both pretty good at the game (Josh more so than I). We started playing through the setlist, looking up paths for all the songs along the way, and before long we started coming up with some first place scores. Of course, this got us very excited about our team’s prospects, so we started going for first place scores on everything. Along the way, we developed and got rather good at some fairly advanced co-op squeezing techniques, which I intend to share with you as best I can in this guide.

Just to reinforce the point made in the above paragraph and in the title, this guide is for GH3 only. I would guess that at least some of the methods still apply, but as I've never played co-op in any other game I can't be sure.

My hope in writing this is that some other teams might start caring about stuff like split squeezes and multiplier exploitation and therefore start challenging and beating some the current first place scores. While more competition would make for fewer high ranks for the few teams that currently do care, it would also make for a lot more fun. And really, why else are you playing co-op, if not for fun?

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
   
   
2. Preliminaries
   
   
3. The Basic Method
   1. Front Ends
      1. Normal Front Ends
      2. Non-Simultaneous Front Ends
      3. Front Ends Without Notes
      4. Hammer-on Front Ends
      5. Side Tip: Don’t Be Tied to Your Roles
   2. Back Ends
   
   
4. Split Squeezing
   1. Front End Split Squeezing
   2. Back End Split Squeezing
   3. Combination Split Squeezing (Or, How to Do Sabotage)
   
   
5. Multiplier Squeezing
   
   
6. Miscellaneous Advice
   1. Don’t Trust Paths From the Forums Implicitly
   2. Take Your Time FCing Songs
   3. Be Open to Switching Parts
   4. There’s No Such Thing As an Insignificant Number of Points
   
   
7. Conclusion
   1. Thanks

Preliminaries:

First of all, if you’re going to contend for top scores on the majority of songs in GH3 co-op, both players on your team need to be familiar with all techniques of that game’s single player squeezing and able to execute them at a reasonably high level. If one or both of you isn’t, you need two things: HoorayItsMike's guide to Absolutely Everything You Need to Know About Squeezing and practice. From this point on, I’ll be assuming that you are a reasonably competent squeezer. Second, you should at least have a basic idea of how co-op star power works. Here’s a quick overview if you don’t (which you can skip if you already know how to activate in co-op):

Just as in single player, you need a half-bar of star power to activate, which you can get either from collecting SP phrases (still a quarter bar each), whammied SP sustains (40 beats for a full bar, not 30 as it is in single player), or some combination of the two. When the required amount of SP has been accumulated, either player can ready it by either tilting the guitar or pressing the select button, which opens a window lasting a few seconds in which the other player can activate. Prolonged tilting or repeated pressing of the select button on the first player’s part can extend this window indefinitely, but it will still close a few seconds after the tilt is removed or the last press of the button. If the window closes before the second player activates, the star power reverts to its original state and must be readied again before it can be activated.

Now, on to co-op squeezing.

Back to Table of Contents
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Basic Method:

Front Ends:

Normal Front Ends:

In single player squeezing, there are a lot of different kinds of front end activations. However, by far the most common is a simple squeeze of a strummed note in a section slow enough that you can exploit the timing window as much as you like. Unsurprisingly, the analogous co-op situation (both players attempt to activate on a strummed note in a slow-ish section) is the most common type of co-op front end, and so that’s what we’ll be learning first.

Of course, the idea here is to activate late while still getting both notes under star power. Unfortunately, the nature of co-op activating makes this more difficult than simply having both players execute a normal squeeze on their notes. Think about it: if one player hits select followed immediately by hitting the note, and the other player does the same a split second later, the first player won’t get the front end under star power since the SP won’t actually activate until the second player hits select. The only way this could possibly work is if both players hit select at the EXACT same time, which quite frankly isn’t going to happen. Of course, they could delay their hitting of the notes until a bit after pressing select, but that wouldn’t make for very good squeezes. The solution Josh and I found (I’m sure other co-op teams have come to the same conclusion) is to have one player (which I will call the “passive squeezer” from here on out) pre-tilt in advance of the activation, so that the other player (which I will call the “active squeezer”) can execute a normal squeeze of the desired note. The passive squeezer must then squeeze his note in after the active squeezer activates, which ensures both notes are hit under star power.

In order to make this method work, you and your co-op partner must decide in advance which role each of you is going to take in activations like this. My advice to you is to make your better pure squeezer (i.e. whichever one of you is better at straight-up timing window abuse) the passive squeezer. This may seem counterintuitive, but Josh and I found out the hard way that you can lose a lot of points by oversqueezing (having the active squeezer hit his note and activate after the passive squeezer hits his note, causing the passive squeezer’s note to be hit outside the star power). By having the better squeezer take the passive role, the active squeezer is free to squeeze his note as much as he likes since he knows the passive squeezer can outsqueeze him. Granted, this is something of an oversimplification (since it’s almost impossible for both of you to squeeze with perfect precision every time), but the more you gain experience with these types of activations the more you’ll become familiar with each others’ squeezing abilities, which leads to better and more reliable front ends.

Non-Simultaneous Front Ends:

It will likely come as no shock to you that not all front end activations consist of simultaneous strummed notes in easy sections where you both players can squeeze to their hearts’ content. Situations where one player must activate on a note while the other has either a sustain or empty space are also very common. These are even easier to do than normal front ends, however; just make the player without any notes the passive squeezer and the other player can activate as usual.

In the specific case where one player has a sustain on these types of activations, your team can get more points if that player hits the sustained note late, thus moving ticks to the end of the sustain where they’ll be under star power. Also, if the back end squeeze of the activation is not too big, the active squeezer should take care not to squeeze his front end too much, which would also cost ticks needlessly.

Front Ends Without Notes:

Occasionally, you will run across an activation where neither player has a note at the desired location. Since sustains and empty spaces are not generally worth a lot of points, these activations are rather rare, and usually involve activating in the middle of one player’s whammied SP sustain so as to avoid an overrun. If that is the case, make the player who is not whammying the active squeezer, since the activation will need to be done with reasonable precision to avoid losing points or overrunning. If neither player is whammying, stick with your usual roles.

Hammer-on Front Ends:

If both players have a hammer-on at the desired activation spot, you can just activate as normal and try your best not to miss the front end (definitely consider moving the activation in that case if you can do so without losing any points). More commonly, however, just one player will have a HO/PO front end, and in those cases it’s usually best to make that player the passive squeezer (of course, if your normal active squeezer is proficient at HO/PO front ends there’s no need to switch). Josh and I have found that executing a moderate HO/PO front end is actually not too difficult when you don’t have to worry about activating the star power yourself, so the passive squeezer's front end should be fine as long as the active squeezer doesn’t go overboard with his squeeze.

Side Tip: Don’t Be Tied to Your Roles

It’s very important to remember that the advice I’m giving about how to decide who should be the active squeezer and who should be the passive squeezer is just that. What I’m offering is nothing more than general guidelines that I feel should work for most co-op teams. However, you don’t need it to work for most co-op teams; you need it to work for your co-op team. For example, I said that when one player has a note at an activation point and the other doesn’t, that player should be the active squeezer. However, some players can’t activate well in fast sections, and if that’s the case you might be better off just letting the other player be the active squeezer. Probably the most glaring instance of this is the activation in Cliffs of Dover Intro Solo B, where bass has no notes underneath lead’s very difficult part. Most lead players aren’t going to be able to activate precisely there, so just let them pre-tilt and the bass can watch their notes for the correct spot. You might miss a few hundred points from activating too early or too late, but it’s better than missing a note. Of course, not all potential switches are going to be this obvious, but if you start having trouble with an activation you should always consider whether reversing roles might make it easier.

Back Ends:

Unlike the front end, the back end of an activation in co-op functions just like it does in single player. Each player should squeeze (or reverse squeeze, to avoid an overrun) as necessary independently of what the other player is doing. The only difference is that the passive squeezer may not know how good the front end squeeze was, so the active squeezer should make it a habit to inform the passive squeezer roughly how good his front end was on each activation. This allows both players to determine how large a back-end squeeze is necessary. However, none of this will be helpful at all if you don’t know which note is supposed to be squeezed, which leads to my major piece of advice here: Know Your Back End. It sounds obvious (and it is), but co-op paths are not always completely accurate, and it’s very easy to get lazy and not pay attention to where your star power ends during the course of a run and miss a few hundred points. That generally doesn’t seem very important, but it adds up fast and you can easily cost yourself several thousand points on a longer song. If you want to get really good co-op scores, you need to learn where every back end is (which you can only do in real runs) and make sure you squeeze them properly. Usually these squeezes aren’t hard at all, but you can’t hit them if you don’t know they’re there.

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Split Squeezing:

Unlike the basic method outlined in the previous section, which really was more or less an extension of single player squeezing to the co-op setting, split squeezing is something completely unique to co-op. The basic idea is that there’s no reason both players should have to squeeze their notes in the same direction all the time, a technique which in some (admittedly rare) cases can be used to get more points than normal squeezing would allow.

Front End Split Squeezing:

This type of squeeze is easiest to illustrate with an example, so let’s look at think13’s Prayer of the Refugee co-op path. If you examine the first activation (measures 29-35), you’ll notice that it ends in blank space for the lead part and on a single note for bass. If you could somehow move that activation back a note to last RB chord for lead in measure 28, you would gain 400 points on the front end while losing only 200 points on the back. A split squeeze allows you to do just that without overrunning the last note of the bass SP phrase in measure 28. Here’s how it works:

First of all, if you’re split squeezing to avoid a front end overrun the player without the SP phrase must be the active squeezer (in the case of Prayer of the Refugee that would be the lead player). Second, the player with the SP phrase must know exactly which note is the last one in his phrase, and hit it early while pre-tilting in advance. This gets the star power early and readies it immediately, so that the when the active squeezer unloads the SP and hits his note (late), you’ve already got the full bar. Both players then hit their back end a note earlier than what is indicated on the chart, and you’ve got yourself an extra 200 points. It usually takes some practice between co-op partners to get used to the timing involved here, but to the true squeezing addict, the extra points are worth it . This video shows the split squeeze hit correctly about 45 seconds in.

This type of split squeeze can easily be reversed to deliberately overrun a phrase that you don’t want. Examine the first activation on this My Name Is Jonas path (again due to think13). If you were to collect both star power phrases ending in measure 8 before activating, the star power would last for 4.5 measures and overrun the two phrases beginning in measure 13. Much better is the split squeeze marked on the path: make lead the active squeezer, bass should hit the last note in measure 8 early while pre-tilting, then lead can do a normal squeeze of his last note in measure 8 to overrun his phrase (note that you could switch roles here and have bass overrun, but it’s better to get lead’s chord under SP than bass’s single note). Watch about 30 seconds into this video to see the split squeeze in action.

Back End Split Squeezing:

Thankfully, this is a good deal simpler than front end split squeezing. The basic idea here is that when one player has a star power phrase near the end of an activation and the other doesn’t, the best path may involve running the star power right up to the first note of the phrase in question. The player with the phrase can then reverse squeeze that note to avoid the overrun while the other player executes a normal back end squeeze to get the corresponding note on his chart under star power. As an example, look at the second activation (measure 36) on this Black Magic Woman path from Undeadfil13QC. If bass allows the lead to whammy just a tad more than is marked before activating (remember, bass should be active here since he’s got no notes and lead has to whammy), it’s possible to get the SP to last until lead can squeeze the first BO chord in measure 40, while bass can reverse squeeze to avoid overrunning.

One important thing to note is that you should be cautious about attempting a back end split squeeze when the phrase you wish to get starts on a sustain. Reverse squeezing in those situations will cost you whammy, so it’s usually not worth it unless you can get your front end so precisely that no reverse squeezing is necessary but the other player can still squeeze enough to get his back end. The reverse squeeze is fine in the Black Magic Woman example since that phrase involves compressed whammy anyway.

Combination Split Squeezing (Or, How to Do Sabotage):

Sabotage is unique among co-op songs in that proper execution of its optimal path requires you to be able to do a split squeeze front end so well that you can also split the back end without overrunning. As if that weren’t hard enough, it requires you to do it TWICE. Let’s have a look at this fiendish path (by anterth): http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/4196/sabotagecoopexpertio8.png. We’ll focus solely on the first of the difficult activations, which is in measure 17 (the second one, in measure 21, is pretty much the same). You should recognize that the lead player must be the active squeezer, since the bass player is the one collecting the star power phrase that makes this a split squeeze. Now, part of what makes this activation difficult is that (unlike the Prayer of the Refugee and My Name Is Jonas examples) you won’t actually have enough star power to activate until the bass player finishes his phrase. This makes it extremely important for that phrase to be finished early, because sometimes there’s a slight lag between when the phrase is hit and when you can actually activate when bass is pre-tilting. The lead part of the activation is no less difficult: he must select activate on the first GR chord in measure 17 very precisely; too late and the reverse squeeze in measure 21 will be almost impossible for the bass player, too early and the star power won’t even activate at all. I was playing lead when Josh and I did this, and I’ve found that if your bass player is skilled (mine was ), the best spot is VERY slightly after the chord passes the strike line. That enabled us to get the activation very consistently with a manageable reverse squeeze.

Very important note: although it seems like a double pre-tilt would be ideal for this sort of activation, it doesn’t work. For whatever reason, you can’t double pre-tilt in co-op.

If you make it through the front end and manage to activate properly, just make sure you know where your back end is, squeeze it as well as you can (lead early, bass late), and hope for the best. And don’t let up focus; you have to do it again at the end of the next measure.

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Multiplier Squeezing:

While you’ve still got that Sabotage path up, look at the beginning of the song and start counting notes. You’ll notice that the GRY chord in the lead part and bass’s corresponding G are the 19th and 20th notes of the song, which you may recall from single player being the point at which your multiplier changes from 2X to 3X (19th note at 2X, 20th at 3X). It’s exactly the same in co-op, which means you can exploit the timing window here for some extra points. First, let’s see how the scoring will go for the first twenty notes if lead hits that GRY chord before bass hits the G:

Lead has two trip chords at 1X and a trip chord at 2X (since it’s the 19th note hit), for a total of 2*150*1 + 1*150*2 = 600 points
Bass has seven single notes at 1X, nine single notes at 2X, and a single note at 3X (since it’s the 20th hit) for a total of 7*50*1 + 9*50*2 + 1*50*3 = 1400 points
Total points scored for the first twenty notes is 600 + 1400 = 2000

Now, do the same thing, but assume that the bass player hit his G before lead’s GRY:

Lead has two trip chords at 1X and a trip chord at 3X (since it’s the 20th note hit), for a total of 2*150*1 + 1*150*3 = 750 points
Bass has seven single notes at 1X and ten single notes at 2X (since the last is the 19th hit) for a total of 7*50*1 + 10*50*2 = 1350 points
Total points scored for the first twenty notes is 750 + 1350 = 2100

Just like that; points from nowhere. These kinds of squeezes are very easy to hit once you know they’re there, and they’re not at all hard to find with a little bit of chart inspection before you start taking runs. Just check to see if the 9th/10th, 19th/20th, or 29th/30th notes are simultaneous lead and bass notes, and if so, see if one of the notes is worth more points than the other (usually it’s a chord against a single note, but sustains against single notes will also work). Then, just have the player with the more valuable note squeeze late and have the other player squeeze early for easy points.

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Miscellaneous Advice:

This last part of the guide is a collection of tips that I’ve learned in the course of my co-op experience with Josh. They may not be strictly related to co-op squeezing in the traditional sense, but they’ve all helped us get more points in the past (or cost us points for not following them). Hopefully they’ll do the same for you.

Don’t Trust Paths from the Forums Implicitly:

Before you even start playing a song, you should approach the path with the attitude that it’s wrong and you need to fix it. Most of the paths you’ll find are reasonably accurate, but if you see a way to change it that looks like it might be worth some more points, run the numbers yourself and see what comes out. Maybe there’s a large activation that can be split more profitably into two smaller ones; maybe there’s a phrase in a point-heavy section that ought to be overrun rather than collected; you’ll never know unless you experiment.

You should continue with your skepticism when you actually start playing the song. Very rarely will a path have all the activation lengths perfectly accurate, so you should be on the lookout for path tweaks that may net you a few more points from extra squeezes. This also goes for compressed activations; use the path as a guideline but figure out for yourself how much whammy you need.

Take Your Time FCing Songs:

Co-op songs have a LOT of star power as a general rule (almost no songs have fewer than six activations on their optimal path, and most have ten or more), and it will likely take you several runs just to get the path down. Furthermore, you need to be learning back ends and figuring out compressed whammy (remember, don’t trust the path on these), which will also take a while. It’s no coincidence that some of Josh’s and my worst co-op scores were on songs that we FCed very quickly; the worst case was when we FCed Black Sunshine on our THIRD run and consequently got the worst FC score entered here (we didn’t even have the path memorized). Don’t let this happen to you.

Be Open to Switching Parts:

Most co-op teams operate with one player always playing lead and the other always playing bass, and they’ll switch ONLY if the lead part is easy and the bass player can’t FC his part. This is usually fine, but my advice here is that if both players can FC both parts you should consider switching out of your usual roles if doing so can help you execute the path better. This usually happens when the nature of the song forces one part to be the active squeezer a lot when your default player of that part is also your default passive squeezer (or vice versa), but there may be other situations specific to your co-op team where a switch can help. As an example, even though I’m the passive squeezer on our team, Josh is a lot better at front end HO/POs than I am. Thus when we came upon Can’t Be Saved, the bass part of which is riddled with such front ends, we switched Josh over to bass and got a VERY good score.

There’s No Such Thing As an Insignificant Number of Points:

This tip really can be boiled down to a basic admonition: Don’t Get Lazy, which sums up most of this guide in a nutshell. All of these things you’re doing are for small numbers of points at a time, but you need to do them if you want great co-op scores. Yes, it takes effort to learn the location and squeeze size of every back end in a song. Yes, it takes effort to look at the chart to pick out multiplier squeezes. Yes, it takes effort to repath songs and delay your FCs of them for a bit so you can tweak those paths. Yes, it takes effort to think about whether you want to switch parts on a song, and even more effort to switch when you’ve already learned your activations from one perspective. The thing is, though, these points add up and make the difference between being a good co-op team and being a dominant co-op team. Heck, it even takes effort to hit random tick squeezes in the middle of songs, but it was because I care about those points that I put a HUGE reverse squeeze on the green sustain in measure 69 of Hit Me with Your Best Shot, a squeeze that probably made the difference when we got to the end of the run and discovered that we were in first by four ticks. Take pride in your work while you're FCing songs, because only then can you take pride in your scores when you're done.


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Conclusion:

Well, that’s pretty much all I know about co-op squeezing. If you’ve got any additional tips that you’d like to share, please post them and I’ll add them to the guide. You can also feel free to post any other suggestions, questions, comments, or criticisms that you may have, and I’ll address them as best I can.

I hope that this inspires some of you to go out and take some firsts of your own. The scores are there for you to beat if you’re willing to try hard enough; happy squeezing!

Thanks:

• First and foremost, I must thank my good friend and co-op partner Josh, without whom this guide would not exist. I’m also thanking him in advance in the hope that he won’t kill me for revealing all our secrets.
  
• Thanks to the Nesquik Fanatics (co-op team consisting of Undeadfil13QC and JoelC151), whose excellent scores were a big reason we had to develop some of these advanced methods. Despite our best efforts, they’re still the top of the GH3 co-op pack.
  
• Thanks to Plesant Burning Sensation (co-op team consisting of elScarecrow and FDXCpinballwiz) for putting additional pressure on our first place scores. Again, competition breeds quality, and we got a lot of competition out of them
  
• Thanks to HoorayItsMike, whose excellent guide on single player squeezing I linked, and who gave me advice on a clarifying point for the introduction
  
• Thanks to think13, Undeadfil13QC, and anterth, whose paths I used to illustrate examples in this guide
  
• Thanks to Tenac (co-op team consisting of Daveiac and eske), whose My Name Is Jonas FC video was linked to illustrate a split squeeze
  
• Thanks to NfskMjmMal2 for error correction
  
• Thanks to everybody who posts paths in the co-op star power forum. Pathing completely from scratch is a pain, and even paths that aren’t completely correct can save a lot of time.
  
• Thanks especially to Undeadfil13QC, who has posted paths for a LOT of songs, and whose paths are nearly always right
  

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[iceefudgesickle]

Wow, excellent guide. Very well written and I can clearly understand everything about co-op squeezing now. I don't have a coop team on GH3 right now, but really, nice job.
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[iceefudgesickle]

Wow, excellent guide. Very well written and I can clearly understand everything about co-op squeezing now. I don't have a coop team on GH3 right now, but really, nice job.
_________________

[NfskMjmMal2]

Hmm...I don't know anyone in real life that's even remotely skilled.
I don't really play this game anymore.
Maybe this guide isn't so relevant to me...I don't think I'll read it.

Oh, and by the way, the link to the "My Name is Jonas" path in the "Front End Split Squeezing" section links to the "Prayer of the Refugee" path.

Of course I read it all. That's some really complex stuff you guys discovered; I didn't realize co-op squeezing went so deep. Of course, when I first started playing I never realized Star Power went much deeper than "use it when there are notes so you get points", so I should've realized you guys might not have gotten all of those firsts on accident.

Very nicely done as usual. I was browsing through the forum index when I saw that the first post in the TSG Guitar/Bass forum was a Co-op Squeezing guide, and I immediately thought "So that's why there hasn't been a GH3 TTFAF 5* Guide around here recently!"

[NfskMjmMal2]

Hmm...I don't know anyone in real life that's even remotely skilled.
I don't really play this game anymore.
Maybe this guide isn't so relevant to me...I don't think I'll read it.

Oh, and by the way, the link to the "My Name is Jonas" path in the "Front End Split Squeezing" section links to the "Prayer of the Refugee" path.

Of course I read it all. That's some really complex stuff you guys discovered; I didn't realize co-op squeezing went so deep. Of course, when I first started playing I never realized Star Power went much deeper than "use it when there are notes so you get points", so I should've realized you guys might not have gotten all of those firsts on accident.

Very nicely done as usual. I was browsing through the forum index when I saw that the first post in the TSG Guitar/Bass forum was a Co-op Squeezing guide, and I immediately thought "So that's why there hasn't been a GH3 TTFAF 5* Guide around here recently!"

[zsjostrom35]

[zsjostrom35]

[nickyboy909]

Woooo very nice long guide may i suggest putting links to pics of paths or something?Where do you find these paths?
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[nickyboy909]

Woooo very nice long guide may i suggest putting links to pics of paths or something?Where do you find these paths?
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[fudrick]

Now I have to read another guide I'll most likely never have to/be able to use (yeah, I read all your guides )
_________________

FC Goals: GH1 - 46 [43] | GH2 - 64 [63] | GH80's - 30 [29] | GH3 - 70 [68] | GHA - 41 [00] | GHWT - 85 [00] | GHM - 48 [10] | GHSH - 47 [00] | RB2 - 84 [02]

[fudrick]

Now I have to read another guide I'll most likely never have to/be able to use (yeah, I read all your guides )
_________________

FC Goals: GH1 - 46 [43] | GH2 - 64 [63] | GH80's - 30 [29] | GH3 - 70 [68] | GHA - 41 [00] | GHWT - 85 [00] | GHM - 48 [10] | GHSH - 47 [00] | RB2 - 84 [02]

[zsjostrom35]

[zsjostrom35]

[HoorayItsMike]

Definitely the second best squeezing guide I've ever seen. I linked your guide in the beginning of mine as well.

You may want to say in the beginning of your guide that this is ONLY for GH3, so a lot of the techniques you talk about may not apply to all games in the same way or even at all. I know it says GH3 in the title and all...but you may just want to reinforce that idea in the beginning of the guide somewhere. I can't say that I read the whole thing, but it looks very well thought out and someday I hope to use it.
_________________

Squeezing Guide - TTFAF Section by Section 5* Guide - Trials HD Extreme Courses Guide
Proud Christian

[HoorayItsMike]

Definitely the second best squeezing guide I've ever seen. I linked your guide in the beginning of mine as well.

You may want to say in the beginning of your guide that this is ONLY for GH3, so a lot of the techniques you talk about may not apply to all games in the same way or even at all. I know it says GH3 in the title and all...but you may just want to reinforce that idea in the beginning of the guide somewhere. I can't say that I read the whole thing, but it looks very well thought out and someday I hope to use it.
_________________

Squeezing Guide - TTFAF Section by Section 5* Guide - Trials HD Extreme Courses Guide
Proud Christian

[zsjostrom35]

[zsjostrom35]

[pman5595]

Well, I have a co-op partner that is very good at FCing stuff, (67/70 GH3 FCs) I just need to teach him to squeeze and we might be able to try these techniques!

Great guide (I new that before reading it, by the username)
_________________

Proud Social Liberal. What are you? Post your result in your signature. Genius, genius, and genius.

[pman5595]

Well, I have a co-op partner that is very good at FCing stuff, (67/70 GH3 FCs) I just need to teach him to squeeze and we might be able to try these techniques!

Great guide (I new that before reading it, by the username)
_________________

Proud Social Liberal. What are you? Post your result in your signature. Genius, genius, and genius.

[zsjostrom35]

[zsjostrom35]

[pman5595]

[pman5595]

[UndeadFil13QC]

Undead is glad he was thanked three times

You must have spent a whole lot of time on making this guide. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I can say it is kinda hard to explain these kind of complex methods, even if it sounds so simple. I congratulate you, and thank you so much for using your time to make such a big and useful thing.
_________________

ULTIMATE GOAL: FC Im The One on GH: Van Halen Expert Guitar
Solo 2A FC Count: 39 (Best runs: many -1s, three outro chokes and two 100% overstrums!)

Side goals: GH Expert Vocals Full Series FC [4/8] | Rock Band Expert Bass Full Series FC [8/9] | COVID Vaccine & Booster 100% FC [4/4]

47|64|30|70|41|86|49|48|85|46|93|42 (10|65|10)
Full Series Total: 701/702 (786/787)

[UndeadFil13QC]

Undead is glad he was thanked three times

You must have spent a whole lot of time on making this guide. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I can say it is kinda hard to explain these kind of complex methods, even if it sounds so simple. I congratulate you, and thank you so much for using your time to make such a big and useful thing.
_________________

ULTIMATE GOAL: FC Im The One on GH: Van Halen Expert Guitar
Solo 2A FC Count: 39 (Best runs: many -1s, three outro chokes and two 100% overstrums!)

Side goals: GH Expert Vocals Full Series FC [4/8] | Rock Band Expert Bass Full Series FC [8/9] | COVID Vaccine & Booster 100% FC [4/4]

47|64|30|70|41|86|49|48|85|46|93|42 (10|65|10)
Full Series Total: 701/702 (786/787)

[FDXCpinballwiz]

First off, I just wanna say very nice guide and don't worry, me and elscarecrow are trying to get together to make some more co-op runs haha.

Ok, now my question. You say that you should make the less gifted squeezer the active squeezer so that both players get the front end. But what me and drew discovered is tht by making the better squeezer do the front end, in many situations it will gain you points because the back end is thus much easier to hit. But usually, we just make actice squeezer lead guitar since it would be front-ending a chord instead of a bass single note. to insure a loss of 200 rather than 400 if all goes wrong.

Edit: and very nice job discovering the multiplier squeeze. me and drew discovered it while playing anarchy in the UK, werent sure if we were the only ones who knew about it haha
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[FDXCpinballwiz]

First off, I just wanna say very nice guide and don't worry, me and elscarecrow are trying to get together to make some more co-op runs haha.

Ok, now my question. You say that you should make the less gifted squeezer the active squeezer so that both players get the front end. But what me and drew discovered is tht by making the better squeezer do the front end, in many situations it will gain you points because the back end is thus much easier to hit. But usually, we just make actice squeezer lead guitar since it would be front-ending a chord instead of a bass single note. to insure a loss of 200 rather than 400 if all goes wrong.

Edit: and very nice job discovering the multiplier squeeze. me and drew discovered it while playing anarchy in the UK, werent sure if we were the only ones who knew about it haha
_________________

"Jimi Hendrix did not play guitar. He trained a small dinosaur to scream inside his amp. This sound changed rock n' roll." -uncyclopedia.org


My accomplishments page (530/567 fc's)

Add me on facebook

[zsjostrom35]

[zsjostrom35]