The difference between driving on the PGA Tour and in TWO is that there's no margin for "averages" in TWO. Let me explain.

In the PGA Tour, no matter how long a golfer has been playing, most guys will not be able to 400 yard drives, no matter what conditions are played. However, in TWO, everyone can hit 400 yard drives if they play long enough.

Carn made a good point. A lot of these exceedingly long drives come from playing courses with optimum course conditions for long-driving. Again, the law of averages comes into effect here. How many times would one play a course with these optimum conditions? Not very often.

I was never a big fan of TW players having the ability to choose what conditions they play in. In real life, we have very few options. We can select what tee we hit from. We can choose whether to play in inclement weather, or we can choose to stay home. Other than that, we don't select what wind speed we play in. We don't select green speeds, fairway speeds and rough length. Simply put, as long as players are given the option in TWO to exploit conditions, we're never going to get an accurate representation of their true skill.

Also, the more I look into the Swing Trainer . . the more I hate it. It just does not make any sense.

When I look at the swing trainer, all I see are ways for players to make their golfer better. While this seems like a good idea, it really isn't an intelligent way of getting things done. What are we actually doing when we tune our swings? To me, it's like we're getting better because we're practicing.

Here is what I think should happen with the swing tuner:

First, when you train one skill, it should come with a slight consequence to another skill. For example, if I add +1 to Power, it should automatically take perhaps -0.5 from accuracy and/or putting. Doesn't it make sense that if you're training to make your driving power better, then something else that you're not spending time working on would get worse? Think about it. If you take the best PGA Tour Player in terms of putting average, and he does nothing for a month but work on his power, power, power . . . he's absolutely not going to be putting as well. By spending time on one aspect of his game, other aspects of his game will go down . . albeit perhaps slightly.

Second, there needs to be a way to ensure that players are not "loading up" on one skill. For example, if POWER is the only thing a player puts money into, then their other skills should be penalized even more greatly. It just makes sense that if you over-train one skill right out of the gates - your other skills would suffer greatly for it.

Good post,that is the golf about,I have to practish all my skills to get better in real live(2 handycapper)
cheers
Gunnar Marel
Iceland

cem_ea_id.Wrenn64 wrote:The difference between driving on the PGA Tour and in TWO is that there's no margin for "averages" in TWO. Let me explain.

In the PGA Tour, no matter how long a golfer has been playing, most guys will not be able to 400 yard drives, no matter what conditions are played. However, in TWO, everyone can hit 400 yard drives if they play long enough.

Carn made a good point. A lot of these exceedingly long drives come from playing courses with optimum course conditions for long-driving. Again, the law of averages comes into effect here. How many times would one play a course with these optimum conditions? Not very often.

I was never a big fan of TW players having the ability to choose what conditions they play in. In real life, we have very few options. We can select what tee we hit from. We can choose whether to play in inclement weather, or we can choose to stay home. Other than that, we don't select what wind speed we play in. We don't select green speeds, fairway speeds and rough length. Simply put, as long as players are given the option in TWO to exploit conditions, we're never going to get an accurate representation of their true skill.

Also, the more I look into the Swing Trainer . . the more I hate it. It just does not make any sense.

When I look at the swing trainer, all I see are ways for players to make their golfer better. While this seems like a good idea, it really isn't an intelligent way of getting things done. What are we actually doing when we tune our swings? To me, it's like we're getting better because we're practicing.

Here is what I think should happen with the swing tuner:

First, when you train one skill, it should come with a slight consequence to another skill. For example, if I add +1 to Power, it should automatically take perhaps -0.5 from accuracy and/or putting. Doesn't it make sense that if you're training to make your driving power better, then something else that you're not spending time working on would get worse? Think about it. If you take the best PGA Tour Player in terms of putting average, and he does nothing for a month but work on his power, power, power . . . he's absolutely not going to be putting as well. By spending time on one aspect of his game, other aspects of his game will go down . . albeit perhaps slightly.

Second, there needs to be a way to ensure that players are not "loading up" on one skill. For example, if POWER is the only thing a player puts money into, then their other skills should be penalized even more greatly. It just makes sense that if you over-train one skill right out of the gates - your other skills would suffer greatly for it.

You know, I hadn't thought about all that. You're right. Practice does make perfect,well better anyway. I fiddled with the swing trainer for my drives and maxed myself out at 285-295 yds. and way lower on timing,balance,etc. I hit some slight draws or fades with occasional straight shots. I use the ball on the right to control in-between distances. This is the equivalent of teeing the ball higher or lower or moving it forward or backwards in my stance. I haven't changed these settings for 20+ rounds. It feels more realistic to me. I concentrate on elevation,wind and pin placement to hit good shots. I don't even know what the putt preview looks like! I average 1.46 putts per hole. I love this beta. After playing so many TWPGA tour editions it's a breath of fresh air just to get away from the cute characters and play some serious golf. Thanks guys!

I am all for adding things to make it more challenging. But frankly, I want to be the one to be able to select the challenge. Sometimes, I like to just wander around smacking the ball..... Seeing how many eagles I can get on a short course. Sometimes I want to take on a real challenge. Whatever you do, allow the player to continue to control the conditions as well.

On the tourneys, sure, knock yourself out and make the standings harder as a player improves. One big problem that WGT had is the wide gap of players. It ranked some newbies as pro, without giving them a chance to get use to the game. They could never then go back to Hack.... and just have fun if they wanted.

If I purchase a game, it is for my enjoyment. I want to control the conditions to fit my particular mood at that time.

So far, I am finding this enjoyable. I am not one of these -21 players or anything that you see on the tourneys, I fit somewhere in the middle.

Haven't read through every post in this thread, and I'm speaking from a 3 click point of view.

The swingmeter as it is right now, is fine for those new to PC golf games and who have never clicked before. It's a good learning tool.

As players improve and their skill level increases, the swingmeter should gradually lose these aids and the 'perfect snap' sweetspot should gradually become smaller IMO.

I also think the click meter should have a small 'danger zone' from 100% up to say 110% where the player can try to apply a bit of overswing for a bit of extra power, but at the same time, the downswing speed should be faster than a normal shot bringing in the risk factor of pushing for extra power/distance.

Ultimately, the highest skill level on offer should basically have a swingmeter with just the tee peg to allow you to stop at the estimated hit strength and again at the snap area. Even the markers for 25%, 50% 75% and 100% should be disabled. Over time clickers will begin to learn where they need to stop the swing for the required power and give the game a bit more of a 'feel' element for clickers instead of just stopping it at a precise spot, as they can now be moving the guides around the meter to the required spot.

Using the current TWO Swingmeter, I've done a bit of 'airbrushing' to give some idea what I'm getting at regards losing aids from the swingmeter as the skill levels increase. Based on a set of 4 skill levels - Amateur, Pro, Champ and Elite - the swing meters would progress something like this.......



This is just a suggestion for trying to add some 'difficulty' element into the game as players improve. The players would need to make more use of yardages and lie detail on the hole overhead on the right of the screen and at the higher levels have no reference to exactly where they were aiming by being able to place the aiming marker on the green near the pin. The aiming would be done from the players perspective only, so the player couldn't plot exactly where the ball would be landing on the green, as available at the easiest level.

As IRL, a player has to line himself up from the point he is at on the tee/fairway and not by placing a marker alongside the flag, guaranteeing his aim, but purely by how it looks from where the shot is being played.

cem_ea_id.Dazmaniac wrote:Haven't read through every post in this thread, and I'm speaking from a 3 click point of view.

The swingmeter as it is right now, is fine for those new to PC golf games and who have never clicked before. It's a good learning tool.

An excellent and well presented post Daz! I have always been a TS player, but for the purpose of beta testing I have tried and enjoyed 3-click (from the long bar meter to the present). The current 3-click meter offers too much information at all levels (AFAIK) compared to the skill and timing of delivering the correct TS shot. I am trying to tread very carefully not to raise the long standing debate again, but to remain on topic. You have obviously given this some serious thought and I support your suggestion.

An option for match play scoring would put a whole different light on the game.

cem_ea_id.Dazmaniac wrote:The swingmeter as it is right now, is fine for those new to PC golf games and who have never clicked before. It's a good learning tool.

As players improve and their skill level increases, the swingmeter should gradually lose these aids and the 'perfect snap' sweetspot should gradually become smaller IMO.Ultimately, the highest skill level on offer should basically have a swingmeter with just the tee peg to allow you to stop at the estimated hit strength and again at the snap area. Even the markers for 25%, 50% 75% and 100% should be disabled. Over time clickers will begin to learn where they need to stop the swing for the required power and give the game a bit more of a 'feel' element for clickers instead of just stopping it at a precise spot, as they can now be moving the guides around the meter to the required spot.........

If Dazmaniac is proposing that a player be able to choose the level--Amateur...Elite, etc.--at which his or her game is played, this is probably a very good, well thought-out idea.

If he's proposing--as seems to be the case--that a skilled player can NEVER choose to play a relaxing game, it's an incredibly bad, megalomaniacal one.

And the less skilled player who is playing against a more skilled player because he decided to step down a level has to suffer. To me that is not a good idea. Always play at a level that will be a challenge and never take advantage of the lesser skilled players.

the different swing meters would be good for the tournaments and for a type of course mastery( each type of meter) but TS would have to have something for harder levels.

cem_ea_id.DeepSouthShore wrote:

cem_ea_id.Dazmaniac wrote:The swingmeter as it is right now, is fine for those new to PC golf games and who have never clicked before. It's a good learning tool.

As players improve and their skill level increases, the swingmeter should gradually lose these aids and the 'perfect snap' sweetspot should gradually become smaller IMO.Ultimately, the highest skill level on offer should basically have a swingmeter with just the tee peg to allow you to stop at the estimated hit strength and again at the snap area. Even the markers for 25%, 50% 75% and 100% should be disabled. Over time clickers will begin to learn where they need to stop the swing for the required power and give the game a bit more of a 'feel' element for clickers instead of just stopping it at a precise spot, as they can now be moving the guides around the meter to the required spot.........

If Dazmaniac is proposing that a player be able to choose the level--Amateur...Elite, etc.--at which his or her game is played, this is probably a very good, well thought-out idea.

If he's proposing--as seems to be the case--that a skilled player can NEVER choose to play a relaxing game, it's an incredibly bad, megalomaniacal one.

Give the player the option, is what I'm trying to imply, but with each skill level comes a trade off - you lose the aids on the swingmeter. But if someone who is happy playing at the highest level wishes to switch back to an easier level for some 'relaxing' golf, then so be it. I don't want the game to force players into using a set skill level and not allow them to play casual games at a lesser skill.

Having thought on it some more since yesterday, I think if players did drop down though to an easier level, they can only earn dollars to boost their swing trainer at that particular level. So if they play at Amateur and earn say $40,000 in a round, thay can't go and spend it on boosting their Elite skilled player, they ahve to use the cash on their Amateur persona. So effectively any player in the TWO community has a player, with 4 separate persona's - AM, PR, CH and EL - and they play whichever they prefer, but only earn credits for the skill level they were earned at.

I mainly play Links 2003, and you can choose whichever swing/skill combo you see fit, but Elite plays much more difficult than Amateur. This is where the idea from my post came about. Have 4 different levels of skill with appropriate swingmeter aids switched on/off, but allow the player to choose what he prefers.

Whether this is workable in the TWO environment is another matter and one for the EA Dev Team to respond to.

If a player wanted to drop down to play a single player game or pay a matchup with some friends I don't have a problem with that but to drop down and play against lesser players in a tournament is wrong. I do like your idea for the swing meter and yes something similar would need to be addressed for TS.

cem_ea_id.kdw845 wrote:And the less skilled player who is playing against a more skilled player because he decided to step down a level has to suffer. To me that is not a good idea. Always play at a level that will be a challenge and never take advantage of the lesser skilled players.

1. A less-skilled player who sees a more-skilled player joining his game has the capability of 'Removing' that player.
2. A less-skilled player who joins a game and finds a too-skilled player in that game can leave.
3. Many less-skilled players LIKE to play with more-skilled players so they can watch, learn, and even get playing tips, thus taking advantage of THEM.
4. I often played with better players because they were FUN personnas. Didn't care if they beat me. Pretty sure I'm not alone in that.
5. Some more-skilled players llike to play together at a lower level just for fun. If you beat a -21 with a -22, it may not be 'realistic' golf, but it still gives you bragging rights.

It's not all about WINNING.....it's about community too.

For the purpose of the beta I don't care who plays at what level. After release if a less skilled player wants to join a game with more skilled players GREAT. And if a less skilled player has the ability to remove a more skilled player in a matchup Great. But when a more skilled player joins a tournament that is set up for less skills, I find that to be a problem. The more skilled player has no business playing in a tournament where has an advantage over the rest of the field because he is more advanced. If he has been invited to play in that tournament or that tournament has some type of handicap system in place he is more then welcome to play there. But if he has the ability to join any tournament he wants with disregard for skill level, that is wrong.

Start players with lower skill values and make it harder to "buy up" the skills so fast. Besides just making it more costly, you could require certain accomplishments before unlocking some skill upgrades - like playing 25 rounds. That would be more of a "career" model for a real-life player, instead of being able to increase their drive distance just after a few rounds.
An alternative would be to put a "maintenance" fee on the skill upgrades so a player could regress if they don't earn enough and can't just use the quick one-shot rewards playing through each course to make such a drastic permanent effect on their skills.