The Masters

It's important that we keep these discussions focused on the topic that has been established. We'll try to cover all the most popular ideas that have been raised in the forums, so if one week we are not discussing that one topic you've been chomping at the bit to chime in on, don't worry, we'll get to it.

THIS DISCUSSION IS OPEN TO EVERYONE hardcore and casual players alike, so please feel free to post any ideas (relevant to the topic) that you think would be cool.

Check out the video below to see what this week's topic is and let the discussions begin.

Awesome idea to intorduce these topics in this manner.

Personally i am not picky with HOW you get attribute points...but i like how Fight Night had 2 different things going on by allowing users to build a CRAP up with a lot of attribute points just for online play, but when you used the same player in offline career mode you started at the bottom and worked your way up (as normal).

Reasoning is that i loved just being able to jump into an online fight with a CRAP that was ready to take on the world. For Tiger. it kinda sucked that i could not compete with the pros in the Play with Pros online feature right away (especailly for the US Open) because it took a little while to build my guy up first.

Great work all!!!

Mike,

I think the thing to do is make it like others have stated before:give a certain amount of attribute points that a person can use how they see fit to distribute across the board.
Along with this the other attributes besides Power need to have some effect on actual game play or everyone will just load up on power and skip all the others.

cem_ea_id.Supersenator wrote:Mike,

I think the thing to do is make it like others have stated before:give a certain amount of attribute points that a person can use how they see fit to distribute across the board.
Along with this the other attributes besides Power need to have some effect on actual game play or everyone will just load up on power and skip all the others.

I personally disagree with this approach. It's not a bad idea, its just flawed.

If a player has more skill overall than another, why should they have the same amount of 'skill points' to distribute?

IRL, look at Tiger Woods and a fringe player that may have to go to Q school every other year just to stay on the tour. They would not have the same amount of 'skill points', would they? Tiger has more natural talent and works harder than most, if not all, on the PGA Tour.

A good way to implement this is for STARTING your create-a-golfer at the beginning of your career, you get a set number of attributes to work with that you can set. But make it so that you can be semi-competitive right out of the gate.

To me, its not realistic that I can go right out and play a PGA tour event (separate issue there for another topic down the line, too) with a guy that hits 240 yard worm-burners. Thats not realistic.

There are two ways around this I think:

1) Have the 0 of each skill and the 10 (or 12, etc) be much closer together. For power, have 0 still be realistic to someone that would actually play the PGA tour.. say 255 to 260 yards. For accuracy, have the aiming circle be medium sized and max attribute be a little larger than now. The putting attribute does absolutely nothing that I am aware of, that needs to be addressed in some manner.

OR

2) Give out a starter attribute set that is roughly 50-60% of max. not near 0 where that golfer would never, ever be able to qualify for a PGA Tour event.


FIR is an accuracy stat, not a power stat. I've never understood why it affect distance and not the size of the aiming circle. Sweet Spot should affect the aiming circle size more-so than FIR or GIR, anyways. FIR and GIR are end results, your tuning is a pre-result factor that helps to determine HOW you achieve FIRs and GIRs.

I like the idea of a set number of attribute points that can be distributed as you personally see fit. However, as Supersenator said, every attribute has to have a significant affect on game-play. Currently, the putting attribute has little affect on performance.

This is a very tough aspect of the game to tackle.

Would it be possible to have 7 attributes to spread points across -- rather than the current four? That might make things interesting. Of course, all 7 attributes would have to have an affect on game-play. Maybe "workability" could be an attribute. Not sure if "spin" would be an appropriate skill attribute, though. Hmmmmm....

cem_ea_id.SwAeromotion wrote:I personally disagree with this approach. It's not a bad idea, its just flawed.

If a player has more skill overall than another, why should they have the same amount of 'skill points' to distribute?

I think when you pop in the game for the first time, you should be given, say, 10 skill points to distribute. Then, as you progress through your career, or Tournament Challenge, you continue to gain "points" until you eventually reach the maximum number of, say, 100 skill points (which you can distribute as you desire). The skilled golfer would have an advantage over a newcomer.

I am fine with the way the attributes are for the most part. The only change I would want to see, is not starting off with such low attributes. I really look forward to the new TW game each year but can not stand having to build a golfer up.

Hi Mike and everyone. I'm an older cyber golfer and I play strictly offline, so my comments/suggestions are no doubt going to reflect that.

First off, whatever the attributes system, I would appreciate the freedom to assign/not assign attribute points at my discretion. Or else have the ability to cap each attribute as I see fit. The former option was available in TW 06 for the Xbox 360, so it's been done before. The latter was available in TW 10 to a limited degree: we had the ability to cap the power attribute, but none of the others.

Another thing: It would be great to be able to play offline rounds with a created golfer that didn't require days to build up. My nephews came to visit this summer and we didn't play the game because they wanted to play as themselves. But creating new characters from scratch and building their attributes up to match mine would have taken too long.

As for new, additional attributes: putting could benefit by having two separate attributes. One attribute would affect the quality of the stroke: the higher the attribute, the less play in the swing/stroke. The other would affect the ability to read greens: the higher the attribute, the tighter/more defined the green grid.

Angus

iv been thinking about the putting attributes much the same as you baangus. :

*putting
maby you should be awarded for being a good putter?

maby the slider should pause down and go slower over the yellow hit-area as a reward?
the better the putt-average, the slower it will go over that area?

(if you try to go slow by yourself and even stop at the hit-area, as you can do now,
the speed of the ball should be drasticly affectet.
also, if a player try something like that dont just make the yellow mark fade slowly away, but take it away in a snap)

good putting skills could also affect the grid,
make the grid tighter and tighter for easy reading as an attribute?
start with maby twice the grid-distance we have now as a new golfer, that would make it really hard,
and tighten it up to maby 3times the density we have now for an "expert"-putter.

if you are a "bad" putter you really have to struggle to get tighter grids,
if you are a "good" putter, its easy to keep it that way.


edit: oh...really great to have an arena like this! thank you Mike.

I would love to see Charles Barkley in Tigers game... his swing is CLASSIC!!!!!!!!!

Thank you very much for opening up this wing of the forum. This topic in particular is one i feel very passionately about because I feel you can really tighten up the games true sim characteristics by addressing attributes.

I have a few recommendations regarding attributes, all in regard to making this game act more like a real sim of golf:

Mental Game Attributes: Golf is a mental game and a physical one. I feel that in the past the TW has done a good job addressing the physical side but could do more on the mental side. In TW07, there was a system that assigned shot confidence based on prior performance. The only problem was that this was too specific because confidence was hole specific. It wasn't about "how do I hit the ball from 145 yds to a green over water?" It was more about, "how do I hit the ball from 145 yds over water on #17 at Sawgrass." It would be nice to see EA put in a system that tracks your performance during specific types of shots (over water, out of traps, out of thick grass, under trees, etc.) and either rewards your previous success with greater shot success or punishes your previous failure with more random results especially when risk taking. There are a number of ways you can accomplish this, from visual effects (like the shaking camera), shaking controls, larger landing areas, etc. The last thing I will say is while I do not believe in physical attributes being affected by tournament performance. I think mental attributes should only be affected by how you perform in tournaments. So you start with little confidence and have to build it up through risk taking and good decisions in rounds. Also, if you are performing poorly in a round, you should see dynamic changes in confidence affecting all your shots until you can turn it around (just like in real golf).

Physical Attributes: I think EA made a step in the right direction in regard to making TW feel like a sim when they added in dynamic attributes. In real golf, I don't have the privilege of assigning skill points to my golf game. In the same sense, I feel that much of this feature an be improved. First off, do not let physical attributes increase/decrease because of in round performance. Just because Tiger misses 5 fairways in a round doesn't mean his accuracy has gotten worse. Instead, further emphasize skill building through practice. I know this is tough because the point of the game is to play in tournaments, but there has to be a middle ground here. Next, the skill sets need to be expanded. Driver accuracy and power are not in any way linked together in real life (maybe slightly). When Tiger misses a few fairways his driver distance the next round doesn't decrease by 15yds. I am sure you will get some great suggestions on how to further divide up skill sets. All I recommend is that you expand it to resemble real life qualities. Are the best players out of the sand also the best chippers? Do the best iron strikers also hit the best punch shots?

Thanks again for opening this topic up!

This is really great stuff guys and it's exactly the sort of feedback and discussion we are looking for from these topics.

I like the idea of a mental attributes as was discussed above and also the idea of creating some more attributes around putting. Curious to hear more ideas from you guys on this.

Thanks!!!

Either attributes system (the current one or an assignable point system) that EA decides to go with is ok with me.

However, I would like to see an option to play with fixed attributes that closely resemble the average PGA Tour Professional. This could be done using actual PGA statistics applied to the attributes system.


-MERACE

I think there should be 2 characters that you make.

Arcade CAG - Same old create a golfer that gets up to 12's in everything. You would use this golfer in any beginner,amateur,or pro mode (season/tiger challenge/online play/etc)

Tour CAG - Create a golfer but earn only a certain amount of attribute points to use on your golfer (40, but allow decimals points to be used). Insert in-depth attributes to this system where each little thing has a certain drastic effect.]
Setup for this-

Power - 12 - 5 parts
1)Muscle - 3
2)Swing Speed - 3
3)Driver/Woods - 2
4)Irons - 2
5)Wedges - 2

Accuracy - 12 - 5 parts
1)Workability - 3 (something i think should be removed from club tuner and inserted here)
2)Timing - 3
3)Driver/Woods - 2
4)Irons - 2
5)Wedges - 2

Short Game - 12 - 5 parts
1)Touch - 3
2)Scramble - 3 (Ability out of bad lies)
3)Pitch - 2
4)Flop - 2
5)Chip - 2

Putting - 12 - 5 parts
1)Nerves - 3 (effect ability to putt straight)
2)Speed - 3 (effect bar thickness in precision putter)
3)Long - 2 (50+ ft)
4)Medium - 2 (10-50 ft)
5)Short - 2 (under 10)

The added part to this system is that the attributes in different category should still have an effect on each other. For ex) swing speed being full would effect your accuracy a bit in-game even though your timing is all the way up

I know that it will be annoying to have to build up 2 golfers but I think this game is splitting into 2 in 1 (which is for the better IMO) so it just fits that transition and makes the tour game harder.

I think Hands brings up a really, really good MACRO point in his post as well. Mike, you kind of have to approach Tour and non-Tour play as two separate entities. If you continue to simply tweak the Balanced Mode in an attempt to create a Tour difficulty, you will always fall short, as the game has for many years running, including the most recent edition. It really is apples and oranges, and needs to be approached as such at the design direction level.

Most Balanced players seem pretty happy with where the game is at and are offering really concrete, specific suggestions for what they would like to see done with it going forward. But Tour Mode is nowhere near what its name implies and needs a serious overhaul. Stop building Tour by simply subtracting features and assists from Balanced. Build it from the ground up to be a SIM and reflective of PGA Tour golf.

Attributes wise, I think less is more. A simple, overarching system. Take it as an opportunity to make each player in the game unique, not the robots they are in the current game under your direction. I know when I go to a PGA Tour event, it's fun to seek out and watch Bubba Watson hit one, or see Phil miss a green and have to get it up and down. You know why? Because NOT everyone can do what they do. They're special. In your game right now, everyone can do it all...

Or maybe look to NHL's be a pro mode. Your player can be a PLAYMAKER or a SNIPER or a GRINDER or a GOON. Maybe having a base build to start -- BOMB AND GOUGE or SHORT GAME WIZARD or SCRAMBLER -- would be a good thing, but you'd have to then have the nerve to give that player appropriate WEAKNESSES as well. Weaknesses the players themselves -- with their play -- would have to compensate for.

At the highest level, don't give everyone band-aids to make them great. Let them choose to plan how they will go about it, then actually have to play the game according to their strengths and weaknesses. THAT is a big step toward SIM.

At first I sort of enjoyed earning attributes as I built my golfer up. But then as time progressed, I found it quite annoying. The first reason I found it annoying was I found myself hitting totally different shots just so I wouild not lose attribute points. If conditions were windy or rainny on a tough driving hole, I would not "go for it". Second, even thought the Hank drills were interesting, they are very time consuming and I found that you could almost play another entire round by the time the Hank drills after the round were done.

I recommend this as a possible attribute idea. I think you should earn points, not lose them. But maybe this can be done in slower increments. Earm tour money and buy a shirt for .5 points. Buy a more exspenive shirt for 1.0 point, 2 points, 3 points, etc...

Then have one option where the golfer has all the abilities from the start. There are a lot of "older golfers" (ie..ones with jobs, families, etc..) that don't have the time to play and play to earn attribute points, courses and levels. Let us make the decision if we want to earn them or play the game right away with full abilities.

T