The Masters

Hey guys, I wanted to start a quick thread to get some feedback and design input from the forum on the subject of the Golfer Attribute/Skill system in the game. What do you like about the design of the current system? What don't you like? What changes would you make?

I'm fine with the experience points system. How attributes work has never been totally clear to me. And while I understand better equipment = improved skill, I think that the only criteria for purchasing equipment should be whether you have earned enough money in the game. (except for a few choice items which need to be unlocked).

Something that might be cool, is that after you turn pro and earn enough money to pay for it, making specific lessons available from golf teachers that give you added improvement at that particular skill (putting, chipping, working the shot, etc). Maybe the player could get an invitation from the teaching pro, much as sponsorships are given out.

I remember in the older versions of TW, (ps2) you could take the bonuses off the items you owned and add them to the items currently being worn by your player. I would like that to come back. It would ease the confusion on how to acheive max bonus stats.

Increasing your golfers attributes is really exciting. It's a real downer when you're finally maxed out and that excitement disappears (see below for solution).

Things I like about the current system:
1. Sponsorships to unlock items
2. Increased status level unlocks better swings (although I can't actually detect any difference between them)
3. The higher your stats, the higher the price to increase.
4. Many different items available, many brands, many colors.


Things I don't like about the current system:
1. A percentage system that goes above 100. Look at swing percentages in TW09 and TW10 - TW10 made the right change in restricting all to 100%.
2. To max out stats without buying a suit, you are restricted with what you can wear and even which colors. I'd rather the link between stats and actual clothes to be eliminated. I want to select clothes based purely on looks. But keep the necessity of sponsorships for unlocking clothes.
3. Buying a suit to max out stats. This is drama killer. It's like showing someone a shortcut to a 20 mile race that cuts off 19 miles. The fact that it has hidden drawbacks doesn't help. Keep the suits available and charge for them, but don't allow them to alter the stats.
4. Cannot earn stats online. Online is where it's at. Must have this.
5. Offline, "All Play" can currently be used to quickly build up a profile. I thought the idea of building up a profile was to increase your skills? This is another drama-killing shortcut.


Changes I would make:
1. Add another item to cover sensitivity to non-straight swings (some might call it size of sweet spot). With M+ connected, it's a right pain to keep the ball on the fairway for drives. Should not effect draw/fade induced with draw/fade drag arrows and should not effect those using advanced swing.
2. Every item increases linearly 1,2,3,4,,,10. The biggest problem here is that once you reach ten, the excitement of increasing your stats is withdrawn. A system was attempted previously in TW where stats would reduce when you had a bad round. This is not good either. Try this one: Initially, the cost of increasing stats on say power is 2000. When you "pay" this amount, your power stat goes up by ten percent of the REMAINING stats amount. Let's just say that 100,000 is "max stats" for each item (rather than 100 or 110 percent). Because your stats at that time are zero, you have 100,000 remaining. Ten percent of 100,000 is 10,000. So for 2000 your power stat gets increased to 10,000. The cost of increasing power stat then goes up to 4000. But when you pay 4000, your power stat doesn't go up to 20,000, instead it goes up to 19,000. 10,000 +(10% of (100,000-10,000)) = 19,000. For the next increase, you pay 8000 and power stat goes up to 19,000 plus (10% of (100,000-19,000)) = 19,000+8,100 = 27,100. The same goes for every other stat. The end result of this would be a system that is reasonably consistent to current system for the initial build up of a profile, but very different towards the end - mainly because there is no end. You can build your profile forever. As most people now treat offline play simply as a stepping stone to online play, it is essential to allow profiles to continue to build with online games.
3. Currently, points earned on the holeout shot are doubled for a birdie and trebled for an eagle. This in practise does not make sense. If a birdie, then double the points earned for the entire hole not just for the final shot. Same for Eagle and double eagle.
4. Shots played with "All Play" swing should earn stat points at half rate.
5. Shots played with advanced swing should earn stat points at double rate.
6. For online play, stat points earned should be somewhat equivalent to dollars earned for leaderboard purposes. This covers sim play and live tournaments.

What happened to the way attributes were setup in 2005? (using cash to get attributes) why can't it be like that? OR at least be able to earn skill points all time, note just in career mode

Eric, I like it just the way it is....... it takes a lonnnnngggg time to max out a golfer(im STILL working on mine).
I like how its set up in the 10 version. I wouldn't change it. Just my opinion though.

before making it to difficult i think we should remember that there are players of all ages that play tw . moreso offline than on by looking at the number of players on line on a daily basis. i like glens idea of not tying attributes to clothes.it is very time consuming going thru all the clothes especially those that have 1-4items in one square tyring to find the right attribute match. other than the clothes the attribue system is not that bad.

I would like to see max stats done away with altogether. I would rather have a limited number of stat points which require you to make the choice of how to specialize your player. So instead of maxing all attributes, you may choose to give a small boost to power and putting, while sacrificing points from your spin and recovery stats. In other words, the way you choose your stats in the middle of your career. You choose what is most important to your playing style, and boost the stats in those areas. I think this would help the online play to be a little more dynamic as well. Some players may choose to max their distance, but then their character will suck at things like approach and putting. It would provide some balance and variation to online enounters. It would also keep every player from driving the exact same distance, and would cause online matches to be a battle of strengths and weaknesses, not just an even matchup of max stats. I see more drama there.

cem_ea_id.dadgotgame wrote:before making it to difficult i think we should remember that there are players of all ages that play tw . moreso offline than on by looking at the number of players on line on a daily basis. i like glens idea of not tying attributes to clothes.it is very time consuming going thru all the clothes especially those that have 1-4items in one square tyring to find the right attribute match. other than the clothes the attribue system is not that bad.

I agree with above post and the post that it takes too long to get to max stats.

Continually wandering through the Pro Shop and analizing the little red balls that are difficult to decipher is extremely annoying also. Why do you need so many free ones and those with no bonus? You should also be able to jettison the free stuff from your wardrobe.

It would be nice when you get a new sponsor that it would just show what items are available from that sponsor with bonus balls with out going to the Pro Shop and sorting through all the categories .

My thoughts:
If you are going to keep the attributes as in 2010 (and not go with some of NCD's suggestions) then...
1) It should definitely be hard and it should take a long time to max out everything. You should not be able to short circuit the process by buying stuff. In other words there should be no reward for copping out and not completing the tour. If it's easy, it loses it's meaning. If actual real-life golf were easy, no one would play it.
2) You should be able to completely max out all of the attributes using sponsorships. In 2009 and 2010 you can not max everything out. For example, you can get 110% on everything but putting, or you can get 110% on everything including putting but only 108% on spin and recovery.
3) There should be some bonus for completing the entire game, including winning all the tournaments, getting all of the trophies, setting all the records, winning 18+ majors, etc., etc. For example, getting all the sponsorships will give you 110%, but totally completing the entire game will get you an extra bonus 2% on everything. That would be a reward for a lot of time spent with the game.

Basic fact of life, things that you don't earn don't mean as much as those that you do. Which is a paraphrase of 'you can not do permanent good for a person by giving them something that they should work for and earn for themselves.'

wii.NoChinDeluxe wrote:I would like to see max stats done away with altogether. I would rather have a limited number of stat points which require you to make the choice of how to specialize your player. So instead of maxing all attributes, you may choose to give a small boost to power and putting, while sacrificing points from your spin and recovery stats. In other words, the way you choose your stats in the middle of your career. You choose what is most important to your playing style, and boost the stats in those areas.

I like it. Combining NCDs and my ideas, keep the maximum stat points you can earn to 100,000 but to "max out" all attributes would take say 200,000. Rather than using a linear scale, I suggest the following:

stat points percentage of max
0 0
2,000 33
4,000 55
6,000 70
8,000 80
10,000 87
12,000 92
14,000 95
16,000 97
18,000 99
20,000 100

This scale encourages players to make small (in terms of stat points) adjustments in relation to equal sharing across attributes. Such a feature adds to NCDs idea of discouraging identical attribute settings. I've only put eleven entries in the above scale, however the actual scale used should be much finer - something like the club tuner sliders with one hundreds "clicks". The actual number of clicks should be displayed, to aid duplicating setups when needed. Moving a slider left (to use less stat points) places the stat points in a "pool" at the top. Other sliders can then be moved to the right (increasing their stat point usage). With max stat points, a total of nine attributes (including the new "sweet spot size attribute) and all attributes with identical settings, this would provide the player with approximately 90 percent max for each attribute. Going the other way, it would be possible to set five attributes to max (100%), with the remaining four attributes on zero. I can imagine most players making small adjustments and few maxing out any attributes - but it is possible.

wii.NoChinDeluxe wrote:I would like to see max stats done away with altogether. I would rather have a limited number of stat points which require you to make the choice of how to specialize your player. So instead of maxing all attributes, you may choose to give a small boost to power and putting, while sacrificing points from your spin and recovery stats. In other words, the way you choose your stats in the middle of your career. You choose what is most important to your playing style, and boost the stats in those areas. I think this would help the online play to be a little more dynamic as well. Some players may choose to max their distance, but then their character will suck at things like approach and putting. It would provide some balance and variation to online enounters. It would also keep every player from driving the exact same distance, and would cause online matches to be a battle of strengths and weaknesses, not just an even matchup of max stats. I see more drama there.

I agree mostly with NoChinDeluxe. However, I would like to have the option of using my created golfer without having to go through the grind of building him up. I have very limited game play time and just want to play a competitive game online occasionally.


-MERACE

less money for amatur season. in real life, you dont get mohey at all, but at least lower the price for winning. and you should get more money for winning pro tournys.

i like nochins idea, in other sport games you make the choice to be an allrounder, power, speed etc. no 2 golfers should be the same. much like the club tuner once you have earned max skill points it should be about fine tuning which abilities you need to allocate the most points to. these could also be manipulated prior to playing live tourneys depending on course and settings

eric i know this isnt the place to ask this but would it be possible for you guys to change playanyone from the blue to the black tees next year




dgg