The Masters

Getting in a little late here, I would love to see some attention paid to developing your golfer.

First, there should be more attributes and second they should mean something out on the course where you can realize the benefits of excelling in certain ones. And it should never be that you can max out every one of them, but rather you have to decide what type of golfer you want to be. Maybe you go balanced across all attributes or choose to excel in some while others would then cause you to struggle in those attribute-based situations.

Attribute categories could be things like power (distance off the tee), accuracy (individually for woods, irons, wedges), shot type strengths (normal, punch, flop, pitch, chip), putting (reads), caddy knowledge (how accurate the distances, elevations are), hazard play (rough, bunkers), mental (how much your attributes fluctuate), and I'm sure there are a few others worth discussion.

If any one maxed attribute gives you say 100 points in that category and there are 10 different attributes then a maxed character would need 1,000 points. But we don't want someone maxed in everything so make it that the maximum points you can earn like 800 so players are forced to pick and choose and we all have unique characters.

Now how this plays out is that rather than earning these via the challenges, you make building a character the Q-school part of the game. Give everyone 400 points to spread around to start and then they earn more based on play in Q-school. Make a good flop shot and get points for the flop shot attribute. If you don't want to become a flop shot artist then don't spend those points and wait until you get some putting points so you can become a putting specialist.

Once you've maxed out your golfer and/or finished the Q-school tourneys then you have your character and are ready to take on the PGA tour. On the tour, each of your attributes are still tracked based on your play. Say you are at 90 on putting. In the tourney you have 30 putts so your 90 stays the same. But if you take 35 putts, then you are docked a few points. But you also holeout 3 chip shots in the tourney and your chipping attribute is only at 70. You earned some chipping points at the end of the tourney. You now have a choice - you can bump up your chipping attribute for the next tourney (maxing your 800 total points again) OR you can play the next at 795 points and hope you putt better to get that skill back up to 90 again. Take this idea across 10 categories and you have a fairly static golfer over the PGA season that still has the ability to change his specialties over time IF THEY SO CHOOSE.

I could go on but I think you get the gist of what I'm aiming at here...golfers you build up in Q-school, nobody maxed in everything, attributes that make a noticible advantages/disadvantages on the course, and something that allows you to modify them as you play along through your career while at the same time not wildly fluctuating between every round.

Thanks for listening to the fans, Mike!

xbox.Oblong wrote:
If any one maxed attribute gives you say 100 points in that category and there are 10 different attributes then a maxed character would need 1,000 points. But we don't want someone maxed in everything so make it that the maximum points you can earn like 800 so players are forced to pick and choose and we all have unique characters.

I like the idea of not being able to be perfect in every category. I think if you couple that with some of the ideas before regarding access to different tools based on your attribute strength (ie: the better your putting rating the better you can see the greens) this can really be meaningful. I would love to SEE the course differently depending on how strong I am in certain attributes, and it really forces the player to make intelligent decisions on how to allocate attribute points.

The only thing I don't agree with is the ability to gain/lose attribute points based on in round performance. Golfers can only get more/less skilled mentally based on how they play in rounds. Their physical skills are built up during practice. But again, the problem is that this is a video game, and you won't win many fans over by making them do drills once they start on the tourney schedule. So I would say the compromise would be to eliminate penalizing attributes for poor round performance (going back to the example that if Tiger misses 6 fairways one round, his accuracy doesn't necessarily go down the next round)

Rate the golfing experience on a difficulty scale. You get faster skill upgrades if you play in harder conditions. See Tiger Woods Online. I know that I can't talk specifically about the game but I think that the development team knows what was contained in the beta. It was good stuff.

Playing with 30 MPH winds in your face will decrease your power but in the current game Hank Haney marks your power down because you aren't hitting the ball as far.

My ideas are strictly for the single-player experience as my console is not online presently. How about some random challenges from golfers to help build your golfer up? Phil Mickelson challenging you to match play on the course of your choice or his choice could be a different mode. You could decline this challenge but completing it could reward you with upgrade points.

I like the attribute system the way it is, with the exception of the Short Game. Since you describe the short game as your ability to hit out of bunkers and the rough, that's what should be tracked. Right now, it's any shot closer than 100 yards to the pin. That's more of an accuracy thing, not short game. Maybe a solution would be to track distance to the pin from the rough, bunkers and chips only for the Short Game attribute.

Also, off-topic, because there isn't one yet: I'd like to see more Live Tournaments for all difficulty levels that only allow one attempt. Being able to choose not to submit a round and redo it leads to ridiculously high leaderboard scores. Some people will like to keep it that way, and that's fine, so just set up both single submission and single attempt tournaments for every difficulty level.

Thanks for asking for our suggestions!

ps3.NukeAtomrod wrote:I like the attribute system the way it is, with the exception of the Short Game. Since you describe the short game as your ability to hit out of bunkers and the rough, that's what should be tracked.

I thought the short game involved the use of short irons and wedges when near the green, and included shots from the fairway.

You agree rough and sand ability should be tracked via the short game. So why not rough and sand ability when using long irons? Or woods? Players have varying abilities when it comes to hitting 200 yd shots out of the rough and sand.

Hello Mike: I agree with the comments made about players not being penalized by losing attribute points.One day I shot -18 par, hit every fairway and green and then lost attribute points to Power, Accuracy and Short Game. That's not right. Just because players are exercising good course management they should not be penalized. I would like to see the current player rating system revamped for TW11. Make the rating system based solely on the person's signed scorecard. In other words a player will rated on his relation to shoot par.

Thanks Mike and the crew at TW10. Keep up the good work.

MR13206, Please ask your question in the General Discussion Forum. Your Post has been hidden.

xbox.Oblong wrote:First, there should be more attributes and second they should mean something out on the course where you can realize the benefits of excelling in certain ones. And it should never be that you can max out every one of them, but rather you have to decide what type of golfer you want to be. Maybe you go balanced across all attributes or choose to excel in some while others would then cause you to struggle in those attribute-based situations.

Brilliant!

ps3.Veudavenea wrote:Hello Mike: I agree with the comments made about players not being penalized by losing attribute points.One day I shot -18 par, hit every fairway and green and then lost attribute points to Power, Accuracy and Short Game. That's not right. Just because players are exercising good course management they should not be penalized. I would like to see the current player rating system revamped for TW11. Make the rating system based solely on the person's signed scorecard. In other words a player will rated on his relation to shoot par.

Thanks Mike and the crew at TW10. Keep up the good work.

I agree the current dynamic attributes stink.

I don't mind which system is used as long as it is accurate and realistic.

The problem with the current system is you can never tell why you gain or lose on an attribute. Here is an example.

I am playing an offline 4 round tour mode season at the moment and all my attributes are at 12. I miss one green and my accuracy attribute goes to 11.8. I then play twelve consecutive rounds with out missing a single green and my accuracy attribute is still at 11.8.

I then miss one green on Bethpage and my accuracy attribute goes to 11.6. On the next round at Bethpage I miss two greens and my accuracy attribute drops to 11.2.

So every time I missed a green my attribute dropped 0.2 per missed green, but twelve consecutive rounds without a missed green did not move my attribute from 11.8 to 12.

Whatever system you bring in it must be even handed and show your real performance and you should publish how the attributes are calculated so that players will understand how the numbers relate to their actual ability.

Hello,

Attribute changes I would like to see:

POWER ATT
No penality for using strategic play. EG. I play my game so that on most par 4's I will lay up to allow a PW to the green. This often means that I will hit a 3W or 2I off the tee. If I have a high FIR, GIR and under par score, why should my power ATT be reduced, just because I haven't bombed it down the fairway?

Makes sense to a point that average distance should be a factor but not all the way.

Another issue is that in order to build the Power ATT to 12, you have to use the boost to get the distance. I would prefer to be able to reach 12 without having to resort to boosting. (just my preference though).


ATT point loss
When I have achieved an improvement in my ATT's, please make it less easy to lose the hard earned points! It can be very frustrating to have worked hard to build it up, only for it to be lost in one bad round (yes it does happen more often than not for me, muich to my wife's amusement....).

Also, consider the round score when calculating the ATT score. EG. if I score 15 under, there is no way that I should lose a whole point in any of the ATT's in a single round. It is much harder to gain points (IMO) than it is to lose them....

If a Pro has a bad round, they do not lose the ability to achieve their usual game in the next.... As it is in game now, it can take a few rounds to get back to the point you were at prior to the bad round.

Thanks

Go back to 08 style attributes. Let me build the attributes the way i want to when i want to. And once i build my attributes up the way i want them leave them alone.

I think you should lose "SKILL POINTS" when you play on xbox live it may stop people chasing the leader board if you could drop "skill points" too Just look at the leader board now there people there over level 40 I think, dropping levels would be good.

MAIN.McJebadia wrote:

ps3.Veudavenea wrote:Hello Mike: I agree with the comments made about players not being penalized by losing attribute points.One day I shot -18 par, hit every fairway and green and then lost attribute points to Power, Accuracy and Short Game. That's not right. Just because players are exercising good course management they should not be penalized. I would like to see the current player rating system revamped for TW11. Make the rating system based solely on the person's signed scorecard. In other words a player will rated on his relation to shoot par.

Thanks Mike and the crew at TW10. Keep up the good work.

I agree the current dynamic attributes stink.

My computer = Acer,Vista 32 home premium SP2,AMD Athlon 64 x2 5600+,3 gig DDR 2,ATI HD 4650 1 Gig DDR 2,500 gig SATA HDD

Hi!

I'm playing TW10 on PS3 - having no experience on other platforms.

One small idea which has crossed my mind would be to introduce some more items to Pro Shop that would be weather-related. Such as umbrellas, raincoats, windstoppers, shoes etc. Before playing each round player should be able to choose the ready-made-outfit for the round - if it rains then all the rain equipment, if it's hot then shorts and t-shirt and so on. The "bonus" attributes could then rely on the weather, for example if it rains the raincoat would provide +X.X on accuracy but not do so in the sunshine.

This way player needs to focus more what to buy from Pro Shop and how to use and compine the items - and not have full attributes all the time. This would go a little bit like club tuner but with other equipment than clubs.

The temperature would also be nice feature in the live weather, affecting the ball flight...


[I also agree on splitting attributes more and not having as dramatic effects after every round as many people have here noted. ]