Five Things The Golf Club Can Improve Upon

[RaychelSnr]

It has been nearly four months since the initial release of the Golf Club by HB studios, available on the Xbox One, PS4, and PC. If you were part of the early beta program, or just followed the early feedback given by the community, than you have a full understanding of the changes and improvements that the developers have implemented over the last few months, and the list is quite extensive. Just some of the more recent improvements involve frame rate optimization, multiplayer issues, course designer improvements, physics update, and much more. But even with all the recent updates, we feel there are some areas that still need to be tweaked and improved in order for the title to stay relevant over the coming months, especially once EA Sports’ PGA Golf title drops in the Spring of 2015.

Read More - Five Things The Golf Club Can Improve Upon

[ProjectM4yhem23]

I agree multiplayer needs to be improved....I play online with friends stroke-simo almost every night and have a blast but realtime hth stroke/match/4ball/altshot are needed. I know you can play stroke and match now but you need the patients of Job (bible guy not the course designer).

Stats could be vastly improved.

The wind works perfectly post patch.....that paragraph is a big ol' stretch.

Career Mode....not needed...TGCtours.com is career mode with real competition.

If you are a golf gamer and don't have this game (all you guys still playing tiger on the 360 on my friends list) you are missing out big time. Its worth getting xb1 just for this game.

[ralphieboy11]

Good article. I'm glad you put the difficulty of the swing in there. I would like to see it slightly harder as well.

If you like video game golf at all, I highly recommend getting this game. Good price too. It's only going to get better over time. Each update is an improvement and supposedly there's another one coming in December.

[Yeltzman]

Career mode and mutiplayer lobbys coming early 2015 studio has said.

[AnthonyKyne]

Hi Guys,
Great article. I'll try my best to let you know where we are in regards to these points you raise.
1) Multi-Player - I'm glad you pointed out that it wasn't part of the original concept. We've done our best with what we have server wise at the moment. Our big problem with going full on Turn Based is the development cost of it. There's a very vocal community for it, but in reality it's actually a small subset of users that actually use it.
We'd have to increase server costs, write the feature and then you have all the requirements from Sony and MS around online play.
Say that though, it is something we're looking into delivering in an update over the next 6 months


2) Swing Difficulty - Ok, this is a tough one. The main goal of The Golf Club when we set out to make it was to make a game that challenged you mentally but didn't frustrate you like real life golf (I spend most of my time in real life just hoping to hit the ball clean, so the nuances of ball lie don’t concern me as much as they should). The swing mechanic we have does allow you to hit straight when you concentrate but when you’re not it punishes you. I feel that balance is right. There’s nothing worse than hitting the deep rough time after time because you’re not accomplished at swinging. It would also encourage more Augmentation of Controllers.

3) Wind Adjustment – I understand that people want a level playing field in tournaments, but wind doesn’t work like that. When I was at the Volvo World Match Play last month I spoke to one of the players and he was bemoaning his Tee Time as he was playing in tough windy conditions that players out later in the day didn’t have. Although this didn’t directly affect him, because it was Match Play, it still confirmed that the decision to do this was right.
The other problem is with Live Balls, if you see others on the course the same time as you they should be playing in the same wind. If you have an outside force dictating that, 2 balls could be playing in different conditions
4) Stat Tracking – We track everything so plan on giving you more and more as the game progresses. You’ll be seeing plenty more coming your way before Christmas. I’m a huge stat lover, so the more the better in my opinion
5) Career Mode – This is definitely something that we’re working towards now, the first step being the Handicap System that will be out pre-Christmas. We don’t want to just do a replica of every other career mode out there. I’m not a fan of attribute progression. We’ve thought a little outside of the box with this. Our opinion is that the day you buy the game, that is the start of your career. You get better at the game by actually getting better at the game, not having your player’s putting or driving attribute improve.
A Career Mode should be something that encourages you to come back and play the game regularly with a sense of progression. I think we’ve got something that is quite unique and doesn’t ruin the online experience by loads of people having super golfers.
6) Don’t Ruin the Game’s Charm – We won’t! I think that we’ve managed to create a really solid game, a bit old school in the way that it’s not easy to master and doesn’t give you any easy wins but over time gives you a real sense of achievement over time and that fact that when something great happens it was all you and when something bad happens it was also all you!
I disagreed with Owen Good’s comments on the podcast, that the game was too hard and that the reason people wanted to play sports video games is to be amazing at them immediately. My opinion is that sports video games should take away the natural physical ability that born sportsman have, but still challenge us mentally the same. When I pull off an amazing through ball in FIFA or Pro Evo, because I was able to see the available forward, that is down to my vision the game doesn’t highlight the best player to pass to. In real life I would see that pass, it’s the reason I shout at the TV when I’m watching soccer, I just don’t have the skill to make the pass. It’s the same in The Golf Club, the game gives me the ability to hit the ball well but I need to think about these shots. I can’t just aimlessly hit the ball towards the hole. I’m not going to make 25ft putts, I need to think about the slope of the green and how to approach them so I’m within 6ft of the hole. I want to be in a pro’s shoes not a super humans shoes.
Hope this helps
Anthony

[greenegt]

Good stuff, Anthony. I'm loving the game and am excited about the fact that you all will continue to iterate on it. I look forward to the next update.

[Methlab]

Wow, what a great response from a developer. Maybe one of the best I have read. Great work Anthony.

[Chairman7w]

Awesome! You guys rock Anthony, keep up the great work.