Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 12: The Masters Demo Available Now, Post Impressions Here

[rolltide1017]

You know what scares me. With Augusta in the game, this will probably be one of the better selling years for the game and EA will take that as an overall approval of the dumbing down caddie system. It will take years to get tournament difficulty back to they way it should be. It took them 5 years to implement a decent sim difficulty level (I consider '10 to be the first decent attempt) but only 2 years to dumb it down, great job EA.



I have another question about the demo: didn't the description say something about skipping to the Nationwide tour when you complete the 5 hole challenge? Well, I've completed it a few times while also wininng it but all I ever get is an invite to the EA AM Tour so, how do you skip to the NW Tour?

[pskepsilon]

Quote: Originally Posted by Seymour Scagnetti

ARGHHH, the dev said you can disable caddie option by pressing O (which I already figured out so it sounds like you can't turn it totally off) with the PS3 version but you still have the caddie recommended shot staring at you in the middle of the screen beside your custom shot so it's pretty hard not to be influenced by his recommendation. **** fail. There are alot of pissed off sim gamers on the EA boards right now about this arcadey debacle of a a game and how they totally screwed up true aim and tourney difficulty and making it appealing to 6 years olds.

I think there's a decent chance that you'll be able to completely disable the caddy in the full game; it's pretty obvious that this demo was constructed heavily to highlight the new features. Considering the effort they went to implement that heavily scripted "Road to the Masters" playable vignette, I think it's fair to assume that this demo was a specifically constructed executable, probably based on older code, even more so than most demos are.

They probably should have anticipated this kind of backlash, but on some level, how much customizability do you normally expect from a demo? I was actually surprised that they pretty much gave you unfettered access to the menus at all. But I don't think it's fair to assume with 100% certainty that those menus are either complete or fully functional. I think the flaming should probably wait until retail copies are played.

[Seymour Scagnetti]

Played the demo once more on tourney mode and just realized that not only do they not give you the pin distance but they don't even give you the green elevation like last year in true aim. They don't want you thinking about anything when you're on the hardest skill level. Even if you're able to totally turn off the caddie (which I doubt) the lack of pin distance and elevation is glaring and makes it pure arcade. This game is a complete joke and I thought Fight Night Champion was pathetic and a kick in the face to gamers. This crap tops it.

I was looking forward to 3 sports games this spring, TW12, FN Champion and Top Spin 4. The 1st 2 games crashed and burned. I hope TS4 delivers the goods.

[DivotMaker]

Quote: Originally Posted by Seymour Scagnetti

I see nothing in TW12 options to turn off the caddie and the way every screen begins with looking over the caddie's shoulder that looks like something that's hard coded in the game so there's no way of turning it off. How can you not have this as an option to turn off? Unbelievable.

The Caddy will be able to be turned off in the full version.

Again, why you sit here and bitch and moan about the game when you don't even have EA's attention here? You are wasting your time posting your comments here (no offense Steve) if you truly want to get the Devs attention. Many others posting on the EA TW forums are expressing the same criticisms and they at least have the Devs attention. You don't here.

[DivotMaker]

Quote: Originally Posted by rolltide1017

You know what scares me. With Augusta in the game, this will probably be one of the better selling years for the game and EA will take that as an overall approval of the dumbing down caddie system.

Hardly....they are getting hammered on the EA Tiger forums for including the caddy and the idiotic rumble feature into Tournament mode and rightfully so.

[DivotMaker]

Quote: Originally Posted by Seymour Scagnetti

Played the demo once more on tourney mode and just realized that not only do they not give you the pin distance but they don't even give you the green elevation like last year in true aim. They don't want you thinking about anything when you're on the hardest skill level. Even if you're able to totally turn off the caddie (which I doubt) the lack of pin distance and elevation is glaring and makes it pure arcade.

Ironically, I find the lack of distance and elevation to be more challenging. TW Online does this as well in its Expert Aiming mode and it does not take long at all to figure out the elevations as well as club distances. I also like the lack of aiming arrow when zooming to the landing area because it is more realistic. Not sure how you consider the above features making the game more "arcade" when actually it is the exact opposite (assuming the Caddy is off).

[acreyman]

Quote: Originally Posted by Seymour Scagnetti

Wow I guess I'm the only one that's pretty pissed right now with the demo and that fact you can't turn off the caddie option altogether because I think it just ruined the game for me. The main reason being they ruined the true aim mode with this caddie thing. It turned everything into just stick swinging with no user input into managing the course and judging carrying distances. In other words they dumbed it down even on tourney difficulty. They don't give you flagstick distances and even worse thay don't give your golfer the yardage carry distances for his clubs. All you get are %'s of what the optimal shot should be. I don't even know if the % the caddie gives me is the carrying distance or is where the ball is supposed to stop rolling. For example you have a couple of vague markers as to what the distance is on approach shots to the green but you can't compare it to your club distance because they are not made available for you to see. All you're given is a % of a certain club you should swing. (EG:65% of your 6 iron recommended by the caddie). You have no idea how much 65% fo your 6 iron is in distance because they don't provide the full distance or carry distance of your 6 iron. The only way around it I guess would be to write it down on a piece of paper from the club tuner screen but then your distance always changes as you apply XP points and who wants to always have to rely on finding that paper when you play. That kills all the fun of true aim and all you do is follow the caddie's shot selection and it becomes incredibly boring. You can customize your shot but in some instances it was noticebly off from what the caddie suggested even though I customized the exact same shot. And it's a crapshoot anyways because you don't have the club distances readlily available to you. I thought that this option could be turned off but the only thing that you can disable seems to be his voice. As a result they totally overhauled true aim and killed the fun of it and any strategy the user has in judging distances. Even when you move the LS upwards to see the layout of the course it moves to where your ball is supposed to end up almost instantaneously so you really have no good overview of the hole itself. So any trees that might be in the way are hard to see and you simply go by what the caddie tells you and for the 18th hole at Augusta it didn't work very well because he said I could lay up or try and fade it around the trees with my driver and I hit the shot perfectly with the fade he wanted but still ended up in the trees based on the aim he suggested. For Pebble Beach that's gonna be a nightmare. It kills all the fun out of par 3's because you know whatever the cadidie tells you is the right shot so it simply becomes a game of whether you can nail the right % of what he tells you to hit. It takes all the strategy out of deciding whether to go up or down a club or using some backspin or topspin on your tee shot. It just becomes a mundane exercise of hitting the % he wants. This is a major gamekiller for sim users. I can't believe they dumbed it down like this. The caddie does all the thinking for you and that was half the fun of playing true aim, well at least to anyone over 14. It's like playing God Of War and having a character in the game solving all the puzzles for you. EA is at it again. They have no concept as to why gamers loved true aim amd made it pointless. First they ruined FN Champion and now this.

Your not the only one that feels this way.....I am holding out hope that the retail version is different than the demo. But I feel the exact same way you do now that I have played the demo more.

[acreyman]

Quote: Originally Posted by DivotMaker

The Caddy will be able to be turned off in the full version. Again, why you sit here and bitch and moan about the game when you don't even have EA's attention here? You are wasting your time posting your comments here (no offense Steve) if you truly want to get the Devs attention. Many others posting on the EA TW forums are expressing the same criticisms and they at least have the Devs attention. You don't here.

EA Devs have contributed to this webiste quite a bit over the years........and, correct me if I am wrong, they even invited regular posters to the Madden Studios a few years back for feedback pre-launch. They are reading... and probably wont post any answers until the big wigs and marketing gurus have ok'd the responses.