Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 13 Standard and Collector's Edition Cover Art Revealed

[OnlookerDelay]

Quote: Originally Posted by Seymour Scagnetti

I agree with some of your points but contacting the Devs is one that's pointless. As for contacting the devs to give input, it will fall on deaf ears. I've never seen a dev team lazier than these guys in not listening to the fanbase.

Seymour, I'd have to disagree with this assertion. I was told in private messages from developers that my suggestion in the public forum for what we now know as "Precision Putting" is what prompted them to act on it. Furthermore, I was told that "Presentation Camera" came in response to my suggeston on the public forum. I've also been told (again in PM's) that some of my ideas have been considered, but cannot be implemented due to technical or budgetary limitations.

The devs seem to have a tendency to not enter public debates in the forum because quite often the threads tend to degenerate into name-calling contests. I can assure you though that they do read and consider the feedback they get on the official EA Sports forum. They've responded, on point, to suggestions and criticisms I've offered in PM's that I honestly had no clue they would be paying any attention.

You're right about the inconsistency in realistic pin placements. They've been complained about for years, yet we still seem to see them in abundance. I sometimes wonder whether they do it to "trick the game out" and make it more difficult. If they designed the swing interface and physics right, this wouldn't be necessary. I'm hoping the new swing mechanic for Tiger 13 will negate the need to have these oppressive pin placements to held the course defend its honor.

You're also dead-on about the lack of playoffs. Even if we don't have the likeness of the golfer we're tied with in the game, they could let us play against the shot tracer of the AI golfer with whom we're tied! I think the reason we don't see either of the above is the rest of the field in career mode tournament play is... I strongly suspect, nothing more than a calculated spread sheet. The numbers are cooked, not played shot by shot. It would be more of a programming challenge than perhaps the development budget would allow to program each PGA player's tendencies into the game to have them play out shots, stroke by stroke for the player to see.

[Seymour Scagnetti]

Quote: Originally Posted by OnlookerDelay

Seymour, I'd have to disagree with this assertion. I was told in private messages from developers that my suggestion in the public forum for what we now know as "Precision Putting" is what prompted them to act on it. Furthermore, I was told that "Presentation Camera" came in response to my suggeston on the public forum. I've also been told (again in PM's) that some of my ideas have been considered, but cannot be implemented due to technical or budgetary limitations. The devs seem to have a tendency to not enter public debates in the forum because quite often the threads tend to degenerate into name-calling contests. I can assure you though that they do read and consider the feedback they get on the official EA Sports forum. They've responded, on point, to suggestions and criticisms I've offered in PM's that I honestly had no clue they would be paying any attention. You're right about the inconsistency in realistic pin placements. They've been complained about for years, yet we still seem to see them in abundance. I sometimes wonder whether they do it to "trick the game out" and make it more difficult. If they designed the swing interface and physics right, this wouldn't be necessary. I'm hoping the new swing mechanic for Tiger 13 will negate the need to have these oppressive pin placements to held the course defend its honor. You're also dead-on about the lack of playoffs. Even if we don't have the likeness of the golfer we're tied with in the game, they could let us play against the shot tracer of the AI golfer with whom we're tied! I think the reason we don't see either of the above is the rest of the field in career mode tournament play is... I strongly suspect, nothing more than a calculated spread sheet. The numbers are cooked, not played shot by shot. It would be more of a programming challenge than perhaps the development budget would allow to program each PGA player's tendencies into the game to have them play out shots, stroke by stroke for the player to see.

I'm sure they listened to you on presentation cam but did they really need to get input for precison putting? It's not exactly a modern option. It was in Links 2003 and if I'm not mistaken in the TW PC version long before the console version. That should have been a basic option 10 years ago. I'm sure people were clamouring for it for years and it still took them a long time to do it. If they needed to be prodded for a few years into doing it then that's really sad. Probably more of a case of them purposely holding it back just to use it as "brand new option" as a selling feature for a newer version of TW when they felt they didn't have enough features to advertize. It's akin to Madden only letting you play as certain teams for years and then finally advertizing one year that "With the new Madden you can play as any team you want because we have finally listened to our fanbase"

As for the developement budget, I'm sure it cost a pretty penny to get the rights to the Masters and to hard code a stupid caddy into the game so the money was there for that. If they don't have the budget to institute a minor thing like simply telling us what the AI golfer has done on the extra hole (Even without a tracer. I'll take what I can get, I just want something to shoot for in the playoff hole with some basic info). I'm pretty sure they had that info the earlier PC versions because I remember seeing it years back.

Again if that was a budget constraint (and I know we are assuming this but that's a better excuse than them just not caring I guess) then the budget for any other sports game must be astronimical because of all the AI work they have to do than TW doesn't have to worry about.

As for the pins I doubt is to was to make the game artificially harder. The game on the highest skill level is pretty damn challenging. Carnival placements aren't necessary for 95% of the gamers. More of a case that it probably takes some work to do and they don't feel it's worth it because they don't find it important enough to deal with (pretty sad). Probably a third of the courses had the problem so if they wanted to trick up the course they should have done it for all of them.

Remember when Cog Hill (and it was DLC to add insult to injury) had no pin on the 9th or 10th hole? People complained like crazy and not even a simple patch to correct it from the Devs for something people actually paid extra for. Just pathetic.

[OnlookerDelay]

Quote: Originally Posted by Seymour Scagnetti

I'm sure they listened to you on presentation cam but did they really need to get input for precison putting? It's not exactly a modern option. It was in Links 2003 and if I'm not mistaken in the TW PC version long before the console version. That should have been a basic option 10 years ago. I'm sure people were clamouring for it for years and it still took them a long time to do it. If they needed to be prodded for a few years into doing it then that's really sad.

I thought precision putting (fully proportional putting) should have been a given from the get-go, especially at the game's higher difficulty levels. But no, the mindset of the Tiger development teams over the years has been to avoid making the game too hard. I'm repeatedly being told that their user base wants a game that's easy to sit down a play. The multi-ranged putter interface (now known as "Classic Putting") was designed to make it easier for gamers to putt and avoid running putts way by the hole, or leaving them drastically short.

I'm not going to delude myself into thinking that my input was the only reason they offered precision putting, but I had been banging the drum for it in their forums consistently since the release of Tiger 06. Their private response to me about it in the run-up to the release of Tiger 10 included the fact that they were aware of my carrying the banner for it during that span. Others had registered their support for it there as well... I wasn't by myself.

Quote:

As for the pins I doubt is to was to make the game artificially harder. The game on the highest skill level is pretty damn challenging. Carnival placements aren't necessary for 95% of the gamers. More of a case that it probably takes some work to do and they don't feel it's worth it because they don't find it important enough to deal with (pretty sad). Probably a third of the courses had the problem so if they wanted to trick up the course they should have done it for all of them.

It wouldn't take a whole lot of playtesting for a skilled gamer to identify problem pin placements. If the game is going to carry a PGA license, it should abide by the PGA's guidelines for pin placements. Many of the placements in the TW games over the years do not follow these guidelines.

Quote:

Remember when Cog Hill (and it was DLC to add insult to injury) had no pin on the 9th or 10th hole? People complained like crazy and not even a simple patch to correct it from the Devs for something people actually paid extra for. Just pathetic.

Yep, this was an inexplicable situation for me, particularly since Cog Hill is one of my 3 favorite courses in the game!?

[itsmb8]

Quote: Originally Posted by cnwystang

I wonder if Dustin Johnson will be added this year to the roster ??

Dude, Dustin Johnson is my most favorite golfer so he better be in it

[globalbeats7]

its going to take a huuuuge year for EA to get me to buy their golf game again.

they need to at the very least:

bring back TRUE AIM as in TW11 but improve camera follow ups
improve ball physics
make game more open ended
include playoffs
rid of carnival pin placements - been like 5yrs running now
add different swing styles
better atmosphere for PGA career
make PGA season actually feel like its worth something

[OnlookerDelay]

Quote: Originally Posted by globalbeats7

bring back TRUE AIM as in TW11 but improve camera follow ups improve ball physics make game more open ended include playoffs rid of carnival pin placements - been like 5yrs running now add different swing styles better atmosphere for PGA career make PGA season actually feel like its worth something

Dayum.... sounds a lot like my wish list! Although, I haven't thought about different swing styles. I'd like to see the golfer's animation be affected by the quality of your stick motion. For example, if you got too quick with it, I'd like to see the golfer lose his balance and come out of his stance proportionally to the tempo error.

They need to dedicate one beta tester to checking for carnival pin placements. Some of the placements they have year after year are just laughable!

[Seymour Scagnetti]

Quote: Originally Posted by OnlookerDelay

They need to dedicate one beta tester to checking for carnival pin placements. Some of the placements they have year after year are just laughable!

They don't even need a beta tester for that. All they have to is read the posts on thier own forum that has continually detailed which holes need fixing over the years because it's usually the same holes. (eg: #17 at St Andrews) And even if they didn't, all it would take a beta tester is 2 days day to leisurely play thru all the courses to find which ones belong in a carnival but that seems to be a waste of manpower to EA.

[OnlookerDelay]

Quote: Originally Posted by Seymour Scagnetti

They don't even need a beta tester for that. All they have to is read the posts on thier own forum that has continually detailed which holes need fixing over the years because it's usually the same holes. (eg: #17 at St Andrews)

So true... (and I would put #7 at St. Andrews at the top of the list for carnival pin placements). The only possible explanation I can offer as to why this persists is the developers intentionally leave them in there to artificially ratchet up the courses defenses against low scoring, not that it's helped that much by the -20 scores we still see in Tournament mode Dailies at St. Andrews.

Well, I've just seen one of the mods announce that we'll be getting a "feast" next Tuesday, so maybe some of our more pressing questions will be answered. Curious to see what they offer up at that time.