I posted the following a few months ago. I think realistic scoring is a very important part of an immersive career mode. If the scoring of the A.I. feels out of wack there isn't much fun playing a career mode. It would be great to gather more ideas on that subject.
The subject i want to discuss is AI scoring in golf games. The term immersion has been used in a lot of different threads and topics. For me a very important part of computer golfing is taking part in a tour (almost certainly, there will not be PGA Tour with real names and characters in the game because of licensing costs and the contract EA has with the PGA). My hope is, that perfect parallel puts time into creating a career mode, where all the parameters (Tour schedule, Fedex Cup, World Rankings, maybe a wec.com tour) are represented. If it would be customizable, i'm sure the community will come up with real tournament schedules and realistic player rosters.
And now for the scoring: rubber band scoring is often used as a term related to Tiger Woods games. There simply isn't put enough work into developing a realistic scoring formula. I see two possibilities to recreate realistic AI scoring:
Statistic based scoring:
- every player has a base score for a round of golf which simply is his average scoring on the PGA Tour
- better would be the average scoring divided in par 3, par 4 and par 5 scoring
- these averages decide the possiblity of making birdie, par or bogey
- the base score would be influenced by factors like (only a few, more are imaginable):
- difficulty of the hole (must be determined before the round)
- weather condition and conditions of the course
- form (last results as a factor)
- aggressivness of player (more agression results in more birdies, but can result in more bogeys or double bogeys as well)
- temper and or confidence: How a player reacts to a bad start of a round, or a good.
- health (lingering injury) or fatigue (fourth or fifth tournament in a row?)
Golf simulator:
There is already a text based golf sim on the market. The outcome of every shot is calculated based on ratings of the players in different shot categories.
This outcome could be influenced by
- width of fairway, slope of fairway, shot shaping required yes or no
- length of iron shots
- width and depth of the green
- slope and severity of breaks on the green
- length of putt
- etc.
This is not a complete list, but i think we could discuss some of these points. It would be a great enhancement to the game, to have realistic AI scoring. I'm so tired of scores like 65-66-65-66 or 61-82-62-80.