159 replies to this topic

[frank70]

Yeah, gusty should be an outlier. Calm and breezy are the most realistic settings. And they should be used generally. That would be good for the assessment of scores, stats and the overall difficulty as well.

I like the stimps of 13 and 14 though. I think the putts roll quite realistically with these stimps. 14 doesn't feel putting on a billiard table to me - fast but controllable.

[Mike Jones]

Personally I find the wind settings at gusty to be the most realistic compared to what I'm used to in real golf but then again I do live in England.

[johnmeyer]

Yeah, gusty should be an outlier. Calm and breezy are the most realistic settings. And they should be used generally. That would be good for the assessment of scores, stats and the overall difficulty as well.

I like the stimps of 13 and 14 though. I think the putts roll quite realistically with these stimps. 14 doesn't feel putting on a billiard table to me - fast but controllable.

You wouldnt say that if you played on the sim 10 is what PGA play at most weeks I believe, and thats damn fast on PG too. At OGT we checked the stimps and they are pretty much exact, not to bore you with all the maths but if you put a virtual stimp meter on the flat green at woodys it'd come out exactly as it would in real life. So a 4.17 ish mph putt on a stimp 10 green goes 10ft. Very well done dev team. We just now need to learn to putt as good as PGA pros lol. If you ever feel generous for us mere mortal sim players a stimp settings of 6 and  7 being added may well be a welcome addition, so we can play on greens more similar to our local muni courses. 

[frank70]

You wouldnt say that if you played on the sim 10 is what PGA play at most weeks I believe, and thats damn fast on PG too. At OGT we checked the stimps and they are pretty much exact, not to bore you with all the maths but if you put a virtual stimp meter on the flat green at woodys it'd come out exactly as it would in real life. So a 4.17 ish mph putt on a stimp 10 green goes 10ft. Very well done dev team. We just now need to learn to putt as good as PGA pros lol. If you ever feel generous for us mere mortal sim players a stimp settings of 6 and  7 being added may well be a welcome addition, so we can play on greens more similar to our local muni courses. 

The settings for simulation players are generally (and should be) different than those of the other tourneys. We MS and clickers lately played a tourney at Sebonack (Southampton) with stimps of 13 and 14 and it was really tough. But is wasn't unfair.

 

I think 11 or rather 12 is a normal number on the PGA Tour. I yesterday watched a DVD of the Ryder Cup in Medinah. Man, these putts rolled forever. Maybe it is the angle of view, but it just feels to me that the greens in PG aren't that quick. 13 or 14 just feels right to me when i compare the game with watching TV. But then again: i might be wrong.

[johnmeyer]

Yeah agreed frank we of course have to play at different settings. I can assure you though that when putting with a real putter on these greens they are exactly as quick as in real life, physics wise in terms of speed they are near enough perfect.

I may be wrong on the PGA tour thing, but thought 10 up to 11 was the standard to start the event to allow for sunbaking throughout the week.

 

Either way well done to the devs for getting them so close, and as mentioned an option for the sim guys to have some slower ones at 6 and 7 to replicate muni/ winter stuff in the future would be most welcome.

[Greensboronclion]

First off at almost all PGA events the stimp is probably around 11 or 12 and a slow green is 10 and you wont find any fuzzy greens on the tour either so really you would never see much below 10 unless its a swamp.  As for the higher stimps they are for the Augusta and Oakmonts and Major championships and once in awhile you will see those stimps on tour but not often.  If I could play one stimp only it would be 12 as I prefer fast greens but that is just me.  As for Gusty Mike is correct its just about right and that is probably all you see in England as they are mostly Links course and that to me would great fun of in this game as the idea of playing a St Andrews where you are chasing the ball down the fairway would be great fun.  The problem is we really dont have a type of course like this or as I like to say a true Links type of course and when you are in lets say Chicago if your stimp is 14 and the wind is up its next to impossible because you have to fly the ball to the hole and cant really run the ball to the hole.  Also we dont really have that type of wind very often in places like that and when we do on tour  they adjust the setup for it as it would be just total brutality for the players if not so if the wind blows like that they might make the pins more friendly and tone the stimp down a bit to accomadate them.  Imagine playing Augusta at a stimp of 14 with difficult pins and a 30 mph wind and 80 might be a good score.  For courses like Chicago we should probably use Calm and Breezy only and the stimp would not be the issue if you did and then you could have the occasional 13 or 14 but every round and with the wind up is just going to turn players off and they will quit showing up.  A wise man in my Links days once asked me why I would set a round up at Firm and Fast with Diff pins and wind and I told him because of the challenge and he told me well that is why we have a half of a field this week.  From that point on when I used Firm and Fast I took the pins down to Med or Easy and the wind to Calm and Breezy and low and behold my events started filling up again.  I love firm and fast but I also like big fields and the best way to do that is to tone that down and to throw a bone in another round or two to make the Event seem more friendly.  Just my thinking and insight I have gained from others.

[clubcaptain]

Please don't get the idea that England is full of link style courses. Sure there are a lot of them but there are also many inland courses that have completely different challenges and don't see weather extremes as frequently as the links courses. So there's plenty of scope for a good range of challenging but fair conditions to be had.

 

At my age I'm a fair weather golfer only these days and I can assure you that outside the winter months I get lots of opportunities to play regularly in different parts of the Midlands area. I've  never played the Belfry but I have been there as a spectator several times around May time and generally would expect to get medium winds.

 

Now, of course, in autumn and winter we do get very high winds quite often and, in fact the last couple of weeks has been a bit brutal, weather wise. The European Tour is sensible and plays anywhere but the UK until much later in the year.

 

Hopefully, UK courses will come in good numbers, and just as hopefully, weather conditions and ground conditions will sometimes be much less than extreme.

[johnmeyer]

I played 30 rounds this summer, all with winds less than 7mph, and they were on a course where the sea forms an  OB on one hole

[frank70]

At least the powers on the leaderboards have shifted.

 

Bortimus is an outlier and probably the best player of the game - he has won one tournament at OGT after the implementation of the RTS and after the changes in penalty for the mouse swingers (kudos!!! - great achievement). All other tourneys have been won by 3-clickers.

 

Guys like Justin or SJude aren't even playing on the Tour Pro Tour any more cause RTS-M is just a different animal in difficulty. No swing meter or visual presentation of the mouse pointer (swing path) is a huge disadvantage compared to MS or 3-click.

 

The long game is really hard now .....  and the short game (pitching, chipping, flopping and putting) is still way too easy as the stats of the tourneys show. The balance in difficulty just doesn't seem right. Although i have to say, that short shots (without the putting) have become significantly harder with RTS-M as well. It's very difficult to see and to gauge the difference between a 95 % swing and a 103 % swing when swinging - but it makes a big difference in the shot result.

 

But i like the changes cause the scores for the swingers generally have come down to more realistic numbers. You won't see many - 40s for swingers anymore. Still would love to see changes to the short game. It is still too easy to make up and downs around the greens.

[Ian]

I am an ex Power Stroker from Links. I find the theory to the motion swing totally alien to real golf. I accept that tempo is a big part of golf but feel that having it set at .25 is completely wrong. I swing with a slow backswing and a fast, hard downswing in real golf, so I would like the choice of setting my own tempo in the game. Because of that, I play 3 click. I don't play in tournaments as It's never really been my "thing", so I play mainly one versus one match, alt shot, greensomes or 2 man scramble. To even up our games, me and my partner play TP against a motion swinger on Hacker and his partner on 3c pro. With TP it is very difficult to hit fairways and greens but my short game gets me out of trouble. Alone, playing Championship tees, always Gusty or Windy( below that is not realistic) 14 stimp, Normal or Hard, usually Medium pins (which seem to be the most difficult on most courses) I shoot roughly 4-6 under par on a decent round. The driving and long approach shots are very realistic but the short game is too easy in comparison. I NEVER chip, it too unpredictable on Normal/Hard 14 stimp, but flop and pitch are too easy to get close even with poor snaps. On flops, I aim right and always hit "fat" which controls the direction and distance, hitting late (thin) is devastating. On pitch shots, a tad early or late is not anywhere near as destructive. I think you should leave well alone on the long shots for TP, but make all the scrambling shots much harder. I feel it would improve the game greatly if we could set the green and fairway firmness separately. Also, could we please set the wind speed during game setup instead of having to go to weather first. I've lost count of the number of games we've had to abort because we forgot to change the wind before teeing off! Even better would be a PS type swing, but that's apparently never going to happen.

[Stephen Sullivan]

Ian

I'm still playing Powerstroke as I feel exactly like you about the 0.25 tempo or "magic ratio" as I have taken to calling it. They say it's to stop cheating, but people will find a way round things anyway if they really want to.

I really cannot see what they have against a PS style swing as I have been asking for a horizontal swing gauge for a long time and being ignored. 

I have never played click and don't intend to start now, so I will continue with Links as I haven't the time to learn 2 completely different swing methods. Also it affects my powerstroke swing.

[frank70]

I am an ex Power Stroker from Links. I find the theory to the motion swing totally alien to real golf. I accept that tempo is a big part of golf but feel that having it set at .25 is completely wrong. I swing with a slow backswing and a fast, hard downswing in real golf, so I would like the choice of setting my own tempo in the game. Because of that, I play 3 click. I don't play in tournaments as It's never really been my "thing", so I play mainly one versus one match, alt shot, greensomes or 2 man scramble. To even up our games, me and my partner play TP against a motion swinger on Hacker and his partner on 3c pro. With TP it is very difficult to hit fairways and greens but my short game gets me out of trouble. Alone, playing Championship tees, always Gusty or Windy( below that is not realistic) 14 stimp, Normal or Hard, usually Medium pins (which seem to be the most difficult on most courses) I shoot roughly 4-6 under par on a decent round. The driving and long approach shots are very realistic but the short game is too easy in comparison. I NEVER chip, it too unpredictable on Normal/Hard 14 stimp, but flop and pitch are too easy to get close even with poor snaps. On flops, I aim right and always hit "fat" which controls the direction and distance, hitting late (thin) is devastating. On pitch shots, a tad early or late is not anywhere near as destructive. I think you should leave well alone on the long shots for TP, but make all the scrambling shots much harder. I feel it would improve the game greatly if we could set the green and fairway firmness separately. Also, could we please set the wind speed during game setup instead of having to go to weather first. I've lost count of the number of games we've had to abort because we forgot to change the wind before teeing off! Even better would be a PS type swing, but that's apparently never going to happen.

The easyness of the short game isn't mainly because of the easyness of the swing mechanic. I can only speak for RTS-M, but if you are a little off with your timing the penalty is there and it has an effect.

 

The easyness of scrambling comes mainly from the unrealistic ballphysics. There is way too much bite on the ball on these short shots, especially out of the rough. So it is too easy to calculate the needed power. If the spin effect was lower and you would have to calculate the run out (length and ondulation of the green), getting it close would be more difficult.

[Mike Jones]

Ian

I'm still playing Powerstroke as I feel exactly like you about the 0.25 tempo or "magic ratio" as I have taken to calling it. They say it's to stop cheating, but people will find a way round things anyway if they really want to.

I really cannot see what they have against a PS style swing as I have been asking for a horizontal swing gauge for a long time and being ignored. 

I have never played click and don't intend to start now, so I will continue with Links as I haven't the time to learn 2 completely different swing methods. Also it affects my powerstroke swing.

 

It helps in the fight against cheating but that's not the reason the ratio is there.

 

You have had a horizontal option for motion swing and RTS for some time...

 

If you don't want to switch between different games because it upsets your timing in one is this the fault of the developer or your lack of willingness and motivation to adapt to something new?

[KenR]

I like the short game setup the way it is and disagree that it is too easy. Tour players in general get up and down when missing a green about 60-69 % of the time and I believe that includes those holes where they had to pitch out after driving into the trees, etc. This actually makes their save pct. higher around the green than their actual scrambling pct. and I think the short game physics are dialed in pretty good now. Just my opinion...

[frank70]

I like the short game setup the way it is and disagree that it is too easy. Tour players in general get up and down when missing a green about 60-69 % of the time and I believe that includes those holes where they had to pitch out after driving into the trees, etc. This actually makes their save pct. higher around the green than their actual scrambling pct. and I think the short game physics are dialed in pretty good now. Just my opinion...

I think the physics are not right. There isn't enough roll on the ball. I recently played a round with hard ground conditions. Under these conditions the ratio between travel distance of the ball in the air and rollout seemed to be pretty good. Depending on the lie chips, pitches and flops out of the rough should have at least a ratio of 1:2 or 1:3 (10 feet in the air 20 to 30 feet on the ground). In PG the ratio often is 1:1 (10 feet in the air - 10 feet on the ground). i linked a few videos in another thread that showed that point quite well.

[KenR]

Frank I respect your opinion and they very well may tweak chips/pitches a little bit but I still think the settings are pretty good as is. Roll out is dependent on course conditions/green speed/club loft etc. of course and I'm just not finding them to be off that much if at all, but again that's just me. Don't know that messing with them at this point would be worth it but they'll do it if they think it's warranted. In any case I'm loving the game, and may I add here that cup physics are improving as well. Instead of a putt being sucked into the hole if it's anywhere close I'm now seeing just misses slide by tantalizingly close with out going in and sometimes just hanging on the edges, etc. Game just keeps getting better!

[Stephen Sullivan]

It helps in the fight against cheating but that's not the reason the ratio is there.

 

You have had a horizontal option for motion swing and RTS for some time...

 

If you don't want to switch between different games because it upsets your timing in one is this the fault of the developer or your lack of willingness and motivation to adapt to something new?

As Ian said we should have some option to alter the ratio.

Being forced to adhere to said ratio is one of the things that puts me off the RTS & MS. Also the BLI is nowhere near visible enough.

It isn't a lack of motivation. It's a lack of time. I still enjoy playing powerstroke and help run a small tour at LSPN, which I also gain enjoyment from.

 

... and you could surely put in a horizontal gauge   

[tlvx]

we should have some option to alter the ratio.

 

What is the point of altering the ratio... to make it more realistic? Or, to make it easier?

 

While not a bad idea per-say, this "adjustable ratio idea" is a nonstarter, considering the intent of the ratio is to prevent this type of thing from happening... which would give too much control to the user to play with and modify their result.

 

If, however, we're simply after more realism, than I could see a case for the ratio being changed to 3 to 1. But, that's something that should apply equally, just the same.

[Stephen Sullivan]

Well it doesn't feel realistic as it is... so the latter, but not everyone swings with the same tempo IRL do they?

[tlvx]

Well it doesn't feel realistic as it is... so the latter, but not everyone swings with the same tempo IRL do they?

 

Not everyone hits the exact same distance either, in real life. -- But such conformities are what keeps video golf equitable.

 

Some golf games in the past have allowed trade-offs, to modify distance. Less distance equates to more accuracy, kinda thing.

 

The question is, what trade-off could there be, for allowing a user to setup and hit a 2 to 1 ratio, for example, which is arguably a much easier ratio to achieve?

 

Do we then take away accuracy, distance... what?