132 replies to this topic

[Ted_Ball]

I'm discontinuing this thread due to internal advice.

I've convinced myself that I want to build a game.

Thank you all for reading this thread. It has been fun.

I'm going into lockdo*..... . . . . .  .  .  .    .     .      .

[Ted_Ball]

I'll drop a little eggsample soon kitty kats..

[IanD]

What..... ? I can't believe it's not out already.......!!

[Kablammo11]

Please tell us the release date. Will there be a Steam open access beta? Is there a website with a Forum? I'd like to discuss ball physics, swing mechanics and putting with six dozen strangers there.... Don't forget the release date. Do you have an ETA? Why aren't you updating more often?

 

(satire)

[Ted_Ball]

I'm not updating more often because I'm working on my game.

I had a beautiful post on aiming on the putting green, ready to deliver, but realised I was giving away secrets. Hence the lockdown shut tight. To be honest, I think the game can be simplified and yet retain some of the joy and heartbreak of golf. That's my project.

I'll see you on the Perfect Golf greens.

Au revoir

(teaser coming soon)

[Kablammo11]

"se non è vero, è ben trovato!"

What's the ETA again? 

[Davefevs]

I'm not updating more often because I'm working on my game.
I had a beautiful post on aiming on the putting green, ready to deliver, but realised I was giving away secrets. Hence the lockdown shut tight. To be honest, I think the game can be simplified and yet retain some of the joy and heartbreak of golf. That's my project.
I'll see you on the Perfect Golf greens.
Au revoir
(teaser coming soon)

Stop giving updates, get on with the game;-)

[Ted_Ball]

Se non è vero, è ben trovato! Indeed.

 

Try highest quality, full screen

 

[Kablammo11]

Infatti è vero! Un pochettino, al meno. 

Nice shot.

[Dazmaniac]

Looks more like TBWGT than what you have been describing.

 

Think I'll pass.

[Ted_Ball]

My demographic is dwindling.

[AlanR54NC]

Daz, you are giving up to soon. At least wait for the hands on Demo ! Teddy has it all there, he just failed to show you what happened PRIOR to the clip

[Ted_Ball]

Yes AlanR54NC. That clip was just the penultimate, previous to prior pre-alpha. I even went out to the back paddock and hit some approach wedge shots to check what happens and what you see during the shot. No detail unchecked. (skulled my first 3 shots).

[Ted_Ball]

Now, where was I. K11 said the forum is quiet lately so because of the number of views for this thread I'm almost obliged to continue. I'm trying to catch up to "Pricing Ideas / Thoughts" (Dont get me started on that!!)

 

I've decided to carry on with my thought experiments and not worry that the ideas for my game will be stolen. I mean who would be silly enough to put to use these radical ideas in their own sim. (*reverse psychology triggered*) As for Ted Ball's One Shot Golf, please don't ask when it will be released. It is impossible to put a date on it and doing so will just cause criticism if the timetable is not met. (*Satire triggered*). 

 

I'll just recap what I have put forward so far and add some further ideas to simulate the experience before I get onto things like fairway bunkers, rough, green-side bunkers, chipping, aiming from close to the green, putting and anything else I think of.

 

You are on the 1st tee faced with a long par four. There is no avatar, no swing gauge, no HUD. (I've talked at length about the reasons I've left those things out in the interests of simulating real golf). The first action is to look down the fairway to decide the direction you will be hitting the ball. You activate a 'focus' button which zooms somewhat to give a clearer idea of the dangers etc. just like you would IRL. You move your curser to the lower left corner of the screen which brings up a yardage book that indicates distance to fairway bunkers, water etc. and the carry to clear them. You decide on the direction you will hit (you only have to decide on direction - not distance. The club and RNG determines the distance after you've hit the shot). You move the curser to the lower right corner of the screen and your bag appears with all your clubs neatly arranged (unlike my clubs in the crude gif. below). You place your curser on the driver and it is selected and probably slides out with that rattling swish and scrape that we are all familiar with. I don't think there is a need to bother with stance or club alignment to move the ball in the air. I would rather see that determined by a default preference for shot shape as a playing style. It's only when you need to shape a shot to avoid trouble that it becomes an issue.

 

 

 

 

You click the discrete "TAKE SHOT" button and the ball is launched. RNG takes over and determines the result. I had a very interesting time watching a Youtube video of quite a number of pros in the British Open driving from the same tee with the full arc of their shots traced by Trackman or whatever. It was revealing in that there was a wide difference in direction and not many shots followed the same path. It's impossible to know the exact direction each one of them aimed of course but nevertheless balls were going everywhere (they cut to vision of where each ball landed). Even at that level of skill there were obvious mis-directed shots. I'm trying to make a point here. I believe the joy of golf is not just hitting beautifully directed shots every time. That is impossible. The joy also comes from a great recovery from a difficult place or scrambling a par after a couple of dud shots. You all know that it's not the guy on the tour with the best 'fairways hit' or 'greens in regulation' stats that wins tournaments. That happens hardly ever. Anecdote time. I would happily take on a player on WGT in match play even though his skill level was way above mine and was hitting the ball 100 yards further. I would plonk my approach on the green and putt well enough to halve the hole (or better) much to my opponent's open frustration and my own amusement.

 

Now once you've hit the "TAKE SHOT" button you will pick up the flight of the ball at the point you would see it in real life. If you are doing it right you won't in fact see it until it's well on its way. I'd like to see a 'focus zoom' on the ball which replicates the way we concentrate on the ball flight IRL. You don't really know where the ball finishes until you are addressing the next shot. No magic eye in the sky or follow flight cam. All that fun stuff will be in the replay later.

 

I'll discuss the various outcomes of the opening shot next and how TBSG - RSV deals with them. 

[Kablammo11]

Can't wait for the putting pre-shot, when you get to "squint" to read the line.  For the tee shot, you might want to add a "toss grass" option to have an idea about the wind.

I like the "focus zoom" idea a lot. That is definitely something PP should consider stealing from you.

And I like your body of work so far and fully approve of your quest for all that is rad - though a lot depends on details. Like cause and effect - my shots IRL always had a reason for being poor shots, me and my wretched body and the sick mind inside it, and I always knew afterwards what I did wrong in my swing to cause them to stray from the ideal line. So pure RNG strikes me as a bit too arbitray a method of determining a shot outcome.

Tell us more!

[Ted_Ball]

Thanks Kablammo11.

 

The Beaufort Scale is fairly specific in determining wind speed. The scale is 0 to 12. We will stay in the clubhouse and play euchre if it's 6 to 12. That means we would only use a scale of 0 to 5 for TBSG. There are visual clues that are written in the Beaufort thus: 0 = calm, smoke rises verically (in TBSG your caddy smokes - Ted Ball lights one cig from another). 1 = light air, smoke drifts but leaves on trees dont move. 2 = light breeze, leaves rustle. Up to 5 = fresh breeze, branches of a moderate size move. small trees in leaf begin to sway. 5 is measured at 18 - 24 mph. I can't see why those visual indicators can't be implemented in TBSG. There are flags and bendy flagsticks after all. If you knew your Beauforts IRL you could get a reasonably accurate  read while playing but even if you didn't I think there is enough visual input to adjust shot direction or club selection. (Perhaps fallen leaves blowing across the fairways to indicate direction. Grass tossing is only an indication of wind speed and direction where you are standing but would be a nice touch anyway.) 0 to 2 wouldn't make that much difference to the ball flight. I just like the idea of NOT having exact readings on a HUD and therefore using some cyber instinct. 

 

As for the question of RNG K11; even with your afflictions you will occasionally hit a really good, well-timed shot. If a professional golfer has a perfect, clock-work swing they will still hit most of their shots not quite where they intended. Like RNG. In a golf sim, if you could adjust swing plane, club alignment, stance and hit the 'ding' you really shouldn't be hitting the ball exactly where you intended.  To hit a ball to an exact, intended spot simulates nothing and might contribute to a predictable, boring, game (and unrealistically low scores).

[Kablammo11]

Ted

I usually lit a cigarette on every tee to find out about the wind - and to calm down.

 

What skills would your RNG system require for players to be successful? Players are competitive, after all, they will want to score lower than their friends or rivals. In a traditional swing meter environment, you need a bit of dexterity and timing to produce reliable shots, and a bit of arithmetic and tactics to select the shot line and the shot type before that. In your system, players would probably need to settle for percentage play - middle of fairways and greens - and wait for a good roll to give them a scoring opportunity. They would start to calculate the odds for different approaches and run a betting parlor inside their minds; the skill they would most require would be statistics analysis or strategic decision making.

I'm willing to explore all opportunities and, given the chance, am keen to have a go at your system. But as per now you have not convinced me yet that RNG is a promising way to make a better golf game. I must also warn against considering RNG the sole, impartial dispenser of all that is good and fair in this world, because dumb luck is blind and therefore impartial - it's a widespread trend in our post-ideologic times, not only in your proposal, to consider rolling the dice being more equitable than taking a moral stance or, even better, making a rational decision.

The question remains, and I beg you to persuade me that you do, if you are talking about dumb luck to run your game - or if you have a novel and inspiring form of "smart luck" in mind...?

[Ted_Ball]

I would like to thank the Member for Willow Heath for his question, Madame Speaker.

 

I understand the apprehension about letting random generation determine outcomes. It's like letting machines make decisions for you and taking over the world. Nevertheless, people throughout history have been on a quest to find a way to rid themselves of the ego and to reduce the power that the self has over one's life. Why else would recreational drug and alcohol use be so popular? You have to agree that chance plays a big part in our lives. To me, the thought that life is pre-ordained would be very depressing. Not that chance doesn't have a downside. There is bad luck and good luck after all. I'm not suggesting that we should live our lives like George Cockcroft because, as you mention, there are moral considerations in the choices we make. Think about this. Some folk find it impossible to make a decision and when faced with choices might become catatonic. I'm sure that even in cyber golf that there is the phenomenon of the 'yips'. I think it may have happened to me in WGT with 3-click when faced with one of those ridiculous shots that eventuated all too often.

 

 

To answer your question of what skills a player in an RNG system would bring to be successful, well, I'll break it down into simple parts. Let's compare the alternatives. 

 

I'll use the three swing types of 3-click (I have no idea what 4-click is), TruSwing (the sliding mouse) and Ted Ball's NoSwing. I seem to be going over old ground here as I've talked about this earlier. I want to make it clear that I have nothing against the first two and I will happily use 3-click in PG. What I am really trying to say is that there is no need to have a physical input and I'll try to explain why the TB NoSwing might be a fairer and more equitable alternative. 

 

Firstly, the three alternatives have some things in common in the shot-making process and I'll talk about full shots for this exercise. You will have to aim in the direction you want to hit and you have to make a club selection. At this point I'm going to drop TruSwing in the comparison. I have never liked it. There is a clunkiness about it and, as far as I can discern, it is simply to give players a physical input. That's fine. There is no advantage for a player who uses it over a click based swing so I don't need to use it in this comparison. The other variables in a stroke for the other two can be set up exactly the same way. Draw / Fade, stance, loft and so on can be handled separately from the actual swing or stroke. I would be very wary of a click system that introduces shot shaping married to the point of the third click, i.e., before or after the ding point. If the result of your shot and success of your game comes down to your 'dexterity' and 'timing', in that regard, then you will have a lot of disappointed and disgruntled players. 

 

 

So what are the differences? In a 3-click swing you can disregard the first click as having any influence on the outcome. Therefore, of the remaining two clicks - the second click determines the power of the shot in the length of the backswing and the third click the timing of the club hitting the ball. As for power - if we are talking about full swings then why would you want to hit the ball a SHORTER DISTANCE!? If you go beyond the mark at the top of your swing to gain extra distance then you should be punished accordingly in terms of accuracy. Surely that would have to be a RANDOM outcome determined by some form of RNG anyway. If there was no penalty then why bother having the gauge go beyond the top mark. With a NoSwing RNG shot you might just get fortunate and the ball goes to a maximum length. (of course, in some cases, that might not be fortunate at all. Oh, life!!).

 

We are then left with the third click. The big one. But look - I've been over this. I said, "The trouble I'm still having with the manual swing is that we still have to get that ding point calibrated and programmed so intricately to simulate a real stroke. I'm not sure that's possible. The perfect/slightly off perfect snap will still be close enough to a good shot to contribute to a similarity of all the shots played from the same spot. I have a horrible feeling that most players will be hitting the ding regularly no matter how well the gauge is calibrated. If you can't get close to the ding regularly you probably should give it away - and that would be sad for so many arthritic, shaky, bad-sighted, (plenty more afflictions but I don't want to offend anyone) folk. My 'no input' method takes away those problems."

 

The Member for Willow Heath said, "Players are competitive, after all, they will want to score lower than their friends or rivals. In your system, players would probably need to settle for percentage play - middle of fairways and greens - and wait for a good roll to give them a scoring opportunity. They would start to calculate the odds for different approaches and run a betting parlor inside their minds; the skill they would most require would be statistics analysis or strategic decision making." My answer to that is - what you say is true. Apart from requiring  a skill for statistics analysis, that is exactly what I would want a player to deal with. In a 3-click stroke, where everyone is pretty well hitting that ding every time and every one is on the fairway then the scores tumble and there are twenty guys with 49s on their card. I'm not sure that simulates the golf experience. Look at the crude photo below. 

 

 

 

Each red dot represents a randomly generated finish with the bulk of them on the fairway. (Way too many but it gives you an idea). Bell curve spread. This is the 2nd hole at Royal Sydney. From the front tees the carry to the thick red is about 250 yards. You aim to the middle of the fairway. There is danger right in the trees and bunkers left. You might, therefore, decide to take a 3 iron off the tee to keep your ball in play. This is where the human computer generates decisions and maybe gets the edge over your reckless opponents. 

 

More later and maybe things will become clearer.

 

[Kablammo11]

Madame Speaker, who looks particularly lovely today,

The Member of the Willow Heath district selects to withhold his rebuttal until the Right Honorable Member of Ballsy Swings has finished his clarifiying remarks right after the upcoming tea break. I particularly look forward, once session will have resumed, to any sort of additional explanations pertaining to all the types of shots that are not full swings, shots from within 60 yards of the pin and putts, commonly referred to as the short game.

Until then I wish to salute my esteemed colleague from the opposing side of the aisle for his thoroughly radical initiative and, though I might not agree with all his conclusions, do consider his fundamental reflections to be very beneficial to our common cause overall. I am truly grateful to him for having brought to the fore an urgent debate well worth having at this juncture.

[Ted_Ball]

So you've taken your drive on this longish par 4. Driving's no biggie. Grip it and rip it in the general direction. You don't have much control over the final resting place relative to, say, a mid to short iron. That's how it should be. In an ideal sim, skill with individual clubs or shot type could be improved by allocation of experience points as mentioned by K11. Think of experience points as a value of time spent on the practice range. (I will discuss experience in a later post.) If, by your choice of how to allocate XP, your driving has become a high range skill then your drive on the 1st is probably going to be on the fairway (but not necessarily exactly where you want it to be). Of course, if you put your XP into driving then the skill in rest of your game will have less. As I said, the pro who has the best 'fairways hit' stat doesn't win all the tourneys.

 

You've taken your drive and there are a number of possibilities about where your ball finishes. First cut of rough, long rough, water, lateral hazards, fairway bunkers and out of bounds. And all of those could be left or right. 

 

Another of my pet disappointments with other golf games is how they deal with situations off the fairway. I remember 'walking' off in disgust several times  in WGT (if I remember correctly) when, by a spasm or nervous twitch in the point of my 3rd click, I put my ball in long rough and took many hacks without moving the ball more than a few feet. It's absolutely ridiculous and inexcusable to implement that in a computer golf game whether it replicates the real world or not and not have at least the option to take an unplayable. 

 

This is how I would deal with all those possible outcomes of the drive.

 

Because of my traumatic experience in WGT I came to the conclusion that there shouldn't or doesn't have to be such punitive measures in place. I believe it is punishment enough that your ball landed in the rough and the penalty being a less than ideal angle and also the resultant lack of distance or run. I'm still agonising over what effect the lie in rough should have on your next shot. You could simply reduce the distance the ball travels by a certain percentage according to the length of rough but if you wanted to simplify things you could just let the bad angle or lack of distance be the penalty and not have the lie effect your shot at all. The first cut doesn't really have much effect anyway. If you were going to code in spin or the 'flyer' then maybe. The longer the rough, the further you are from the ideal angle in as well. There was so much debate in other games about the effect of rough on your shot that it seems to be a development nightmare so you could almost argue for the abolition of 'rough effect'. I was raised on golf at a championship course that had twelve inch kikuyu rough which was terrifying. Kikuyu is like hitting out of a box of computer cables. My current real course has almost no rough other than a short first cut - even among trees. It doesn't make golf easy and the mis-directed drive is still penalised to an extent. I guess the amount and length of rough in a golf game is directly related to the cruelty of the course designer. (...withdrawn)

 

I could argue that the same philosophy could be used for fairway bunkers. A well-placed bunker would obviously reduce the length of your drive significantly and a well-designed bunker would restrict the club choice by the height of the lip. Do we really need to stack penalty on penalty by making it hard to extricate the ball from a sandy lie? I think with a bit of license we can give our cyber golfer the ability to hit well out of bunkers. 

 

Hazards should carry the same 'Rules of Golf' penalties as real life. You really should be able to drop the ball in the appropriate spot from water. Enough said. Lateral water hazards only carry the penalty of not being able to ground your club or clear movable objects. That's not going to be simulated so I would ignore lateral water hazards and treat them like rough or leave them out in the first place. Similarly, with out of bounds, I wouldn't have them but if they had to be there then the rules state you have to replay the shot from where you hit it. I don't know if, as is proposed in PG that you walk the course, that it will be a viable option to trundle back to the tee or wherever. Unless there is a magic transporter portal. The other very important implementation has to be the option to take an unplayable with the stroke penalty. An absolute must.

 

Now we are getting closer to green and to the nitty gritty. We still have a full shot in from 180 yards to an elevated green for our second shot. But the textures look great, the lighting on the course is beautiful. There's even a yardage post nearby. We 'focus zoom' on the troubles in front of us or simply to get a good look at Tara in the group ahead.