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POLL - Wishlist and order of implementation

Sat, Feb 20 2010 3:13 PM (25 replies)

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jayjonbeach

689 Posts

Mon, Feb 1 2010 9:27 PM

After the last update, which many thought was lets say, lackluster, I thought it might be a good idea to give WGT an idea on what the community thought were the most important issues that needed to be addressed and which should hopefully be the highest on the priority list.

Obviously WGT has their own ideas on this and maybe there is no changing or even influencing that BUT I still thought it might be good to let them have it let them know where we the players think the priorities lie, it just makes for good feedback if nothing else.

I'll list the things we know of on the roadmap, on the suggestion list and things that have been suggested that are not on the list (at least not yet) and if you see anything important that I missed please add it to your own list.

I think this could be an interesting exercise and really good feedback for them at the least anyway, however I give no false hope and expect none. There are things going on behind the scenes that obviously we are oblivious to and this is just a wishlist list for feedback mostly (though we can hope), some things are the way they are and in the order they are for a reason and probably cant be changed.

I've numbered them 1 - 25 in the order I would like to see them come to light, if people could maybe add their own top 10 and if anything comes up that is not already here I will add it to keep a running list. Keeping your opinions on each thing seperate and putting them at the bottom of your post will make lists easier to read.

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1. New pants Meter issues :) (Upgrade servers to help?)

2. Reputation tracking to discourage and help with quitting

3. New courses

4. Up/Down/Side hill lies effect shot

5. Shot-shaping and stance controls with Draw/Fade - Hook/slice ability

6. Some Ready-go by tier and/or handicap

7. 3 click meter=more challenge (with overpower mode=more deviation if miss)

8. VEM/Beast - turn it off and give us occasional wind gusts

9. Balls - Out of bounds depletes 25% of durability 66% of time (not lost automatically, 33% only)

10. More tiers and a little harder to reach the tiers and especially an Elite tier

11. Driving range & putting/pitching/chipping green with trap (to try clubs also)

12. Different timer options when starting game (90 sec, 60 sec, 45 sec, 30 sec)

13. Slightly longer ball duration (ie 2 durability = 5 rounds, 3 = 6 or 7, 4 = 7 or 8)

14. Crack down on multiple accounts, sandbaggers, cheaters, etc, ban IP's of abusers

15. Gifting Pro+ tier clubs if purchased with cash not credits

16. Different hole and tee box locations (also for CTTH & different start spots)

17. Challenging, hard mini-golf course with lots of obstacles

18. More ads to generate income (like acura ad today)

19. Replays that include the meter, club, distance markers & where you aimed

20. Option to replace same ball of different color and/or different ball mid-round

21. Clubhouse/Lobby/19th hole to chat and find players

22. “My Tournaments” section in profile, track your status & standings in tourneys

23. Saving replays in multiplayer modes

24. "Adjusted" forum modding and related things Niv to the rescue

25. Team matches

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Things that did not make my list or to the top of my list but might make yours: (Anything added that is not already below I will add them there to keep this as a running list, in alphabetical order)

Ability to create and join groups

Ability to ignore and/or report user with button on profile page

Ability to reconnect to multiplayer games

Ability to save and share scorecards

Ability to switch out a PW or 3 iron for another club like wedge

Ability to default to same putter every shot (ie 45foot) & same wedge for chip shot

Ability to make custom course with holes from different courses (for CTTH also)

Ability to see opponent's Putting Grid, wind,etc

Avatar with Cigar and/or cigarette in mouth, different hats,

Better communication from WGT re updates coming, timelines, etc

Better Performance for Low-End PCs

Bingo, bango, bongo, 2, 3 or 4 player, can also be made to bet credits

Cash out/redeem credits and/or at least buy WGT brand items

Chat with UTF-8 Unicode for multi-language use

Closest to the hole putting challenge (made multiplayer also)

CTTH match play for credits against other players

CTTH at Lanai challenge

CTTH single play tourneys (some only like half)

Concede putt or hole option in match play, need both

Color-coded player status so you know when friends are already playing

Different views on green (sometimes avatar blocks front view or is too far away)

Easier way to report cheaters, sandbaggers (like report button on profile page)

Equipment that slightly enhances play; gloves, shoes, visor, etc

Green jacket "award" for avatar for winning major tourneyment

Handicap system (only if WGT figures out how to stop sandbagging)

Keyboard shortcuts

Leaderboards for tourneys & for players rankings, winner listings

Left-handed avatar

Meter with increments (will help lots with 3 click meter)

More clubs and ball types (5wood, 7 wood, 1 & 2 iron, etc)

More outfits for avatars and ability to mix and match shirts, shorts, etc

More sound effects, birds, etc

More statistics for players and tourneyments

Mulligans (one per hole limit?, maybe better is a practice hole w/ no shot/mulligan limit)

Multiplayer Best ball format

Multiplayer CTTH games

Multiplayer games stay open for 45 seconds after ending to say some last words

Multiplayer RtG's

Multiplayer Skins format

“My Friends” tab for tracking friends’ results in tournaments

Option to step back from ball and take practice swing to try and ding meter

Optional "Heartbeat" in stroke play

Optional background music

Option to turn off friends list

Option to turn off chat

Page showing all recent sweepstakes winners (and news post also with link)

PGA style tourney, 4 complete rounds with qualifying, elimination, etc

A pony - ? what the, who the, what?

Random course generator to mix holes from different courses (for CTTH also)

Ranked Rounds Mandatory Finish

Restart Function on Unlimited Tourneys (stroke play needed, CTTH has it)

Reset putting, driving and approach stats without affecting your awards, tiers

Running bug list to keep players informed

See competitor's equipment/stats before tee-off

Stats reset when promoted to a new tier

Show and/or have a search for ranked stats for all players by tiers

Spotting balls on green to not block others putting view

Sorting players by average on main menu not just tourney winnings

Cheerleaders with Spectator mode, ability to watch and//or chat

Timestamps shown in players' local time zones

Varible weather conditions that effect shots, tornados, light rain, fog, etc

Variable wind conditions (mentioned in top of list) with gusts as an option for play

Viewable scorecards of other players to discourage sandbagging

Virtual notebook with different sections to track notes for different holes, clubs, etc

Weather effects the course, ie soft wet fairways and greens, etc

Weather like drizzle, cloudly limited visability, might be too much to ask I know

Widescreen format support

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KNOWN BUGS

Fix posting in forum issue where text wraps

Fix message issue where text wraps and/or you have to click send 2 or 3 times

Fairway wood off the tee is being counted as a missed fairway

Multiplayer search

Multiplayer - reconnecting

7 iron and other club distances off

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Opinions

A 3 click meter for more challenge and realism with an overpower zone. Overpower zone gives you more yardage like 5 yards BUT the deeper you go into zone the faster the meter goes (a little faster) and the more deviation if you miss the ding. I think this would be a HUGE addition to the game and it will make it much harder as counting avatar movements and measuring movements will be much much harder since the meter will also now be moving to the left as well as the right. Like real golf, the backswing should be SLOWER than the forward swing, we dont want it TOO hard!

With all the added difficulty in my suggestion list, the VEM and/or random deviations/beast can be turned off and scoring low will still be quite hard. The game will also be even more realistic. I think most people can handle an occasional wind gust however.

Some might think the more ad request is nuts, but think of what it means if WGT brings home more bacon, more stuff for players and faster.

There is my 2 cents, please add yours.

jayjonbeach

689 Posts

Wed, Feb 3 2010 9:46 AM

Well if nothing else this makes a good summary and running list of all the player wishes for WGT..... :P

Maybe people could add their top 10 wants in priority order if 25 is too much work, just to help show what we would like to see the soonest.

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More opinions on several things updated from recent threads:

The Handicap system and the potential for it and potential abuse. I think this in theory should be simple, handicaps are ONLY calculated from TOURNEY'S, period. If someone wants to "jimmy" their handicap, they will have to lose credits or the possibility to win them, at least a bunch of times, and ranked rounds should'nt even be counted, too easy to sandbag.

A properly implemented handicap system would be a great addition, allowing some people that are not normally competitive to actually compete. I think the important thing here is we can cut out a little bit of the rich get richer current payout scheme and share the wealth a little, obviously some wont like this and I dont think all tourneys should be based on handicap.

What I think would be good would be to have maybe HALF of all tourneys be based on handicap, let anyone have a chance in half of them but keep some available where the best players will rise to the top.

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New Tier and a more competitive site in general - I have been thinking about how many people are complaining they can't compete, etc (and I have done so a few times in the past myself).

Some handicap tourneys will help in this regard, once handicaps gets implemented, also one more tier for the top Masters as well (and crack down on Pro sandbaggers for the sake of the Pro tiers) and maybe even one more in between Amateur and Pro as the progression to Pro is awfully fast the way things are now.

What I also think, is once someone reaches a certain "earning level", they are no longer able to play the free tourneys, or at least get excluded from half of them. The Elite players should be excluded from the free tourneys that involve top scores, since it isn't fair to anyone to have the top 1% always picking these clean and they have plenty of other opportunities to get credits in paid tourneys anyway, or at least put a cap on free tourney earnings, like 3000 or 5000 free credits or so from free tourneys per year (after 3 months I am at a whooping 50 credits or so....).

Of course the random draw tourneys should still stay open to everyone.

Sorry guys, some of you are my friends but this makes perfect sense. Its a rich get richer payout scheme around here and the rest are left with the scraps of like 1 credit winnings, if the same people are cleaning up in the paid tourneys, they have tons of credits already, thus dont need to be entering free tourney's. I mean most people don't stand a chance in the free ones, does it really make sense to have the same 20 people at the top of the leader boards every time when they already have piles of credits?

Free tourneys really should be left to those that are not at the top of their game, give them a chance to compete with others in the same boat, there are many very good players, have practiced a ton yet they are not in the same league as the top 1%. I consider myself a pretty decent player and I had NO chance at Pro level in almost all tourneys and pretty much same goes now at Master except for Andy's, and Andy's is because I focused here exclusively now and its the newest course, so I have a chance relatively speaking and hope to get into a RG soon, since this is the main source of credits here anyway.

I am getting closer to the RG's and once I do, and hopefully start having some success, really why would I need to play the free tourneys, the only reason is to compete, to have fun seeing how close I can get to the top. As long as there are an adequate number of tourneys around I can go in (especially RG's), that is the main thing I think, maybe half the free tourneys should be restricted by earning level.

The other thing here is the state restrictions, those poor people have to able to play the free ones since that is ALL they can do, which is a travesty in itself.

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Sandbagging in general for averages

The handicap system overall will help with this and having half the tourneys based on handicap will go a long way to lessen the sandbagging effect. Another idea I had, maybe its not the best method and it might not even yield the desired result but Rank each HOLE of golf played. Averages are calculated just like they are now, best 10 of 14 games, nothing changes EXCEPT that partial rounds ALSO count, hence one bad hole or good hole counts towards the entire 14 games, this will hurt the average "protector" for sure and averages would probably go up but I think it can make it more difficult or for sure make the sandbagging more obvious, more detailed stats will help as well for the obvious part.

Also like above for handicap but instead of only tourneys counting, which you could do here too, just put more weight on tourney ranked rounds than regular ranked rounds. I would also recommend not announcing just what is changing, exactly, if anything, just that something will be, so as to not make it easier for players to manipulate the system.

If a true sandbagger, someone who wants to post bad scores, has every single hole ranked, and if only 10 good games out of 14 count (4 bad ones, total holes added together, in total being discarded) it will become more difficult (not impossible) for them to keep their average high. They will have to play a lot of really bad holes to do it AND they will have to play all the holes of one round bad, not just a few. The flip side also is when they are competing, every good hole of golf will count and should be weighted more heavily towards someones average (like 9 holes in tourney mode counts as 18 towards average).

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Since WGT is working on a reputation rating already, maybe they can have it represent quitters but ALSO wankers to help curb general bonehead and abusive behavior thus the reputation rating becomes a 2 part rating, and I think this is important.

So quitting will knock a persons reputation down automatically, not sure how they are going to calculate but it seems pretty simple, everyone starts off with a 1500 rating, everytime they disconnect they get - 1, everytime they finish they get + 1.

For part 2, when someone plays a match with a wanker, a non-pleasant person, abusive person etc, and there are plenty that people would like to avoid in general, after the match they can add a one-time only - 1 to his/her score, this can only be added against someone who you have played against for obvious reasons. The only downside to this is there will be some false ratings at first where the "bad" people try to knock down the good people. However, there are far more good people on this site so this will be shortlived and after a small amount of time, it will become very obvious who is generally not being a very nice person and if someone gets too many negatives in this way all the - 1's they gave out get cancelled.

For this reason, the reputation needs to be detailed in a way that someone can look into the persons profile and reputation shows up as a "stat", with number of times quit and number of negatives given by other players.

I do think this is an important step WGT can take to help curb general abuse on their site, the internet is full of nasty people sadly and this will really help.

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Oh, and please setup a special section in the forum for "general complaint" threads. The reason this would be good is to keep all the cheater, quitter, TWO is better, I dont want to spend money threads all in one place to stop them from polluting the WHOLE forum, and they will never stop so why not deal with them. When a thread shows up in the wrong place it simply gets moved by an Admin to the complain section, this will help to keep the entire forum more useful overall.

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Idea on giving out a few more credits here and there:

1. Match play credit - Nothing much here but just a way to encourage people to interact with each other and play matches.

When you win against an equal tier or lower tier you get 1 credit. If the person has a lower average than you or is a higher tier, you get 2 credits.

These are limited to 2 - 3 per day and 10 - 12 per week.

Because you only get these when you win, this might even encourage people to buy clubs......

2. This one is a little more involved but good none the less. It requires a slight change in the forums where posts and threads can be "thumbed up" by individuals. This is a pretty popular format on the internet and I think would be useful here to help spot useful threads etc.

So now, when a user creates a popular/useful/well liked thread that gets at least 10 thumbs, he gets 1 credit. 20 + thumbs = 2. 2 is the max per thread and per day for all threads per user to discourage someone from megaposting, maybe also only any one thread per day per user can be rewarded (highest thumbed one).

For posts it would work similiar, when a user gives a very helpful answer to someone's question or shares a good idea somewhere he will now be rewarded. 7 thumbs=1 credit, 15+ = 2. No more than 2 - 4 per day again to discourage megaposting.

I know some people may not like the 2nd idea in particular, I think it rewards people that add value in the forums and also humor usually gains lots of thumbs in the other places I hang out and should be a welcomed addition to any forum. It also cant be abused so easy because of the minimum required thumbs and the numbers are small enough where you cant go hogwild anyway. I think the numbers I gave are pretty fair and practical all around as well.

3. Submitted by "gettocop" - Ranked rounds played. Some of the guys that put in massive amounts of time playing should be rewarded. 100 credits per every 100 ranked rounds played. "Snaike" added after that maybe credits for finishing a multiplayer game could be earned to discourage quitting as well, like 1 each.

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Ideas for a driving range and putting green:

There is a problem unfortunately to the whole mulligan concept, especially allowing more than one per shot or hole but in general also.

Players would begin to map out the best shots for each part of each hole to perfection, it really already has been done to some extent with some players playing 1000+ rounds but imagine how much faster it would be done, and by more players....

The way around it, besides bringing us a proper driving range and putting green, which could really just be a fairway of St. Andrews for example and one green, is to only allow mulligans on one hole in particular during practice, make it a practice hole, like ST. A #5 you can take mulligans in practice. Maybe even 2 holes, or 1 from each course, like hole 1 only from each course you get mulligans in practice but just one hole might be best as long as it encompasses all aspects to the game, like rough around the green, sand around the green, etc.

Best idea is to just set up one hole and one only as a practice hole where pretty much anything is allowed and all variables are selectable ie wind, green speed, etc. and make this a selection from the main menu, should NOT be hard for WGT to setup at all and essentially gives us a driving range and putting green with chip/pitch options, hell just make a limit of 30 or 40 shots on the hole or no limit, done like dinner and no downsides and easy to implement.

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Prizes

To help hook new players a little more and reward them just a little more, maybe payouts can be tweaked a bit, at least for non-Master players. When you work hard and come in 12th place and get 12 credits, its a bit of a let down and not even close to buying some decent 50 credit balls. Worse is I also came in 52nd place once and I got 1 credit, maybe 3 might have been better, 1 felt like a bit of slap lol.

I think I see why its done this way, to give people hope and encourage them and to also "spread the love" so to speak but when you actually win and come out with 1 credit, I'm not sure its doing what it was intended to do. I also know that the site needs users to contribute in order to survive and grow so I understand that having too many payouts that are too big defeats this and I wouldn't want that for sure.

My suggestion might be to not payout the top 70 players since trying to split up 500 credits (Pro tier) for that many people results in very low payouts. Maybe keep it to the top 25 and/or increasing this to maybe 1000 credits AND having the top 25 or 50 win, might strike a nice balance, also the percentage the top player or two get could be lowered a little to help.

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On another somewhat related note, the fact that WGT gives away these BIG prizes like trips is really commendable. Not too many websites I can think of give away trips that big, and maybe no others I can think of that give away multiple trips many times through a year. For me, and probably many others, its certainly one incentive to stick around and play just to have a chance to win something so cool.

These trips are random, which is a good thing IMO to give everyone a chance, but I have seen them been given away to completely non-active users and even after winning, they are still non-active.

Such is the nature of these things mostly but I might suggest putting a small restriction on winning such a big prize, user must have been active in the last 6 months? Just an idea to keep the actual active community the ones happiest instead of giving away a $4000.00 trip to someone who is over playing at TWO or someone who just doesnt play at all.

One other thing related to the very top point, I'm not sure how many big prizes are being given out, it seems like a fair bit. Maybe a slight reduction in big prizes could free up a little money to make the other payouts mentioned above a little bigger to help give more people incentive to stick around. However a much better idea than that since there are a lot of users on WGT and I'm sure the website has tons of traffic, get some companies to pay for ads here, shouldn't be that hard I would think because of all the traffic and new users that sign up everyday and this would sure help bring in more revenue. So more ads like Acura one! :)

Infinito3010

3,689 Posts

Wed, Feb 3 2010 10:21 AM

This list should be short and manageable. Most likely there are features that WGT are working on that cannot be shared with the community. For example the Skycaddie cams and markers. In my opinion provides more information to the player when they are teeing or making an approach shot.

My thinking is provide a few major additions on each update with minor ones implemented as well as a list of bugs that are being worked on. Thus for the next major release.

1) St. Andrews

2) Shot shaping

3) Ability to save and share the scorecard.

4) Smooth out the meter; Generally it is alot better now; (I'm speaking for myself)

5) Leader-board statistics.

6) Reset putting, driving and approach stats without affecting your awards

7) Stats should be reset when promoted to a new tier.

Bug Fixes should be short also

1) Fairway wood off the tee is being counted as a missed fairway.

marioh

1,055 Posts

Wed, Feb 3 2010 10:25 AM

1) More courses

2) Fix swing meter issues

3) More stats *

4) Adjustable shot clock timer in MP (10, 30, 60, 90, 120)

5) Fix MP search bug

6) Tournament winner listing

7) Ball degradation for lost balls instead of losing the ball

8) Stance control (or anything that facilitates draw/fade shots)

9) Ability to see if friends are currently in the middle of a round or just lurking

10) Spotting balls when everyone is on the green (to prevent the situation where another person's ball is blocking your view of the hole)

* - in regards to stats, I can probably make an entire thread dedicated to all the different stat breakdowns and various leaderboards that take advantage of the huge amount of untapped data that WGT has for every player.

AvatarLee

1,644 Posts

Wed, Feb 3 2010 10:28 AM

jayjonbeach:
A pony - ? what the, who the, what?

We'll get it someday if we keep asking!

OaktheToke

409 Posts

Wed, Feb 3 2010 10:37 AM

I'll keep it to a top 6 since it's necessary to address the most important.

1. Irons that hit to appropriate yardage distances, most notably the 7 iron.

2. Smooth out the sticks an spikes to the swing meter.

3. a new course.......St Andrews

4. Ability to shape shots via drawing or fading.

5. Ability to see different views on the green. Sometimes the avatar blocks the front view or its from too far away.

6. Concede hole option in match play

Personal things I'd like to see

- % degradation for lost balls to land hazards instead of a complete loss

- having ranked stats for all players by tiers to see how players stack up

- a way to vote down a player, specifically cheaters and sandbaggers. When a player hits a certain threshold of votes an alert would be sent to WGT for review and sanction. Seems like WGT isn't acting aggressively enough towards some of these players and the community is the best way to sniff and weed them out. Sort of an online version of the Private Pile treatment from Full Metal Jacket :)