andyson:
I believe it affects every player the exact same way, across the board, but the patent states it is a function of one's skill level changing. If you are improving, you'll see bad stuff more often, if your skills are static you won't see it, if your skill is regressing you'll get surprisingly good shots (which I've never seen a complaint about.)
There seems to be a misunderstanding of the patent, or it was not highlighted clearly enough in the application. It seems from the patent that using VEM, the more skill displayed by the player, the smaller the sweet spot is and the more precise the club is.
Thus, in the patent:
"As a user becomes more adept at using a piece of virtual equipment, the
sweet spot for one or more of the virtual equipment's variables is
adjusted to require the user's interaction with the virtual equipment to
achieve values for those
variables closer to their means in order to cause a successful outcome.
Likewise, as a user's skill level decreases, the sweet spot for one or
more of the virtual equipment's variables can be adjusted to allow the
user's interaction with the virtual
equipment to achieve values for those variables farther from their means
and still have a chance of causing a successful outcome.
"Accuracy is the probability that a given piece of virtual
equipment will perform as a user intended. The probability that a swing
of a virtual golf club will cause a virtual golf ball to follow an
intended trajectory and land where it was aimed
is an example of accuracy. ... Precision is the probability that user interaction with a given
piece of virtual equipment will result
in the same outcome time after time. For example, precision can be the
probability that the same swing of a golf club will result in the same
outcome. In one implementation, the accuracy and precision of a given
piece of virtual equipment can be
automatically increased as a user's skill level increases. Similarly,
the accuracy and precision of a given piece of virtual equipment can be
automatically decreased as a user's skill level decreases."
What this means to me - and what VEM is really all about - is that the more proficiency the players shows, the harder it is to hit the sweet spot (we can perhaps assume for this purpose that hitting the "sweet spot" means the same as "dinging" the shot), i.e. the timeframe for hitting the "ding" is reduced.
If the player fails to rise to the increasing challenge represented by the smaller sweet spot, mis-hits will be punished more severely. This is what most people are complaining about when it comes to VEM.
However, if the player does rise to the increasing challenge and does hit
the smaller sweet spot, the shot will be more accurate and precise. This is how the top players are able to shoot rounds in the low 50s.