Over the past two years, we’ve gathered lots of feedback from our player community about our Tier system to help rank players as Master, Pro, Amateur and Hack. Today, we’d like to share with you some improvements that we are planning to make to address that feedback and improve the game. These changes are designed to help everyone compete more fairly and unlock new virtual golf equipment. We look forward to your comments and questions to help us finalize these changes this month.
SKILL TIERS
Tiers will continue to be based on your scores and used to determine who you compete against in tournaments and match play. To make competition more interesting and fair, we plan to introduce three additional Tiers: Tour Pro, Tour Master and Legend, as described below.
| OLD Tiers |
NEW Tiers |
| 1. Master |
1. Legend |
| 2. Tour Master |
| 3. Master |
| 2. Pro |
4. Tour Pro |
| 5. Pro |
| 3. Amateur |
6. Amateur |
| 4. Hack |
7. Hack |
There would be no changes for players in the Amateur and Hack Tiers, but the Master and Pro Tiers need to be divided to be more fair, so we’ve grouped similar players by their recent scores. Current Pro players would become Pro, Tour Pro or Master, and current Master players would become Master, Tour Master or Legend.
LEVELS
We also plan to introduce new Experience Levels that will be based on actions you perform on WGT such as completing rounds, hitting shots and interacting with other players. Experience Levels will not be skill-based like Tiers; instead, you will level up as you play and interact on WGT.
At new Levels, players will be able to unlock new virtual items previously unavailable to them. Since this is a new reward system, we’re considering having everyone start at the same place, Level 0. Those who spend time on WGT will be able to level up fairly quickly.
One nice benefit of Levels will be encouraging players to finish more multi-player games, since completing the round will help to increase their Level, making multi-player games more fair and fun.
PRO SHOP
The other highly requested change is from players who want to buy more of the advanced equipment in the Pro Shop. We’re planning to make the equipment in the Pro Shop available based on Level rather than Tier. A player who never develops all the skills necessary to reach the Master Tier will still be able to gain access to advanced equipment if they achieve enough experience Levels.
As in real life, you may never play as well as a real pro, but that doesn’t mean you can’t buy the same equipment they’re using. However, also in real life, some golf equipment will continue to be designed for beginners and other for experts, in terms of factors like swing meter speed and forgiveness.
We are not planning to make changes to any of the golf equipment that players have previously won or purchased. Everything that was in your WGT bag will still be there, with the same name, and perform the same as it did before. After the change, you would still be able to sell back any equipment to the Pro Shop for credits, but not be able to purchase the older equipment in the Pro Shop.