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WGT vs. EA Tiger Woods online

• nivlac 2,188 Posts

  Wed, Jul 1 2009 12:02 PM

  CallawayJay:  Critical fumbles/turnovers/BS plays are exactly why I stopped playing that damn game. 

  Madden's the only game I ever played where I'd be up 21-0 with the ball in the 4th quarter with 70 seconds to play and still lose.  Difficulty adjustment on the fly is BS.

  Tiger Woods on console does the same crap.  You shoot a 54 the first day of a tournament and all of the sudden the computer 'responds' and starts shooting 53's.

  That kind of system has no place here.

   

• leftygolfpro 10 Posts

  Wed, Jul 1 2009 12:40 PM

  I agree that on the fly AI is no good. IMO, they should fix the variance on the shot bar and make the ball fly the way it should off of uphill, downhill & sidehill lies. Also, they could change green speeds, grow rough & narrow fairways to make up for the "lack of shot bar" variance.  This would make the game very challenging & realistic. I also think they should add  four round tournaments with the ability to change pin placements, wind & tee markers each round.

  I also think that WGT is more realistic than Tiger Woods 2009. The TW series hasn't even decided if they want to be a realistic simulation or an arcade game. You can control the ball in the air, when you chip it looks like a full swing, the players look like cartoon characters, ETC. If the online version is like the console version, then WGT has nothing to worry about.

  Again, IMO WGT is heading in the right direction. If they iron out a few bugs and keep the updates coming, they will have an fantastic product. Time will tell...........................

• callawayjay 46 Posts

  Wed, Jul 1 2009 7:02 PM

  nivlac I agree with you on Madden, that's why I will stand by my all time favourite, Tecmo Super Bowl, but even as perfect a game that was it had it's flaws.  We need to come to grips with the fact that this game has it's flaws and the more I read, the more I believe that they are not programmed into the game.  No game is perfect.  Even when grand theft auto 4 was released and received 10 out of 10 ratings, often I had to reboot because my drunk Niko was stuck behind a tree and a rock and no matter what you tried he was staying there for the night.....lol.  But  seriously, games glitch, they are not perfect, especially over the net.  I think what is needed here is someone from the WGT to provide some insight into this discussion.  Perhaps a percentage of glitches.  they have those sats I can assure you.  if they can tell us how many tried to qualify for the us open or how many rounds are played in a day, they sure as hell can tell us how many times games have frozen or lag tendencies, and whatnot.   Keeping us in the dark will not make them any friends.  Otherwise, I feel the level of frustration and unrest will drive many more away than they attract.

• dorkfeatures 712 Posts

  Wed, Jul 1 2009 8:48 PM

  Hi Guys,

  Great post and some really interesting stuff here.

  Why cant we have a LIVE FORUM consisting of WGT members, and a select group of experienced players eg the Tibbets, Avatarlee's, Nivlacs of this world.

  Similar Ebay live forum, or LIVE HELP !!

  Select the time, get an agenda together and do a LIVE HOOKUP. As I said keep it to say 6 player reps and 2 - 3 WGT members. Admin personel, programmers etc.

  Lets face it - we all want the same from this site. Everyone just needs to pull in the same direction.

  WGT - where are you. You need to respond to these posts, and let people know you are hearing them.

  Great site though, despite the issues.

  Just my 2bobs worth

  Cheers Doug

• iconian 599 Posts

  Thu, Jul 2 2009 1:02 PM

  I think that some of you don't have an idea how this game works. Now, ideally you want this game to be as close to the real thing as possible; however, it's impossible. For the same reason stated above, you cannot simulate random wind swirls that correspond to the course. Now, do you actually need to do that? No, for that you allow randomness...ie deviations...The problem with these deviations now, they aren't to allow for those swirls but for whatever other reason.

  Let's be honest, this game has nothing similar to the live course. This engine is 100% math, followed us some 'skins'. It's called physics engine, but it's not, not really... 100% of the game core is represented by math and different programming thingies...A perfect example of that is this: when you play closest to the hole, AS SOON AS YOU HIT, the computer knows exactly where you will end up (how else you'd hear that sound when you hit inside 10ft ???) What does this mean? Simple, that as soon as the shot is hit, everything is predetermined before the ball falls (it's not the same in real life, so don't even bother thinking it is).

  So, if the computer knows all this as soon as you hit it, how does it know this? Simple - math. Imagine every hole being a grid of lines each is about 2 inches long/wide intersecting each other perpendiculary. That's how it is in reality, so when you have a club (which is just another component with predetermined properties) hitting the ball by aiming on the bar (all different components) all the engine does is component 1 + another, + another , etc and compute result...

  Here is a breakdown (simplified obviously). Imagine you are at hole 3 BP, thats 209 yards: here are some of your components

  1. club, 2 how  u apply  spin to ball, 3 ball itself, 4 wind, 5, green, 6 swing bar.  So you swing, make a 2mm left of perfect swing with 200bs club into 9mph tail wind.

  Computer starts calculating: 200 club + 9mph wind,  + spin, - not a perfect shot (maybe 2% penalty), then once it has a place where you fall, it looks where it is: if its rough, it treats as that, and so on...(deviation...)

  -

  What we are asking from the WGT (mind you, they have their own ideas how to doit and in the end its their heads on the line, not ours), to tell us some of the variables to help us execute better shots... Ie. if you hit 1 club, how much does it fly/run, or if you add bs or ts how is it changes flight/run. How much does wind affect flight, (ie 10mph head wind acts like 1 yard lost every 20 yards of light) means 200 club would only go 190...

  Anyway, let's get back to serious stuff... I been here for a year before even closed beta started (one requiring l/p) by doing 3 or 4 different closest to the pin tournys...

  So, I been around for while:) So, when i make a statement, I base it on facts and while i only have 200 rounds recorded, i probably played 10x more than that!

  I dont think WGT is trying to dilute the pool of winners, I just think it's hard to win consistenly the 1 entry events for the same few people, for everyone has a bad day or the course screws you (without even offering to buy you dinner!)

  Now, tiger woods beta thing coming and will be final much faster i guess, so I hope WGT does the following within the next few month:

  1. give us the breakdowns on how clubs work/ball flies. We all have an idea, but it would be nice to be exact.

  2. get rid of the deviations, if I execute it right, I want to see a ball go exactly where I hit it.

  3. Introduce real backspin, I want to be able to fly to #4 BP, 3-4 yards past the pin and spin it back - That is what I been craving for since the beginning.

  4. I realise this game is only as good as many courses it has and on the surface if you have 2 full courses it sucks compared to having 6-8. But, i disgaree - Let's have 2 best friggen courses we can have and then get others...

  I have communicated this to WGT leadership numerous times in the last several monthS. Not only via emails but during our games and just chats, so YES, they are aware; however, they have their own pace and plans.

  I will checkout the tiger woods online, and compare it to this, but I plan to stick around here and perhaps over there:)

  Cheers:)

• gitthe 66 Posts

  Thu, Jul 2 2009 1:52 PM

  Good discussion...

  I want to defend WGT on this.  I don't mind the beast.  Without it, scoring would get out of hand.  In my opinion, it is perfectly acceptable for there to be unforeseen deviation on a a misclick or even an "Excellent!" swing.  I like that the deviation on misclicks is random as we saw what happened when people could intentionally misclick to direct shots.  As clubs evolve and precision is increased, I do think we will see less deviation on "Excellent!" swings and greater penalty for extreme misclicks.  In this way, people will be able to choose whether they want to upgrade their clubs to attain greater distance and accuracy at the risk of greater deviation.  In my mind, you can only increase precision (i.e., decrease deviation) if you decrease forgiveness and penalize misclicks.  I bought the taylormade irons but don't use them because this is how they operate.  I chose to forgo increased precision of the pings to use more forgiving tour starters.

  After three years playing Halo online, I stopped playing because it became almost completely dependent on connection as to whether you could win an encounter with an enemy.  I feel that here (despite lag spikes which have decreased tremendously for me) all players are at least operating under the same set of rules, even if those rules are unspoken.  Part of the fun of the game for me is solving what those rules are. 

  In my mind, those that perfectly click at a higher percentage should be rewarded with lower scoring, I think this is the direction that the game is heading.  It would be interesting to do a case study of 10 games where people counted their perfect clicks, recorded their scores and we compared them.  I am almost certain that on average, perfect clicks and scores would be inversely proportional.

  Tibbets said it well, it will be WGT's future on the line in the choice that they make regarding this issue.  But just because they don't eliminate the beast, doesn't meant that they aren't listening.  They may very well be choosing to incrementally increase precision.  And although I sound like a brown nosing employee of WGT, I am not.  I just appreciate their effort and love this game.

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Thu, Aug 27 2009 6:32 PM

  I got an invite from Tiger Woods Online earlier today to join the beta testing, and I'd like to relate my first impressions when comparing that game to WGT, along with a few screenshots. My first impression is that WGT is, at this moment, vastly superior; I think this is the third Beta version of TWO, but its most disappointing aspect right now is that you can't really follow the ball flight at all. Perhaps this is going to be fixed in later versions. You hit your shot and then you usually get to see an irrelevant camera view, with the ball nowhere to be seen. Then a camera cut and the new lie of the ball is shown.   This happens practically on every shot; except for putts, I was never able to follow ball movement, and I played about 10 holes at Pebble Beach (collecting a +41 over par in the process). Another disappointment: either I'm blind, or TWO does not currently offer any option for multi-player games! This is by far the greatest feature of WGT. The graphics of WGT, too, is vastly superior over that of TWO; it's really galaxies apart. TWO has its advantages, too, though: you can draw & fade (by pulling a dot on the ball sideways). There are many keyboard shortcuts with which you can, for example, move your aim (this always takes too much time with the mouse here on WGT.com). Pressing the mouse-wheel instantly transfers you to your aim location. Rolling the mouse wheel selects the club you want to use.  There is a spoken commentary presenting every hole to you as you move on to your next tee shot. There are spectators clapping. There are birds chirping. Etc., etc.

  A few screenshots (click any of them for full size)... The golfer is 3D & moves his body (and even face muscles) a lot, mourns and celebrates, unlike WGT's avatar:

     

  Here are a couple of typical views after you hit the ball. The ball flight is nowhere to be seen, instead you get to see an irrelevant view, with some text information at the bottom of the screen related to the shot you've just hit, but you can't see the ball. You need to wait a couple of seconds until the new lie appears.

    

  One of TWO's best features is the ultra-generous array of keyboard shortcuts to control the game and optimize your shot (however, the game currently crashes when you attempt to play it in full-screen):

   

  Finally, a putting screenshot:

   

  (A sidenote: the driver in TWO hits only 207 yards by default. How many people complain here on WGT that this site's basic driver "only" hits 225 yards on average! Second sidenote: TWO decided not to experiment with their discussion forum – they simply installed the standard free phpBB forum software package. Whether the forum is properly moderated or not, I can't say from what I've seen so far.)

• Crusty56 136 Posts

  Thu, Aug 27 2009 7:15 PM

  I too have played a round on TWO, with their 207 yrd driver. During that round I accumulated enough $$ to "enhance" that driver, increasing the distance to 212 yds. And guess what......I didn't have to spend real money to "Buy" new clubs to do it, nor did I have to win a tournament, or buy special balls.

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Thu, Aug 27 2009 7:25 PM

  And could you see the ball flight? I mean, a golf game that shows me landscapes & close-up pictures of tree leaves instead of the flying ball I've just hit, does not seem to make much sense.  

• Crusty56 136 Posts

  Thu, Aug 27 2009 8:14 PM

  Nope, could not see the ball flight, or the trees blowing in the wind, or birds flying. But I did notice that any balls landing  left, right, or short of the aiming point, were due to my mistakes.

  It's funny, but when playing real rounds, the only reason I follow the ball flight is to see where it lands (so I can find it). If I had a spotter I wouldn't bother watching it.

  The big turn off for me is the amount of time it takes to load initially, then the time it takes to load the selected course. Thought I could take a nap while waiting.