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New Solution: Tier vs. Level

• godelescher 636 Posts

  Fri, Jan 13 2012 6:30 AM

  If you use reality as a model, there is a quasi-solution to the equipment vs. tier debate.

  In real life, a regular guy off the street is able to purchase any clubs he wants to, but at retail prices. He can get fitted for custom clubs if he chooses. He can buy the same clubs as TW if he chooses to spend the money.

  The reason most people don't spend the money for such extravagances is because it's cost prohibitive.

  Professional golfers have sponsors who supply them with their equipment; in some cases, even custom-make equipment for them.

  Why not unlock all equipment for all players, but tie the price to tier. Make it cost prohibitive for Amateurs (20,000 credits for a L90 R11 driver, or whatever).

  As you progress through the tiers, the equipment becomes cheaper,as if you were a club pro who might get a 20% discount in the pro shop, or a Nike Tour pro who can purchase his clubs directly from the manufacturer at cost. All the way up to PGA Tour pros who pay only shipping and handling to have the clubs delivered.

  People would mostly buy what they can afford. Some would shell out big bucks at lower tiers for the best equipment, but that would be their prerogative.

  In the end, there would be much more financial incentive to advance.

  Gifting would have to be at the recipient's price.

• sixkiller 1,147 Posts

  Fri, Jan 13 2012 7:13 AM

  Not a bad idea, if it had been implemented 18 months ago.

• hpurey 11,521 Posts

  Fri, Jan 13 2012 8:01 AM

  sixkiller:

  Not a bad idea, if it had been implemented 18 months ago.

  I agree

• oilyrag 875 Posts

  Fri, Jan 13 2012 8:28 AM

  great idea for slashing profits to just about zero

• godelescher 636 Posts

  Fri, Jan 13 2012 9:12 AM

  oilyrag:

  great idea for slashing profits to just about zero

  Not sure where the misinterpretation was, but I can't imagine this would be the case.

  Lesser clubs would still be available at reasonable prices. As you improve and move through the ranks, the volume of what is reasonably priced would grow.

  Purely conjecture, but I imagine a player would upgrade his clubs more frequently, not less.

• godelescher 636 Posts

  Fri, Jan 13 2012 9:50 AM

  sixkiller:

  Not a bad idea, if it had been implemented 18 months ago.

  Understandable comment.

  You can't make a change like that overnight because an existing level 93 tour pro with the best equipment will have even more of an advantage if his fellow tour pros will be financially restricted from purchasing the same clubs.

  That's why a shift to such a format would have to be done in conjunction with a retroactive reshuffling of tiers that also factors in unranked games.

  A year and a half ago, I went from Amateur to Master overnight. It's happened before and, with the current majority of players choosing to spend their time in unranked formats, another reshuffling is almost certain to happen again.

  The current level/tier/equipment format has become obsolete with the advent of AS, MP, Blitz, and Skins games and WGT is well aware of it.

  I have no doubt another reshuffling will occur someday and when it does, Masters with 100 ranked rounds and 3,000 AS games will wake up one morning as Legends. On that day, this format becomes entirely plausible.

• oilyrag 875 Posts

  Fri, Jan 13 2012 9:59 AM

  there are over 4 million accounts on this site , approx 2500 legend - it's in another thread somewhere, hacks and amateurs number in the millions, you need to get them hooked in. pricing them out will deter them. if the cost is artificially held high, the rate of progression to the higher tier will be much less than it is now.

  i'm at a lower tier, plodding through to L88 because i need better equipment to compete, in order to progress - it will probably take me another 2 months. put the price up for lower tiers then I quit today.

• godelescher 636 Posts

  Fri, Jan 13 2012 11:35 AM

  oilyrag:

  hacks and amateurs number in the millions, you need to get them hooked in. pricing them out will deter them

  Hacks and Amateurs are already denied most of the equipment through the level system. The only Hacks and Amateurs with high end equipment are sandbaggers.

  oilyrag:

  if the cost is artificially held high, the rate of progression to the higher tier will be much less than it is now.

  Not true if unranked games are factored in. Also, you're ignoring that tier-appropriate clubs would not be priced artificially high. You're also ignoring that the price of equipment would go down as you progress.

  oilyrag:

  i'm at a lower tier, plodding through to L88 because i need better equipment to compete

  And in this hypothetical situation, that equipment would be available to you today... if you chose to avail yourself of them.

  oilyrag:

  i'm at a lower tier, plodding through to L88 because i need better equipment to compete

  Compete with whom? Tour Pros with Legend clubs? Yeah, me too. That's the whole point.

  oilyrag:

  in order to progress - it will probably take me another 2 months. put the price up for lower tiers then I quit today.

  I imagine WGT would gain more regular players than they would lose if sandbagging were no longer an issue.

   

• iukine 195 Posts

  Fri, Jan 13 2012 11:36 AM

  start everyone as legends, and the more they suck the lower their ranking.thus the club thing isn't an issue.

• LeonDelBosque 1,551 Posts

  Fri, Jan 13 2012 12:05 PM

  I agree with oilyrag. No one ever considers the business model first. Second, most of the players in the forums can/did do well with lousy equipment; there are many, many more who need good equipment to play reasonably well. There are too many sandbaggers, to be sure, but there are also tons of honest masters with R11s and burners and Nike balls and Cleveland wedges who still can't compete with legends.