Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

[blacklover]

I've bought every single EA golf game that exists over the years.

Since the introduction of equipment I have noticed that the makers of the game have no clue how equipment really works.

Case in point (and I have sent an email to EA and through connections there for the past 4 years and it's obviously fallen on deaf ears/blind eyes)

Shafts. I won't go into how a Grafalloy Blue costs more in this game than a Mitsu Diamana. That's just silly.

But what bugs the hell out of me and makes me wonder does anyone who makes the game actually tinker with their equipment? If you put a new shaft into your driver it also goes in your irons, wedges, and putter.

That is just plain ridiculous.

Other than KJ Choi I don't know of many pro golfers who have graphite shafts in their irons.

But more than that, why miss out on such a cool opportunity to make a piece of equipment actually matter?

Steel in the irons for consistency and accuracy. Say you choose to change to graphite, now maybe you can hit it farther but you get some hot ones coming out here and there.

A hot shaft in your driver for distance and feel.

Steel in your wedges 100% of the time

Steel in your putter 100% of the time.

Now you should be allowed to change the shaft in those clubs to whatever you want, but on default the shaft you choose for your driver should never ever ever ever go in the rest of your clubs.

All I am saying here is please make each club have it's own shaft choice.

If someone from EA wants to talk to me about this feel free. I will tell you how to price every single piece of equipment properly. You can keep the silly money system but at least have the hot products cost the most.

[NBaldwin]

Re: Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

I've bought every single EA golf game that exists over the years.

Since the introduction of equipment I have noticed that the makers of the game have no clue how equipment really works.

Case in point (and I have sent an email to EA and through connections there for the past 4 years and it's obviously fallen on deaf ears/blind eyes)

Shafts. I won't go into how a Grafalloy Blue costs more in this game than a Mitsu Diamana. That's just silly.

But what bugs the hell out of me and makes me wonder does anyone who makes the game actually tinker with their equipment? If you put a new shaft into your driver it also goes in your irons, wedges, and putter.

That is just plain ridiculous.

Other than KJ Choi I don't know of many pro golfers who have graphite shafts in their irons.

But more than that, why miss out on such a cool opportunity to make a piece of equipment actually matter?

Steel in the irons for consistency and accuracy. Say you choose to change to graphite, now maybe you can hit it farther but you get some hot ones coming out here and there.

A hot shaft in your driver for distance and feel.

Steel in your wedges 100% of the time

Steel in your putter 100% of the time.

Now you should be allowed to change the shaft in those clubs to whatever you want, but on default the shaft you choose for your driver should never ever ever ever go in the rest of your clubs.

All I am saying here is please make each club have it's own shaft choice.

If someone from EA wants to talk to me about this feel free. I will tell you how to price every single piece of equipment properly. You can keep the silly money system but at least have the hot products cost the most.

While I see your point, remeber you're talking about a game where my driving accuracy increases based on what hat and socks I wear! That is one aspect that just needs to be removed from the game if you ask me.

[ndxc2001]

Re: Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

I would have to say that the prices have nothing to do with its real life counterpart or its quality in real life. Its all about brand placement and marketing. I am sure Graffalloy gives more money to EA to put their product in the game and make it the best shaft in the game.

To you point about different shafts in different clubs, I agree with you. You should be able top put steel in your irons and graphit in your woods if you want.

But obviously its just a game and the equipment is not going to have a realistic affect on the clubs. Well at least in the Tiger series

[fishepa]

Re: Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

I've bought every single EA golf game that exists over the years.

Since the introduction of equipment I have noticed that the makers of the game have no clue how equipment really works.

Case in point (and I have sent an email to EA and through connections there for the past 4 years and it's obviously fallen on deaf ears/blind eyes)

Shafts. I won't go into how a Grafalloy Blue costs more in this game than a Mitsu Diamana. That's just silly.

But what bugs the hell out of me and makes me wonder does anyone who makes the game actually tinker with their equipment? If you put a new shaft into your driver it also goes in your irons, wedges, and putter.

That is just plain ridiculous.

Other than KJ Choi I don't know of many pro golfers who have graphite shafts in their irons.

But more than that, why miss out on such a cool opportunity to make a piece of equipment actually matter?

Steel in the irons for consistency and accuracy. Say you choose to change to graphite, now maybe you can hit it farther but you get some hot ones coming out here and there.

A hot shaft in your driver for distance and feel.

Steel in your wedges 100% of the time

Steel in your putter 100% of the time.

Now you should be allowed to change the shaft in those clubs to whatever you want, but on default the shaft you choose for your driver should never ever ever ever go in the rest of your clubs.

All I am saying here is please make each club have it's own shaft choice.

If someone from EA wants to talk to me about this feel free. I will tell you how to price every single piece of equipment properly. You can keep the silly money system but at least have the hot products cost the most.

Excellent point and I totally agree.

[blacklover]

Re: Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

Golf is just really unique when it comes to equipment. I don't think I have seen any other sport/activity where people mess with their equipment so much and have such faith in certain pieces of equipment and hope/expectations placed into the purchase of a new piece of equipment.

There are many forums dedicated solely to what the best grips, shafts, brands, etc are and debate rages over the negative and positives of each one.

Also putting flex into the shafts would be really cool as well. You could just simplify it and have weak shafts tend to hook more and stiff shafts tend to slice more (of course only if you can't handle the shaft flex physically, I supposed a player strength rating would need to be added)

The R7 Taylormade drivers in the game? In real life you can set the weighting in those drivers to counter bad swing results. Why can't I do that in the game? So far I have a tendency to hook my drives slightly in 08 this year. How sweet would it be if I knew I could save up some coin and get that driver and then set the weight up to fight a hook?

I just think there are so many really great things that could be done with equipment that would make people go "wow that is incredible EA sorted this all out".


Here is one more quick gripe I personally have, if you use Tiger get used to any shot that is just barely not perfect resulting in him sadly saying to himself "Tigerrrrrr...." post shot cut scene. I can't hit A fast enough. It's literally like 30 times a round.



I will also post my Tiger Woods suggestion list I have sent in each year.

[ComfortablyLomb]

Re: Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

Part of the problem with the Tiger series (I haven't played this year's yet but I've played everything back to 2002 I think) are the design choices. It's a reoccuring theme with EA too, they just make a lot of lousy design choices.

In Tiger Woods you can have a character be as good as you want them to be so long as you either play the game and beef them up or now purchase a fully loaded character. You still have to play the game and still have to be able to execute but everyone is playing with the same guy ultimately. My guess is that someone felt this makes for a fair and balanced game since everyone has the same tools but my feeling is that you should have to make some choices before you even head out onto the course.

Amazingly, Mario Golf gets this right. You have characters who are deadly straight but short off the tee, power hitters who have some accuracy issues, and shotmaker types who can move the ball around at some other expense like optimal trajectory. Even though it doesn't go too far with this is adds something IMO. Not every golfer plays an identical game in real life because every player has strengths and weaknesses. Even Tiger, while he stripes a lot of drives, tends to have some loose and wild shots every once in a while off the tee. Relative to a lot of guys on tour, his accuracy with his driver is not very good. In past years of this game it's been good enough that it might as well be perfect.

So you have this character that you can max out in every category and give uniformly perfect equipment to. You don't have to choose anything. You can level some stuff up earlier than other stuff but you end up in the same place AND the cost of leveling is set to individual skills, not to total skill which at least would be an improvement because right now it kind of pushes you to build a balanced golfer. When it comes to real equipment, it really does make a big difference what clubs you're playing or what shafts or balls you use. In this game, not really. It's just dumbed down and at this point in the world of golf video games this stuff really should be different but it's not. Instead we have GamerNet.

[blacklover]

Re: Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

#1 Distance.
Not just distance with the driver. Distance with all clubs. Everyone wants to hit it farther, but what golfers discuss all the time is how far they hit particular clubs. Whether they are lying or not is a different discussion. Just about all golfers understand that they must know the yardages they hit their clubs in order to score. The basis of it is Golfer A hits his 5 iron 170. Golfer B hits his 5 iron 185. Now why is this significant? Because a golfers "natural" yardage is based off that. The player who hits his 5 iron 185 will more than likely hit his 4 iron 195 his 3 iron 205 his 6 iron 175, etc. Those are going to be his go to yardages. Golfers discuss and compare how far they hit particular clubs all the time.

So how do you get this in the game? Easy. When you are creating your player you can choose to either have a ceiling you cannot go past no matter how much you upgrade your power stats or you can have your created player have these "custom" yardages right out of the box. For example, I would create myself and then set my yardages for my irons:
3 iron 200
4 iron 190
5 iron 180
6 iron 170

and so on.

This works for the woods too. So in the woods I hit my driver 265-280. All the conditions favoring me I can hit one 300, but everything has to be just right. My three wood can go 240-260 off the tee and 230-240 out of the fairway.

So what can be done with your created player is you can make him play exactly like yourself. Which seems to be what the developers are going after and I think that is a great idea.

In the game you would have a section with your club select that popped up a yardage window for every club in your bag. You could fine tune your distances right there. If you wanted to keep the progression aspect of the game you could make further and further distances available in that yardage window but still allow the user to tone his distance down.

#2 Equipment
Golfers obsess over equipment, there is no doubt. The TW game has a great assortment of equipment but one certain thing is handled very wrong. Shafts. If you put a new shaft in your driver you also get that shaft in your other clubs including the putter! NO NO NO. That is not right at all. Many people religiously fine tune their equipment, Pros for sure. A certain shaft in your driver, another shaft in your fairways woods (generally the same shaft in any additional fairway woods) steel in your irons and wedges and almost a 100% guarantee of a steel shaft in your putter.

How to fix it? Again, easy. Allow users to select shafts individually for their clubs.

#1 This is an easy fix. Give the user the option to select different brand wedges in his set. Ditto for Fairway woods. So for PW GW SW and LW you could have a Cleveland, Ping, TaylorMade, and a Cleveland. The PW is changed out usually in a set where the rest are oversized and/or improvement irons and the player wants a little more precision in his chipping, short approach club. The other wedges are just based on preference. Like a player has his trusty SW and he's not giving it up but he purchases a different brand Gap wedge because he likes the new technology. These same ideas hold true with fairway woods. Generally they match but many times a player will have a Fairway wood that matches his Driver or not, and then add in another brand wood that he hits well. This goes double for the hybrids. The predisposition is there to select like brands but that is not always what ends up happening.

Speaking of the hybrids. Allow the user to change his long irons out for hybrids. 3 4 and even 5 for Hybrid model's in the same degrees. If the details of these substitutions are over the head of your basic purchaser of the game you could always include info on the purchase screen (This TM Hybrid Rescue Wood Mid-5 is 25 degrees and will replace your 4 iron)

Also within the set of irons allow the user to select a different brand for 3,4,5,6 and 7,8,9, and PW. Many times players will play oversized irons in their long irons and blades in their short irons. So with Cleveland for instance, 3,4,5,6 In the TA6 irons and 7,8,9,PW in the CG1 blades.

#2 Add long putters and belly putters. I hate them both with a passion, but they are part of the game and it would be very satisfying to beat some goof who was using a long putter.

#3 Change the monetary values and rate of progression. Or add a Tour Progression mode. Scale the equipment prices back to reality. It doesn't have to be right on the dollar, but have the irons cost $1000 and the Driver $500 wedges $200, etc. Then have the amounts you win beating other players reduced drastically. If you beat one of the fantasy characters in the beginning have the user only win $400 or so dollars. Price the upgrade points to your skill categories within the scale of this lowered earning potential. As you progress slower and get better the mini tour stuff opens up. Once you start going on tour and/or playing remote events, you now have to factor in the cost of getting to an event. So if there is a $100,000 event in Australia or Europe, you would have to calculate your travel expense vs. winning or placing high in the
event. So maybe you could actually lose out if you go and only place 25th or so. Just make it more realistic money wise to play the game. As it stands you can earn 2 million after playing the game for 6 hours.


Now to gameplay. The number one addition to gameplay should be a slider for the Analog Swing. This would allow the user the ability to fine tune the "tolerance" of the Analog Swing. Lower the slider for less "tolerance/accuracy" with the Analog swing and Raise it for more forgiveness.

Take it one step further and have the Analog Swing "tolerance" slider for:
Tee Shots
Par 3 Tee Shots
Approach Shots
Chips
Putts
Specialty Shots
Recovery Shots

This goes hand and hand with the distances a golfer hits. This would allow the user to set the game up to mimic his own golf game.
Wild off the tee, Good approach game, Mean short game and a lousy putter.
Straight off the tee, average on approach, okay short game, Great putter.
Average off the tee, Deadly on approach, good short game and a deft putter.
etc.

Here is one other thing too. In the club selection area or another spot, include two check boxes:
Glove off when putting?
Glove off with short game shots?

Here is something crazy but really cool. Have an ultimate golfer "boss". He would of course be Bobby Jones. In the game he would wear his plus fours and tie and use his wooden shafted clubs. He would be virtually impossible to beat. Have him in the game represented with a black and white or sepia toned image that glowed. If you beat him you would get his wooden shafted clubs and him to use. Also maybe unlock an old sepia toned course (done like the old time stuff in MVP) Plus you get the ability to use his glowing effect online or offline.

So when you went online and you were glowing people would know you were a hot stuff, or if you saw someone glowing online you would be like full of fear.

When you play match play against the CPU the tendency of all the CPU opponents is to hit a straight ball 99% of the time. More personality could be injected into the game by having the CPU have playing styles. This goes with my previous email about Great off the tee, good at approach shot, lousy putter, etc. Have the Scottish CPU player hit a really low ball to cheat the wind. Have the Cowboy hit a running hook to take advantage of the hard Texas courses. Have another hit a high fade, low cut, whatever. Just shake it up a little.

Next when setting up the speed of the greens have it be based on the Stimp rating. Putting green speeds are measured by a device called a Stimp Meter. A ball is rolled off the stimp meter onto the green in 8 different directions. The average of the distance the ball rolls off the Stimp Meter is the "stimp rating." PGA tour greens require a stimp between 10 to 12. Municipal courses measure between 7 to 10. Of course you don't have to have the machine. Just use the rating system. Provide info in the manual or using the help button in game. Or let people figure it out for themselves. Learning is always good.

Ok one last thing for now. Please incorporate a grid system for the putting green or some other way to indicate the highs and lows of the green. And along the lines of this, when the CPU hits a ball onto the green just outside your own and on your line, allow a camera view that shows the line. When people play golf for real they use all the info they can to assist them in how the green will react. Having a ball on your line is about as good as it can get. As in Chris DiMarco and Phil Mickelson on the last putt to win the Masters a few years back. Phil will tell you all about how great it is!


Adding a caddy feature would help the game tremendously. As it is now there is info given but not to the degree a pro golfer would have it. There should be info given about where the best place is to hit your approach onto the green. Pin high, below the hole, etc There should be Putting line suggestion (for Tiger’s or any of the current pros caddy it would be pretty flawless info, a basic beginning caddy could give you bad info just because they don’t know) Chips need more pre-shot feedback than that non-informative small square grid, even if it was as simple as just showing what direction the green tended to flow in regards to your vantage point. A top caddy should also put the right club in your hand. If the shot is 155 yards but it’s 45 feet downhill and the wind is blowing with you 10mph he should hand you the club to get the job done. More lie information would be helpful too. Is the ground soft, medium, or hard? If in the rough, will the club head tend to twist open or shut through impact? Is the lie to terrible that the only option is to punch out sideways to the fairway?

This should be something the Pros already in the game have full access to but a beginning golfer would have to buy caddy upgrades either by buying new caddies from a selection of various knowledge levels (for ex. wind specialist, personal relative, all-arounder, therapist, club puller, former player, gambler/hustler (gives aggressive/dangerous info) bag carrier, Mini-Tour Caddy, Tour Caddy, Legend) or purchasing yardage books, buying a GPS for practice rounds, etc

[ComfortablyLomb]

Re: Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

Golf is just really unique when it comes to equipment. I don't think I have seen any other sport/activity where people mess with their equipment so much and have such faith in certain pieces of equipment and hope/expectations placed into the purchase of a new piece of equipment.

There are many forums dedicated solely to what the best grips, shafts, brands, etc are and debate rages over the negative and positives of each one.

Also putting flex into the shafts would be really cool as well. You could just simplify it and have weak shafts tend to hook more and stiff shafts tend to slice more (of course only if you can't handle the shaft flex physically, I supposed a player strength rating would need to be added)

The R7 Taylormade drivers in the game? In real life you can set the weighting in those drivers to counter bad swing results. Why can't I do that in the game? So far I have a tendency to hook my drives slightly in 08 this year. How sweet would it be if I knew I could save up some coin and get that driver and then set the weight up to fight a hook?

I just think there are so many really great things that could be done with equipment that would make people go "wow that is incredible EA sorted this all out".

The amount that golfers tweak and replace equipment reminds me of how much guitar players fiddle with their gear. Meanwhile, many baseball players will use the same glove for their entire career if they can. Golf equipment is so much more technologically driven that it makes sense though.

What you're saying gets back to the point that the golfers themselves should be more unique. All this 1-100 rating type stuff stinks IMO. It's almost too fine. Something All Pro Football of Madden style with weapons or skills would be better. Give the player X amount of points to spend on skills like power hitter, super power hitter, accurate wedges, lag putter, flop master or something. I dunno, it could all be better but that's just my two cents.

[fishepa]

Re: Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

The amount that golfers tweak and replace equipment reminds me of how much guitar players fiddle with their gear. Meanwhile, many baseball players will use the same glove for their entire career if they can. Golf equipment is so much more technologically driven that it makes sense though.

What you're saying gets back to the point that the golfers themselves should be more unique. All this 1-100 rating type stuff stinks IMO. It's almost too fine. Something All Pro Football of Madden style with weapons or skills would be better. Give the player X amount of points to spend on skills like power hitter, super power hitter, accurate wedges, lag putter, flop master or something. I dunno, it could all be better but that's just my two cents.

There are A LOT of things that TW08 can improve on. Atmosphere for one, I hate the camera angles. It would be nice to be able to have multiple camera angles. For instance, in Links 2003 for the PC, you have about 10 other cameras you can tile on the screen that are in real time with what's happening. Something like that would be sweet. Equipment is another issue.

[ComfortablyLomb]

Re: Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

I've never understood the hatred for long putters and belly. The people who use them by and large are very mediocre even with them (good putters almost uniformly use some brand's version of the Ping Anser, I realize there are some exceptions but good putters tend to gravitate toward it) so it's not like they're that much of an advantage. It's like hating on cavity backed irons.

[ComfortablyLomb]

Re: Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

There are A LOT of things that TW08 can improve on. Atmosphere for one, I hate the camera angles. It would be nice to be able to have multiple camera angles. For instance, in Links 2003 for the PC, you have about 10 other cameras you can tile on the screen that are in real time with what's happening. Something like that would be sweet. Equipment is another issue.

Oh man, I forgot all about Links' awesome picture-in-picture options. They were so good. JN6 had a pretty good landing PIP with an option or two but one was the max. Links' were just sublime. They were a blast to watch the ball come in on too. I remember my old weak computer hating them.

[Triggerfish]

Re: Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

All this would be great for a future game of Tiger but not sure if it would be appreciated outside of the "sim" crowd. Also what if Wilson decides to pay more money then taylormade to have the best clubs? We would be upset! :-)
I could use the belly putter!! At least we got hybrids in this years game!

[blacklover]

Re: Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

Ha ha, the only reason I hate on belly putters and long putters is that it takes away from what a pain in the A$$ putting is. Some people are naturally gifted at putting and others struggle their whole lives.

Putting is basically what separates the Tour Pros from everyone else.

That and of course consistency, but you look at the stats for the pros and you see how much putting really matters.

If Brad Faxon could not putt he would have had another job a decade ago.

I am just a purist when it comes to putting and I think it should be as difficult for others as it is for me, and no crutches are allowed!

[ComfortablyLomb]

Re: Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

All this would be great for a future game of Tiger but not sure if it would be appreciated outside of the "sim" crowd. Also what if Wilson decides to pay more money then taylormade to have the best clubs? We would be upset! :-)
I could use the belly putter!! At least we got hybrids in this years game!

I think having players with strengths and weaknesses is much more "sim" than building soulless uber-players. Ditto for equipment having different effects. It really does in real life and it should in a golf game too. Play with a trusty rusty and you'll going to get a little more spin and little less of a soft touch than if you play with a gunmetal wedge. You should be able to adjust a lot of things like shot height and shot tendencies as defaults for players as well. That was in JN6 maybe ten years ago and it's like a lost gem. Some players are natural high ball hitters, some keep the ball low, some have a five yard draw, some hit a slight cut. Pro golfers generally don't hit a dead straight ball. It's a little counter-intuitive but it's actually easier to control placement of a shot with some movement on it.

[ComfortablyLomb]

Re: Tiger 08 (this bothers me every year)

Ha ha, the only reason I hate on belly putters and long putters is that it takes away from what a pain in the A$$ putting is. Some people are naturally gifted at putting and others struggle their whole lives.

Putting is basically what separates the Tour Pros from everyone else.

That and of course consistency, but you look at the stats for the pros and you see how much putting really matters.

If Brad Faxon could not putt he would have had another job a decade ago.

I am just a purist when it comes to putting and I think it should be as difficult for others as it is for me, and no crutches are allowed!

The game of golf is basically putting. Even bad putters on tour are very very good putters overall. You can get away with a lot of ugly shots if you drain a few mid-range putts and rarely three-putt. It's not really a mechanic thing though, at least not in my mind. It's a mental thing. There was an interview with Brad Faxon on the golf channel a little while back and he was asked about his philosophy of putting. He basically said that the key for him is not caring. He steps up, picks a line, gives the ball a roll without thinking about it too much, and he drops a lot of them that way. I'll buy it, some of my best days on the greens are when I'm not thinking about it much if at all. Given the way that some golfers literally fall apart as putters as they get over, head cases with the yips, there's probably a lot of truth to it.