EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

The continued lack of cross play is one that is so mystifying.

Usually that is a restriction because of different modes of play or interaction methods on different platforms, but that is not the case here. Everybody has to use the controller on every platform anyways.

Given the golf games are such a small niche you would think they would prioritize this to keep a vibrant online ecosystem across platforms

Yeah, crossplay not being in is a miss, for sure. I especially wish there were cross-platform Country Clubs - even 2K doesn't have crossplay societies.

But it really does seem that EA went pretty much all-in on the single player-focused experience. Challenges, Career Mode, the daily/weekly/seasonal Tournaments...all are single player modes. The only big multiplayer thing they added was the Ryder Cup...and even then, folks were displeased that there wasn't a full offline Ryder Cup mode to play like Tiger Woods 11 had, or it wasn't integrated into career mode in some way.

Honestly, the way they do online play in this game...it doesn't really entice me at all. I much prefer the 9-hole ranked match play in 2K when I'm looking to play online games of golf.

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

For those who can tolerate him (), here's an EA-sponsored ApexHound video with him playing as the Golden Bear at Augusta's Par-3 course:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-AN30xmVes

And Gamer Ability did the same!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMgSnX9drZ4

[scagwi]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

.. it really does seem that EA went pretty much all-in on the single player-focused experience. Challenges, Career Mode, the daily/weekly/seasonal Tournaments...all are single player modes.

Just make sure you stay connected to the Internet forever ... and hope EA never pulls the server/license check access

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

Just make sure you stay connected to the Internet forever ... and hope EA never pulls the server/license check access

Yep...sadly this is the state of live service gaming now. If either PGA Tour game shuts it down, you're basically SOL.

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

Just advanced my career mode to the next season, as I was already in the FedExCup Playoffs and finished those up.

In my next season now post-update, I do get Valhalla, Pinehurst No. 2, and Royal Troon as major hosts. No need to restart your career at all.

[Dawgfan1]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

Pretty pleased with the new content aspect of this update. Not having much of anything in the way of meaningful gameplay adjustments and fixes is a bit of a negative for me, I prefer that side over new content. But also I wanted the 2024 major courses and Augusta Par 3 so getting that all in one update instead of drip fed over the next 3 months is a big plus, maybe it will leave more room for gameplay fixes in the future cause they won't be forced to devote time to getting one course out every month. And getting Jack is the icing on the cake.

As I've stressed before, going forward I'd like to see more transparency from EA. I still feel that has been lacking the last several months and the decision to shadow-drop the update with no patch notes beforehand (even if yesterday was April Fools and Sunday was Easter, why not do it Friday or Saturday?) exemplifies that. Like what happened last year, give us a list of things that are being worked on that we can expect to be included in updates over the coming months. It's just better to leave us more in the loop and it leads to less people thinking the game is dead before surprise big update drops.

As for what fixes and adjustments, obviously I want things to be made harder and more penalizing, and I've outlined that elsewhere. I'd prefer to see more current PGA golfers over legend golfers because it means more playing partners in career mode, but even before that I'd like to see the way the AI plays be made so much better than the overly simplistic way it is now. To me it's only mildly enjoyable rn seeing them all play very similar ways without much variety, and in some cases without much realism (-15% on drivers, hitting water hazards too often, hitting spinners 11 yds from the hole 15 ft past it and draining the putt back almost every time, etc.).

I'm also fine with the RNG in the game personally, but I'd like to see the RNG-affected swing results be made more complex and realistic than the super simple system we have now. I'd prefer if the swing power and tempo did most of the work determining where a shot goes and the RNG puts the finishing touches on it. For example, fast tempo means the shot goes left, and the amount the swing is fast determines a range of how left the shot should go, and the RNG determines where in that range it goes. Vice versa for slow, underswing, overswing, etc. I think that would make the RNG feel much less frustrating to those that don't like it.

[golfnut67]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

Pretty pleased with the new content aspect of this update. Not having much of anything in the way of meaningful gameplay adjustments and fixes is a bit of a negative for me, I prefer that side over new content. But also I wanted the 2024 major courses and Augusta Par 3 so getting that all in one update instead of drip fed over the next 3 months is a big plus, maybe it will leave more room for gameplay fixes in the future cause they won't be forced to devote time to getting one course out every month. And getting Jack is the icing on the cake.

As I've stressed before, going forward I'd like to see more transparency from EA. I still feel that has been lacking the last several months and the decision to shadow-drop the update with no patch notes beforehand (even if yesterday was April Fools and Sunday was Easter, why not do it Friday or Saturday?) exemplifies that. Like what happened last year, give us a list of things that are being worked on that we can expect to be included in updates over the coming months. It's just better to leave us more in the loop and it leads to less people thinking the game is dead before surprise big update drops.

As for what fixes and adjustments, obviously I want things to be made harder and more penalizing, and I've outlined that elsewhere. I'd prefer to see more current PGA golfers over legend golfers because it means more playing partners in career mode, but even before that I'd like to see the way the AI plays be made so much better than the overly simplistic way it is now. To me it's only mildly enjoyable rn seeing them all play very similar ways without much variety, and in some cases without much realism (-15% on drivers, hitting water hazards too often, hitting spinners 11 yds from the hole 15 ft past it and draining the putt back almost every time, etc.).

I'm also fine with the RNG in the game personally, but I'd like to see the RNG-affected swing results be made more complex and realistic than the super simple system we have now. I'd prefer if the swing power and tempo did most of the work determining where a shot goes and the RNG puts the finishing touches on it. For example, fast tempo means the shot goes left, and the amount the swing is fast determines a range of how left the shot should go, and the RNG determines where in that range it goes. Vice versa for slow, underswing, overswing, etc. I think that would make the RNG feel much less frustrating to those that don't like it.

Great post, I agree with every word.

[matt2053]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

Just advanced my career mode to the next season, as I was already in the FedExCup Playoffs and finished those up.

In my next season now post-update, I do get Valhalla, Pinehurst No. 2, and Royal Troon as major hosts. No need to restart your career at all.

LoL, not only that...!

I had actually just finished the third round of the US Open at LA Country Club in my career when the update dropped overnight.

This morning, the fourth round was at Pinehurst! Doh!

[BDKiiing]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

Were the majors courses added into the rotation in career?


Never mind.

[Dawgfan1]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

Played a round at each of the major courses with my career mode golfer. On Sim + no swing meter or green grid. None of them felt too easy, went -2 at Pinehurst, -4 at Valhalla, -5 at Royal Troon. Pinehurst and Royal Troon I enjoyed especially. Pinehurst has the yellow-green-ish look on my 1080p TV which I'm usually not a fan of but I think it blends in really well with the Carolina Sandhills terrain. And Royal Troon is just beautiful, although the course has the weird color split in the middle of the fairways, not sure why EA thinks that looks good or accurate. Valhalla looked a bit more run-of-the-mill and for some reason the hole previews show yellow-brownish heavy rough whereas in-game it's more green, but it's still decent-looking and enjoyable.

The biggest thing I noticed is that there doesn't seem to be any unique commentary for any of the new courses (including the Par 3) at the moment? Even the hole flyovers had no commentary at all for me. A bit disappointing to not have that at this stage, maybe they couldn't get Rich and Frank in time to record lines but I'd hope they add them soon, at least around the time of each major. Just a warning for career mode players if you get to these courses, might not have any unique commentary right now.

[golfnut67]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

Yes it's confirmed there is no new commentary for any of the 4 new courses, just generic existing commentary. No mention of the course, etc. Hopefully they can get a few lines recorded for the 3 major courses, but I kind of doubt that will happen.

I'm sure the guys that did the recordings were done a long time ago and that contract is done for them unless they are going to revamp all of the commentary at some point. That would be nice for sure.

[golfnut67]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

Just played an online Foursome Match Play round at Royal Troon. Wow that course is well done, and the lighting and the way the sun looks on all of the holes is one of the most stunning I've seen in this game, or any golf game.

I don't know if the round is supposed to be early morning or dusk, but it's just lovely on the eyes and very immersive. It's really top notch eye candy. Placid and relaxing.

By the way, it's letting me use Jack to play online Match Play? Has it always allowed you to use a Pro in online matched (not tournaments)? It doesn't say Jack Nicklaus as the name of my player, it just has my online ID like usual. I just wasn't aware you could do that?

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

By the way, it's letting me use Jack to play online Match Play? Has it always allowed you to use a Pro in online matched (not tournaments)? It doesn't say Jack Nicklaus as the name of my player, it just has my online ID like usual. I just wasn't aware you could do that?

Yeah, I recall that people were using pros online at the game's early stages because they had such higher stats and skills that everyone's own created player.

Really enjoying the added content to the game that this update provided, but there are still some things that I'd love to see updated when the next patch (likely) drops in 70 days:

- get rid of the silly triple bogey limit...it's especially frustrating on Augusta's Par-3 course when you dunk it in the water like I do!

- I'd still like to see 2 and 3 round options in career mode.

- of course, I'd still like rough to have much more of an impact on lies.

- I didn't look too closely, but I still don't think Marco Simone has been added to career mode. Replace one of the events that re-uses a course more than once with Marco Simone - seems like a no-brainer.

- continue to clean up bugs/glitches...I don't think this patch mentioned anything about fixing the on-going issue with Tournaments, where people are losing their entry fees and not getting rewards.

- Crossplay Country Clubs, please.

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

Sorry for a double post, but I just realized after watching footage of Pinehurst No. 2 in EA PGA that they did use the U.S. Open layout for the course, meaning Holes 8 and 16 are par-4s in the game. For resort players, they are par-5s.

In 2K's version of the course, it plays as it does for resort guests, so both Nos. 8 and 16 are par-5s in that game...which is unfortunate, because you can reach them in two with wedges or short irons.

[bigkev]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour New Update File 4/2 ver. 1.000.020

By the way, it's letting me use Jack to play online Match Play? Has it always allowed you to use a Pro in online matched (not tournaments)? It doesn't say Jack Nicklaus as the name of my player, it just has my online ID like usual. I just wasn't aware you could do that?

There was always some online match where you have to use your created golfer, and other you can chose any golfer.


Edit: I just checked. Today, you have to use a created golfer for Birdie Fest Pro and Ryder Cup Sim. On the Ocean view Tour, you can use any golfer.