PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

[Dawgfan1]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

I can concur on the weightless feel to putting in the game. I like how difficult it is, especially with getting the rhythm right and on sloping putts, and I'm usually willing to sacrifice a little bit of feel to better simulate the difficulty of something, but the feel doesn't seem to be there much at all for me. It feels like my putting in real life at times, lol. I'm not sure how much the putter sound may be contributing, but wow that is really the most jarring sound I've heard in a golf video game. Staring at the meter to get power right is also hurting it I think.

I want to experiment with the shot meter off at address and see how that changes the short game and putting feel, I tried it a little bit on the putting green on a 5 foot putt and liked the result but didn't try from different length putts.

[OnlookerDelay]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

On PS5. I saw that setting, changed it a bit, but didn't notice any difference. I set it back to 70%. I was hoping that adjusting it would get rid of the framerate stuttering when using scout cam or fast-forwarding shots, but it didn't seem to work.

Just out of curiosity... did you try taking it back to 0% FSR? I wonder if you could see or feel a difference there? I can both see and feel a performance difference on my Series X, going from 0 to 100, but 50 doesn''t feel different than 0, in my experience.

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

Just out of curiosity... did you try taking it back to 0% FSR? I wonder if you could see or feel a difference there? I can both see and feel a performance difference on my Series X, going from 0 to 100, but 50 doesn''t feel different than 0, in my experience.

I don't recall if I went all the way to zero. Will check that later tonight!

[OnlookerDelay]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

I'd be curious to know if anyone has tried this demo on PS5 Pro yet, and had a go at it in Quality mode? I would guess no based on what I saw on my Series X. It was unplayable slow in Quality mode, and looked and felt like mid-20's in the frame rate department.

[The Kid 24]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

I use 3 click for swing.... I should leave all the settings regarding rhythm and w/e turned on? Or does that not matter with 3 click?

[PhantomPain]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

Been enjoying the demo overall. My favorite thing probably has to be the new replay system. It's been very long overdue for a major golf game to have a replay mode where you have full control like in other sports games. Love it.

It's also just so nice to have a demo. We don't see demos much anymore.

Anyone know how to get back to the regular replay if you switch to custom? I'm sure I'm just missing it but now every replay goes straight to custom and I'm not seeing how to get back to regular replays.

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

Respawn joined the Red Fast Review podcast, and answered a bunch of questions about the full game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnNQsiEWPSE

Things I noted:

- New shot types will be in the Clubhouse Passes, but the basic type will be in the free tier. However, some boosts associated with the shot types will be in the paid tier.
- Legendary clubs will be in the Clubhouse Passes...these clubs will not have their fittings deleted when you "Evo" them, which will happen when you Evo regular clubs. The legendary clubs are in the paid tier.
- Clubhouse Passes are 100 levels.
- Ranked Tours have daily and weekly tournaments, and its own progression system.
- Pros are only playable in local matches again.
- Rivals in MyCareer are only shown in the canned "highlights", which do seem better than in previous games.
- Highest tier of club level (Sapphire) adds +6 at each level, and there are a max of 5 "boost" fitting levels on them. Theoretically, you could have a golfer with a base power attribute of 69, add 5 power fittings (+30) to your driver, and get power up to 99.
- The "+6" tier is the max at this point, but the devs mentioned they could increase that in future seasons in the game.
- Respawn's main concern is the leveling up/progression system.
- The devs said it would take 60-100 hours for the "average" player to reach 99 OVR.
- Store includes more bundle items, but was pretty limited with what they showed.
- Consumable balls no longer effect roll.
- "2K-partnered pros" will have their swings mo-capped...other pros are animated based on their swings.
- Topgolf is the same, and there are no plans to add anything new to it.
- No ranked divot derby. That is also the same.
- MyCareer "followers" system has no real impact...you just get rewards as you meet milestone follower numbers.
- Personality system in MyCareer seems to only impact how fast you increase your follower count - keep the same personality, and you'll increase your follower count faster.
- MyCareer event leaderboards looked really good, and Dynamic Rounds allow you to play all 18 holes over four rounds.
- You cannot change the way your golf bag looks, and there are no headcovers.

[esham313]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

I'd be curious to know if anyone has tried this demo on PS5 Pro yet, and had a go at it in Quality mode? I would guess no based on what I saw on my Series X. It was unplayable slow in Quality mode, and looked and felt like mid-20's in the frame rate department.

I’ve played it on the PS5 Pro on Quality mode and it does stutter. Must play at 30 fps. I quickly changed the game to performance.

[Dawgfan1]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

- New shot types will be in the Clubhouse Passes, but the basic type will be in the free tier. However, some boosts associated with the shot types will be in the paid tier.
- Legendary clubs will be in the Clubhouse Passes...these clubs will not have their fittings deleted when you "Evo" them, which will happen when you Evo regular clubs. The legendary clubs are in the paid tier.
- Highest tier of club level (Sapphire) adds +6 at each level, and there are a max of 5 levels on them. Theoretically, you could have a golfer with a base power attribute of 69, add 5 power fittings (+30) to your driver, and get power up to 99.
- The "+6" tier is the max at this point, but the devs mentioned they could increase that in future seasons in the game.
- Respawn's main concern is the leveling up/progression system.

Hate the pay to win aspects it seems they're adding, it sounds like consumable balls are much more balanced than 2K23 but it doesn't mean much when it's replaced by exclusive shot type boosts. If the only thing legendary clubs do is not lose fittings when evo'd and don't provide higher boosts then that doesn't sound awful, but I'd rather it not be there at all.

The fittings system now sounds concerning to me for competitive, you would have to apply power fittings to every club type (25 in total I think) to get that +30 boost across all clubs except putter, but the fact you can do that at all feels exploitable. I can see a meta of choosing Tactician and ignoring power when upgrading attributes, then getting Sapphire clubs and going +30 on power to make up for that weakness. And even higher if they raise that +6 cap. I feel like you should not be able to apply more than like 1-2 of a specific fitting type to a club.

- MyCareer "followers" system has no real impact...you just get rewards as you meat milestones follower numbers.
- Personality system in MyCareer seems to only impact how fast you increase your follower count - keep the same personality, and you'll increase your follower count faster.

That sounds like a real missed opportunity with those features in career mode, why have systems like that in place if they contribute nothing to the actual tournaments or only serve to earn VC? Having crowd sizes go up with follower counts sounds like a really cool idea that could've made both systems mean something. If the leaderboards are better then that will at least be a meaningfully good improvement, though. I fear a lot of the extra stuff outside tournaments (apart from training, sponsor events, and practice rounds) will feel like dead weight that does little to add to the tournaments themselves. Like sure it's nice to have extra things to do outside the rounds, but the tournaments are the main draw of the mode and that element still feels underdone and lacking in immersion.

[Maxflier]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

I'd be curious to know if anyone has tried this demo on PS5 Pro yet, and had a go at it in Quality mode? I would guess no based on what I saw on my Series X. It was unplayable slow in Quality mode, and looked and felt like mid-20's in the frame rate department.

Just gave it a go, looks and plays perfectly fine in quality mode.
Though, I am not one who is sensitve to frame rates.

[pietasterp]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

Quick impressions:

- The swing system is about a million times better than the old 2k swing. Especially around greens.
- I really like that there isn't a straight ball.
- Camera is great. Behind golfer, then landing cam. I hate follow cams so this is faaantastic.
- The graphics are good enough.
- Gut feeling... EA releasing a game lit a fire under 2k.

A fellow follow-cam h8-er! Glad to know there are some of us out there...

I respectfully disagree that the swing feels good around the greens, though - I am having a lot of trouble understanding how the short game works in the game. If you are chipping out of the rough, say 35 yards out, and the target is 75% swing, if I hit it 75%, the ball will get to the hole (usually well past but that's another story). But if I hit it 74%, the ball goes 2 feet and ends up in a totally flubbed chip still in the rough. I don't understand how that 1-2% difference in power affects the short shots so drastically, when that's not the case for seemingly any other shot in the game. Maybe I'm still figuring it out.

Also, the bunker shots are kind of hard for me to understand. It seems like there's only a chunk-and-run bunker shot (in the demo anyway), which is fine, but even my bunker shots in real life don't run out 45 feet like they do in the game. And the trajectories seem odd, as most bunker shots barely clear the lip no matter how low or high. Again, the short game just seems really off to me.*

BING BING BING.... you just nailed my thoughts on the putting game in 2K25! It does have a "giffy" quality to some of the animation associated with it. I'm a stick swinger and what I feel is something akin to hitting a real golf ball with a hollow plastic kids golf club. It feels like there's no mass to the putter head at all. I find myself taking jabby strokes at the ball when putting, to make up for this perceived lack of mass to the club. Quite often that reeks havoc with the rhythm and I wind up with some nasty pulls.

Oh, and that flat contact sound when the putt is struck is so far off the mark. Bring back 2K23's putt strike audio and I'll be happy, at least as an option.

I see there's a putter weight property that you can add to your putter in the fittings menu.... maybe that would help with this, but yeah, this is by far and away my biggest complaint with the game so far. The putting game just feels out of tune to me. Maybe I need to try some practice putting with Tiger in the game to see if the putter he is using has more apparent mass to it.

I'm enjoying this game more than 2K23 in every other area, but the putting game is disappointing step back to me.

Oddly, the putting is where I'm doing the best so far. I've hit multiple bombs from all over the green, although honestly, I'm not sure if it might because of everything you and others have pointed out here. I agree with you that there's no 'feel' to the putting, but there's no 'feel' to any shot in the game IMO. It's all just the same swing no matter what.

One thing that I think would make this game - and really most golf games in general - a lot more interesting is if there were more to the game than just flicking the stick, waiting 5 seconds for your shot to complete, hit "X" through all the cut scenes, and then flick the stick again. I'm sure there's a way to make it more involved/thoughtful, but there's a lot more to golf than just swinging every 15 seconds (although I guess a lot of people enjoy being able to play a round in 20 minutes).

In EA's recent game (which was terribly flawed but not all bad), you could kind of simulate this by turning basically every helping option off, and then every shot, you'd have to evaluate how far out you were (using the yardage book only - no scout cams!, and you couldn't move a cursor around the yardage book to figure out exact distances), evaluate your lie and guess what the penalty might be, evaluate the wind, and then choose a club and set up your shot, adjust your aiming line, then go ahead and try to execute your swing. It's that kind of contemplative/thoughtful rhythm that I think keeps a golf game from getting boring within a few weeks.

I defy anyone to post a more succinct and accurate account of the general, and specific experiences with this game demo.

Perfectly struck.

Much appreciated, golfnut...I think you guys already covered the most salient aspects up front on this, though, and always appreciate your insights.

[zagsaddict]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

Is the distance marker always preset with the correct distance in other golf games? I swear I never have to make any adjustments to distance for anything in the demo, including putts. I club up when in the rough/sand and that's it.

I am finding this is the case on all difficulties, even legend. Is it just because the course is super flat with no wind? Or is there a setting that changes this? I've tried all of the default difficulties to complete the different quests.

Maybe I need to go try another game to see how it compares because after 3 hours of playing the demo, I'm finding it relatively easy. And this is with a 67 overall golfer, just imagine once everyone is up to 99. This is making me question the playability of this game and whether it is going to get boring really quickly.

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

Is the distance marker always preset with the correct distance in other golf games? I swear I never have to make any adjustments to distance for anything in the demo, including putts. I club up when in the rough/sand and that's it.

I am finding this is the case on all difficulties, even legend. Is it just because the course is super flat with no wind? Or is there a setting that changes this? I've tried all of the default difficulties to complete the different quests.

Maybe I need to go try another game to see how it compares because after 3 hours of playing the demo, I'm finding it relatively easy. And this is with a 67 overall golfer, just imagine once everyone is up to 99. This is making me question the playability of this game and whether it is going to get boring really quickly.

I think it's mostly due to the lack of wind and the ease of the course. Plus, we can only play the same back nine over and over again, so you get really familiar with the layout.

I do have concerns with the difficulty in the demo, but the course is set to really easy settings, no wind, and is played on repeat. With a stronger wind and more firm, fast settings, club selection becomes more important.

[zagsaddict]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

I think it's mostly due to the lack of wind and the ease of the course. Plus, we can only play the same back nine over and over again, so you get really familiar with the layout.

I do have concerns with the difficulty in the demo, but the course is set to really easy settings, no wind, and is played on repeat. With a stronger wind and more firm, fast settings, club selection becomes more important.

Thanks for the response. That's a good point - I didn't even look at the settings of the course itself, besides there being no wind.

[RIFRIG]

Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Demo Available Today, Post Your Impressions

Watched a YouTube video on 2k25 improvements & ‘Adaptive swing’ was mentioned so I thought I’d give it a try. I personally think the club moves away to quickly so consequently have been moving downswing really fast to meet the rhythm requirements.
I intentionally tested on Master on 9 holes taking the club away really slowly & setting a much more natural rhythm on my downswing and hit a load of perfect rhythm shots from all distances.
Is it placebo or is this actually a thing? If anyone else can feed back on what you think let me know please. Need more testing to confirm but it’s a groundbreaking mechanic if 3:1 ratio is set throughout.