Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2016 10:42:39 GMT -5
Let me first say I have played this game from day one, and have spent WAY too many hours playing this wonderful game. I thank HB Studios for creating the best video game since Links. I have been playing real life competitive golf since I was 10 years old, (55 now) both as an amateur, then a pro, then back to amateur ranks. What most any golfer in real life will tell you is that you want to get in a position to see if under pressure you can pull of THE shot, make that clutch birdie putt to tie or win, to play in the last group of a tourney.... With my physical skills in real life golf waning, this crazy game called The Golf Club came along and I've been hooked ever since. The sound and graphics of ripping a 3 iron that rises sky high and settles by the pin still gives me chills. Sinking a shot for eagle on a par 4, making a long putt eagle putt or hitting a crisp pitch shot that spins back into the hole are things most of us would never experience and this games gives us that brilliant opportunity to experience those things and more. The TGC tours took all of this to a new level and I know with certainty that as great as this game is, I would have long ago shelved it or traded it in for some other game had this site not been created. Then came the long awaited match play mode. We are all competitors and this mode offered us a chance to go head to head and battle in live singles and four ball matches. For me this meant meeting new people on-line and having tension filled turn-based enabled matches that brought back the thrill, pressure and excitement of real golf. The beauty of turn-based match play is that the opponents are watching you. You succeed or fail in that moment. Add live chat and you've nearly recreated the real life match play experience. But alas, it doesn't work. HB has said it really never will work and have even said they might remove it so they don't have to hear all the complaints. It was just a free add-on that we did not pay for, so we should be happy we just got something and not complain. What has happened now is that the match play format is now morphed into a comparative score format, and the only way without fear of crashing is to play head to head is to play stroke play. But even that format doesn't work. I recently played two "match play" (playing stoke play) matches where the opponents ball when in the hole for birdie. I then putted much more aggressively than I normally would knowing I needed birdie....and 3 putted. But wait, then the opponent's ball and player reappeared! He tapped in and I lost the holes! Without live chat there was no way for me to know he made or missed the putt. Balls also show as missing when they go in. Sorry, but this is a mess! Connection errors, frozen players, on and on. I know HB isn't fixing it, so this is only venting, but come on! Maybe they will get in right in the next version (TGC2) if that ever happens. I'm sad that this format, with so much promise and potential, failed miserably. But since we only paid $35, and this was a free add on that was never meant to be in the game, we are supposed to just suck it up and be happy we got something. Really? I understand there is no budget to fix this. I can't imagine new sales of a nearly two-year-old computer game are generating any significant revenue. But please get this right if there is to be a next TGC. I'll gladly pay much more for a game that works. Match play is what real golfers play EVERY day in real life, whether is be a nassau with your buddies, the club championship, the US Amateur or the Ryder Cup. It is the most exciting format in golf. Successfully implemented, it will attract and retain more golfers and non-golfers to this game. But as a non-working mode, it simply causes extreme frustration and disappointment among the game owners and gives this great game a black eye. TGC will be remembered as great game created by a small team that perhaps tried to do too much with too little manpower or resources. I commend them for their efforts and don't at all begrudge them. I do however want a game that works (including match play) as designed and would gladly pay more to allow that to come to fruition, now or in the future.
|
|
|
Post by SweetTeeBag on Feb 22, 2016 10:50:35 GMT -5
I feel you pain David. My internet can't even take a chance with this game mode. I have a PM out to Anthony Kyne suggesting this below but it went unanswered. Seemed like an easy logical fix.
"I don't know why it can't just be a regular mode and add players when on the tee like stroke play and meet up at the course as long as both players from the main menu pick the correct option a la stableford scoring. What's the issue there?"
There is a post on the HB forums discussing this issue going 10 pages long
www.hb-studios.com/forum/index.php?topic=14363.0
|
|
|
Post by Brighttail on Feb 22, 2016 13:57:03 GMT -5
A couple things here:
Are you not able to use Steam chat on Xbox / PS4? i know you can using PC. Second, I have been on Anthony for 6+ months on the differing shots when it comes to playing someone. In short, HB will take all the calculations, wind, club headspeed, loft/fade/draw ect, up to the point where the ball is struck and save it. This is what is transferred to your opponents device. Then using this information the shot is taken on their screen. Due to differences in the GPU or video cards in different devices, there are apparently rounding differences that can cause the ball to miss on your screen but make on theirs. The whole reason for this so HB can save valuable memory.
Memory used for each shot isn't saved on our devices, it is saved on the HB servers. If they had to save every shot from start to finish on their servers it would require a lot more storage space (even if it is erased after the round) than what they have available. The differences of just taking the calculations versus saving and entire shot from start to finish is significant. Also if they did save every shot, that would mean that information for every shot of the round would have to be transferred/downloaded to your computer and all your shots to your opponents, for each shot. That would take time, especially for people with slow internet connections. Bottom line it would slow down the game considerably AND if you play 3 or 4 player, it would slow it down even more.
So basically don't expect this to be fixed any time soon or ever. It just isn't worth it monetarily to them. If they had 4 million copies sold, maybe then, but not as it stands now. TGC Tours has mumble and there are other ways you can chat between friends, tho.
I fully understand your pain as this has been a battle i have been very vocal on for a very long time. ;(
|
|
|
Post by jarednich on Feb 22, 2016 14:27:22 GMT -5
A couple things here: Due to differences in the GPU or video cards in different devices, there are apparently rounding differences that can cause the ball to miss on your screen but make on theirs. The whole reason for this so HB can save valuable memory. I find their explanation interesting, and would love to know why it happens on PS4 if the hardware is identical.
|
|
|
Post by Brighttail on Feb 22, 2016 14:46:41 GMT -5
A couple things here: Due to differences in the GPU or video cards in different devices, there are apparently rounding differences that can cause the ball to miss on your screen but make on theirs. The whole reason for this so HB can save valuable memory. I find their explanation interesting, and would love to know why it happens on PS4 if the hardware is identical. Believe me i have asked this as well, especially for replays where the same shot is shown on my own computer with identical hardware. The explanation that I got was that environmental results aren't always the same from one second to the other, which is interesting cause I thought wind doesn't effect putting. I was then told that even with the exact hardware, when you are talking about rounding down to the one thousandth percentile, it isn't always exact, but I was also told with 100% certainty from HB that there is no squirt or randomness in putting. It all doesn't make 100% sense to me either and frankly I believe that since the engine to the game isn't theirs but a third party, they don't understand everything themselves.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2016 15:17:13 GMT -5
Ron,
Thanks for your reply. I do have live chat on PS4, but in many cases the opponents are not able to chat for various reasons, and in which case we are left with sending messages within the system. Even with chat, players constantly have to ask, "did you make that putt or did that one go in?", which is hardly the way a video game should work. I understand the data transfer issue and also read recently on the HB forum that one main issue is the Microsoft/Sony subscriptions issues, and the lack of not having a single host when playing multi-player. There are many reasons this doesn't work and these same reasons why it can NEVER work, which is more frustrating. But....and we can go all the way back to Links golf, it worked then playing on 56K modems with computers that ran on 4 MB of video ram and had 16 MB hard drives, so clearly this is not impossible. It just needs to be designed from day one and if subscriptions or DLC fees are required to play so be it. I am hopeful that there will be a TGC2, sooner than later. EA Sports comes out with new games every year at $59-$69. Why should HB continue to tweak this 2 year old game for free? It doesn't make sense in any way unless they are all financially independent and just doing this as a passion.
|
|
|
Post by Brighttail on Feb 22, 2016 16:04:17 GMT -5
I agree with you. The machine that drives it all is from a company called Helix so I dont' know how much input they have on changes.
|
|