Swing change effect (data-driven approach to understanding)
Jun 12, 2021 9:26:35 GMT -5
coggin66, mrohde4, and 3 more like this
Post by MachOne117 on Jun 12, 2021 9:26:35 GMT -5
Hi all,
I wanted to get a little more objective with the effects of the swing change. I manually mined some data from the TGCT website to take a look at a few things.
NOTE: I may have missed some things or made mistakes. Let me know if you see something odd or have questions and I’ll check it. I realize this isn’t a rigorous study and I didn’t use any statistical analysis. But, it was relatively easy (just took time) and was entertaining for me.
Hopefully somebody will find this useful or at least entertaining.
My basic thought process.
Overall Pro Tours Findings
Interpretation: Plat and Elite winning scores have both increased (positive slope, getting worse). Kinetic scores have gotten better (negative slope) by about the same amount. Could be an indicator of how much effect course difficulty can have in this analysis (depending on relative difficulty of the courses played in these three tours for the weeks shown).
The average winning score for these three tours for the six weeks before and after the change is in the table below. This is a better way to understand the effect than plotted like above. (I included the plots for the more visual learners )
Taking a look at the difference between the winning scores and the cut score for these three tours looks like this.
Interpretation: Plat and Elite field scores are getting a bit tighter. Kinetic scores are getting a little more spread out. Not sure this means much, but there it is.
Overall Challenge Circuit Findings
Interpretation: All three challenge circuit (D, H, L) winning scores have increased (positive slope, getting worse). Very similar slope between these three (Note: I also did CC-B because that’s where I’m at and it’s similar too). This seems to indicate the swing change has had a similar effect on difficulty across skill levels.
The average winning score for these three tours for the six weeks before and after the change is in the table below. This is a better way to understand the effect than plotted like above.
Taking a look at the difference between the winning scores and the cut score for these three tours looks like this.
Interpretation: Again, not sure this means much, but there it is.
XBox Pro Tours Findings
Interpretation: All three pro tour (Plat, Elite, and Kinetic) XBox low scores have increased (positive slope, getting worse).
The average low XBox score for these three tours for the six weeks before and after the change is in the table below. This is a better way to understand the effect than plotted like above.
Taking a look at the difference between the lowest XBox scores and the lowest XBox cut score for these three tours looks like this.
Interpretation: XBox is getting more competitive within itself? Nah. Not sure this means much, but there it is.
XBox Challenge Circuit Findings
Interpretation: All three challenge circuit (D, H, L) XBox low scores have increased (positive slope, getting worse). Very similar slope between these three. This seems to indicate the swing change has had a similar effect on difficulty across skill levels.
The average winning score for these three tours for the six weeks before and after the change is in the table below. This is a better way to understand the effect than plotted like above.
Taking a look at the difference between the winning scores and the cut score for these three tours looks like this.
Interpretation: Again, not sure this means much, but there it is.
XBox Comparison to PS4/PC
The moment you’ve all been waiting for. We’ve known XBox is at an unfair advantage in cross-platform play, but how has the swing change affected the relative difficulty?
This first plot shows the difference between the lowest four round score overall (i.e. the winner from PS4, PC, or XBox) and the lowest XBox score for the Pro Tours. Note that Plat didn’t have enough XBox data after the update so I didn’t include it.
Interpretation: Both Elite and Kinetic have gotten relatively more difficult for XBox players than PS4/PC players.
The average difference between the lowest four round score overall (i.e. the winner from PS4, PC, or XBox) and the lowest XBox score for the six weeks before and after the change is in the table below. This is a better way to understand the effect than plotted like above.
This second plot shows the difference between the lowest four round score overall (i.e. the winner from PS4, PC, or XBox) and the lowest XBox score for the challenge circuits (D, H, L).
Interpretation: CC-D and CC-H have gotten relatively more difficult for XBox players than PS4/PC players. CC-L has remained about the same.
The average difference between the lowest four round score overall (i.e. the winner from PS4, PC, or XBox) and the lowest XBox score for the six weeks before and after the change is in the table below. This is a better way to understand the effect than plotted like above.
POSSIBLY USEFUL FINAL CONCLUSIONS
PS4 and PC
XBox
My thoughts (we all got 'em, here's mine)
Generally
The game isn’t broken like many people seem to think. It got a little harder shot-to-shot, but scores are still pretty low and the difficulty effect is from top to bottom in skill levels so nobody has “lost” anything. I understand it is a little frustrating for some because your “baseline” for what is good/bad scoring for yourself is a bit different (e.g. if you’re used to shooting ~12 under on a great round you may have to get used to a great round only being ~9 under or something, just realize everybody has to do the same). From a competitive standpoint, the difficulty
XBox
The game is now relatively more difficult than it was compared to other platforms as most people already felt was true intuitively (i.e. XBox players are at a slightly greater disadvantage now than they were before the swing change). But, if you’re playing other XBoxers (in other societies) you’re all in the same boat. This isn’t a problem that TGCT can fix or account for and I’m not sure the onus is on HB/2K to figure out the XBox problem either since they didn’t build the game with cross-platform play included. We may only realize the disparity so clearly because TGCT provides a cross-platform environment that makes it extremely obvious. (btw, I realize the TGCT community is a great sounding board for discontent and is a platform to speak from, so I’m not saying people shouldn’t voice issues with the game here.) It’s kind of like a person buying a screwdriver, using it for a purpose other than driving screws (like as a pry bar), then complaining when the screwdriver breaks or doesn’t do a good job of prying. Although the screwdriver can be effectively used to pry in many cases, the person who made the screwdriver didn’t intend prying to be its function and won’t likely respond favorably to complaints that it didn’t function well as a pry bar. (That is, unless there’s some business case [i.e. profit to be made] to make a better screwdriver/pry bar combo.) So, maybe that’s the case to be made for cross-platform equality, but I also noticed the XBox community to be a relatively small portion of TGCT and I’m pretty sure TGCT is in itself a relatively small portion of the tot
I wanted to get a little more objective with the effects of the swing change. I manually mined some data from the TGCT website to take a look at a few things.
NOTE: I may have missed some things or made mistakes. Let me know if you see something odd or have questions and I’ll check it. I realize this isn’t a rigorous study and I didn’t use any statistical analysis. But, it was relatively easy (just took time) and was entertaining for me.
Hopefully somebody will find this useful or at least entertaining.
My basic thought process.
- Data was pulled from weeks 25 through 37. So, six weeks before the initial swing change (RF nerf) (weeks 25-30), the week of the change (week 31), and then six weeks after (weeks 32-37).
- I pulled the winning score and the cut score for “All” and then the winning/lowest score and the lowest score that was cut for “XB1”. I didn’t think it was worth it to separate PS4 and PC (took long enough already).
- I pulled scores for Platinum, Elite, Kinetic, CC-D, CC-H, and CC-L. Again, just too much time to pull the others.
- It would be great to also include course difficulty (like slope in real life) to better normalize the data. As-is, the data could be skewed one way or the other when trying to see how much “harder” the game is now than before the swing change due to the courses that were played these weeks.
- The course difficulties are sort of normalized out when looking at the challenge circuit scores to compare how it affects different skill levels (i.e. CC-D vs. CC-H vs. CC-L).
- Doing average scores for all players within a tournament would have huge variance because people tend to slack/rush if they know they’ll miss the cut, know they’ll not get promo marks, etc… That’s why I just stuck with winning scores and lowest cut scores. (and it would take forever to hand-jam all the scores)
Overall Pro Tours Findings
Interpretation: Plat and Elite winning scores have both increased (positive slope, getting worse). Kinetic scores have gotten better (negative slope) by about the same amount. Could be an indicator of how much effect course difficulty can have in this analysis (depending on relative difficulty of the courses played in these three tours for the weeks shown).
The average winning score for these three tours for the six weeks before and after the change is in the table below. This is a better way to understand the effect than plotted like above. (I included the plots for the more visual learners )
Tour | Pre-Change (25-30) | Post-Change (32-37) | Difference |
Platinum | -55.7 | -49.7 | 6.0 (worse) |
Elite | -42.8 | -38.8 | 4.0 (worse) |
Kinetic | -35.7 | -39.2 | -3.5 (better) |
Taking a look at the difference between the winning scores and the cut score for these three tours looks like this.
Tour | Pre-Change (25-30) | Post-Change (32-37) | Difference |
Platinum | 37.2 | 36.3 | -0.9 (tighter) |
Elite | 31.4 | 30.0 | -1.4 (tighter) |
Kinetic | 28.6 | 32.2 | 3.6 (wider) |
Interpretation: Plat and Elite field scores are getting a bit tighter. Kinetic scores are getting a little more spread out. Not sure this means much, but there it is.
Overall Challenge Circuit Findings
Interpretation: All three challenge circuit (D, H, L) winning scores have increased (positive slope, getting worse). Very similar slope between these three (Note: I also did CC-B because that’s where I’m at and it’s similar too). This seems to indicate the swing change has had a similar effect on difficulty across skill levels.
The average winning score for these three tours for the six weeks before and after the change is in the table below. This is a better way to understand the effect than plotted like above.
Tour | Pre-Change (25-30) | Post-Change (32-37) | Difference |
CC-D | -41.3 | -35.2 | 6.2 (worse) |
CC-H | -35.0 | -31.0 | 4.0 (worse) |
CC-L | -16.8 | -12.5 | 4.3 (worse) |
Taking a look at the difference between the winning scores and the cut score for these three tours looks like this.
Tour | Pre-Change (25-30) | Post-Change (32-37) | Difference |
CC-D | 35.0 | 33.8 | -1.2 (tighter) |
CC-H | 32.2 | 34.5 | 2.3 (wider) |
CC-L | 22.6 | 30.3 | 7.7 (wider) |
Interpretation: Again, not sure this means much, but there it is.
XBox Pro Tours Findings
Interpretation: All three pro tour (Plat, Elite, and Kinetic) XBox low scores have increased (positive slope, getting worse).
The average low XBox score for these three tours for the six weeks before and after the change is in the table below. This is a better way to understand the effect than plotted like above.
Tour | Pre-Change (25-30) | Post-Change (32-37) | Difference |
Platinum | -39.6 | Not enough data | N/A |
Elite | -33.2 | -24.8 | 8.3 (worse) |
Kinetic | -30.0 | -24.0 | 6.0 (worse) |
Taking a look at the difference between the lowest XBox scores and the lowest XBox cut score for these three tours looks like this.
Tour | Pre-Change (25-30) | Post-Change (32-37) | Difference |
Platinum | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Elite | 22.6 | 17.0 | -5.6 (tighter) |
Kinetic | 22.8 | 19.3 | -3.5 (tighter) |
Interpretation: XBox is getting more competitive within itself? Nah. Not sure this means much, but there it is.
XBox Challenge Circuit Findings
Interpretation: All three challenge circuit (D, H, L) XBox low scores have increased (positive slope, getting worse). Very similar slope between these three. This seems to indicate the swing change has had a similar effect on difficulty across skill levels.
The average winning score for these three tours for the six weeks before and after the change is in the table below. This is a better way to understand the effect than plotted like above.
Tour | Pre-Change (25-30) | Post-Change (32-37) | Difference |
CC-D | -34.2 | -24.0 | 10.2 (worse) |
CC-H | -30.5 | -17.7 | 12.8 (worse) |
CC-L | -14.0 | -8.7 | 5.3 (worse) |
Taking a look at the difference between the winning scores and the cut score for these three tours looks like this.
Tour | Pre-Change (25-30) | Post-Change (32-37) | Difference |
CC-D | 27.6 | 23.3 | -4.3 (tighter) |
CC-H | 27.4 | 21.8 | -5.6 (tighter) |
CC-L | 20.6 | 27.0 | 6.4 (wider) |
Interpretation: Again, not sure this means much, but there it is.
XBox Comparison to PS4/PC
The moment you’ve all been waiting for. We’ve known XBox is at an unfair advantage in cross-platform play, but how has the swing change affected the relative difficulty?
This first plot shows the difference between the lowest four round score overall (i.e. the winner from PS4, PC, or XBox) and the lowest XBox score for the Pro Tours. Note that Plat didn’t have enough XBox data after the update so I didn’t include it.
Interpretation: Both Elite and Kinetic have gotten relatively more difficult for XBox players than PS4/PC players.
The average difference between the lowest four round score overall (i.e. the winner from PS4, PC, or XBox) and the lowest XBox score for the six weeks before and after the change is in the table below. This is a better way to understand the effect than plotted like above.
Tour | Pre-Change (25-30) | Post-Change (32-37) | Difference |
Elite | 9.7 | 14.0 | 4.3 (harder) |
Kinetic | 5.7 | 15.2 | 9.5 (harder) |
This second plot shows the difference between the lowest four round score overall (i.e. the winner from PS4, PC, or XBox) and the lowest XBox score for the challenge circuits (D, H, L).
Interpretation: CC-D and CC-H have gotten relatively more difficult for XBox players than PS4/PC players. CC-L has remained about the same.
The average difference between the lowest four round score overall (i.e. the winner from PS4, PC, or XBox) and the lowest XBox score for the six weeks before and after the change is in the table below. This is a better way to understand the effect than plotted like above.
Tour | Pre-Change (25-30) | Post-Change (32-37) | Difference |
CC-D | 7.2 | 11.2 | 4.0 (harder) |
CC-H | 4.5 | 13.3 | 8.8 (harder) |
CC-L | 2.8 | 3.8 | 1.0 (harder) |
POSSIBLY USEFUL FINAL CONCLUSIONS
PS4 and PC
- The difficulty increase for a four round tourney (for PS4 and PC), as indicated by worse scoring, is likely somewhere between 2 and 6 strokes (or 0.5 and 1.5 strokes per round). No idea how much change in variance there may be, but I would guess the highs and lows (score variance) will be higher with the swing change also.
- The difficulty increase for high and low skill players is relatively similar.
XBox
- The difficulty increase for a four round tourney (for XBox), as indicated by worse scoring, is likely somewhere between 4 and 12 strokes (or 1 and 3 strokes per round). No idea how much variance there may be, but I would guess the highs and lows (score variance) will be higher with the swing change. Also, I’m pretty sure the variance is higher in XBox than it is for PS4/PC.
- The difficulty increase for lower skill players may be more pronounced/larger.
My thoughts (we all got 'em, here's mine)
Generally
The game isn’t broken like many people seem to think. It got a little harder shot-to-shot, but scores are still pretty low and the difficulty effect is from top to bottom in skill levels so nobody has “lost” anything. I understand it is a little frustrating for some because your “baseline” for what is good/bad scoring for yourself is a bit different (e.g. if you’re used to shooting ~12 under on a great round you may have to get used to a great round only being ~9 under or something, just realize everybody has to do the same). From a competitive standpoint, the difficulty
XBox
The game is now relatively more difficult than it was compared to other platforms as most people already felt was true intuitively (i.e. XBox players are at a slightly greater disadvantage now than they were before the swing change). But, if you’re playing other XBoxers (in other societies) you’re all in the same boat. This isn’t a problem that TGCT can fix or account for and I’m not sure the onus is on HB/2K to figure out the XBox problem either since they didn’t build the game with cross-platform play included. We may only realize the disparity so clearly because TGCT provides a cross-platform environment that makes it extremely obvious. (btw, I realize the TGCT community is a great sounding board for discontent and is a platform to speak from, so I’m not saying people shouldn’t voice issues with the game here.) It’s kind of like a person buying a screwdriver, using it for a purpose other than driving screws (like as a pry bar), then complaining when the screwdriver breaks or doesn’t do a good job of prying. Although the screwdriver can be effectively used to pry in many cases, the person who made the screwdriver didn’t intend prying to be its function and won’t likely respond favorably to complaints that it didn’t function well as a pry bar. (That is, unless there’s some business case [i.e. profit to be made] to make a better screwdriver/pry bar combo.) So, maybe that’s the case to be made for cross-platform equality, but I also noticed the XBox community to be a relatively small portion of TGCT and I’m pretty sure TGCT is in itself a relatively small portion of the tot