ThePhil
Caddy
Posts: 6
TGCT Name: ThePhil
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Post by ThePhil on Sept 11, 2021 11:54:34 GMT -5
A course I made, Driftless Valley Reserve is done and has been accepted. I am pleased with both of those things. Overall really happy with the course. After my x00th playthrough there is a list of little things that I'm finding that I would want to change, and there are a small number of things that I'm surprised I didn't catch during testing prior to release. ie, There is a bunker which narrows in the middle and that narrow section has a small rise which would need to be flattened; and I would add a bunker to the front left of 18, or change the front left of the green to be less accommodating for shots which are travelling right to left as they would tend to do for an approach following a shorter tee shot because of the way the fairway slopes. I kind of feel like bunkers can be a reflexive band-aid for difficulty when there may be more interesting ways to add complexity.
With that said, do you other designers go back and make changes to courses after publishing? If so I assume the name would need to change to avoid confusion since the courses could be used in tournaments.
And as for scoring potential, people are blowing my expected scores out of the water. The course record is 49 right now. I can't be sure how that was achieved or with what difficulty settings, but...
Do other designers build for a certain level of difficulty in mind? I expect people to shoot under par, but -23 is unsettling. Yes, it's an outlier, but should it even be possible?
Do you make a "Tour Spec" version of your course with tighter fairways and rougher rough?
Aside from fairway widths and hole length how do you plan for a difficulty level when you are doing your layouts?
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Post by sroel908 on Sept 11, 2021 12:08:34 GMT -5
I have never gone back and made changes to a course once it was published, unless I wanted to make a "Tour" version of it with stands and crowds and things like that. Honestly, it's likely best to just take what you learned/missed from the last publish and put it into your next course.
I wouldn't worry about scores on your course. People can play this game with lots of various settings to make the game super easy or super challenging. If your course has forward tees, people can play from those while still using a driver that carries almost 300 yards. People can also turn all the conditions of your course to easier settings - like making fairways soft and slowing down greens.
Again, the only changes I have ever made when making a "Tour" course is adding crowds and structures. I had a real-life course (Brown Deer Park GC) where I did a tour version (Brown Deer Park GC (Tour)) because when the actual PGA Tour played it, a short par-5 was made a long par-4 for the pros, but that was it. I think others may do different tour versions with more difficult setups, but I don't know how often that happens and if it's worth the effort to be honest.
Difficulty is mostly achieved in this game by wind, elevation, undulations on greens and fairways, firmness of greens and fairways, and green speeds. Wind you have no control over, as the game randomly assigns it (or people playing your course can choose their own wind speed/direction). The other factors come down to trial and error with course settings and layout as you design. You can tighten fairways, of course, but I personally feel there's a fine line between a "challenging, but fair" width and "way too narrow" width.
Personally, I never design with the thought in mind that I am out to make a "hard" or "easy" course. I am more focused on creating and capturing the theme or feel that I want, as opposed to how hard the course plays. Again, there are settings that can be adjusted by those playing your course that allow them to make it easier or harder no matter what settings you set as default.
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Post by BaconJunkie1 on Sept 12, 2021 12:50:31 GMT -5
It sounds like you learned a lesson/s, write them down in a To Do / Checklist and use them on your next project.
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Post by ErixonStone on Sept 13, 2021 22:23:28 GMT -5
A course I made, Driftless Valley Reserve is done and has been accepted. I am pleased with both of those things. Overall really happy with the course. After my x00th playthrough there is a list of little things that I'm finding that I would want to change, and there are a small number of things that I'm surprised I didn't catch during testing prior to release. ie, There is a bunker which narrows in the middle and that narrow section has a small rise which would need to be flattened; and I would add a bunker to the front left of 18, or change the front left of the green to be less accommodating for shots which are travelling right to left as they would tend to do for an approach following a shorter tee shot because of the way the fairway slopes. I kind of feel like bunkers can be a reflexive band-aid for difficulty when there may be more interesting ways to add complexity. With that said, do you other designers go back and make changes to courses after publishing? If so I assume the name would need to change to avoid confusion since the courses could be used in tournaments. No, I don't - unless someone asks me specifically for some changes (for example, I republished a Tour version of Hitchens Razor because the Tour asked me to address some spots that caused lag). The course is the course. Most of the time, once players play a course, they're not going to play it ever again, unless it's one of the top 5% of courses in the game. There are just so many high quality courses to play. But, design for yourself, first and foremost. The person most likely to play your course is yourself, and you'll likely repeat the course. And as for scoring potential, people are blowing my expected scores out of the water. The course record is 49 right now. I can't be sure how that was achieved or with what difficulty settings, but... Do other designers build for a certain level of difficulty in mind? I expect people to shoot under par, but -23 is unsettling. Yes, it's an outlier, but should it even be possible? If your course has forward tees, someone probably put the game on Beginner mode and played from the front tees. I wouldn't ever worry about what other players are scoring on a course, unless you're specifically going for an overly challenging course. For me, I generally don't want that, so I tend to make my courses recoverable and try to make the greens fairly challenging. Do you make a "Tour Spec" version of your course with tighter fairways and rougher rough? I am not spending time re-splining fairways, so no, I won't do that. The other settings - green/fairway firmness and speed, for example, are open to be changed by the player or the tour admin. So, no sense in doing that. If I create a Tour version, it's to fix a specific problem, eliminate lag or to add Tour elements (like crowds/grandstands). Never to fundamentally change the course, unless it was specifically asked for (that's never happened to me). Aside from fairway widths and hole length how do you plan for a difficulty level when you are doing your layouts? Generally, for easier courses, use less drastic elevation changes and place water farther away from greens and fairways. Make the greens' tiers larger and less dramatic and really flatten down the area near the hole. For more difficult courses, force shots that are difficult to pull off (i.e. downhill chips; shots from 70-ish yards away) and provide smaller landing areas on greens that have a little bit more slope near the pins (like a yellow-green slope). b101 has a great series on YouTube that covers hole strategy. He identifies how designers can pair wide fairways with dramatic slopes to make a course more difficult than it originally appears, while still rewarding good play. I highly recommend giving it a watch.
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Post by lessthanbread on Sept 15, 2021 12:21:17 GMT -5
I do not go back and make changes. I do occasionally play my past courses and think about what I would change. Do not design your course hoping to get realistic scores from people who play it. That would take all realistic strategy and feel out of it because video game golfers are far better than real golfers. To get scores closer to par and say like 7 or 8 under for the best players, the course would have to be so tricked up and ridiculous.
I don't design with a difficulty in mind. I have the idea for the course I want in my head, and the difficulty will fall where it may
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