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Post by mrshoes on Sept 9, 2015 19:17:26 GMT -5
Hi All,
I have just published Greenvale Pines (rfc) for review. It's an alpine course designed to make a player think about shot choice, with a variety of shots and skills required to make a good score - without being unfair or unrealistic (hopefully). My visual design skills aren't the best, but I've done my best. If you have time, please have a play and let me know what you think.
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Post by mrshoes on Sept 18, 2015 18:37:03 GMT -5
Hate to bump my own thread, but it would be really great if one of you awesome ladies or gents could give my course a play and let me have some feedback. I've just played it again recently and I am happy with it, although it may be a bit on the tough side, and there are a couple of greens I might redo. Thanks in advance.
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Post by pablo on Sept 19, 2015 5:15:12 GMT -5
Hi mrshoes
I just played Greenvale, like almost everything in life, the course has strengths and weaknesses.
First and main weakness. The third green. I think that's not a small green, it more looks like a quarter of green. And with all those red slopes it plays even smaller. The green size usually is in between 20 and 30 yards, and that green, in the area where the pin is maybe is like, what? 8 yards?.
IMO the planting also is problematic. In the first six and a half holes I think you have overdone the planting, and in most of the second nine holes, the planting is also a bit extreme. Trees everywhere, the feeling is a bit claustrophobic. The second shot in the 7th, in terms of planting is much better. That "overplanting" also causes a problem. While playing you don't feel the holes are connected, it's more like one hole after another without any "link" between them, and the course feels way too dark.
The "bowl" greens look a bit unrealistic, the slopes surrounding them are too severe, but that's easy to solve, a bit of smoothing and you're done. In fact maybe the whole layout might take benefit of some more use of the softer brushes in flatten mode at zero height, greens included
the overall conception of the course is quite interesting, the player must use every single club in his bag and shape his shots from the tee, so in that sense, you made a fantastic job. Oh, one thing, let me hit driver in par 5. I'm ok with some kind of danger, but having to play a 3i from the tee in a par 5 kills any option of risk and reward play.
The bunkers are quite interesting, well placed and not flat. Maybe they lack a touch of detail, but they are ok.
Overall, i would not call this a good course. But it's a great starting point to design great courses, so keep 'em coming, and keep playing and learning from another courses. There is good potential in your use of the GNCD.
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Post by pablo on Sept 19, 2015 5:18:46 GMT -5
I almost forgot, what i said about the 3rd green also applies for 17th.
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Post by hmammoth on Sept 19, 2015 5:39:51 GMT -5
I gave your course a quick play through but want to play again, especially in high winds before I give feedback. There are a few holes that have a large body of water with forced lay ups which I would like to play in windy conditions. My first impressions are more positive than negative, there are some clever holes where subtle shot shaping are needed with out being extreme. For the most part, the greens are done well, but a couple might be on the narrow or small side for the approach that is needed. There might be one or two to many forced lay ups and a couple of the water holes do look similar. I played in low winds so there was no issues(except for mypoor shots) with reaching fairways and I shot a steady 5 under. I will try get back to the course as soon as I can but it might be a few days. I will play tonight with some friends to get their first impression but not easy to focus on the course when there are a few people chatting at the same time, I will need to play again alone before I can give more feedback. My feedback will be from a playing point of view, can't really help with design. Anyway give me some time and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
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Post by mrshoes on Sept 19, 2015 8:33:13 GMT -5
Hi guys, thanks for playing and for the great feedback. I'm glad you both mentioned the shot shaping, that was certainly something I was aiming for. Getting the player to think about the tee shot and to reward nicely played shaped shots. One of the tricky things I find when designing is that there is no wind when playing from the designer, so it can be tricky to gauge how difficult a hole is.
The intention with hole 3 was to make it tricky/dangerous to go straight at the pin, but landing on the front of the green will feed the ball down to the hole, 17 is similar. I guess it didn't work that well!
I'll tweak the course and see if I can improve it.
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Post by pablo on Sept 19, 2015 9:06:05 GMT -5
Hi guys, thanks for playing and for the great feedback. I'm glad you both mentioned the shot shaping, that was certainly something I was aiming for. Getting the player to think about the tee shot and to reward nicely played shaped shots. One of the tricky things I find when designing is that there is no wind when playing from the designer, so it can be tricky to gauge how difficult a hole is. The intention with hole 3 was to make it tricky/dangerous to go straight at the pin, but landing on the front of the green will feed the ball down to the hole, 17 is similar. I guess it didn't work that well! I'll tweak the course and see if I can improve it. You can try the course with "real" wind. In main menu select disconnect, so you get offline. Go to play round, and when selecting course cycle until you find unpublished |
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Post by mrshoes on Sept 19, 2015 16:23:51 GMT -5
Hi guys, thanks for playing and for the great feedback. I'm glad you both mentioned the shot shaping, that was certainly something I was aiming for. Getting the player to think about the tee shot and to reward nicely played shaped shots. One of the tricky things I find when designing is that there is no wind when playing from the designer, so it can be tricky to gauge how difficult a hole is. The intention with hole 3 was to make it tricky/dangerous to go straight at the pin, but landing on the front of the green will feed the ball down to the hole, 17 is similar. I guess it didn't work that well! I'll tweak the course and see if I can improve it. You can try the course with "real" wind. In main menu select disconnect, so you get offline. Go to play round, and when selecting course cycle until you find unpublished Ah, nice. Thanks for the tip. The course modifications are going well! |
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