HB Studios Next-Gen golf game: The Golf Club

[Naples39]

HB just posted a chart with all the club distances.

http://thegolfclubgame.com/2014/02/23/c ... nce-chart/

I like no upgrading players, but I was always wonder what is the right distance for clubs. Is 281 off the tee really enough to get around modern courses? Okay, this game doesn't have real courses and the custom versions can be tailored to this game, but that detracts from the experience IMO.

[Danimal]

I like no upgrading players, but I was always wonder what is the right distance for clubs. Is 281 off the tee really enough to get around modern courses?

Yes, unless you're a PGA player, playing courses designed for the tour. If you want to drive the ball 300+ yards and play with PGA players your in luck there is a game for you it's called Tiger Woods.

BTW a quick look at final 2013 PGA stats show only 13 guys who average 300 yards or more with their drives out of the 180 on the list.

[Naples39]

I like no upgrading players, but I was always wonder what is the right distance for clubs. Is 281 off the tee really enough to get around modern courses?

Yes, unless you're a PGA player, playing courses designed for the tour. If you want to drive the ball 300+ yards and play with PGA players your in luck there is a game for you it's called Tiger Woods.

BTW a quick look at final 2013 PGA stats show only 13 guys who average 300 yards or more with their drives out of the 180 on the list.

I always thought the point of sports video games is to play like a pro?? And when it says club distance of 281, that usually means ideal distance, making the practical average 275, at best. According to ESPN, only 8 out of 180 golfers failed to average 275 on a drive, and I presume they were capable of pulling out a 300 yard drive when required by a particular hole.

For instance, 18 at Merion for the US open last year required a tee shot to carry 250+ plus yards uphill just to reach the fairway after clearing a quarry. Would a golfer in this game even be able to play this hole if accurately reproduced? That's my point.

[MERACE]

I always thought the point of sports video games is to play like a pro??

The HB Studios developers have stated that they want TGC to simulate the weekend golfer experience with his buddies. It's going to take a paradigm shift in sports gamers thinking when it comes to playing this golf game.

I'm ready for that shift.


-MERACE

[Danimal]

I always thought the point of sports video games is to play like a pro??

That is not the point of this game. As I said you already have Tiger Woods if you're looking for a game like that. Some of us, maybe a lot of us would prefer a game like some of the older titles that were challenging. As for whether the point of a video game is to play like a pro, I guess that is up for debate.

And when it says club distance of 281, that usually means ideal distance, making the practical average 275, at best. According to ESPN, only 8 out of 180 golfers failed to average 275 on a drive, and I presume they were capable of pulling out a 300 yard drive when required by a particular hole.

For instance, 18 at Merion for the US open last year required a tee shot to carry 250+ plus yards uphill just to reach the fairway after clearing a quarry. Would a golfer in this game even be able to play this hole if accurately reproduced? That's my point.

I'm not sure what you're looking at but you should probably access the PGA's official stats for driving distance average for 2013. Assuming what I am looking at is correct, 112 golfer had a driving average of 290 or less, and 46 pf them had an average of 281 or less. Of course there are factors to both sides of this stats. Some PGA courses are set up so you can't blast it off the tee, while others set the courses up long and hard which inflates the average.

As for how this game uses the club averages to determine actual distance I can't say so I can't answer whether a golfer in this game could carry a 250 yard shot.

[Naples39]

I always thought the point of sports video games is to play like a pro??

That is not the point of this game. As I said you already have Tiger Woods if you're looking for a game like that. Some of us, maybe a lot of us would prefer a game like some of the older titles that were challenging. As for whether the point of a video game is to play like a pro, I guess that is up for debate.

And when it says club distance of 281, that usually means ideal distance, making the practical average 275, at best. According to ESPN, only 8 out of 180 golfers failed to average 275 on a drive, and I presume they were capable of pulling out a 300 yard drive when required by a particular hole.

For instance, 18 at Merion for the US open last year required a tee shot to carry 250+ plus yards uphill just to reach the fairway after clearing a quarry. Would a golfer in this game even be able to play this hole if accurately reproduced? That's my point.

I'm not sure what you're looking at but you should probably access the PGA's official stats for driving distance average for 2013. Assuming what I am looking at is correct, 112 golfer had a driving average of 290 or less, and 46 pf them had an average of 281 or less. Of course there are factors to both sides of this stats. Some PGA courses are set up so you can't blast it off the tee, while others set the courses up long and hard which inflates the average.

As for how this game uses the club averages to determine actual distance I can't say so I can't answer whether a golfer in this game could carry a 250 yard shot.

I was on ESPN, but it's just the official PGA Tour driving statistics for 2013. You will find the same statistics at pgatour.com
http://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.101.2013.html

The truth is we don't know what 281 means, but I am presuming it will be like most other golf games that it represents an ideal shot, and in most cases your shot ends 5 or 10% short of ideal distance. If so, we are talking about a practical average of 265-275. Again, at best, that puts you in the bottom 5% of the Tour, and at worst, out of tour distances entirely. I guess we'll see.

I would like to play a realistic sim golf game, but I am saying there's a critical minimum that a golfer must be able to drive to play realistic recreations of championship caliber courses. Am I the only who wants to play Augusta or a US Open courses in a video game?

My favorite golf game remains PGA 2000 on PC, mainly because of shot variety and swing subtlety, and honestly I find it a bit patronizing for you to say "if you don't like it, go play Tiger Woods." A game where you can add spin after the shot, power up your player and can hit 360 yard drives, and where online most players like to shoot rounds in the low 50s.

F*ck me for wanting a tough but fair sim that you can play realistic championship course recreations?

[Diablo25]

More info...

Tours and Tournaments. Game continues to look bad ass.

http://thegolfclubgame.com/2014/02/25/d ... urnaments/

[Danimal]

Ok we're looking at the same stats but again 41 players average 281 or below in drives so I don't find it that crazy.

Plus as you said we don't know what it means. Suppose there are no course conditions taken into account on that number, maybe a downhill tee shot on a course playing dry and fast rolls out to 300+ yards.

As for my Tiger Woods comment, I stand by it. You said you wanted to play as a pro and hit the ball pro distances. Both of which you can do in that game. Why is that patronizing? This game needs to stand on it's own, not be another Tiger game IMO.

[Naples39]

I'll just wait and see and take it for what it is. Truth is we know very little about gameplay at this point.

[Diablo25]

FYI, username CineFunk is streaming the closed beta on Twitch

[DChaps]

I would love to see them have some type of Club with proper stat tracking and results output with the ability to view those stats online (browser based), as opposed to only viewinug them in game. The last two iterations of TW just pissed me off by being close, but yet so very very far due to the lack of features in the Club/Stats, or the fact that many times they were just flat out wrong.

[Naples39]

FYI, username CineFunk is streaming the closed beta on Twitch

I watched a few holes. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from it, other than to say my concern about not having sufficient length off the tee to navigate a championship course is allayed. On the two drives I noticed, the distance was 286 and 291.

[DivotMaker]

FYI, username CineFunk is streaming the closed beta on Twitch

I watched a few holes. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from it, other than to say my concern about not having sufficient length off the tee to navigate a championship course is allayed. On the two drives I noticed, the distance was 286 and 291.

Early beta impressions are that driving is way too easy with little chance for mis-hit. They have time to address this prior to launch. The rest of the shots are exponentially more difficult at the club loft gets lower and shots out of the rough/sand appeqar to have some decent challenge.....

[Diablo25]

The boys over at HB discuss out of bounds in their latest video...

http://thegolfclubgame.com/2014/03/01/bounds/

[orthostud23]

This game looks like it's coming in nicely. Hopefully we have a DSP Tour. Anyone get into the beta?

[vader29]

The beta won't run on my system, makes it as far as the start round screen and then it hangs with a "not responding" message. These were the top scores yesterday for the Two Rivers course, and this is only for 9 holes so maybe the top scores will end up being ridiculously low like the Tiger Woods games.

[Danimal]

9 holes -10? What the number in front of the score mean? I'm hoping how many time they played it to get that score.

[vader29]

The front number is the total strokes, par 36 for 9 holes.

[Jimmydeicide]

Awesome, a birdie on every hole just like me at the week end, they nailed what they wanted from the game.

[Danimal]

Consider my excitement dropped down several notches.

[DivotMaker]

Ridiculously low scores for a beta only out less than a week. They need really good Golf game players testing this to amp up the challenge OR introduce different difficulty levels. Scoring this low this soon really takes the game down several notches for me and shows us how poor the Devs are at playing video Golf games.....which is not surprising to me after watching EA produce games that had little challenge left for the best players after a week or so...I wish them luck.

[vader29]

Since I can only go through the menus, I looked at a couple of full 18 hole courses on the hardest difficulty, the above 9 holer at Two Rivers was also on the hardest difficulty and these scores look a little better, got the driving distance averages also.

[J_Cauthen]

I didn't really get to put in much time with the beta until Friday evening. I've got an average, at best, gaming PC. I'm having to run the game at 1280 x 720 @ Low detail graphics. Even at that, I'm seeing between 21 and 26 FPS on most courses and in the high teens on the tree dense alpine course.

I'm probably having a harder time gauging the gameplay difficulty than many, because of my slower frame rates, and lower resolution and detail settings. The grid lines on the green are sparse in the settings I'm having to use. I cranked the graphics up to 1600 x 900 @ Medium detail (where I got 7 to 9 FPS), but saw a huge difference in the overall look of the game and the grid details. Secondly, I've always been a left thumbstick swing controller in thumbstick golf games and the beta forces you to use right stick only. I have no sense of feel or rhythm with the right thumbstick in a golf game and it feels totally foreign to me. I've only broken 80 one time on the easiest course. Most of my current difficulty comes from having to swing the right thumbstick.

Even with the handicaps I'm current strapped with, I see a lot of potential for this game. I can create an error condition which aborts the game during the loading screen and brings up a new mini-window that's about 1/32nd of the full screen size. The game runs a 65 to 75 fps in that window and it feels like a totally different game! I think that you really need at least 30 - 35FPS to make the game feel playable. 45 plus FPS would take it to another level though!

I like the commentary during the game, but I would prefer to throttle it back a little in frequency. The holing out effects are a bit loud, but that's something they can tweak. I like the fact that I can put what feels and looks like a good rhythm on the swing and get a good result. Even the impact sounds vary with the quality of the swing you've made. A rhythmic swing actually sounds, and to a degree "feels" better than a jerky/punchy swing that yields the same power... there's a unique dimension here with this game and I'm really intrigued by it.

All I can say is come on optimization (or maybe even the Radeon HD 7750 1GB video card I've got coming Tuesday... I'm ashamed to reveal the rest of my system to you guys if this 'moderate level' video card is the highlight of it) and left thumb stick swing and I'll be one step closer to the promised land!

I'm really curious to see what res and frame rate this game ultimately plays at on the PS4 and XB1. I have a gut feeling that it's so graphics processing intensive that it'll be one of those where the PS4 version runs at a higher res or a higher frame rate... hope I'm wrong though - it really needs to shine at 1080p/60FPS on both consoles to give this game the glory it deserves.

[J_Cauthen]

Since I can only go through the menus, I looked at a couple of full 18 hole courses on the hardest difficulty, the above 9 holer at Two Rivers was also on the hardest difficulty and these scores look a little better, got the driving distance averages also.

I regret that you're having those problems vader. I'd like to get your read on how the game is playing. I'm going to have to see what's going on at Two Rivers. I've played the whole course and shot an 89, but that was my first time out and like I said earlier, I flat out suck with the right thumbstick swing, slow frame rates or not. I'll report back once I see what's going on with those other worldly looking scores.

[Diablo25]

Since I can only go through the menus, I looked at a couple of full 18 hole courses on the hardest difficulty, the above 9 holer at Two Rivers was also on the hardest difficulty and these scores look a little better, got the driving distance averages also.

Those scores look WAY better. I'm still holding onto my optimism for this game.