Tiger Woods 14 thread, part II

[10spro]

Thanks for the updates. Currently out of town again, look forward to try the 4 rounder along some H2H.

[J_Cauthen]

For all the members in the DSP CC, the Online Country Club website became operational again this morning, so we've got some fresh 1 round and 4 round club tournaments kicking off at 8:00 AM EDT, 5/4/13. These are the first tournaments I've been able to create since the patch went into effect yesterday, but Legioneren and I were able to play a complete simultaneous round in our club tournament yesterday, and other than my briefly contorted golfer on each tee, the game flowed smoothly. It was really cool to play a tournament round with at least the tracers of another participant

As for the contorted golfers on the tee, I've learned that if you don't touch the swing camera adjustment button (RB), you won't get the contortioning. There's a "feature" (programmer's euphemism for "bug") in the patch that does this as the game tries to automatically set your choice of swing camera height from the previous hole. If you hit the A button twice, it gets restored to normal and will be okay for the rest of the hole. This is so elementary that I can't believe it got through QA, but it only shows up on Connected tournaments though. It sounds like there will be a second patch and this is one item they'll fix.

Overall though, the patch has at least restored the game to something I want to play. I had a ball going 3-2 in matchplay yesterday, even though I doubt I got credit for my 3 wins because my opponents all quit before the finish. One of my losses went into sudden death, after I'd blown a 3 up lead with 4 holes to play

I'd like to read some other responses to how the patch affected other's impressions of the game. I'm about 95% sure we're going to see another patch based on Executive Producer Sean Wilson's comments yesterday. This game can't fester with the sorts of niggles it still has for almost two years before we see the next-gen Tiger.

[J_Cauthen]

EA Sports is continuing to work on curing some of the problems that we're seeing in Tiger 14. Any day now, we should be getting a server side update that corrects the problem with Tie Breakers not being sorted properly. My guess is that will come on Saturday. Secondly, the Executive Producer is acknowledging that they are working on fixes for the club resetting issue after online multiplayer, flickering/stuttering follow camera coverage in online multiplayer, and 36 hole cuts not being properly applied in Career mode play. It definitely sounds like there will be another patch. I'm happy to know there will be one, but at least for now, I have a game that makes me want to play it in the meanwhile!

On another note, I've got sort of an experimental DSP Country Club Tournament set for Friday, at Valhalla. It's a custom difficulty modified more from Tournament difficulty and Simulation. The changes I made from stock Tournament difficulty were to turn off the swing meter and zoom to lie. I'm doing this to see if it offers any more appeal to members who might be put off by the mostly stock and pure stock Simulation settings we've been playing. I hope everyone who has a chance will try it because I'd like to hear opinions from as many as possible. What we're doing now doesn't seem to appeal to that many and I'd like to see if we could find something that's an overall better fit.

[J_Cauthen]

For those of you who are members of the Digital Sportspage Country Club, and aren't following our DSP CC league thread, you may find the following DSP Cup 14 announcement of interest:

Announcing the start of the DSP CC Tour Season 14. The season begins today, 5/13/2013, and will run for 16 weeks. The Tour will consist of 16, 72 hole tournaments, each running for 7 days, beginning on Monday, 3 AM EDT of each respective week. I'm going to use Danimal's template from our inaugural season for Tour Rules and season structure, with just a few minor changes.

DSP 14 Cup Rules

1. Members will earn points for weekly events only.
2. The top 10 finishers will earn points on placements. 10 points for first, 9 for second etc.
3. We will have 4 majors, starting with the first week's Augusta. These events will be worth extra bonus points for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place golfers. Extra Points being 8 for 1st, 5 for 2nd and 3 for 3rd.
4. You must complete 5 weekly events to qualify for end of year prize. If you don't have a course you can skip that week. The season is built around the premise that everyone has the Historical Masters Edition and has, or will own the TPC 4-Pack. I will use every real PGA Tour course in the season contained on these packages, during that course's real life event week. Colonial will not be part of that since it's a stand along purchase.
5. You must use your CAG golfers, this has to be on the honor system.
6. Tournaments will be set with 3 tries and 1 submission going forward. Players are on their honor to only use their second/third try in the event of a freeze or disconnect.
7. Tournaments will be set to Simulation difficulty with the following exception, analog meter will be ON. Weather will always be Live, with gusty winds. Time of Day will be fixed from among morning, noon, afternoon, or evening.

We will have an end of year match play tournament that will be weighted to count for 1/4 of the seasons total scoring. The winner will get 50 points, second place 45, third 40, etc. The top 16 players will qualify for the single elimination match play tournament to conclude the season.

I'm working on a scoring and reporting system that might help speed things up and keep the leaderboards more current. I'll have more details about that soon. We're starting at Augusta since we didn't get a chance to play it as a major, during its scheduled week, and TPC Four Seasons is not a Tiger 14 course.

May 13-19: Augusta National (Major)
May 20-26: Royal Melbourne
May 27-June 2: Muirfield Village
Jun 3-9: TPC River Highlands
Jun 10-16: Atlanta Athletic Club
Jun 17-23: Oakmont (Major)
June 24-30: Sheshan
Jul 1-7: Valhalla
Jul 8-14: Crooked Stick
Jul 15-21: Royal Troon (Major)
Jul 22-28: Torrey Pines
Jul 29-Aug 4: Mission Hills
Aug 5-11: Oak Hill (Major)
Aug 12-18: Spyglass Hill
Aug 19-25: TPC San Antonio
Aug 26-Sep 2: TPC Boston

Sep 2-16: DSP CC Match Play Championship - East Lake GC

The league thread discussion starts here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15920&start=217

[J_Cauthen]

I've gone out on a limb with today's Digital Sportspage Country Club's 1 Rounder (it will actually last three days to give more folks a shot at trying it) to try to see if these settings might fit DSP members a little better. I started with Simulation settings, but I tuned on Analog strike meter (as we've been doing for two weeks anyway), backed advanced shot shaping down to "normal" (ie. there will be no diagonal swings required to hit a "straight" shot}, turned on zoom to aim and no bead grids. I think it will "feel" more like a Tiger Woods 13 round, with a few minor changes.

I encourage everyone to try this and see how it feels, sharing your feedback on it here. I honestly don't know how this will go over, bu t it's worth a shot. I think only 4 or 5 of us are at least OK with advanced shot shaping. The zoom to aim I'm not 100% sure of. I can live without it, but I do wish there were yardages given to various markers on the overhead.

[DChaps]

I've gone out on a limb with today's Digital Sportspage Country Club's 1 Rounder (it will actually last three days to give more folks a shot at trying it) to try to see if these settings might fit DSP members a little better. I started with Simulation settings, but I tuned on Analog strike meter (as we've been doing for two weeks anyway), backed advanced shot shaping down to "normal" (ie. there will be no diagonal swings required to hit a "straight" shot}, turned on zoom to aim and no bead grids. I think it will "feel" more like a Tiger Woods 13 round, with a few minor changes.

I encourage everyone to try this and see how it feels, sharing your feedback on it here. I honestly don't know how this will go over, bu t it's worth a shot. I think only 4 or 5 of us are at least OK with advanced shot shaping. The zoom to aim I'm not 100% sure of. I can live without it, but I do wish there were yardages given to various markers on the overhead.

Aww crap, I just traded in TW14 for Grid 2. TW14 just had too many problems(scoring, placement, etc.) and I could not get a handle on the sim settings. I rarely broke par in TW13 so shooting a round of +34 in TW14 was definitely a challenge. I appreciate you continuing to make TW14 work as the DSP championship last year was really fun.

[J_Cauthen]

Aww crap, I just traded in TW14 for Grid 2. TW14 just had too many problems(scoring, placement, etc.) and I could not get a handle on the sim settings. I rarely broke par in TW13 so shooting a round of +34 in TW14 was definitely a challenge. I appreciate you continuing to make TW14 work as the DSP championship last year was really fun.

I wish I had tried something like this earlier, but I still don't think it's enough to pull Tiger 14 out of the fire. Overall, it doesn't feel like it's built as well as Tiger 13, although it clearly has advantages in many areas, such as connected play and live hole-by-hole scoring updates.

[Danimal]

What is is lacking is the ability to play club tourneys with another member. The shot tracing stuff is fine but I'd rather play my round with someone once in a while. TW14 is like a tease. You have all these connected stats, clubs, tourneys but on the course its a singular experience.

[TheTruth]

Count me as one of the few who like all the new features...shot shaping, putting analog fade, etc. I am liking 14 much better than 13, stat tracking bugs and all.

[Danimal]

I'd like to try one daily with everything the way you normally set it JC except turning zoom to aim on. I'm not sure if it would make that much of a difference since you still need to execute the shot shaping stuff but who knows it might.

[J_Cauthen]

Count me as one of the few who like all the new features...shot shaping, putting analog fade, etc. I am liking 14 much better than 13, stat tracking bugs and all.

There is a core of gamers who are right in there with you Truth. I thought I was going to be dead into it at first, but over time, the relationship between advanced shot shaping and the swing hasn't clicked as much as I would have hoped. I think it would help if there was more of a rhythm requirement in full swings, but there's not one that I can feel. The analog fade is one element that I totally don't get in terms of modeling, although I clearly see why it makes the art of striking the ball more difficult. I just know in real life, there's never a point during the address where I can't see where the clubhead is relative to the ball.

I'll stick Tiger 14 out for our season for sure, and hopefully grow to appreciate it more. There are times when I'm really pleased with it and other times where I can't imagine what they were thinking.

[J_Cauthen]

I'd like to try one daily with everything the way you normally set it JC except turning zoom to aim on. I'm not sure if it would make that much of a difference since you still need to execute the shot shaping stuff but who knows it might.

We'll do that one Sunday Dan. I'm all for experimenting with it in the 1-Rounders. BTW, I shot a 5 under at TPC Louisiana today, in the modified sim 1-Rounder. The gusty winds were responsible for me not scoring lower. I had a Power Golfer at 95, and I hit one drive into the wind and smacked it... it went 228 yards!? Then again, I almost drove a 413 yard par 4 with the wind at my back. Under breezy conditions, I'm pretty sure I'd have been 10 under, or lower. It felt "different", but I'm not sure it was necessarily better.

[greggsand]

Been trying to create a 4 day CC tourney all day & keep getting "our servers are overloaded" errors (360). Anyone else seeing this?

[J_Cauthen]

Been trying to create a 4 day CC tourney all day & keep getting "our servers are overloaded" errors (360). Anyone else seeing this?

I see that occasionally, but it rarely lasts for more than an hour. I'd say I've had it happen at least 10 times, but I've been fortunate in that it's never happened as a deadline was nearing.

[Inuyasha]

I was about to sell this today but put it in one last time over the weekend and found that they had the U.S. Open on there in the 'PLAY VS THE PROS' game mode which was really cool.

Does anyone know if they will be supporting TW14 next year too since there is no TW15? What I mean is when the 2014 four majors are going on and all the other 2014 golf tourneys, will they be available in the PLAY VS THE PROS mode? Or will they just kill this feature in the game after this year?

[J_Cauthen]

Does anyone know if they will be supporting TW14 next year too since there is no TW15? What I mean is when the 2014 four majors are going on and all the other 2014 golf tourneys, will they be available in the PLAY VS THE PROS mode? Or will they just kill this feature in the game after this year?

I'm sure they will at least support Tiger Woods 14 until at least March of 2015. The number of tournaments offered will drop off a bit, but they'll still be there, based on history.

[dbdynsty25]

Every time I think about selling the game I just remember that there's nothing coming out for the forseeable future, so I hang on to it. I'm sure it'll be supported until they release the next iteration, whenever that is. I agree with most everyone here, golf games don't need a yearly release for rosters or tweaks...just patch it up for a year and a half and get cranking on an every other year release. That way we get a decent golf game for a year or so before the next bug riddled mess drops and we get six months of bug fixes/patches.

[J_Cauthen]

Every time I think about selling the game I just remember that there's nothing coming out for the forseeable future, so I hang on to it. I'm sure it'll be supported until they release the next iteration, whenever that is. I agree with most everyone here, golf games don't need a yearly release for rosters or tweaks...just patch it up for a year and a half and get cranking on an every other year release. That way we get a decent golf game for a year or so before the next bug riddled mess drops and we get six months of bug fixes/patches.

I have no doubt they'll support after the next release in 2015, and probably a year beyond that. I have no idea what they'll do with the XBox 360 and PS3 versions of 'Tiger 16' though. It's pretty obvious they overstepped the hardware limitations in Tiger 14 with what they tried to add to the evolved core engine, which dates back about 8 years now. They are still committed to a second patch, which *should* help some, but it can't cure the missteps this game made this year.

As for decent golf games, it looks like 2K Sports have something up their sleeve in this regard. Take-Two Interactive registered "2KGolfLinks.com", paving the way for what could be Links Golf 2K14, or something of the sort. http://www.joystiq.com/2013/06/10/take- ... s-domains/ Take-Two owns the Links Golf moniker and the intellectual property of what was to be Links 2007 on the 360. Maybe they're planning to finish and update what Indie-Built started and was reportedly ~80% complete with? Who knows, but I find this very interesting.

Then again, for those who are planning to buy an XBox One, they'll have this option at launch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DInXxizDhY Powerstar Golf... it looks like Hot Shots Golf on steroids. Interestingly it looks like it will be a three clicker!? Welcome to the next gen of built-in Kinect

[Inuyasha]

the guys who work on the game that post here : do you know why live tournaments never works now? I am trying to get into the Greg Norman Macy's tourney but it always says ERROR - CANT CONNECT TO DATABASE. Same thing happened a few weeks ago with the Arnold Palmer tourney.

I looked at the EA forums and everyone else is having the same problem. But nobody from EA responds.

So what is it worth advertising these features if none of them work!?!?!? About 3 clicks away from selling this game.

[J_Cauthen]

For those of you who are members of the DSP CC, and aren't active in the DSP CC League forum, I've created a special tournament for today's (it actually starts tonight at 11 PM EDT) 1 Rounder. I started with Simulation settings and made the following adjustments: Shot Shaping from Advanced to Normal (no diagonal swings required to hit the ball straight), Zoom to Aim from off to on, and strike meter from analog fade to analog (you can see the cursor throughout the swing.

I play my career mode using these settings and find the game feeling a less contrived with them. I'd love to get some feedback from others who have lost interest in the game might feel about this. As much as I've loved this series, I've got to admit that my honeymoon with Tiger 14 has been the most short-lived since Tiger 09. I just wish the career mode was more compelling to play, but it just seems so lifeless to me. When you add that to the fact that the game is pretty much relegated to Follow Cam presentation (which I've never liked in any Tiger game), this game has a lot of negative baggage to overcome to win my affection.

[ddtrane]

For those of you who are members of the DSP CC, and aren't active in the DSP CC League forum, I've created a special tournament for today's (it actually starts tonight at 11 PM EDT) 1 Rounder. I started with Simulation settings and made the following adjustments: Shot Shaping from Advanced to Normal (no diagonal swings required to hit the ball straight), Zoom to Aim from off to on, and strike meter from analog fade to analog (you can see the cursor throughout the swing.

I play my career mode using these settings and find the game feeling a less contrived with them. I'd love to get some feedback from others who have lost interest in the game might feel about this. As much as I've loved this series, I've got to admit that my honeymoon with Tiger 14 has been the most short-lived since Tiger 09. I just wish the career mode was more compelling to play, but it just seems so lifeless to me. When you add that to the fact that the game is pretty much relegated to Follow Cam presentation (which I've never liked in any Tiger game), this game has a lot of negative baggage to overcome to win my affection.

I put in the game today just to see if I could break 100 in sim mode and I still shot a 102 I don't mind the game being hard, but I usually find a groove and get better. With this game I'm not finding that groove and I seem to be getting worse. My tee shot never finds the fairway, always goes left or right. And constantly playing from or through hazards.

Maybe I'll go back to Tournament and just enjoy it for what it is, a TW 13 expansion pack.

[J_Cauthen]

I put in the game today just to see if I could break 100 in sim mode and I still shot a 102 I don't mind the game being hard, but I usually find a groove and get better. With this game I'm not finding that groove and I seem to be getting worse. My tee shot never finds the fairway, always goes left or right. And constantly playing from or through hazards.

I haven't checked the leaderboard for today's 1-Rounder, with normal shot-shaping since this morning. Just curious, did you by chance give it a try? I'm just trying to gauge whether normal shot shaping would put you back in the groove. I've played Tiger '14 from day one, and while I've never really "felt" this game, I was doing better with Advanced Shot Shaping until about three weeks ago. Now I can't find the fairway with both hands and a search warrant! I've broken par only a few times in the last three weeks.

I really would be curious to see how much more playable you might find the game using normal shot shaping, versus the default required by Simulation default settings.

[bulls23]

I just got the game recently and would like to join the country club. Would anyone be willing to let me and tell me how?

Thanks

[bulls23]

delete duplicate

[10spro]

I just got the game recently and would like to join the country club. Would anyone be willing to let me and tell me how?

Thanks

Search for the DSP club. Password is golf4ever. There's a daily tourney and weekly one set up by JC.

Welcome aboard.