Tiger Woods 14 thread, part II

[pk500]

The whole point is that shot arcs distract from the focus of playing the game. The love child of Helen Keller and Jose Feliciano could see that.

Shot arcs are almost as stupid as a racing game showing the lines used by your competitors on the track. Maybe that will be a mandatory EA "feature" soon in the Need For Speed franchise, too.

[Aristo]

I'm willing to see them in action before getting too worked up. The same goes foe gridless putting.

But I doubt we have that many guys playing at once that the shot arc will be that distracting. I admit that leaving out an option to turn them off seems really dumb. Its why I have no faith that the deva will fix it later if it is as bad as some fear. I've already seen them take out TrueAim and force the caddy on us.

But there is a ton about the game I am liking forward to, so I'm willing to give the game a chance.

[vader29]

[J_Cauthen]

I agree that it seems to be a no-brainer to have an option to turn the shot arcs off. Really, the *option* should be to turn them on! If this can be turned on or off via a server side patch, I bet we'll see it implemented by the game's official release date. I'm confident they'll have enough feedback from the demo period to drive the decision to include the option by then. If it's not patchable on the server side, we're probably looking at 6 to 8 weeks, when the inevitable game patch will be delivered.

[DivotMaker]

I'm willing to see them in action before getting too worked up. The same goes foe gridless putting.

But I doubt we have that many guys playing at once that the shot arc will be that distracting. I admit that leaving out an option to turn them off seems really dumb. Its why I have no faith that the deva will fix it later if it is as bad as some fear. I've already seen them take out TrueAim and force the caddy on us.

But there is a ton about the game I am liking forward to, so I'm willing to give the game a chance.

My understanding from one of the posts the Devs made today is that the arcs are transparent and fade away shortly after rendering.

[DivotMaker]

They looked at enabling them to be turned off, but it was pretty complicated to turn them on or off and this is a small Dev Team and they ran out of time to include this functionality prior to release. My guess is they are already working on an update to include this functionality....

[Jackdog]

Links used shot arcs for online matches back in 2000. It was kinda cool seeing where your opponents shots were going. That being said having an option to turn them off if desired is a must.

[Danimal]

'm confident they'll have enough feedback from the demo period to drive the decision to include the option by then.

How is the demo going to provide them information. I thought the tracers were for online country club play. Is that going to be enabled for the demo?

[DivotMaker]

'm confident they'll have enough feedback from the demo period to drive the decision to include the option by then.

How is the demo going to provide them information. I thought the tracers were for online country club play. Is that going to be enabled for the demo?

Shot arcs and online play enabled for the demo is what I am hearing from the Devs on the EA Tiger forum.....

[J_Cauthen]

How is the demo going to provide them information. I thought the tracers were for online country club play. Is that going to be enabled for the demo?

The Executive Producer confirmed over the weekend that "Connected Tournaments" would be part of the demo. Connected Tournaments, which include Country Club Live Tournaments and the "at large" EA Live Tournaments will have the Simultaneous Shot Arcs "on". Just like OCC Live Tournaments, you'll see the real time shot arcs of the players on your current hole in the at-large live tournaments. Apparently we're going to get a mini-Connected Tournament in the demo, and from what the Executive Producer said, they would cover all five difficulty levels with these connected live tournament demos. This is why I think the feedback will come with plenty of time for EA Sports to get cracking on it if it is as cacophonous as I suspect it will be.

A couple of other things I learned today is that the Spectator mode will be enabled while playing in the Connected Tournament demo. If you finish the hole you're playing and others are still playing it, you can select from one of four or five "Broadcast" camera positions, on demand, and watch the shot tracers of other players the hole. I guess you could camp there and watch for as long as players trickle in. Secondly, the voice chat option will be available for the demo. You can invite/connect with other players in the Connected Tournament on the same hole, if desired. There is an option to mute the voice chat, thankfully, as that could get a bit chaotic.


EDIT: Just learned that the Connected Tournament will be a 3-holer at Royal Birkdale.

[Naples39]

With all the hysterics regarding the shot arcs, isn't this basically a non-issue for our online CC tournaments? I don't understand--the odds of one of the handful of players participating in our tourneys playing the same hole at the same exact time is pretty damn slim, no? Two players could start within 5 minutes of each other and never notice being 2 holes apart, and last year I felt like nobody was even in a round when I was playing my round, let alone the same hole. And if it ever does happen, nothing a foul-mouth XBL message can't fix Or am I missing something?

[J_Cauthen]

Two players could start within 5 minutes of each other and never notice being 2 holes apart, and last year I felt like nobody was even in a round when I was playing my round, let alone the same hole. And if it ever does happen, nothing a foul-mouth XBL message can't fix Or am I missing something?

You'll notice that same player 2 holes ahead of you this year because you'll see the leaderboard updating their score, hole-by-hole, and I think you'll get updated statistical information (FIRs, GIRs, Avg. putts, etc) about their round in pop-up displays, through their most recently finished hole.

[Naples39]

Two players could start within 5 minutes of each other and never notice being 2 holes apart, and last year I felt like nobody was even in a round when I was playing my round, let alone the same hole. And if it ever does happen, nothing a foul-mouth XBL message can't fix Or am I missing something?

You'll notice that same player 2 holes ahead of you this year because you'll see the leaderboard updating their score, hole-by-hole, and I think you'll get updated statistical information (FIRs, GIRs, Avg. putts, etc) about their round in pop-up displays, through their most recently finished hole.

But I mean you'll never see a single shot arc, right?

[J_Cauthen]

But I mean you'll never see a single shot arc, right?

Right, the only way you'll see that is if you're on the same hole and the other player is actually executing a shot at the time.

[Danimal]

Correct me if I am wrong this will be on for all online tourneys. So if I join one of the many EA tournaments which thousands of people play I may see a lot of shot arcs right?

[Naples39]

Correct me if I am wrong this will be on for all online tourneys. So if I join one of the many EA tournaments which thousands of people play I may see a lot of shot arcs right?

I think that is right. Although the silver lining here is that we play at the higher difficulty settings which are much less popular among the masses.

[pk500]

The first DLC pack for this game will be titled "Tiger Woods 14: Killing the Russian Meteor Shower."

[DivotMaker]

Correct me if I am wrong this will be on for all online tourneys. So if I join one of the many EA tournaments which thousands of people play I may see a lot of shot arcs right?

I think that is right. Although the silver lining here is that we play at the higher difficulty settings which are much less popular among the masses.

I believe that you are correct Naples.....far more users will be playing Pro/Amateur online. We'll soon see.....

[10spro]

At the end of the day and after about 1 month of online play what not, the interest will dwindle a bit, arc or not arc the percentage of us playing at the same time is not that great especially me on the west coast. Do I wish there was an option to turn it off/on... absolutely. It was annoying even last year when I played against other CC's but mainly while I was ready to putt. With that said, hopefully it's something that EA can patch over time. More concerning to me is the lack of any video gameplay even though a demo is coming up next week and definitely hoping that the freezing issue is well behind us.

[bulls23]

The whole point is that shot arcs distract from the focus of playing the game. The love child of Helen Keller and Jose Feliciano could see that.

Really? But would they be able to tell anyone....Feliz Navidad!

[pk500]

The whole point is that shot arcs distract from the focus of playing the game. The love child of Helen Keller and Jose Feliciano could see that.

Really? But would they be able to tell anyone....Feliz Navidad!

LOLOLOL!

[dbdynsty25]

I really hope these shot arc things are absolutely horrible the way you guys are talking about them. Sheesh.

[J_Cauthen]

I really hope these shot arc things are absolutely horrible the way you guys are talking about them. Sheesh.

I'd have to say it's a personal preference thing. I've experienced it already in Tiger Woods Online and in Simultaneous Stroke play in Tiger Woods 11, 12, and 13, and I actually prefer it to not having any feedback at all. The only time I don't like it is when I'm putting and an approach shot comes streaking across my line as I'm stroking the putt. I've been distracted to the point of pulling or pushing my putt because of it. This is why I like Merace's idea of having a button turn shot arcs off on demand, so you could turn them off while putting.

The experience I've had with shot arcs in Tiger Woods Online has been very limited. I don't enjoy the game enough to play it very often. When I do play it, I can't think of a time when I've every seen more than three or four shot tracers live at any one time. I can say that I enjoyed watching how others were playing the hole to the point that I could tolerate the occasional distractions. I think more than four shot arcs being "live" on one hole would be the saturation point for me though.

Having said all that, if you think you're hearing some negative talk about them now, just wait until the demo launches and gamers who haven't seen this before get a taste of it in the doses possible in Amateur and Pro difficulty levels. I think it's a powderkeg waiting for a spark

[DivotMaker]

Having said all that, if you think you're hearing some negative talk about them now, just wait until the demo launches and gamers who haven't seen this before get a taste of it in the doses possible in Amateur and Pro difficulty levels. I think it's a powderkeg waiting for a spark

Initially you are probably right, but I think it will wear off as time goes on and people are used to it (if that is possible) and it is not as bad as it is being portrayed and/or EA patches the game to add an on/off capability.....

[MERACE]

Having said all that, if you think you're hearing some negative talk about them now, just wait until the demo launches and gamers who haven't seen this before get a taste of it in the doses possible in Amateur and Pro difficulty levels. I think it's a powderkeg waiting for a spark

As has been stated, we may not see an arc meteor shower in Simulation mode in the RTM version of the game, but I do believe we will see more than enough of them in the demo since it's only 3 holes on just 2 courses.

Again, I just hope that EA learned from the fallout of the TW12 caddie feature and we see an on/off arc setting in a day one patch of TW14.


-MERACE