Hey everyone!  We're here again to launch a new topic for discussion based in the EA SPORTS forums. The Community Appreciation Challenge events have been going on for the better part of a month now and The Games Village has proven that they are a force to be reckoned with under the current format.  Hats off to them...they have been great competitors that have helped make this competition fun and engaging.  A big thanks goes out to everyone who has played and competed in these tournaments so far.  We appreciate your willingness to participate in something new.   So now it's time to shake things up a little bit and try something different.  That's where you all come in...

So far we've had recruitment, team creation, kings of the hill, and video wars all become a part of the current community tournament format.  Now we're looking for your ideas on what would be a cool new format for these tournaments.  We're ready to take any and all ideas.  These are community tournaments after all, so who best to steer the direction of these than you guys. 

Feel free to compile your ideas and drop them here in this forum.  Next week we're going to set up a Live Chat between the Tiger Development Team and you all to discuss all the submitted ideas.  We'll be using these ideas to create the next Community Appreciation Challenge!

Hey everyone!  We're here again to launch a new topic for discussion based in the EA SPORTS forums. The club distances in game have always gotten a lot of attention and comments directed their way...primarily the Driver distances.  So we'd like to start gathering your feedback earlier this year so we can better utilize it when we adjust these club distances for future versions of Tiger Woods PGA TOUR. 

So let's open up this discussion primarily to Driver distances and what you'd like these to be.  However, you can also feel free to comment on any other clubs in game that you feel hit inaccurate distances when compared to their real-world counterparts. 

Again, this is open to players of all difficulty levels and gameplay styles.  If you like to bomb it off the tee 430 yards, we want to hear from you too.

Thanks everyone!

Hey everyone!  We're here again to launch a new topic for discussion based in the EA SPORTS forums on some of the ideas you all have been pitching for the game.  This new topic revolves around "Random Landing Areas For The Golf Ball".  This has been a topic I have seen appear often in the forums, so I'm anxious to hear the great ideas you all have on this one.  Let's build on the momentum from last week and keep the ideas coming.

As a reminder, please keep the topics focused on the main point we are discussing.  This discussion is OPEN TO PLAYERS OF ALL SKILL LEVELS, so please feel free to use this area as a place to propose ways in which we can use the idea we're discussing to make the game better for you.

Thanks!
Mike D.

We've opened up a new section in the Tiger Woods PGA TOUR forums (Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® Discussion with Mike DeVault). 

For now, this area will be dedicated to discussing new design ideas that you all have been suggesting over the course of the year.  There have been a lot of excellent suggestions for ways to improve features and the game in general.  This spot on the boards will be dedicated to diving deeper into those ideas in an effort to develop them further...potentially into something that might make it into the game at some point. 

It's important that we keep these discussions focused on the topic that has been established.  We'll try to cover all the most popular ideas that have been raised in the forums, so if one week we are not discussing that one topic you've been chomping at the bit to chime in on, don't worry, we'll get to it.

THIS DISCUSSION IS OPEN TO EVERYONE hardcore and casual players alike, so please feel free to post any ideas (relevant to the topic) that you think would be cool.

Check out the video below to see what this week's topic is and head over to the forums to discuss.

Thanks and see you on the boards!
Mike D.

It’s been a couple weeks since our last blog, so we figured it would be a good time to fill you all in on some new things we’ve got brewing here on the Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Dev Team.
 
First of all, the Live Tournaments feedback we’ve received so far from all of you has been awesome.  It’s really helped us figure out where we need to push and pull on this feature in order to make it enjoyable and competitive for all players.  Based on all the feedback we’ve received, there are a few changes that we are looking to make to the Live Tournaments structure in the coming weeks that we wanted to let you in on. 

As always, please let us know what you think about these new additions.  Do you like them, dislike them, do you have some suggestions that might make them better?   Anything goes…

New Tournament Payout Structure

From the get go we knew tournament payouts were going to need some tweaking and tuning.  Once we saw the feature being played in the real world we started making a few adjustments to tournament purses.  We also made a change to the payout structure to increase the number of players who get paid in each tournament and also to level out the payouts across the board.

Having made those changes and seeing the results, we’ve decided to go in a slightly different direction when it comes to tournament payouts.  We’re currently working on a new payout system that would payout a fixed amount of tournament dollars for each person you beat on the leaderboard.  This system would do away with the purses we currently use in each tournament and the winnings would be based on the number of people who have entered the tournament. 

Here’s an example of how this new system would work:

•    We would set a dollar value for each person you beat on the leaderboard.  For the purposes of this example we’ll say that’s $1,000 for each person you beat. 
•    Say the tournament had a total of 5,000 competitors (people who posted valid tournament rounds).
•    In that tournament the winner would get $5,000,000 (1,000 per position X 5,000 players).
•    Each subsequent player after 1st place would receive $1,000 less all the way down the leaderboard.
•    The payouts per spot will be tuned so that we can make the payouts higher towards the top of the leaderboard.  So for example the top 10% of the leaderboard get $5,000 per spot, the next 25% of the leaderboard gets $3,000 per spot and so on.

So using this payout structure will create a more dynamic system for Live Tournaments and reward the people who place high on the leaderboards of the most popular tournaments.


Handicapped Tournaments

A lot of the feedback we’ve received from you guys has revolved around the Live Tournaments Skill Rating and the current thresholds in place that locks players out of certain tournaments.  There’s also been a lot of discussion around round score balancing and how we might be able to make a more competitive environment for everyone to play in.

Based on all of this we’re looking to implement a new dynamic difficulty system that would handicap the field based on their Live Tournament Skill Rating.  So when you entered one of these new handicapped tournaments, the game would automatically determine the appropriate settings for your round and adjust the difficulty for it based on your individual Skill Rating.  People with low Skill Ratings would be allowed to use spin and boost and putt preview, etc…while people with the highest Skill Ratings would be playing on TOUR pro with capped attributes golfers and no green grid.  The idea is to have a dynamic range of tournament settings that would cater to all levels of play. 

The goal here is to remove the Skill Rating as a barrier of entry into a tournament and allow everyone to compete against each other on a leveled playing field.  In handicapped tournaments people of all different skill levels would be competing on the same leaderboard. 

Online PGA TOUR Seasons

We’re looking to create a season structure within Live Tournaments and we need your help to set it up correctly.  The basic idea here is to create a season’s worth of tournaments that would last X amount of weeks.  At the end of the season, we’d crown a winner they’d win some fabulous prizes and we’d start up another season right after that.  So here’s what we need from you: 

Let us know…
•    Are you interested a season structure like this within Live Tournaments? 
•    How long should each Season be?
•    What difficulty settings should we use for the Online PGA TOUR Seasons?
•    What courses would you like to see used during the season?

As always…please feel free to continue the discussion and weigh in with your thoughts in the comments section below or on the forums!

Mike D.