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.

Last week we released lots of information regarding our new Live Tournaments feature.  Seems like everywhere you turned there was a story, video or blog to be taken in.  Live Tournaments is such a large feature that it was hard to sum up in a couple days of media announcements.  There are so many nooks and crannies in this mode that I thought I would spend some time focusing on a few of the areas I have received the most questions about regarding Live Tournaments.

Round Submissions and Restarts

These two things are handled uniquely in Live Tournaments.  Each tournament can be set to a limited number of allowable round submissions.  For example the Beginner Level Daily Tournament might be set to unlimited round submissions, allowing competitors to play and submit rounds all day long.  On the other hand, the TOUR Pro Daily Tournament may have a limit of only one round submission per day.  Once you’ve reached the maximum number of round submissions allowed for a particular tournament you will then have to start using the Live Tournament Earnings you’ve accrued to purchase additional submissions.  We also have the ability to hard cap submissions after you have reached the maximum number of rounds, so in some tournaments we may decide to not allow players to purchase additional round submissions.

As in years past, the player is able to restart their tournament round at any time prior to submitting a round score to the leaderboard.  This is a luxury that the boys on the PGA TOUR do not get offered, but this is a video game after all and we wanted to make sure that players had the ability to truly post their best possible score.

The Skill Rating

The player’s Live Tournament Skill Rating will help determine the tournaments they can enter.  This rating is not related to the online skill points system used in head to head online matches.  All of the ratings, money, leaderboards, etc. in Live Tournaments are unique to this mode.  The Live Tournament Skill Rating system will primarily be used to match player’s to a tournament difficulty that best suits their individual skill.  This will help make sure that beginner level players are participating in beginner tournaments and TOUR Pro level players are in those tourneys.  Currently the system is designed to prevent the higher skilled players from entering the lower tiered tournaments by establishing a maximum allowable Skill Rating for entry.  However, the system can also be set up to create tournaments that require a minimum Skill Rating for entry. 

Live Tournaments Tunable Settings

One of the cool things about Live Tournaments is its tune-ability post launch.  Since we announced this there have been many questions relating to just how tuneable the tournaments are.  So I’ll use the rest of the blog to dive into the tune-ability of this feature. 

On a surface level we can control things like:
•    The Tournament Type (Daily, Weekly, Play the Pros).
•    The number of ROUNDS the tournament has.
•    The COURSE the tournament is held at.
•    The PURSE for that tournament.
•    The START and END time of the tournament.
•    The overall DIFFICULTY (Beginner, Amateur, Pro, TOUR Pro) of that tournament.
•    A maximum SKILL RATING for that tournament.
•    Global WEATHER settings (preset or Live).
•    The number of round submissions allowed per tournament.
•    Rough Length, Green Speed, Green Hardness, Pin Difficulty, Tee Difficulty and other general difficulty settings.

Digging a little deeper, we can start to tweak things like:
•    Purse Distribution: We can establish unique purse distributions per tournaments.  Right now the game will ship with tournaments distributing the purse amongst the top 70 players on the leaderboard for each tournament.  However, we can tune this based on feedback or create custom purse distributions for individual tournaments. 
•    Tie Breaker Score: We can tune the tiebreaker scoring system to adjust the importance of certain stats as they relate to your overall tiebreaker value.  For example, we may get feedback that a particular stat is weighted too much or too little in the tiebreaking system. 
•    Skill Rating: As discussed before, we have the ability to tune the skill rating entry requirements for each tournament.  So if we find out that they need to be raised or lowered we can do so.  The system also allows us to set maximum rating levels and minimum rating levels allowed for entry into a tournament.
•    Round Submission Cost: We can set the amount required to purchase additional submissions above and beyond the submission limit.  We can also hard cap the submission limit which would not allow additional round submissions to be purchased at all.
•    Precision or Classic Putting: We can set tournaments that require the player to only use the New Precision Putting system.

Digging even deeper, we can control the following:
•    Custom Courses: We can create custom courses for any tournament.  These can be a combination of any holes from the courses in our game.  Once the game ships we will be asking you all to help us create these custom courses by letting us know the suggested holes that you’d like to see used.
•    Tiebreaker Scores per Difficulty: We have the ability to tune the tiebreaking score in the manner described above per tournament difficulty level.  So for example if on TOUR Pro tournaments the stats need to be weighted a little differently to take into account the added challenge, then we can do so.
•    Max Attribute Cap: Even though we reduced the overall club distances in this year’s game, we understand that there are some who still look for an even greater challenge in our game.  In Live Tournaments we have the ability to set a cap for the players attribute ratings.  So for example if you have a max stats suit…if the tournament has an attribute rating cap of 5 applied, then your golfer will be capped at level 5 across his range of attributes.
•    Unique Golfers: The tournaments can be created to allow all golfers (created and licensed) into a tournament, or we can set the tournaments to only allow a created golfer or certain individual licensed golfers.  For example we could make a tournament in which all players have to play as Tiger.
•    Unique Per-Hole Settings: We can adjust many of the settings listed in this blog on a per hole basis, per individual round, day or tournament.

I used the word “WE” a lot in this blog and I think it’s important to note that “WE” includes, not only the people here at Tiburon, but everyone that plays our game.  This level of tune-ability was added to Live Tournaments so the feature could continue to improve after the game launches based on everyone’s feedback and ideas. 

I hope this helps to shed a little more light on some of details in Live Tournaments.  I’ll be on the forums as always to try and answer any other questions you all might have.

-    Mike D.

Alright, I’ve been waiting all year to write this blog and I finally got the green light to do it.  Our NEW Live Tournament feature is one we have been hinting at on the forums for some time now.  We’ve been talking about what we were going to be doing “differently” with Daily Tournaments and this is it…and then some.  Since you’ve all been waiting patiently (some impatiently) to hear what this feature is all about, I am going to try and go into as much detail as possible for you.  I am currently on a plane out to Los Angeles where we will be unveiling this new Live Tournament s mode to the media.  My laptop is draining battery as I type this, so let’s get crackin’…

THE BASICS
In a nutshell our new Live Tournaments feature is going to let you play in a variety of tournament types against online gamers from all over the world.  We’ve taken the concept behind our existing Daily Tournaments and blown it out to create an entirely new mode revolving around playing tournament rounds, then posting your score(s) to that tournament’s leaderboard and beating other player’s tournament scores in that tournament.  After each event the tournament purses will be distributed and your goal is to earn tournament cash to climb as high as possible on the overall money rankings leaderboard. 

Live Tournaments are broken up into 3 unique tournament types:

•    Daily Tournaments – Similar to in years past these will be 24hr long tournaments that crown a new winner each day.   You’ll play your round and submit it to the tournament leaderboard.  At the end of the day, that tournament ends and a new one begins.  Within Daily’s there will be a number of different difficult levels to play.  Each difficulty level will have its own unique settings.

•    Weekly Tournaments – These will be tournaments that last all week long.  They will start on Sunday, for example, and players can compete all week long.  In Weekly’s you’ll submit four tournament rounds.  The player with the lowest total four round score will win that week’s weekly tournament.  Like in Daily’s there will be several difficulty levels to choose from, so you’re sure to find the right competition level for your golf game.

•    Play the Pros – This tournament type will allow you to compete each week directly against the pro golfer’s scores from that week’s professional golf tournament.  So, for example, when the game ships in June, you will be able to play against Tiger and the boys at the U.S. Open at Bethpage vs. their real life scores, at the course the tournament is being played at, with live weather and as the tournament is happening!  These tournaments will start on the Thursday of that week’s pro tournament and go through the weekend.  There will only be one difficulty setting for Play the Pros, since this tournament type is meant to be the ultimate golf test.  We’ve made sure to customize and tune the settings in Play the Pros tournaments to ensure your scores will be competitive against those of the real life pro golfers.  One other unique aspect to Play the Pros tournaments is that unlike Daily and Weekly Tournaments, here, you will only be competing against the pro golfer’s scores.  So there won’t be any other online gamers to contend with.

PLAYER RATING SYSTEM
Each individual tournament within the Live Tournaments feature will have its own purse.  This is important because the main objective in Live Tournaments is the climbing the overall Money Earnings Leaderboard.  When entering tournaments you’ll have to pick the tournament you enter wisely so you match yourself up with the right competition level for you.  We’ve created a new player rating system for Live Tournaments to ensure that lower level tournaments cannot be entered by those who could run away with the leaderboard.  The object of the player rating is to match people with similar ranks so that the tournaments are competitive and fun.  You can always see your Rating at the top of the Live Tournament screens. 

TIEBREAKING
We got a lot of feedback regarding ties with our old daily tournament mode.  In the new Live Tournaments, we’ve created a unique tiebreaking system that will take care of all ties along the tournament leaderboard.  This new tiebreaking system uses a n umber of in game stats to compile a Tiebreaker Score for each player per tournament. 

The stats that make up your tiebreaker score include the following:

•    Average Number of Putts
•    Average Driving Distance
•    Longest Drive
•    Driving Accuracy
•    Greens in Regulation
•    Hole in Ones
•    Double Eagles
•    Eagles
•    Bogeys
•    Double Bogeys or Worse

The totals of all of these stats are then run through an equation and then added up to determine each player’s overall tiebreaker score.  So if there are people tied on the leaderboard with the same round score, the player with the highest tiebreaker score will get the spot.  Tiebreakers aren’t only used to break first place ties.  Everyone will be generating a tiebreaker score as they play Live Tournaments, so every spot on the leaderboard is subject to the tiebreaker score system.  One cool thing about the tiebreaker system is that it is very tunable once the game launches.  So if necessary, we’ll be able to tweak the modifiers and values you receive for each stat based on community feedback or if we think too many or too little points are being awarded for a particular stat.  This idea of tuning the mode after launch is something we carried throughout the Live Tournaments feature.  I’ll discuss more about this below.

TWEAKABLE AFTER LAUNCH
The ability for us to tune and change Live Tournament settings after the game launches was something that was extremely important for us as we designed this.  So making adjustments to the tournament settings, rules, weather, etc…is something we built into almost every aspect of Live Tournaments.  All of these tweaks can be made in real-time on our servers after you all get the game.  So if we receive feedback from gamers that certain tournaments are too hard, we can make them easier.  If people think that Play the Pros tournament is too easy, we can make it harder.  All of the settings and rules for each individual tournament are tweak-able on the fly, even some that are not exposed on the surface.  For example, we can cap the skill attributes that your golfer takes into a tournament.  This is not a setting that the player can change in game, but it’s one that we wanted to use in this new tournament mode to level the playing field.  This attributes capping system will be used in Play the Pros, for example, so that people are not able to overpower the ball or “take advantage” of any club sweet spots.

POSTING SCORES
In Live Tournaments, you will not be competing head to head against other online gamers like in normal online matches.  You’ll play each round of the tournament and when complete, you’ll sign your scorecard to post that round to an online tournament leaderboard for that particular tournament.  Certain tournaments will have posting limits that will only allow you to post a certain number of rounds.  For example, Play the Pros is capped at four total submissions.  When you have signed your scorecard and submitted those four tournament rounds you will have reached the maximum number of submissions.  Once you have reached your maximum number of tournament round submissions in each individual tournament you will only be allowed to re-submit tournament scores if you purchase a submission with your tournament earnings.  Spending these earnings to submit again once you’ve reached the limit can be a catch 22 since it will draw funds from your existing overall total earnings and this could drop you down on the money leaderboard.  But, that score you just put up may be worth the investment if it’s good enough (as long as someone doesn’t come along later and beat it later).  

This again is one of our very tunable systems.  We can tune everything from which tournaments have submission limits and what the limits are, to how much it costs per submission if you have reached your maximum number of submissions in a tournament.  We can also hard cap tournaments so that no more round submissions are allowed, period, once you have reached the submission limit.  Again, the Live Tournaments feature has been designed with tuning based on user feedback so we wanted to make sure we could make changes to as many components post-launch as possible.

Note to current Daily Tournament players - In the past people have been able to post a score to the next day’s tournament by finishing the tournament after the deadline and having their score carry over to the new daily (which often was at a higher difficulty).  Not only will splitting up the tournaments into difficulties help to solve this, but our new submission system will not let you sign your scorecard once the tournament or round has ended.

MID-ROUND UPDATES
In previous feature blogs we’ve talked about in-game leaderboard and tournament updates.  These will also be included in Live Tournaments.  So if your friend has just posted a score that takes the lead in the tournament or another player has hit a total bomb off the tee, we’ll let you know about it as you are out on the course competing.  In Play the Pros, you’ll also get these tournament updates, but they will be for the pro golfers who are out on the course.  So if you are playing the tournament at the same time as the real life golfers are, you will get these updates as they are happening in real life. 

All these updates are displayed to players using a banner that animates in at the top of the screen and displays the appropriate message for that update.  The idea here was to present these similar to the broadcast score update graphics you see on TV.

MID-ROUND LEADERBOARDS
Exposing tournament leaderboards and making them as accessible as possible was a huge priority for the Live Tournaments feature.  So we’ve created a number of places for players to view the current tournament leaderboards from within the Live Tournament game screens.  We also wanted to make sure that the updated leaderboard information was also available during your round.  Just like in our PGA TOUR Season mode, Live Tournaments will display an up to date top 5 leaderboard (as well as your current position) between each hole.  This way as other people are posting rounds while you are playing, you’ll always know the score you’re shooting for to crack into the top 5.

 
TOUR HISTORY
Above I talked about the importance of leaderboards and how we wanted to make them very accessible to people in this new feature.  The Tour History screen is one place where you can go to see a lot of our Live Tournament leaderboard information.  This screen is going to let you sort through past, present and upcoming tournaments on the schedule in all of the different tournament types (Daily, Weekly and Play the Pros).  For past and present tournaments you will also be able to select the individual tournaments and view their top 100 leaderboard (plus your position) as well as the tiebreaker details for anyone on those leaderboards.

TOUR RANKINGS  
The Tour Rankings screen is where you’ll go to see who’s ruling the roost in Live Tournaments.  This is where you will find the leaderboard for overall money earners.  You’ll also be able to filter between a number of different statistics and re-populate the leaderboards based on that filter criteria.  A cool thing about this screen is that you’ll be able to filter any of the leaderboards to get a customized view of how you match up against your online friends.

TOURNAMENT NEWS BANNER
On the main Live Tournaments HUB screen we’ve placed a news banner that will keep you up to date with everything having to do with Live Tournaments.  Like most everything else in Live Tournaments, this news banner can and will be updated after the game ships.  It’ll be our way to communicate with you, the player, things like:

•    Upcoming Tournaments
•    New Money Leaders
•    Shout-outs to Tournament Winners
•    Hints/Tips
•    New Tuning Adjustments
•    Anything else we think you’d like to hear about

TALK TO THE DEV TEAM
We’ve been stressing how important it is for us to hear from our community of gamers so that we can continue to find out what you think in order to make better games.  This next feature helps us take a huge leap forward in that area.  In the main Live Tournaments HUB screen there will, from time to time, be a “Talk to the Dev Team” button.  Activating this will bring up an on-screen keyboard so that you can send us your feedback on Live Tournaments or anything else you have on your mind.  All you do is type in the comments and hit send.

I’m sure there’s a ton of things I’ve left out of this blog, but I’m hoping that this new feature has got you excited and full of questions to ask.  I tried to keep this focused on the questions I have heard from you all on the forums and those I thought you might have regarding the details of Live Tournaments.  Please feel free to post further questions or comments below or on the forums and we can continue to discuss this feature at length.

-Mike D.