We are learning a lot from the Early Access stats that we are finally able to start trawling through. The biggest thing we are learning is how muddied the whole Telemetry side of things is. For the console builds it is very straightforward for us to create a consistent experience for the players. The Xbox One uses an Xbox controller, the PlayStation 4 uses a Dualshock 4 and everyone on both consoles will have exactly the same frame rate meaning that the swing mechanics will be identical for all console gamers. Meanwhile, on PC, we have a myriad of gamepads all with different mechanics plus keyboard and mouse. There is also a terrifying amount of different PC specs leading to differing performance statistics. It is hard to know if even two PC gamers are having the same golf experience let alone the vast majority. Add to that people ‘bending the rules’ in a variety of ways – locking the x-axis on their controller, using a ruler and mouse, hacking the game to turn off wind and so on – and interpreting the data and feedback becomes extremely difficult.

 

One thing to remind people taking part in Early Access, the only truly honed controller experience is with the Xbox controller. Dualshock 4 is a close second but we still need to tweak it further. All other mainstream PC controllers are to be tested and polished as we progress through compatibility testing once the console builds have been submitted to first party. Something that would be very useful for the dev team is if all of you out there playing Early Access that want to help make the game fantastic for everyone could call out the controller you use and your Steam user name in your forum signature on both the HB TGC forum and the Steam TGC forum. This would be extremely valuable for us in looking at any concerns or bugs because we will be able to grab your telemetry and see how your controller is responding and the resultant impact on the data.

 

So far, the overall scoring excellent. There are no ridiculous scores. The best round that even a ‘rule bender’ has achieved was a 58! We can see the swing accuracy for every shot played and no one using any controller in a usual manner could get a dead straight swing 100% of the time. When we get a moment we will automate the process of invalidating scorecards that have been achieved in an ‘unusual’ manner but right now we are looking manually. This only catches the obvious scores but very soon we will automatically detect things. It is beyond us as to why people do this but then we like to play fair.

 

On the three official courses that aren’t beginner courses, counting all rounds played since fixing the telemetry gathering issue including suspicious rounds:

Crystal Lake Resort     80 sub-par rounds out of 705 full rounds played

Knoll Down Golf Club  70 sub-par rounds out of 960 full rounds played

Pinehurst River   56 sub-par rounds out of 683 full rounds played

 

When you dig into the general stats it starts to get murky due to all the issues mentioned above.  However, for interest’s sake..here are the overall stats for these courses with the rounds mentioned above:

Overall Stats for the Official Courses

COURSE	AVG SCORE	FIR %	GIR %	PUTTS / HOLE
TOTAL	88.20	69.28	44.98	2.01
Crystal Lake Resort	88.96	62.89	41.11	1.91
Knoll Down	86.79	72.45	43.63	1.95
Pinehurst River	89.29	71.69	50.74	2.18

 

We also thought it would also be interesting to look at a few individual players. Here are three that we selected from the telemetry. These are all their rounds played on the three official courses that aren’t beginner courses:

PLAYER – Democritus_Mav

Here we can see how they steadily improved as they got to know the game and eventually posted a 66 on Knoll Down which was in the top 20 best scores on that course.

DATE	COURSE	SCORE	FIR%	GIR%	PUTTS
TOTALS		75.29	79.40	62.08	1.73
Fri Apr 25 2014	Crystal Lake	70	85.71	44.44	1.33
Fri Apr 25 2014	Crystal Lake	79	42.85	27.77	1.5
Wed Apr 23 2014	Knoll Down	85	85.71	44.44	1.944
Fri Apr 25 2014	Knoll Down	75	71.42	72.22	1.77
Fri Apr 25 2014	Knoll Down	82	78.57	61.11	2.00
Sat Apr 26 2014	Knoll Down	73	85.71	61.11	1.66
Mon Apr 28 2014	Knoll Down	73	100.00	83.33	1.77
Tue Apr 29 2014	Knoll Down	69	100.00	66.66	1.5
Wed Apr 30 2014	Knoll Down	66	92.85	83.33	1.38
Wed Apr 23 2014	Pinehurst River	84	71.42	55.55	2.05
Fri Apr 25 2014	Pinehurst River	76	57.14	61.11	1.77
Sat Apr 26 2014	Pinehurst River	74	71.42	77.77	1.83
Sat Apr 26 2014	Pinehurst River	76	85.71	55.55	1.77
Sat Apr 26 2014	Pinehurst River	76	71.42	61.11	1.83
Sat Apr 26 2014	Pinehurst River	80	78.57	55.55	2.00
Sun Apr 27 2014	Pinehurst River	69	78.57	66.66	1.44
Sun May 04 2014	Pinehurst River	73	92.85	77.77	1.88

 

PLAYER – alanbernado

These are the only scorecards for this user and, as you can see, they struggled and then seemed to give up.

DATE	COURSE	SCORE	FIR%	GIR%	PPH
TOTAL		87.25	66.07	43.05	1.99
Mon Apr 28 2014	Crystal Lake Resort	81	71.42	61.11	1.888
Mon Apr 28 2014	Knoll Down Golf Club	79	92.85	44.44	1.833
Sun Apr 27 2014	Knoll Down Golf Club	93	42.85	27.77	2.055
Sat Apr 26 2014	Pinehurst River	96	57.14	38.88	2.222

 

PLAYER – woody72

This is an example of a player achieving perfect accuracy on almost every shot. This means that the swing line in the bottom right of the screen was absolutely dead straight. These rounds would potentially be caught by our automatic detection system that is being implemented and thus eliminated from the leaderboards. This system will only be enabled once we have ironed out as many controller variations as possible. [UPDATE] Just to clarify, woody72 is a top member of The Golf Club, these stats are here to highlight the variations that we need to deal with to ensure a great experience for all. The more controller / joypad information that you can provide if you find you are having swing issues the easier it is for us to deal with. The last thing we want is to penalize people in tournaments unfairly. Thanks!

DATE	COURSE	SCORE	FIR%	GIR%	PUTTS
TOTAL		68.21	89.28	79.36	28.49
Tue Apr 22 2014	Crystal Lake	84	85.71	50.00	22
Sat May 03 2014	Crystal Lake	68	85.71	77.77	25
Wed May 07 2014	Crystal Lake	61	92.85	72.22	27
Wed May 07 2014	Crystal Lake	64	92.85	88.88	38
Fri May 02 2014	Knoll Down	73	92.85	61.11	26
Mon May 05 2014	Knoll Down	65	100	83.33	29
Sun May 04 2014	Pinehurst River	66	85.71	94.44	29
Sun May 04 2014	Pinehurst River	73	78.57	72.22	29
Mon May 05 2014	Pinehurst River	68	92.85	88.88	27
Wed May 07 2014	Pinehurst River	67	100.00	88.88	27
Wed May 07 2014	Pinehurst River	66	78.57	83.33	28
Fri May 09 2014	Pinehurst River	66	92.85	83.33	30
Fri May 09 2014	Pinehurst River	65	92.85	88.88	29
Fri May 09 2014	Pinehurst River	69	78.57	77.77	33

 

We are working hard to make sure the game is a fantastic experience for all as well as trying to finish it so that the console gamers can have a go. The more you all help by contributing accurate information and not bending the rules the easier it will be for us to achieve our goals. Use the HB TGC forum and Steam TGC forum as much as you can and, as mentioned above, display your steam names so that we can take a look at the data. It will really help us interpret what message players are conveying when commenting on TGC. Thanks for all your help so far, we are loving making this game.

 

Cheers
The Golf Club Development Team