Links Corner Forum

I have a feeling I read something about this many years back. If your player is doing well, the Links game algorithm increases his confidence level, and consequently you get straighter drives, 50/50 putts tend to drop and so on. If he is playing badly, then confidence level goes down.

Well, my player has been doing terrible for months. Probably lost 40 straight games against my friend, playing online. So I decided to create a brand new golfer and see what happened. I narrowly lost the first game (through getting too cocky), then won the next two. I'm thinking, there must be something to this "confidence level" as if I try a round with my old golfer, I'm back to missing fairways, never getting a straight up and down click etc.

Don't know where I read about this, or even if it's true or not. But I think there must be something to it... it can't be coincidence that suddenly I can play a competitive round after making the change.

Cheers, AJ

I absolutely dont mean to ridicule the conversation - in fact I think these kind of topics are fascinating (in a good way) - but my firm belief is that it is all "imagination" reinforced by confirmation bias, the human mind has a tendency to find patterns in what is in fact just random. Also probably partly a mental confidence thing in a similar way to how the placebo effect works, like if expecting a round to go better on one golfer, one's confidence likely goes up which in itself can effect performance. That said, what do I know. I dont know. Im not trying to say its impossible. Maybe I would see differently if I had the same experiences you've had, but I know what I firmly believe

For AI golfers, yes.

For human, no. If you hit your snap, your ball goes straight.

I'm curious, what's the difference between "straight" and "straighter"? Either a shot is straight, or it isn't, as far as I know.

Your impression rang a bell with me, AJ. I play RTS and occasionally my clubface/ball contact will change to where I constantly make that contact several millimeters out toward the toe. No matter what I try, it continues to happen, and it costs me distance. I get 250 off the tee instead of my usual 270 to 275. 10-15 yards less with irons. The swing seems the same though.

I finally found a fix a while back. I create a new golfer, and after 10-20 swings the ball/clubface contact comes back to the sweetspot (mostly) and stays that way for smooth-paced swings. I would normally think it's in my mind, but it's happened again and again probably 10 times over 6 months of play. I've played other games where the game "learns" your tendencies and that's what I associated it with until I read your post.

Pete

I was pretty much going to post what Adelade already has. Belief is a major key to success, which is why all professional sportsmen have 'mind' coaches as well as physical ones. If your brain thinks that the change you make may benefit you then you will be more relaxed and possibly better focussed and chances are your results will improve. This is why some Pro golfers change their putters now and then. They believe the new one will sink more putts and it usually does..... for a while. Then it just becomes their standard putter and the putt ratio drops..... time for another putter!!!! There was nothing magical about the last one, but the 'belief' often makes the difference, while it lasts.

I'm a great believer in the power of positive thinking. But I really don't think that is the case with this. When you think about it, a lot of games have some sort of similar algo built into them. No reason that Links wouldn't. And like I said, I'm pretty sure I read some documentation about it somewhere,a long time ago. I don't know where, or who wrote it, but I have a memory of seeing it explained, with a table showing the relationship between scores and how levels could go up and down, and what happened when they did. Things like playing badly would mean it became slightly harder to hit the snap perfectly and a bad bounce would become more likely, etc.

Have you never had one of those rounds where nothing seems to go right, your opponent makes his putts and yours lip out? And then perhaps at the turn, you sink a long putt, momentum changes and you start to win some holes again? I believe that is the confidence algo at work. But hey, as I don't have access to seeing the source code of the game I can't prove it.

I have been playing the game since it was first released... my click timing is probably hard wired into my muscle memory by now. So when I say it became harder to get a perfectly straight swing, a perfect snap, please believe me, that's the case. Clicks slightly off, hardly ever dead straight. And I had an open mind when I created my new golfer, just see what happens I thought.

To go from continual rounds of not being able to break par, to immediately shooting rounds of -7 to -12 is more than just having some extra belief in myself. In my opinion.

Cheers, AJ

Is this a Links Remake of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest ?

I read once the last patch had some anticheat , I am not sure how that works though....

I play RTS and sometimes it goes well, but sometimes it makes no sense, good hits still fly 30-40- meter shorter than expected etc...

Andrew Jones definitely added anti-cheat to Perfect Golf so there is every chance that it is also present in the 1.07 mod. I know my brother suffered from this on one of these games - I just can't remember which, but he had a low sensitive mouse that was easy to swing very straight on RTS and if you hit a few in a row the game would then make you mishit the next half dozen or so shots or more if your swing was still perfect. We tested it putting on a dead flat green and could see the deviation easily. After switching to another mouse his problem was cured.

As to the AI - the algorithm causes them to cycle through better or worse rounds following a sine wave pattern to create variation in their scores when playing through seasons. It doesn't use a confidence algorithm when they hit good shots but it can feel like it because if they are at the top of their sine wave cycle they will hit consistently better shots and when they are at the bottom of the cycle, consistently worse ones.