CM & Roster Tutorial

Discuss Golfer Animations, Clothing, Clubs, MOP's, Soundscripts, Seasons, Rosters and all Career Mode related plus any External Programs here.
Locked
User avatar
Links Corner
Posts: 212
Joined: January 23rd, 2022, 7:35 pm

CM & Roster Tutorial

Post by Links Corner »

The idea behind this tutorial is to give you a head start to get the best out of Career Mode. I must note that IMO CM is not an exact science, so what works for me might not work for you. :erm:

Mark can correct me if I’m wrong but the core score generator of links is still more or less the same. The patch only gives us the opportunity to alter the numbers that links produce, in other words to modify that old predictable scoring.

Keeping that in mind, our aim is to break the predictable patterns and to add more variation throughout a 4 round tournament.

The settings that I use are real simple and although I haven’t even touched any individual modifiers, I do get very realistic scoring.

BASIC SETUP:
[img:6d46d2d7d8]http://img51.exs.cx/img51/8770/rolls0109.jpg[/img:6d46d2d7d8]

TARGET:

Top 10 to 15 players set to 68 scoring average.
Then you can have an even spread of up to about 77. Don’t make it to high, as you don’t want to spread the field too much.

I get the most realistic results with the difficulty slider one notch to the right of center in the season setup. Only on very tough courses will I set it to the center.
[img:6d46d2d7d8]http://img58.exs.cx/img58/1221/rolls088819.jpg[/img:6d46d2d7d8]

VAR:

Same here. Start with the min of 5 but don’t do more than 7 or 8. If you use too big a number here you’ll get those odd 62 followed by a 77 type scoring.

LENGTH:

Someone suggested not going over 40 here as you might get some strange results.

START AND CONFIDENCE:

Just a fair mix throughout the field should do the trick.


ROSTER SCORE MODIFIERS: (Edit all)\[img:6d46d2d7d8]http://img120.exs.cx/img120/5149/rolls0200.jpg[/img:6d46d2d7d8]
CONFIDENCE:

Strokes that will be added to a player’s default score.

Again, using small incremental changes so that scoring between rounds don’t differ too much. Playing better while your confidence is low? The reason I do this is to create more up and down scoring between rounds.

For instance, if a player plays his 2nd round 2 or more strokes better than the 1st, I don’t want him to play his 3rd round even better, so I’ve swapped the low and high around.

CONFIDENCE THRESHOLD:
One way to get variation in the scoring is to switch between confidence levels. Make these settings low to ensure a constant movement between the 3 levels.

PRESSURE:

The amount of strokes added to a players score when experiencing pressure (Like leading the tournament). Set it at 3 to 6 strokes to hurt the leaders a little.

I’ve set “Chance Felt” to 99% so that everyone will experience pressure and “Chance Helps” to 0% so that everyone will get hurt.

The reason I do this is to pull back the leaders a little. I’m sure you all remember the 64 64 64 64 scoring. Now you can hit the leader with 3 to 6 strokes in the 2nd round.

The result of this is a more realistic progression of scores thru the 4 rounds. A typical leaderboard for each of the four rounds will now be –7 -12 -16 -19 instead of –7 -14 -21 -28. So you’ll still be in with a change even after a very poor 1st round.

WIND AND GREEN SETTINGS:

Don’t use to big numbers and maybe base it on your own experience for the different settings. (See Chart)
[img:6d46d2d7d8]http://img62.exs.cx/img62/1176/rolls011119.jpg[/img:6d46d2d7d8]

TEEING UP FOR THE MAJORS :naughty:

Major scoring is usually a lot higher than your normal PGA event. There are a couple of ways to set this up.

- Choose a course with a lower par, which is usually the case for the US Open anyway. As your TARGET settings are based on round scores scoring will automatically be 2 strokes higher.
- Make it more difficult with GREEN SETTINGS AND WIND.
- Or, move the difficulty slider in your season setup one notch to the left.

CUSTOM SETUP FOR SPECIFIC PLAYERS:

I haven’t yet ventured into individual tweaking but think it’s quite simple. For example you can take off a couple of strokes for a player who plays great in windy conditions.


TESTING YOUR SETTINGS:

To test any changes made you’ll have to start a new career. So, to avoid doing Q-school over and over I’ve done all my testing with the Amateur Roster.

Copy the Pro Roster.ROS file with the PGA player names in the Links 2003/Career folder and rename to Amateur.ROS, replacing the existing one.

Create a test player and start a new career. Withdraw from Q-school without even teeing off.

Now you can play your 1st tournament or just check out the scores.

Remember if you’ve made any changes in the rosters just clone your human player and start a new career with him/her to see the effect.

I’ve been getting promising results with this but would like to hear from others what’s been working for them.

Good luck and have fun. :thumbup:

.
Locked