Crooked Stick Golf Club - Beta

[Duck Hook]

I haven't played it yet mate. But going on that screen capture I really like the yellow line marking the hazard, that's neat.


T

[sagevanni]

Todd, that is exactly what I was referring to..............Very cool indeed....!!!!!!!

Sage............

[Duck Hook]

Slightly off topic but looking at that picture again, it's always disappointed me that links didn't incorporate the feature of the golfer going down after being hit with a ricochet.
Just imagine how sweet it would be to see Sage flog one into that bridge then go down in a screaming heap after being hit in the family jewels with a rebounding pro v1 bullet.... priceless


T

[Ian Wells]

Todd,
I wouldn't laugh at that.
However, I would strongly suggest contacting Big Sexy JC and asking exactly for a new animation so that when a player,

flog one into that bridge

, they would

then go down in a screaming heap after being hit in the family jewels

.
As you say that would be priceless

Ian

[sagevanni]

Todd, you are killing me man...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sage.......I love it Todd......

[Pete]

Yeah that's all i noticed too was the floating bridge, beautiful work

[ChuckH]

Excellent rendition of a real course. Easily reaching Ian's high standards. Thanks for the course. Maybe "chew" the scenery.

[Adelade]

Sorry, I still havent gotten around to playing the full round, Im gonna post my observations so far anyway:

-Seamblend properties seem to have been scrambled up by APCD
-There is "None" in one of the bunker seamblends.
-There is None in the blend between Tee and Rough
-There is None in the blend between Rock and Rough
-There is Tee area in the blend between FirstCut and Rough
-There is Fairway on the FirstCut's side (where it ought to be FirstCut) of the blend between FirstCut and Fairway.
-There is Fairway on the FirstCut's side (where it ought to be FirstCut) of the blend between FirstCut and Fringe.
-There is Fairway on the FirstCut's side (where it ought to be FirstCut) of the blend between FirstCut and Apron.
-There is Lava in the blend between Rough and Deepgrass
-There is Lava in the blend between Cart Path and Deepgrass

-The water doesnt seem to be fully flat on at least one spot by hole 8 some yards before the green.

-The small bridge before the first fairway bunker on hole 9 looks odd (or is it just me?) Rubber mat looks like its floating maybe? The two similar bridges closer to the green look better I think.

-The bunker about 60 yards from the middle of 9th green seems to have a broken seamblend

-On hole 16, one particular spot of the rough-and-blocks has diagonal blocks, not sure if intended or not?

-Without purposely looking for it, I saw several floating trees. I'll list the two cases that stood out most to me, but I saw many other trees that were floating by just one foot or so, it would take too long to look for and detail all those spots. If wanting to eliminate all of those cases I bet it would be best to go through all objects a bit and maybe lower each tree object with select-all-of-type.
-The tree closest to 8th green.
-To the right of 9th green (several trunks, but perhaps they all belong to the same object)



I couldnt help stopping to check out hole 6 an extra bit. Im often impressed by how much patience you and several other designers here have for 3D detail work. I know you used the clone tool but still. I think the result is absolutely brilliant, personally. Funny thing is, at one point Im absolutely sure I had the view just as in Sage's screenshot, and somehow I never noticed that floating bridge (that was before Sage posted it).

The water hazard line: one minor - and after all completely acceptable - negative aspect is that it reinforces the question of why Links doesnt treat it as a hazard when you're on the grass inside that line, or why the player in some situations might be forced to drop inside of it after ending up in the water.

I thought it was really weird how the North arrows on the hole previews were absolutely crooked... until now that I wrote it down in that word and realized what I was missing - lol. How very silly. I like it. -rolls eyes-

Otherwise what is there to say, Im bad at coming up with good words for it other than to just say it is a classic Ian Wells creation. I believe and hope that everyone knows what a good thing that is. It also makes me so very happy everytime I see a course with good balance between texture colours. I dont yet know whether I will like the layout, so Im not going to get excited, but Im pretty certain this will at the very least be a regular re-visit for me to play.

[Adelade]

Oh yeah, I almost forgot you asked about the deep rough. It is probably worth pointing out to people that you are - I assume - talking about the parts with planted grass objects (as opposed to deep rough as a ground-texture only) - some might call it tall grass.

Surprised you didnt get any comments on this so far (unless in private) - Everyone, now is your time to make your voice heard and actually influence upcoming courses!

I think it can be difficult and very risky to make punishing planted grass areas, tune the grass objects to have just a tiny bit too much dampening and it quickly goes from unrealistically easy to unrealistically difficult. The more one grass object dampens the ball, the higher chance that the ball will go through even more grass objects before escaping up on a high-enough altitude to be in the clear. It becomes an exponential effect.

There isnt really any specific dampening setting that will work for all situations - it depends a lot on how densely the grasses are planted, how tall they are and how large ratio of transparent areas they have among the grass straws or leaves or whatever.

I highly recommend actual trial-and-error playtesting by the designer themselves in order to find the right balance. What I did when I tested things out in this way was to have a goal from the start, that X club (one with somewhat high loft) should be fine to play out from the grasses with, but Y club with lower loft should get punished. In my case, I didnt want to make the tall grass too realistic and punishing, so - if I recall correctly - I felt like a 7 Iron should be playable, but a 4-iron shouldnt deserve to get that far.

I tested them in this beta and yes, they dont effect the ball much. I managed to hit punched 1-iron shots straight through the bottom of the planted grass fields without much issue.

Many linksters like when grasses dont effect the ball at all. I slightly prefer when you have to be strategic and use clubs with higher loft, but the problem is usually that the player has no fair way of knowing how the designer set the grasses, it is very hard to trust that the designer set the settings realistically or consistently enough for the player to be able to make a decent prediction about the best club to take. Some designers write in the course notes that they set the grasses this way or that way, which is nice, but I dont think a lot of players actually read the course notes. For these reasons, I think its best to err on the safe side, not make grasses play too realistically and make it at least a little easier. But thats only how I do things, it is your course and if you want to make it more punishing I think you should do so. The way the grasses currently are on this beta, they can be made a lot more punishing until it starts being a problem.

Finally, it can be worth pointing out that many historical courses for Links fail in this regard not because they didnt spend hours fine-tuning things perfectly, but rather because they missed that at least one of their objects had completely bonkers intolerable settings, while the rest of the objects perhaps were completely fine.

[Danny D]

I'd like to voice my opinion on how I prefer to deal with the planted grasses.

During my playing days, I ran across many courses that were almost impossible to get out of the tall grasses. It would clatter and clack like it was bouncing off of trees, and it was your best guess as to how far and in what direction the ball would go. I hated that. It was extremely unrealistic.

My personal preference is to plant the grasses for "looks" only, and not allow them to have any effect on the ball. If I want the tall planted grasses to be punishing, I'll use a "deep grass" texture.

Dan