How to find proper AI difficulty per course?

[Pe11e]

Now, a bit harder stuff to achieve, after finding nice courses:

- How to properly determine AI scores on a course to course basis? I tried playing Augusta 2024 (which is stunning btw) with both Firm/Fast (Challenging), and ended being at +7 after 9 holes, so I had to quit to avoid any further frustration haha. In short, any course that have sloped and "tucked" in greens, with green speed set to Fast Challenging, is a extremely hard mission to me, even to stay under +5, not to mention E. When I set old Fast setting, I can do from -5 to E, regularly. The difference in difficulty between these two stimps is just way to big. Some courses that have flatter greens, it's way easier to be at E and under if you are a better player.

My question is - is there any table, or any proper way to determine the difficulty of the course? For example, AI will score similar scores on all courses (depending on All Modifiers values too), but for us, humans, every course is different. If I could know what is the average human scoring on most popular LS 2003 courses, I could adjust AI difficulty level via Edit Tournament option, to be at Normal for harder courses, and all the way to the right for easier courses. Anyone found the way to adjust AI properly on a course basis, or I simply must play at least one season and determine the difficulty by myself, and writing it down in a document?

Also, in All Modifiers screen, there are modifiers for greens speed - Slow, Normal and Fast. I suppose Fast old and Fast (Challenging) will drop under the same Fast value, no matter that these two green speeds are very different?


Thank you in advance!

[pmgolf]

COURSE SETTINGS STIMP(Google it)
--------------- ----- .......
Soft / Slow 5
Soft (Chal) / Slow 5
Soft (Chal) / Medium 5
Soft / Medium 5.5
Moderate / Slow 5.5
Soft (Chal) / Fast 5.5
Mod (Chal) / Slow 5.5

Mod (Chal) / Medium 6
Soft / Fast 6.5
Moderate / Medium 6.5
Firm / Slow 6.5
Soft / Slow (Chal) 6.5
Mod (Chal) / Fast 6.5
Firm (Chal) / Slow 6.5
Moderate / Fast 7.5
Firm / Medium 7.5
Soft / Med (Chal) 7.5
Firm (Chal) / Medium 7.5
Soft (Chal) / Slow (Chal) 8
Firm / Fast 8.5
Firm (Chal) / Fast 8.5
Moderate / Slow (Chal) 8.5

(Chal) = v1.07 MOD SETTING/SPEED

Soft / Fast (Chal) 9
_______Firm_/_Slow (Chal)_9.5
Moderate / Med (Chal) 10
Soft (Chal) / Med (Chal) 10...........I don't use
Mod (Chal) / Slow (Chal) 10..........Crazy backspin
.......Firm./.Med.(Chal)..11.5....... Best Medium combination
.Mod.(Chal)./.Med.(Chal)..11.5......Good for weak skills
Firm.(Chal)./.Slow.(Chal).11.5.......Crazy backspin
Soft.(Chal)./.Fast.(Chal).12..........I don't use
...Moderate./.Fast.(Chal).13 or 11.3......Reasonably Fast
.......Firm./.Fast.(Chal).15.5 or 13.5......Faster than you would expect
Firm.(Chal)./.Med.(Chal)..15.5 or 13.5......Extra roll for Tee shots
.Mod.(Chal)./.Fast.(Chal).16.5 or 14.4......Reasonably Very Fast
Firm.(Chal)./.Fast.(Chal).18 or 15.7......***** Expert Speed! You better know what you're doing!

Another opinion on Challenging conditions ratings:
Firm / Med (Chal) 10.7
Mod (Chal) / Med (Chal) 10.8
Soft (Chal) / Fast (Chal) 11.0
Firm (Chal) / Slow (Chal) 11.2
Mod / Fast (Cha) 11.7
Firm / Fast (Cha) 13.5
Mod (Chal) / Fast (Cha) 14.2
Firm (Chal) / Med (Cha) 14.4
Firm (Chal) / Fast (Cha) 15.8

I don't use AI players. I've never trusted the skill settings.

Pete

[Adelade]

Yeah why not use one of the green settings in between F/F and Fc/Fc? I dont think the lists Pete posted are correct though, I recommend going by the table of values I arrived at during my tests from this post: viewtopic.php?p=15325#p15325

It seems like you are talking about Career Mode, and yes there you can use the difficulty slider to adjust AI scores. The slider's modifiers to AI scores are +5 +2 0 -2 -5 (on average). So yes, what I do is I give every course a difficulty rating like 67 for very easy courses and maybe 73.5 for a tougher one, and refer to that list when I make my Career mode seasons and set the difficulty slider accordingly. Everyone has their own perception of which courses are easier or tougher so you might not agree with all my assessments, but I can send you my list if you want.

Also keep in mind that you can set courses up differently if you dont want them to vary too much in difficulty from eachother, for example picking tougher pins on easier courses, picking shorter tees for tougher courses etc.

Your last question about the All Modifiers is a tough one to answer, I have tweaked those settings so many times and played so many seasons and even done specific tests for it, but I still cant really tell... what I believe is that those settings are simply broken whenever picking any challenging setting and result in a 0 modifier. The settings for wind definitely work though.

[Pe11e]

Hi! Thanks for the table, that really helps. So far I settled at Mc/Mc, as anything above that I'll end at 80+, or worse.

Yes, I'm talking about Career mode, where I can go back to main menu and edit the tournament conditions in the current season. It's just that I can't pinpoint the AI difficulty on some courses, mostly on the ones that I didn't played before. Sometimes I'll end being easily first by two or more shots ahead, or not even making the cut, being at 80+ even after first round, on a really tricky courses. So it seems that I should use AI diff. slider at far right on easier courses, and leave the slider at the middle (or even going one notch left to add 2 shots for all AI) on really tricky courses. It's just if I could only find the values for each course without playing the test season, and writing the experience from each course in the table. But as you say, it's hard to pinpoint, as you can play extremely good even at harder course, being in the top 10, and mark it as easy. Next season you can play really bad at the same course and finish at 82 or who knows...

So, you think All Modifiers don't work properly with new Challenging settings? In that case, I will go with Firm/Fast, just to be sure. It should stay fairly challenging too, not sure.

For me, biggest difference in course difficulty are the slopes on greens. If course have generally flat/flatter greens, I mark it as an easier course, depending on the fairways width and bunker placement. But I know for sure, I struggle a lot with putting on a sloped and difficult greens, so it should be easier for me to follow any table that follows the greens difficulty per course.

P.S. you can post your list here, I would really appreciate it. It should help me to clear the muddy water on how to set AI difficulty, and I assume it will become my reference.

Thanks!

[Adelade]

Since I only play with custom pins, and myself having picked those custom pins very carefully to avoid any pins which are not on a 1 to 3.5% slope, my own course difficulty ratings are not as heavily influenced by rollercoaster greens as you might desire them to be. Of course I take it into account, because putting is such a huge part of the game, but others might perceive green difficulty more based on how many mid-slope pins they encounter. That being said, I will send you my list later today in a private message. Also, I havent played a whole lot of fictional courses so there arent a lot of those in my list.

[Pe11e]

How do you find a desirable pin position, per green? Do you test every green with every pin position settings, like setting all to Easy, and test?

I see that I can only customize pin positions by selecting Random, or three difficulty levels.

[pmgolf]

The difficulty of the green has nothing to do with the AI. The AI perform according to their parameters, which you can set. And the programs that specified the details of their skills was written a long time ago, so it isn't very sophisticated. The difficulty of the green is partly the design of it, along with how well it was reproduced in the APCD. The only thing that offers you a clue to the difficulty of the shot is where the pin is placed. I use the BLI (Break Line Indicator) along with the Slope indicator on the BLI to help me get an idea about how tough the putt will be.

Here is a screen print I put together:

Moderate and difficult pins.jpg (121.49 KiB) Viewed 977 times

In the screen print, which is a combination of several prints, the red and white stick is the BLI, and the yellow at the bottom of the stick is the slope of the green at that exact point. If it is nearly flat right there, the yellow will be really small. It there is a lot of break, the yellow line will be higher. If the break (or slope) is near the legal golf maximum, the top of the yellow area will be up to the top of the writing showing your distance from the stick. That's a 3% slope. (if the yellow line is above the writing, that's a pretty big slope and you might want to think about getting down (in the cup) from there in 2 putts. One more step remains and that is the "Green Analyzer". (The Green Analyzer requires some study that I won't attempt to do for you - I'm still learning things about it years later!)

Pete

[Pe11e]

Yes, I'm aware of all that. I'm not a LS2003 rookie by any means, I'm even creating my own soundpack for the game, editing seasons and AI, etc. I'm using green analyzer often, as I think break indicator is cheating, sort of. Nevertheless I still suck at reading the slopes. Augusta has really hard greens with high breaks, as well as Pinehurst No. 2. These are the courses where I really have a hard time scoring under 80, approach shots are extremely important. If I end on a fringe near green, and I must hit a high lob chip shot to get to the hole which is below my feet by a feet or two, the ball will practically roll out off the green. Then I end hitting another chip shot, and if it's too short, the ball will roll back to me, out of the green, again. It's extremely hard, like real golf is in the same situations. On holes like that, with bad approach shots, I end with 3 over par.

Just one example why I'm not good at this game, when I use close to 11 stimp with Fc/Mc settings. I was using before M/M or F/F, and it was too easy on easier courses with flatter greens, so I decided to adapt and learn to play while mimicking the PGA TOUR conditions.

[Adelade]

You can do custom pins in Career mode, it is in the drop down list below the easy/moderate/difficult options.

I dont playtest all of the pins. I go into practice mode with the BLI like Pete is showing. It does take quite a bit of time to do on the whole, but the alternative of inevitably running into unrealistic mid-slope pins is much worse to me, so I do find it worth the time spent.

[pmgolf]

Yes, I'm aware of all that. I'm not a LS2003 rookie by any means, I'm even creating my own soundpack for the game, editing seasons and AI, etc. I'm using green analyzer often, as I think break indicator is cheating, sort of. Nevertheless I still suck at reading the slopes. Augusta has really hard greens with high breaks, as well as Pinehurst No. 2. These are the courses where I really have a hard time scoring under 80, approach shots are extremely important. If I end on a fringe near green, and I must hit a high lob chip shot to get to the hole which is below my feet by a feet or two, the ball will practically roll out off the green. Then I end hitting another chip shot, and if it's too short, the ball will roll back to me, out of the green, again. It's extremely hard, like real golf is in the same situations. On holes like that, with bad approach shots, I end with 3 over par.

Just one example why I'm not good at this game, when I use close to 11 stimp with Fc/Mc settings. I was using before M/M or F/F, and it was too easy on easier courses with flatter greens, so I decided to adapt and learn to play while mimicking the PGA TOUR conditions.

If you think the BLI is cheating (I think you're mistaking it for the "Putting Assistant"), then I think you're crazy and I won't bother helping you out any more! You talk like a rookie!

Pete