PGLS ADVISORY - PGLS PENALTY STROKES AND HOW THEY WORK

[MiMiC]

Hi to all,

I wanted to explain a little more about our use of penalty strokes and the way that we use them, and also the process of getting them removed when applied for situations beyond your control.

The 'penalty stroke' is in some ways a misnomer, as what it currently does is simply apply to your scorecard the stroke taken which was then aborted. No additional stroke is added - simply the one which you were in the process of taking when the game was terminated.

If you close the game when the ball is on the ground and you have cleared through the post-shot screen you suffer no penalty. If you play through and then decide you have to leave the game for one of real-life's more pressing assignments, you suffer no penalty. However, if you abandon the shot whilst 'in-flight' or having not completed the shot process (part of which is clicking on the post shot screen) a stroke is then added to your record and is shown at the end of round when you look at your PGLS scorecard, under the column marked PS.

To see the PGLS scorecard, you simply look at our leaderboards here on the site and click on the round total by your name. A scorecard is then shown containing all details of the round and how you played it, including swing type, a stats profile, and your scores to par for the hole.

For a penalty shot to be applied to the scorecard, the round must be resumed and played out to its end, at which point the penalty stroke becomes active. Be aware that you will NOT see the stroke added to your score on the Head-Up Display in-game and it will only be visible as being applied when looking at your score which reaches our leaderboard. Multiple occurrences of a game termination in one round are counted as multiple penalties, be they on multiple shots on one hole, or on a single shot on multiple holes.

A particular bug in the game causes a player to terminate the shot having hit their ball into a water hazard, due to a drop not being offered. We do not need to review these instances because the shot would have incurred a penalty for the drop in any case. The one difference will be that the drop will be at your original point of hitting the shot, rather than a drop at the point at which you entered the hazard. The penalty stroke will remain in game, but feel free to take a screenshot which will then be on your Steam profile to show that you played the round legitimately but suffered the dropbug/penalty.

We consider the game stable enough to say that any other occurrence of the penalty stroke is outside of the ability for PGLS to assess. Game crashes in Jack Nicklaus Perfect Golf are thankfully rare, and for the most part indicate a problem with the game installation or the general well-being of the computer the round is played on. These are only issues which the player can address, and if your computer is prone to 'falling over' on a regular basis, then you will also be suffering issues in other areas where such a problem could be much more damaging and inconvenient than in a golf game. Seeking advice from the game's community forum at Perfect Parallel would be a good starting point, and if not more widely and possibly the advice of a trained IT technician to resolve your issues.

Should you suffer issues which make it impossible to play past the point at which you got to, we can only offer the chance to restart the round in question. We cannot, in that case, offer the chance to keep your card scores. You suffer the chance that your partially-replayed round will be worse than your original, but on the bright side, you have at least a passing knowledge of the challenges involved!

To ask for a round to be restarted, again take screenshots so we can assess that there has been a problem, and then contact one of the admin team who will take a look at the evidence, a look at our own (hidden) record of how you have played the hole, and will then make a decision. We are keen for as many rounds as possible to be finished rather than sitting incomplete because of issues with gameplay.

I hope this clears up any grey areas surrounding the use of Penalty Strokes and how we intend to apply them.

Sorry to be as verbose as you normally expect from me. For those who cannot struggle through the explanation:

TL;DR - Penalties apply in all cases, can be reviewed, but are unlikely to be removed in all but exceptional circumstances. 'Broken' rounds can be restarted after evidence is supplied to admin to review.


Thanks for taking the time to read this element of how we run the events for members, in the interests of all members.


Enjoy the game!


Mike

MiMiC

PGLS Admin Team - Moderator