Mana Games

[manutoo]

I just added the missing Age header for the next update.

It's normal, as Junior can enter Pro tournaments.

[Spicer]

I've just seen Venus Williams managed to qualify for the end of season tournament in Istambul (players ranked 1-8 in The Race) AND then play the following week in the tournament of champions in Sofia.
As far as I know, that's not possible and players that qualify for the WTA Finals are not eligible to play in that tournament
I have a save game if you need it

EDIT: Upon review, Venus was 12th in the Race so should not have entered the Finals at all.
Pliskova was the 8th player and apparently did not play that week, the player ranked 9 did not play either, but those ranked 10 and 11 played in Sofia.

So two issues:
- The player ranked 10 should have been offered to play in Istanbul, not Venus who was ranked 12
- The player who then went on to play in Istambul should have left her place in Sofia to another player

[manutoo]

Spicer,
I didn't know the rule about Sofia. For the next update, I'll prevent the Top 8 players to enter it (but not the actual Masters final players).

The 8th player of the Masters final is the best-ranked player outside of the Top 8 who has won a Grand Slam that year, if any.

[Spicer]

Are you sure about the rule for the 8th place for the WTA Finals?
I'm sure it has changed over the years so clearly not easy to choose which set of rules to follow but I couldn't find any thing like this in the current WTA rulebook.

and in my case, I'll have to double check, but I think Venus had won Wimbledon, which would explain why she was chosen in 8th place.
But that shouldn't allow her to also play Sofia.

Here's what has The Latest in The Race to Sofia to say:

Six of the spots are for the six highest-ranked players who have won at least one International title during the year (and who haven't qualified for the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global). And then the other two spots will go to wildcards.

[manutoo]

Spicer,
1) it used to be like that in the past for the ATP. I guess it was the same for WTA. It's a nice rule, so I'll keep it...

2) Very special rules for a tournament are super cumbersome to implement in the engine so I'll keep it as it for now...

[Spicer]

Very interesting statistics in a post on the reddit tennis forum: https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comment ... finalists/

I don't have an ATP game to compare it against but it might be useful to see how close or far the simulation engine is after 4 rounds at a slam

[manutoo]

I don't have the objective for the engine to be accurate like that, but if you check, let me know the result !

[PattySchnyder]

1- A lot of players have the wrong playing style listed, I mostly play WTA but I've seen a lot of incorrect ones for example Suarez Navarro a power baseliner?

2- I feel like the top spin feature should be gotten rid of and just give certain playing styles a bonus on certain surfaces for example defenders get a slight bonus on clay and varied gets a slight bonus on grass. In addition to that make each surface a separate skill for each player. Divy up 100 points between all surfaces for each player.

Suarez Navarro
Clay: 60
Hard: 25
Grass: 10
Indoor: 10

These stats can change with more match play and practice on the surface.

3- I'm not sure if this is implemented or not, but like if a player has 2 handed forehand and backhand they would get a slight rally bonus and maybe if a player has a one handed backhand they get a slight variety bonus? I know there is a left handed bonus implemented.

4- I would like to see the stats for each player simplified...I feel like there are too many categories to train. I would simplify it A LOT.

1 to 10 system with 10 being the absolute best (these stats would be modified every year based on rank per year)

Serena Williams
Serve: 10
Forehand: 8.5
Backhand: 8.5
Volleys: 5
Slice: 3
Lob: 7
Overhead: 9
Mental Strength: 10
Fitness: 9

Two separate categories depending on match play
Match toughness: 0 to 100 (the more matches a player plays the sharper they are, goes down a little each week, after 6 months it returns to 0)
Energy: 0 to 100 (starts at 100 but goes down depending on playing style, & length of match)

Also each player has a surface category as noted above.

I know you probably like the way things are manutoo, but I just feel like the game could be more efficient. Just a suggestion!

[manutoo]

PattySchnyder,
1) You'd be very welcome if you want to edit the player styles in the Players.ini and send me back the file..!

3) 2H strikes give a small counter bonus but lower a bit the chances to get the power, play speed & acceleration bonuses.

And no, I'm not going to completely change the game...

[Spicer]

I'd be interested in sharing some basic mods to make the game stick closer to reality.
For example, every new version, the first thing I do is update the Players*.ini, Sponsor.ini and Tour*.ini to fix some names like the Williams sisters, Ivanovic, Wimbledon, US Open, etc
Of course, this needs to stay a private/community mod since Manutoo must have a good reason to have changed those names in the first place

Having more up to date/corrected data for the players is a much more demanding job but if someone wants to do it, I'd love to see the result as well ...

[Spicer]

Had a quick look at today's new build and the retiring of players.

First, even though you didn't mention it in the release notes, I tried the global variable you said you would add:
[WT_WTA]
MinRetiringAge = 31

That didn't seem to do anything because with or without, I have the same players retiring after my first year (2017).
Did you put it in?

Second, I still see a few players retiring at quite young age 22, 24, 26 ...
Could be perfectly legitimate, or not.

[manutoo]

31 is the current default value, so adding the line with 31 doesn't change anything...

This value is used when a player starts to play, not when he stops to play ; so changing it won't have any effect on the players currently on the Tour in your current game.

I just checked Margarita Gasparyan and apparently she didn't play in 2017, thus she's retired for the game when creating the 1st fictional year (which is 2018). I guess other players are like that as well...

[Spicer]

31 is the current default value, so adding the line with 31 doesn't change anything...

When I tested it, I put the value 35
This was just the cut & paste from your message in my other post

This value is used when a player starts to play, not when he stops to play ; so changing it won't have any effect on the players currently on the Tour in your current game.

Hmmm, that was with a new game, but I only played through 1 year.
So are you saying that the value will only be checked for new players when they come on the Tour from year 2 onwards?

I just checked Margarita Gasparyan and apparently she didn't play in 2017, thus she's retired for the game when creating the 1st fictional year (which is 2018). I guess other players are like that as well...

Yes, I checked a few of the others and they are similar.
That's why I thought it might be a coincidence.
But then I thought that if you have the global variable controlling the base retiring year, modulo a random element (but 22 years old is very extreme), you then wouldn't need for the RankPerYear line to include a value for every year a player plays, no?

I mean that is the whole point of the variable, righ, to avoid having to go through the 3500 players and add years past 2017...

[manutoo]

Hum, it's strange then. I just tested with 35 and the value was correctly taken into account when starting a new game.
Players retiring at end of the 1st year should be using it (as long it's the end of 2017 or later).
What player(s) gave you an issue ?

2017 is a real year, so the engine doesn't apply any changes to it ; so every player not playing that year is seen as retired. You need to add a final RankPerYear of "-1" to tell the engine they didn't play that year but aren't actually retired.

[Spicer]

2017 is a real year, so the engine doesn't apply any changes to it ; so every player not playing that year is seen as retired. You need to add a final RankPerYear of "-1" to tell the engine they didn't play that year but aren't actually retired.

That must be it then, because the year I played was 2016-2017 and I took the screenshot at the start of 2017