Mana Games

[gilekarakter]

gilekarakter,
ok, I didn't test the Incredible level at all, and I don't plan to have a consistent difficulty level between TE3 and TEM2/TE4, especially as I may raise a bit the difficulty of the Incredible CPU (if it's not already done enough ).

I tried "Bulldog" for the first time now with a new player and it's probably my favorite style yet. Had couple of the most interesting matches so far.The slice is as effective as opponent's and i made less errors and a lot of winners, even had a 50 shot rally which ended with a winner, so i guess that's the style for me for now

There is 1 thing i found: I recruited Cibulkova while she is still Junior and, well, she is a man . And even though she is 14 i can train regularly with her, not as junior and there is no junior tour available and no "Turn Pro" option.





Also, one very small thing: Once you win all 4 Grand Slams on WTA Tour in calendar 1 year, the message that pops out is as you won in 4 consecutive GS in 2 calendar years.

[manutoo]

gilekarakter,
1) The boy instead of the girl was already fixed in the previous build, and the pro instead of junior is fixed in today's build

2) For the slam, it's working as designed, but maybe it should have a different kind of message in that situation ? ie: just a slam won counter and no reference to the Grand Slam, once we have 5 or more slams.

MichaelTA
1) Funnily this glitch was there since TEM1..! In today's build, the buttons will be auto-hidden to prevent to select the Doubles Race

2) It's to know what match is it. I guess I'll change it to RR1 in the future.

4) I don't understand what you mean exactly

5) Fixed the screen. For the limit, it's to avoid to get too many bonuses too easily. Maybe I could add a 2-star Charisma Talent for the Player allowing him to take up to 2 more trainers..?

3) 6) 7) 8) 9) FITU

10) Noted down

11) I noted it down ; it's because you want to take a few samples of the tie-break without watching the whole thing..?

12) Actually, there's a Pause key on most keyboards...
But I'll rehaul this message once the Unity port is done, because I added the possibility to change built-in keys, so it'll show only the actual bound pause key.

13) It should now show Singles/Doubles in today's update, but I didn't check

[MichaelTA]

4) If I enter for a round in Davis Cup, but my nation didn't reach that round/I wasn't selected, I get removed from the draw which means that the auto rebook option doesn't work so I have to manually re-enter for the next year at the same round.

5) Maybe for each star in charisma allow one more trainer to come with a player?
If it seems like it would be too much when you have 4 stars in that stat, maybe limit it to only applying for the first 2 or 3 stars, otherwise you start this bonus at the 2nd star?

11) Yes

[manutoo]

4) Ok, I got it now. If it happens like this, does the game propose you to play another tournament that week ?

5) It could work like this, but I'd prefer to center this effect on the player : it's him who makes the team works or not, not really the coach (especially as the coach doesn't necessarily travel with the player). Although for hired players, they'd never have the talent so it'd not work well either...

[LakeDown]

Hi,
long time player and fan of TE 2013 here. I've been playing the TEM2 beta since release almost religiously, and I wanted to share my thoughts in the hope that it will help you. Currently playing against Incredible 6, so that's the CPU I'm basing my input on.

First of all: The game is fun, it feels very nice to attack and not so predictable as before. I really like it! I'm excited to see the challenge system, when it is ready. And the CPU feels much better to play against than before, although I'm sure some tweaks are necessary (e.g. finishing points at net more often, certain tendencies are too prominent etc.).

However, here are my concerns (keep in mind that the game is still very good, despite these ):
- Slices are too strong. When returning a slice, your accelerations end up in the net too often, and is extremely sensitive to your positioning. While that would be OK, I still feel well-timed accelerations should have a higher success rate against slices. If you do a normal shot or top spin strike, the ball is very, very slow and bounces high, basically losing you the point instantly. I've found the only consistent response is to slice the ball back, which I suspect might become a problem online, and just isn't all that healthy for the game.

- Returning serves is too difficult. The player's first steps when returning are so slow, that any serve with a decent placement has a good chance to ace you. I completely agree that in TE2013 it was too easy to return good serves, but the way the returns are now, players will frequently just guess where the serve is aimed, instead of reacting like in real life. Also unhealthy for the game. Increase player acceleration on the first few steps when returning (after all, IRL players can lunge for the ball, while we can only walk/run in TE). Even with my good reflexes after years of TE2013, I struggle way too much getting first serves back, I can only imagine newer players.

- The top spin and short angle strikes feel abundant. While I might not be good enough to judge them 100% correctly, I feel these strikes no longer add much to my game. Normal shots are faster, deeper and can even be angled out to the side more now, and normal accelerations are waaay faster than angled ones, even more so than before it feels like.

- Down-the-line shots are weak, and too inconsistent. Even when perfectly positioned, and with good preparation time, you might not get the same pace as you would cross-court. Also, these shots tend to go into the net very often. I realize they have a higher fail rate than cross-court, but currently I think this penalty is too high.

Side-note: Do the "Mind" attributes affect human players? What is the impact of Strength, Reflexes, Return and Passing? And what about Surface, Form, Energy Max ratings?

edit: would also be nice to know the percentage of a normal shot, acceleration, and slice missing while unforced.

Anyways, thanks for the great game! Can't wait to play the full version, but for now I will keep testing the beta.
Please let me know if anything I wrote is unclear. Thanks

[manutoo]

LakeDown,
thanks for your detailed feedback.

1) With how much topspin do you play ? With less than 40%, it's to be expected to have serious issues against slices, especially on fast surfaces.

2) It'll likely have some lunge animation added for TE4

3) Mind skills affect humans as well.
Strength lowers strike tiredness.
Reflexes & return have no effects.
Surfaces skills, when they are under 100%, lower almost all skills by a low amount.
Forms & energy are close of TE3 ones.

[LakeDown]

1) I have indeed been playing with 30-40% topspin, but I increased it to ~50% a few days ago, and I can't really feel much of a difference on the normal strikes. They are still very weak shots that my opponent will crush almost every time.
2) Great!
3) Thank you for the explanations

[MichaelTA]

A few more things I noticed:

1) The music that plays when pausing during a match will still play after leaving that match, then when it finishes playing all music stops (unless I win a tournament, then it plays again normally).

2) The music when selscting a stategy to save/load and selecting experience is the normal game music instead of the music that plays in other menus during a match.

3) The "Replay once won" option in 3D matches seems to replay the point in fast forward speed, so it lasts a few frames whenever I try to view it (this does not apply when I select to replay through the pause menu/F1 key). In case it would be relevant, I have the "Keep on Skipping" and "Skip Waiting Phases" options selected.

4) When breaking at 5-all in a final set (or any stage when the score is level in a final set after this, when there is no final set tiebreak) during a doubles match, only the previous server gets very stressed, not their partner. I would think it applies in 3D matches as well as text-based.

5) This button seems to always turn to the first year on tour when clicked the first time, then it works as intended, i.e. regardles of the year currently being viewed, when I click left or right, it goes to 1996 (the year I started this file):

TEM2_023.jpg (4.65 KiB) Viewed 720 times

6) I'll just send you a save game and briefly explain what happened. I clicked on head to head with Albert Costa, clicked to view the draw of Sydney, selected a different year for the draw. Then this happened:

7) I think the "More Info" button on the new update available popup still links to the Early Version thread for this game instead of the Beta Version thread

8) In 3D matches the CPU really seems to struggle choosing a good passing shot when they have an easy ball to hit and the other player is at the net (I'm viewing the 3D matches in Master-5 for my player and opponents).

9) I had a very similar crash to what I posted about a couple of days ago, but I have the system.log this time from before I reopened the game so I'll send that along with the save file.

10) When viewing a text-based match, it seems that in a deciding set that goes past 5-all in games will almost always be won by the player which served first because the stress increases so much when serving to stay in the match at 5-6 and all future games when serving to stay in the match. The player serving at 5-all, 6-all, etc, will not receive anywhere near the same amount of stress as the other player so they aren't likely to be the one to lose their serve and the match.

[manutoo]

LakeDown,
1) Ok, I'll look more into this when I'll be working on the gameplay (although it may be due to the Incredible behavior )


MichaelTA,
0) You didn't answer my previous question about the Davis Cup : "If it happens like this, does the game propose you to play another tournament that week ?" (it'd avoid me to test it by myself and if the game doesn't propose another tournament, I can apply the rebook easily)

1) 2) FITU

3) FITU (it was the Skip Waiting Phase triggering coz the actual match was on the start of the serve )

4) FITU ; it was only cosmetic in text-based matches, and it was already working correctly in 3D matches (I think, I didn't check in action, only in the code)

5) This is the draw year selection button, right ? It fails only once by whole game session ? Or once per draw seen ?
I tried to use it from the All Tour Draws screen, the Player Activity Screen, the H2H listing and it never failed, so it might happen only in a special case.

6) Actually it was not about H2H, but about the Olympics : the year selection was assuming the tournament was available on all years. For now, I just put a "No Draw Available" when changing the year, but once the Unity port will be done, I'll try to associate all Olympics together so when clicking 4 times, it'll show the next Olympics (or just hide the Year selection, I'll see )

7) Fixed

8) Noted (I may need .dmo to check more into this, but not before the game is ported to Unity)

9) I couldn't reproduce the bug. From your System.log it seems it just happened while viewing a Character Sheet ? I looked at all character sheets and then clicked to start next match, but it didn't crash.

10) Is it that much different than real-life results ? Maybe I could raise a bit more the stress of the leading server, especially after a few more games ?

Note: thanks again for all your bug reports, they are quite helpful !

[LakeDown]

LakeDown
1) Ok, I'll look more into this when I'll be working on the gameplay (although it may be due to the Incredible behavior )

This was with regards to returning slices, just to be clear
I have no issue with the CPU crushing those weak balls, I meant the normal shots against a slice are really inefficient.

[MichaelTA]

No problem

0) That's because I haven't reached another Davis Cup match where I wasn't selected since the update where it should show if not selected for singles or doubles. If I recall correctly it didn't before the update.

5) Yes, that button. Only when clicking to view a tournament draw from at least 2 years after the first year of the career, then when the button is clicked for the first time only it changes the year to the 1st year of the career to show the draw.

6) I noticed that the 1996 Olympics didn't show correctly anyway whenever I selected that year, so maybe it needs to be linked to the tournament family instead of individual tournament (possibly, I don't know).

9) It happened when I clicked next match after viewing a character sheet I think, so probably just a random error.

10) Surprisingly it doesn't make that much of a difference in a 5th set when it comes to players winning or losing when serving first. It looks like it's nerves or fatigue most of the time if a match goes that far, or just outright better sustained quality and pressure from one opponent. I believe there is a very slight advantage to serving first when it comes to winning, but it's only a very slight advantage.

[manutoo]

LakeDown,
yes, I was thinking more about the defensive slice being too powerful in the hands of the Incredible CPU (as it was already reported by another user), but I'll check everything anyway, including if the normal & topspin strikes against the slices are globally too weak or not..!

MichaelTA,
0) Ok, so auto-rebook should work for next update

5) I tried again and still couldn't reproduce the issue

9) Likely. Once the game will be ported to Unity it should be a bit more easy to track down this kind of bug as the crash report will be more detailed.

10) If I recall correctly, I did that because the matches were getting too often too long with players having similar levels, which was very unrealistic. I'm not sure how to tune that. I'll note it down and give it some time to mature...

[Japan remo]

I felt that the number of service ace of text match was very small. I also want the function to display the best result of Grand Slam.

[manutoo]

Japan remo,
do you play with men or women ?

[MichaelTA]

A few more things I noticed:

1) When viewing career titles, TET250 events are classified as Masters events.

2) When completing a coaching contract's objective, the graphics seem to be slightly glitched.

TEM2_025.jpg (90.49 KiB) Viewed 623 times

3) Could you add a cancel option to this menu in the training club?

TEM2_026.jpg (28.76 KiB) Viewed 623 times

4) Stephen Pisano appears 5 times on the photo credits menu.

5) When a coach is not with a player, meaning they cannot train certain skills, any skills can still be trained if following a training schedule.

6) The head to head doesn't work in the retired players menu. Also there doesn't seem to be a way to toggle which coached player's head to head is being viewed in this menu anyway.

7) When winning a tournament, the sound effect for winning doesn't play in the trophy screen like it used to, but instead a music track starts, before another music track starts after leaving this screen

8) If viewing Davis Cup matches in 3D, could you make it so that the country with a coached player in it appears as player 1 instead of player 2? I know that I can just switch the camera to be behind player 2 anyway, but the scoreboard is still the opposite way around (very small issue, I know).

9) Some players in matches just randomly withdraw due to exhaustion, for example:

10) When I qualify for the year end finals, the dialogue may need to be changed as it currently says "You have entered the final of the Masters!" even though I only qualified for the group stages at this point (I would like it to show singles or doubles as well). It would make more sense to be something like "You have qualified for the Masters in singles/doubles".

If possible, could you also change "Masters" to the tournament name because the same dialogue appears for all tournaments using that tournament category and, for example, in my calendar mod I have renamed this event to "World Tour Finals" and have another event called "Challenger Finals" the week before, both of which use the same text with the name "Masters".

11) Considering that you can activate experience boosts at any time during 3D matches, could you also allow that for text-based matches instead of just at the start?

12) The experience boost for 2 points in 3D matches seems very overpriced and quite useless to me, but if it were for a whole game or for a whole set (with a slightly higher cost for a whole set), I would see it as a much more viable set of options.

13) When running out of short term form in a text-based match, the player retires, although in a 3D match, running out of short term form seems to have no effect, other than energy seems to keep decreasing until it reaches 0. I would assume that a retirement is meant to happen whenever someone reaches 0 enregy in 3D matches, however all that seems to happen is that the breath bar fills up entirely after every point when running out of energy:

TEM2_037.jpg (5.92 KiB) Viewed 623 times

14) In regards to the stress in the final sets, my advice would be after the score reaches 5-all or 6-all, whoever is serving, regardless of if they are serving to stay in the match or not, will gain a set amount of stress. I would recommend it be slightly less than what you currently give to the player serving to stay in the match because it seems very likely for a break to occur at a later stage, and only a very small number of times I seen the score go beyond a break at 6-7.