Mana Games

[S.Williamz]

Another thing...

I liked how in TE2006 positioning the player didn't matter. It was more fun because I feel in real life advanced players don't really focus on positioning that much, it comes naturally, and therefore it was more realistic that you could solely focus on other things in the game.
However, I have learned to like the positioning in TE2008. It's fun to see the player take a realistic position, also when using the average/fast auto-positioning, it really doesn't require too much focus, and you can concentrate on other things as well, such as tactics/aiming etc.
There's one problem though...when the opponent hits the ball near the lines, the ball flies diagonally, and it's hard to perceive how to position properly, and this often results either in A. error or B. you miss the ball entirely because you started hitting too early. A similar problem happens when the opponent hits a short ball, it's also hard to perceive how to position, which results in the same way.
And the issue for me is, it's not fun, it's only frustrating, and requires unrealistically much focus on the positioning.
It should be made easier, somehow, in these two cases.

I wonder if anyone else noticed/felt this too?

[Brad1981]

I played a tie-break (again).
Me: style 2
Cpu: style 1
Cpu level: 1
Speed: normal
Mode: arcade
Result: I won 7-5
My winners: 1
My errors: 1
Cpu winners: 3
Cpu errors: 5
At level 1, and with me out of position a bit, cpu missed easy shots that should have been winners.

I also see what S.Williamz means about shots near the lines. I tried adjusting PrecisionScale and BallDiffScale to the easiest setting, and I don't notice much of a difference from regular Arcade mode. Maybe the PrecisionScale and BallDiffScale values can be extended to that such as like in TE 2006, where you can have most of your shots stay in the court. So perhaps instead of the max being 100, maybe the max could be 200 (with 200 allowing for practically no errors). Just a thought.

[manutoo]

@S.Williamz :
>> Aiming
if I raise the time needed to aim near the line to make it easier, then it won't be possible to hit passing-shot anymore in many situation...
Also, once u stand on the baseline or a bit inside, u don't need to shot near the line to do a winner or push ur opponent to do a fault.

>> Random errors & Positioning
I think u should play in Arcade mode, u'll do almost no errors anymore, and it should also ease your aiming.

>> Double fault
Just use the Button 2 for ur 2nd serve, and u'll never do a double fault.

For the service, there are 3 possibilities :
1) a skill based system, but not too complicated, that lead very quickly to do only aces
2) a skill based system, but complicated, that prevent to do too much aces, but that drive me insane coz this complexity needed by my fingers has nothing to do with a real tennis serve that needs all my body (and that will be anyway still a lot more complex)
3) a fixed success rate depending of the button u press... It's both very easy to serve, as well as prevent to do too many aces, and it's still let a bit of skill in ur hands as u have to decide of the direction with a timing, and a bit of thinking, as u have to decide what risk u want to take...

There's also this last possibility, the most common in today tennis games, I guess :
- a time bar with a quick moving slider, that depending of its settings & sensitivity will fit in one of the 3 cases above...

@Brad1981 :
Was it with MTRUN on or off ..?
I'll slightly lower the number of faults for the Levels 0 & 1 for next update...

I just did a lil try in Arcade mode, and I haven't been able to hit an acceleration in the net, taking the ball with the body & very early after the rebound, I think it's easy enough like this...

[Brad1981]

It was with MTRUN off.

[btaylor]

In response to s.williamz question about aiming the shots, I too felt at one time that it was much too difficult and even freaked out to Manutoo about the difficulty, but after having played a few hundred times without the strike helper I've learned to really center the ball in the sweet spot of the racquet much better. Granted, with CPU shots that are more sharply angled I have to be a bit more patient and really work myself into a good strike position (particularly to accelerate) but I really key on seeing the ball ONTO THE SWEETSPOT of the racquet, especially on groundstrokes/passing shots. Every once in a while I swear it hits the sweetspot on an acceleration and it still goes out, even on replay, but when I'm playing real tennis this also happens sometimes. On the volleys, however, I find it quite a bit more difficult as the ball usually arrives much too fast for me to really center it until the 2nd or 3rd volley. I sort of still feel that the keyboard touch for the angled volleys is a BIT too sensitive. (maybe it's just my perception) I wonder how others feel about it.) Don't get me wrong, I still feel the volleying is light years better than the 1st couple of previews. P.S. On the CPU drop volleys/regular volleys, while I realize that there should be an element of disguise there, I can't tell'em apart. In real tennis drop volleys are more like mini-dropshots in that they lift just a bit and then drop just over the net more or less. Many times you can see it coming but you still can't get to the best ones. Now when the CPU hits them, they look JUST LIKE a regular volley except they stop short magically. Talk about disguise!!!

[Brad1981]

I agree with btaylor about the keys being too sensitive on volleys. If I just tap left or right, it goes out a lot.

[ahmedcoolio]

I agree too the volleys are too sensitive and sometimes i think i have reached the ball but the ball goes by and no matter how quick i react i cant catch it in such circumstances but the thing is if i do catch it i wont be able to direct it to the corners ...this is the only thing which annoys me a bit apart from this i am getting better with practice and man the game has come a long way in these few updates it self

[btaylor]

Related to my previous post about drop-volleys, to be fair, I do see on occasion drop-volleys by the pros and other better players that seem to be knifed for an acute angle. (Similar to Federer's short angled slice backhand) but most have the subtle lifting action I alluded to earlier, particularly the ones hit more or less toward you off of say a hard service return or hard passing shot. (ala John McEnroe) He's about the ONLY pro or person I've ever seen that owned that shot!) About my previous post on volley feel, I don't think we want to hit PERFECT volleys EVERY time (THAT doesn't happen in real tennis either) rather, sometimes we just want to be able to better execute on purpose the soft, sharply angled volley and the chest-high solidly punched put-away volley with a little more certainty...thanx guys for responding so's I don't feel too nit-picky!

[Serena_Fan]

MANUTOO
some of us like to take the bal early and creat angle but when I try to do it it goes into the net. Should the margin for error thing be reversed. Because the earlier the better and when you take it late its a bad thing.

[S.Williamz]

Manutoo, how will it be impossible to hit passing shots? I don't mean the timing should be raised a lot, but a little bit. The problem for me is that it requires way too precise timing at the moment. If you press the button even a nanosecond too long, the ball will fly out. And it's really hard not to press the button too long because it's super sensitive! And this leads to being AFRAID to press the buttons. lol Which leads to basically not pressing them at all, only touching them, and thus most of the times hitting shots that are no where near the lines.
Everytime you get the timing perfect the ball lands on or almost on the line. So basically there are only three possibilities 1. The shot that's a lot away from the lines 2. Error 3. A shot that's on the line. It would be nice if the aiming possibilites were more varied.
It's kind of dull to hit those unaccurate shots 90% of the time because you are scared to aim. And 90% of the times you decide to go for the shot, you hit an error.

I'm mostly interested in online play, I rarely play againts the CPU other than training, and therefore I'm mostly interested in what feautures are used in online play. You say I should use the arcade mode to reduce random errors, however if that's not the mode for online games then I don't want to use it lol.

[CC]

Manutoo,

Sorry for the delay in my response. The newer test version is definitely more playable for me in Arcade mode. Others may have posted about this (I need to read the forum), but the drop shot is very odd -- it is almost more of a soft strike, and actually often it is like a hard strike, with the same sound effect as that, and the ball bounces very far, as opposed to what it did in TE2006.
The display is better. The framerate is much better, but there are still some artifacts. Here are a few pictures (from Windowed mode) -- oh, the F11 screenshot is not working, so I took these another way:





Thanks!

[S.Williamz]

MANUTOO
some of us like to take the bal early and creat angle but when I try to do it it goes into the net. Should the margin for error thing be reversed. Because the earlier the better and when you take it late its a bad thing.

I agree, I think it should be possible to take the ball earlier and up the tempo, now if you try the ball goes too easily to the net.

[Brad1981]

I third that

[btaylor]

Me too!! Also on volleys (especially serve&volley) when you try to come in and hit a sharp- angled volley you usually hit the net and either the ball dribbles over or stays on your side (or goes out). On the plus side, at least there are no more magical late hits like in TE2006, where on a short volley or net cord the cpu swings, misses and then the ball still magically comes over.

[btaylor]

Manu, In the tennis.ini what does "cuff" refer to? Also this may sound stupid, but what does ".ini" stand for?