Mana Games

[manutoo]

Hello,

if you have missed it, the Early Version of TEM2 has been released a couple of months ago : topic11-29241.php .

Next week, I might start to work on the real-time 3D matches to improve the physics and the rally realism in a general way. Hopefully, quickly, I'll start to work on improving the AI.

So could you tell me, in TE2013, in singles, in difficulty levels between Junior-10 & Master-10 :
- what things the CPU does but shouldn't do ?
- what things the CPU doesn't do but should do ?
- what new play style behavior would you like to see and what it'd do exactly ? (I'm thinking about adding at least 2 play styles, to reflect better the play styles of Nadal & Djokovic, which are 2 different mixes of defense and offense, and fall somewhere between the Defender and the Powerbaseliner ; this would help to better reflect the subtle variety of modern tennis)

Planned stuff :
- average ball length will be a bit shorter, to match reality ; this might change a great deal of little & bigger things in the game flow
- complete rehaul of where the CPU stands according to its play style ; eg : right now, the volleyer always stands relatively close to the baseline and thus is often easily destroyed in rallies ; in TEM2/TE4, the CPU will be smarter about this and better adapts his position to your game

[Esso]

Hello,

thanks for all your work, Manutoo.

I have a quetion.

Will be there a serve and volley play style, too?

[ProManutoo]

The AI is perfect, you should focus on multiplayer (2vs2)

[felipe16]

Hola manutoo,
It would be great if the game styles had more skills, for example, the defender and the counter have like 4 advantages, and the others have only one or two

[Tyu124]

The AI can always do a backhand smatch, even it's really hard thing to do...

[manutoo]

Esso,
the Volleyer s&v on most surfaces, and the Varied s&v on fast surfaces.

[Docbzh]

Sorry for my English, I'll do my best to do both English and French. (in all my answers I play master 4 difficulty with elite controls)

- what things the CPU does but shouldn't do ?

Anticiper les amortis. Le bot anticipe trop les amortis, en master 4 et plus c'est particulièrement difficile de faire un amorti gagnant du fond de court, dans le meilleur des cas on s'en sort avec un passing-shot mais la plupart du temps je ne revois pas la balle. IA anticipates too much dropshots.

La zone des balles de défense coupées flottantes du bot est très (trop) difficile à prévoir. Je me suis fais avoir plusieurs fois sur la longueur de balle soit trop court soit trop long du coup dur dur de se placer correctement. Et en mode élite ça pardonne pas c'est faute toute de suite. Some slice defensive shots from the AI are really unpredictable.

J'ai également l'impression que le bot anticipe trop la zone de mes premières balle au service idem pour les secondes. Trop de retour gagnants sur 2d balle alors que je galère comme un fou à en faire . C'est surtout gênant pour les premières balles, les deuxième balles je comprends mais c'est frustrant de ne pas pouvoir répliquer. IA anticipates too much my first and second serves leading to too many wining returns.

- what things the CPU doesn't do but should do ?

Mettre plus d'effet sur les seconds services (notamment l'effet kické sous utilisé pour sortir l'adversaire du court). Use more often +++ top spin on second serve or slice to open the court.

Plus faire sortir l'adversaire du court avec les courts croisés liftés. J'ai remarqué que le bot se met à sortir le joueur régulièrement en coup lifté court croisé qu'à partir du niveau incroyable. Make IA use more often short crossed top spin shots.

Le bot devrait utiliser plus souvent le chop d'attaque notamment en revers pour déstabiliser l'adversaire. Et pourquoi pas de temps à autre faire du chip and charge (les serveurs volleyeurs le font déjà un peu mais pourquoi pas élargir un peu plus aux autres). Make IA use more often slice backhands as an offensive shot.

L'IA devrait plus chercher le décalage en coup droit pour s'offrir de meilleures angles de frappe, notamment le coup droit lifté de décalage dans le carré de service côté revers par exemple. More inside out forehands from the IA to open the court et seek for new angles.

Dernière proposition en partie hors sujet ( ) : possibilité donnée aux bots et aux joueurs humains d'utiliser une attaque "courte" de chop (revers ou coup droit mais revers plus crédible) afin de faire soit un chop court croisé soit un chop court long de ligne quand l'adversaire se trouve derrière sa ligne de fond pour soit monter à la volée dans d'excellentes conditions, soit déstabiliser les défenseurs de fond du court pour les forcer à faire une balle courte ou ayant moins de rythme et plus facile à ré-attaquer. Allow AI and real players to use short slice shots especially useful when playing at the net to prevent a powerful passing from "ultra" defensive player.

[Docbzh]

what new play style behavior would you like to see and what it'd do exactly ? (I'm thinking about adding at least 2 play styles, to reflect better the play styles of Nadal & Djokovic, which are 2 different mixes of defense and offense, and fall somewhere between the Defender and the Powerbaseliner ; this would help to better reflect the subtle variety of modern tennis)

Je ne vais peut-être rien apporter de neuf à tes réflexions, mais j'approuve à 100% les 2 nouveaux styles que tu veux rajouter. En fait juste peut-être une nuance, il faudrait un style de jeu (comme Nadal par exemple) où tu peux envoyer de gros lifts mais aussi de grosses frappes bien à plat. Je m'explique : Nadal fait un gros lift et gène son adversaire. Celui-renvoie la balle entre la ligne de carré et la ligne de fond de façon défensive en sorte de mini "cloche". Il serait intéressant que le Nadal que l'on contrôlerait puisse frapper une frappe de décalage coud droit à plat rasant le filet pour terminer l'échange ce qui n'est pas tout à fait possible à l'heure actuelle (trop de lift). Ou alors faire un passing-shot shot de revers rasant à plat (à l'heure actuelle le revers est trop bombant et trop facile à contrôler à la volée).

Not really a style but allow a player to hit top spin shots and flat shots (with very few spin on it) (i.e. nadal's backhand as a passing shot is usually a strong flat shot whereas in the game there is still top spin on it)

[JaNeZoKu]

- complete rehaul of where the CPU stands according to its play style ; eg : right now, the volleyer always stands relatively close to the baseline and thus is often easily destroyed in rallies ; in TEM2/TE4, the CPU will be smarter about this and better adapts his position to your game

This is exciting news!

Regarding the AI, I'll repeat some of my suggestions from the other thread:

I) As for the things the CPU doesn't do but should do:

When you miss your shot (either it ends up being too long or it ends too wide) the AI never moves towards the ball no matter how close to the line your shot ends up. It's just unrealistic that the AI stops moving the moment you hit your faulty shot. They should start moving towards the ball, unless your error is so big that it's obvious your shot is not going to land in the court. This would make the AI more realistic.

The AI should (depending on which player it is) mix up their serve more (more kick, slice serves...).

More misshits from the AI would be cool.

II) As for the things the CPU does but shouldn't do:

I think the AI should struggle a bit more when returning fast and precise serves, too often it strikes a perfect, almost impossible, return deep into the corner.

Also, very often the AI's counter shots are crazy good, especially on the run when it hits a passing shot with an incredibly sharp angle. They shouldn't be able to do this very often. Or if they go for it very often, the hit/miss ratio should be more negative.

III) As for the playstyles:

I don't have a particular playstyle I'd like to see, but I'd like to be able to set how some players play in terms of tactics regardless of what their playstyle is. For example, I'd like to be able to separately set up how often a certain player comes to the net, so that we can have defensive players who mostly refuse to come to the net, but also have defensive players who actually don't mind coming to the net. Not all defensive players should have the same 'affinity' to come forward and play a volley. Same thing applies to all other playstyles.

Same thing goes for dropshots. Regardless of playstale, it would be great if you could separately set up how often a player plays a dropshot. For example, Petra Martic plays a dropshot in almost every game.

Also, I would really love to play against a realistic Steffi Graf, the one that almost always plays a slice backhand and hardly ever plays a top spin or flat backhand. So the ability to set up the characters' preference for spin/flat/slice would be cool.

[filipos6]

1) Playstyles: I would like to see a playstyle where the player tends to hit more forehands (like Nadal) - if the ball goes on the players backhand, but if there is some time to reach for forehand, player would reach for it.
2) This is more about the gameplay itself: I think it would be a lot more realistic if the ball would go high when you barely make it to the ball (if you are running towards the ball and you barely make it and you hit it with the end of your racket, it should go really high and shouldn't be a normal hit like it is currently).

[manutoo]

Everybody,
Thanks for all your answers, keep them coming..!

Docbzh,
Nadal ne frappe pas à plat, c'est juste qu'il tape comme un âne et donc la trajectoire est beaucoup plus tendue, mais la balle tourne toujours sur elle-même à une vitesse faramineuse..!

[Docbzh]

Everybody,
Thanks for all your answers, keep them coming..!

Docbzh,
Nadal ne frappe pas à plat, c'est juste qu'il tape comme un âne et donc la trajectoire est beaucoup plus tendue, mais la balle tourne toujours sur elle-même à une vitesse faramineuse..!

Exact je me suis mal exprimé! C'est juste cette sensation qui est moins bien retranscrite dans le jeu. Mais bref tu as saisi
Bon courage pour le développement en tout cas ! N'hésites pas si tu as besoin d'autres retours ce sera avec grand plaisir.

[peteypan]

As far as the sub levels go, I think they are pretty good how they are. I find on pro10 the stats seem to be fairly realistic to real life usually. Perhaps sometimes if someone has high counter their accuracy on passing shots and return can be a little too perfect. The only other thing that could make it even more realistic is more random unforced errors but i think I read that that's already being implemented

One thing i'd LOVE that may not be possible because I assume it would be too complicated - is more ability to distinguish the AI second serve. For instance a lot of players have an enormous first serve but a vey weak and slow second serve, some hit the second serve as hard as the first, some hit a lot of kick on second serve only, some have great accuracy and precision on first serve but the second serve is a weak shot in the middle of the service box. If there was a way to somehow make the second serve a different entry in the players.ini customisation it would just add that extra realism.

Another thing that isn't really related but in the same ball park is implementation of the mental skills from TE Manager, for example players players with low coldblood would be more prone to choking and playing badly on big points and vise versa. A way to make a player play the same level the whole match and others who will play amazing for some periods and then badly for others. I notice it works great in TE Manager - i'm not sure if that could be translated in to TE4 in a real time match or not, but again - TE is already by far the best simulation (playing these new games that came out this year made me appreciate it so much more ) but this would really be a treat for those who like to play a real life tour simulation with real players.

Great to see all the suggestions

[EdicoNova]

Currently the AI is too good at precisely picking out targets while hitting a slice on the run. In tennis when you see your opponent stretching for a ball in a continental grip it's time to get to net to put the next one away. In TE that's usually a losing proposition as the AI can pick out lines either down the line or short angle with a slice. Against human players it's not as big of a problem as versus the AI.

[Serena Williams]

I think the AI is pretty good now except for one little thing i have noticed, across all levels of difficulty. When the player goes to the net, and has to play several volleys, not just one, he seems to send the ball right back to the side where the opponent is camping. It is more logical to try and send the ball to the different side instead of giving right back to the opponent and giving then the chance to hit an easy passing shot.