Mana Games

[Jirafalox]

Hi Manu, hoping you recover soon and healthy, I wanted to discuss an issue that happens all the time (like all the time, every match I play online almost happens once or twice if im going often to the net).
There is this thing that I really dont understand, idk if it's like that by desing or just an inconsistency that's not meant to be there but half of the time i go forward to the net, i get passed by a shot going 100-110 km/h that passes me by 30 cm or half a meter at most and the player just gets stuck in place, the player doesnt do the "jump" animation to get the ball and is so frustrating because it discourage me to play offensive and attack the net as any irl player would do in many different situations. Is really inconsistent too because most of the time when I'm already at the net the player can do huge jumps to cover almost the whole net if I move correctly (i play with 60 net presence+ volley play style) but other times i come forward, then I stop when the opponent hits so I can react to the left and right, and hold safe volley just in case and then it happens, the ball just passes me 30 cm or sometimes less. I've gotten cases where it gets so bad that even the player does like the volley animation and the ball literally passes through the raquet (When I watched the replay in slow mo was so funny XD). Other times the player does the jump animation to the ball but doesnt hit it and the game renders the "sound" of the volley and all, but the game doesnt register the "hit" of the ball so it passes anyway. I've been practicing a lot on grass lately ahead of the grass season and it's very worrying to me, since my game revolves on the net i would like it to be at least consistent, like knowing if i hit a good aproach shot and if the ball is coming super slow and super close to where I'm already standing, having the certainty that I'm actually gonna be able to volley that ball. I don't know if you need bugs report for every situation I described, but if u need them let me know, i can play 1 or 2 sets online and get examples for everyone of them, and also I think every online veteran that enjoys playing all court tennis would agree on this topic, at least I've discussed this with mystery in the past and this happens a lot to everyone who likes to go forward, honestly is kinda broken atm, even opponents online say sorry when this happens, because sometimes it is that bad.

[johnmachete]

After some test matches in grass past week I've experienced something quite similar to you. One point you can volley properly and the next one the ball pass just close to you with the player doing nothing. I'm feeling like it's very hard to play in competitive online right now in the net. I played these matches with volleyer and 90 net presence btw. I had to start to play in the back court because i could volley 1 of every 5 shots, most of them not fast or specially good shots from the oponent.

[manutoo]

Jirafalox,
yes, please send me a Bug Report for these 2 cases :
- the player should jump but didn't jump (be sure the ball is near enough ; if it's far, it's normal he doesn't jump)
- the ball passes through the racket (or body) of the player

Preferably, send me Bug Reports from playing against the CPU, not online, it's easier to debug.

[Jirafalox]

Hi manu i sent you bug reports the other day, are they enough or you need more bug reports?

[manutoo]

Jirafalox,
I got your 4 Bug Reports (1 being to show the correct behavior, if I got that right).
I just had the time check the 1st one this morning : that issue was actually a 2-bugs-in-1 when running forward doing a backhand volley. 1st, the Dynamic animation system cannot calculate exactly where the racket sweetspot will be, and thus makes the racket go ~10cm too much to the left, making you feel the racket should touch the ball. Unfortunately, I cannot fix that, but anyway the main issue was the Net jump calculation : it didn't take into account the reduced reach when running forward doing a backhand volley. It's fixed for the next update and thus in this case your player will jump and touch the ball (so hopefully the wrong racket positioning should not be too much of an issue).

[Jirafalox]

Thanks Manu!!!, I also showed other situation in the bug reports I sent about the player not jumping so if you can check that out when you have time it would be greatly appreciated!! Fixing that one too would greatly improve net game experience in general and make it consistent since that is the most common issues that happen all the time! Thanks again for all your work.

Also I wanted to ask, and this is mostly a personal opinion, if lob/smash can be discussed about tweaks. In my experience in the online tour, as you know, there is a meta and all the players who wanna compete usually play with 0 in lob and net skills, and that ingame translates to 30 in every stat left at 0 in the character sheet in the training club. In that logic, i find that lob at 0 vs smash at 0 is very disproportional. What I mean is, even with smash at 0, if you hold the button for more than half a second, the precision of the smash is super small and very precise, only accel smash is somewhat bigger but still very good aiming reticle, but the thing is when you smash with anything between 0 and 40 skill in smash, the ball goes so slow is unplayable, so opponent can spam lobs untill you inevitably hit a middle smash and they crush you. I find it unfair imo because with lob at 0 my experience is that if they hit it in any situation apart from hitting on the run or stretched, the opponent always hit super deep lobs even at 0 lob and with good pace. almost always its a winner or forces you to go back (also the situation of running down a lob and not knowing how to hit back is another issue, me personally i cant do it consistenly, most of the time I run past of the ball without being able to hit it and if i stop and press buttons the player doesnt hit, if i dont hit anything and run into the ball the players does like a werd safe strike that goes to the net, so i dont know what to do input wise)

so i think myb, and just myb, the smash skill could be more regarded to precision and aiming zone than power because now it feels like the smash skill only affects the power of it, and it feels so off that the opponent with a meta build can lob and lob with so much depth and the player at the net in an offensive situation can't finish the point because a smash even with accel doesnt go faster than 110-115ish km/h with the same stats at the player using lob. But again, this is a very personal opinion open to debate. I would preffer to be able to hit hard knowing well that i can miss very easily with aiming than having a small aiming but with no power. ofc the solution is putting 60-70 points in smash but i think we all know that it would be imposible to compete in the official managames tour while using those points in smash + the points needed in net presence and also being able to compete in the baseline and serve.

[manutoo]

Jirafalox,
1) I just checked your 2nd report, where you wrote :

Sometimes when you get a counterdrop shot, the player might move agressively with the net jump like in no time and even if you dont hold the button, or they move like forward into the place where the ball is bouncing, so it will always be a shot into the net.

There, you pressed a button and that's why your player did the net jump, and you were trying to do a Short Acceleration with the ball 20cm above the ground, so I think it's pretty normal you failed that strike.

2) Your 3rd Bug Report was in the same situation than the 1st one, so the yesterday fix fixed it as well.

3) The acceleration smash speed with 30% in Smash is 119.5km/h if you're correctly positioned. It should be enough to do some winners with it, but you might have more success with the Short Acceleration which should give you more angle, and will go at more or less 105km/h depending on the preparation time.
Note : the Backhand smash is slower.

[KINGBARBOZA]

Hey Manu,
Just reported a volley as well, ball is charged for a very long time slice volley and goes out nowhere near green circle for no reason.

[manutoo]

KINGBARBOZA,
the ball was less than 5 cm away from the white limit.

According to your screenshot, it seems the XKT and/or the WTSL Mods completely removed the white zone instead of just putting it in green or something else..?

[KINGBARBOZA]

Regardless of that, how is it completely out of the white zone with that much preparation time + not even being an accel or even a normal shot but a slice lol

[manutoo]

1) You hit the ball at 220cm height, which brings some difficulty
2) All strikes have a relatively big aiming zone, even with 1 second of preparation

[Jirafalox]

Manu hoping you're doing fine with your health recovery, there is any chance that we get the volley fix update after Roland Garros ends? for the grass season coming up in the tour? Thank u

[manutoo]

Jirafalox,
I'm not sure how it'll go, but I'll try at least do an update before the start of Wimbledon.

[Jirafalox]

kk thanks manu, tho i wouldnt mind a small update with only that fix included HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA just kidding take ur time