Mana Games

[Jira]

Hi manu hoping you're doing great I wanted to share with you a feeling that at least the Pakete's Community (Dani21, Vaya, MarcoVZLA, Madferit, Johnmachete, and more) share about the slice shot.

The shot in itself in it's current state is unusable. Everytime you hit a slice on hard or grass is a free winner for the opponent if you don't guess to a side and still that's is a 50/50 chance. And I don't mean like the tap the button slice when you are in a defensive situation or in the stretch, that's normal that you hit a very attackable ball, I'm talking about the well prepared slice mid rally at any height below shoulder. We feel the slice lacks any purpose and use in it's current state, and since the last update got even worse, but imo before that it was already at a bad spot.
Like you can have your opponent in a crosscourt battle and hit a very sharp cross court shot and next shot you hit a slice prepared for a good time down the line and the opponent can just get there and hit an accel down the line back with full power and very good precision or a cross court short acceleration to the other side like it's nothing, using it is giving away the point or control of the point instantly, when irl pros use it to slow down a bit the point, or for example using it down the line to expect a cross shot next because ripping it back down the line would be very very high risk for the opponent in that situation (and it's not in te4 with decent skill). Idk if it's because the bounce is not low enough, or the ball floats more than it should or goes higher through the air, or the underspin is not affecting properly the aiming of the opponents shot in a way that's more risky aiming so close to the lines (aiming maybe could be more wide and short so if you rip it hard then yeah the ball will gain speed and spin so it won't go long necesarily but the directional control shouldn't allow you to hit the corners or line every single time at full speed with ease) but in it's current state is very bad and we all agree it needs tweaking, but in which way we're not sure since we don't understand the physics of the game like you do.
imo it just needs a revamp of how much underspin you can get at certain heights, like the slice works like it should only when you hit it like shoulder height or even higher and you hit the ball down with 100+ km/h and 85+rps after preparing for long, but why can't we get anything above +55 in a slice at medium height or low balls, even if we prepare it super early it's still doesn't "bite". Like you get 0 reward or tactical benefits for using it in a situation that you could've accelerated for example.
(Also a little love for the short slice would be appreciated too, it has too little underspin imo, so players even if they get to it when is very well placed can go cross fast or down the line above the heighst part of the net with no issue lol, never goes above 35/40 rps of underspin so maybe it could be around 55/60 max and +3/4 km/h faster imo)
I've read some old topics about the shot and for example Julianu always said even after all those changes done in the past, the shot was still underwhelming

I know I've asked a bit too much recently for gameplay adjustments but it's always for the better experience of the game, and in this case we've discussed this topic in our discord server and wanted to share it with you.

[Dani21]

I mainly agree with this. It doesn’t matter how much you prepare the slice for, the opponent can always fire a 130 kmh shot back without any issues

[Madferit]

I agree with this as well. The slice has to be a usable shot. On clay it seemed fine, even then perhaps a bit under powered, but it was usable. But now since the update, and on grass and hard it's straight up a terrible shot. It isn't realistic at all.

[manutoo]

What changed in the last update that made the slice less efficient ?
Was it faster than 55 mph before? (88km/h)

The Short slice has the same spin as the normal slice.

And I don't think in real tennis that the players slice when they have the occasion to accelerate the ball, except on very rare occasions...

[KINGBARBOZA]

Imo the slice is fine, i found it pretty usable and effective on grass to approach the net and draw out errors especially when going DTL. It was almost OP on clay if you had the slice mastery talent because you could endlessly extend the rallies and reset the point over and over by returning even the best accelerations with perfect slices on the run until the opponent hit a green error. Obviously on slower hard court like Washington it seems worse, I think it's more a surface change thing rather than it being nerfed.

Edit: I am playing WTSL, not XKT.

[Jira]

What changed in the last update that made the slice less efficient ?
Was it faster than 55 mph before? (88km/h)

The Short slice has the same spin as the normal slice.

And I don't think in real tennis that the players slice when they have the occasion to accelerate the ball, except on very rare occasions...

I'm sure before the slice could go past 90 km/h by a little bit when hit at medium height, now it doesnt go faster than 88 as you said. Only time it goes faster is when you hit it shoulder height or head height and prep it for longer than 0.5 seconds. And imo is not only a pace problem with the slice, is just doesn't keep the ball low enough, like opponents can just hit through it super fast with no problem as Dani said, even when prepared for long because at chest or waist height it never goes up from 55/57 rps even with 2 stars talent. On xkt at least, as I said before, is giving away the point. It's so ridiculous that even on the lowest bouncing surface that is grass, a very well prepared slice crosscourt for example in a rally goes like 80 km/h and barely gets 50 rps, and then opponent rips it every time by like an inch from the net at 130 km/h every single time. What's the point of the shot? it's only viable use scenario rn at least in competitive online is using it as an approach shot and even then is decent, not good either.
Also, short slice idk if I'm using it wrong but never has more than 40 rps of underspin so the ball lands and bounces like more up than forward, and in my understanding ball should skid the more rps you have and be lower.

Overall my suggestion would be make it skid a little bit more and/or let the bounce be lower. I think upping the avg rps of the slice would be a good fix or maybe making it that at chest/waist (or lets say a normal comfortable height overall) the slice shot can go up from around 57 rps max to 70/75 and left the 80+rps to those cases when you hit a slice from high to low (like when you hit it at shoulder or head height). I don't think it would break realism either because the higher rpm shot on tour while Fed was around was his backhand slice, second was Nadal fh, so a good slice can have an insane amount of underspin and i don't think 2 stars talent should give you like 100 rps underspin but more than 57 for sure compared on how much spin a normal or topspin strike can get with even 50% topspin for example (around 40-60 rps every time, then imagine playing with 60-70 topspin you go above 70 rps every time and even to the max 90 rps if using topspin strike, and a very well prepared slice with 2 stars should be at least a bit close to that in amount of spin imo)

The shot is very underwhelming to use, like you feel punish everytime you don't hit normal/short accel/topspin/accel, and if you look at Dan Evans, Dimitrov, Fed, they use the slice A LOT and they don't instantly lose the point everytime they use it, and in our beloved game, you kinda do against decent players in any surface but clay (but that's because clay pushing is still not totally fixed even after the update to accels on the rise sadly, that makes the topspin abusers punishable tho so it's not that it was bad but there are more thing about that)

[fakefederer]

Totally agree. Current slice is not usable on hard courts right now. Similar situation with grass. It just gives perfect acceleration to the opponent all the times. In clay its best surface to use the slice but after the last patch it feels nerfed. I am talking about XKT tour. I just started to play WTSL and in here things are better. I can use slice effectively in every surface especially clay. I am not sure about i have 2 star talent on WTSL tho, im playing with Musetti with no changes. However, in XKT i am playing with 2 star talent on slice and still its not useful as in WTSL. I avoid to make definite statement about WTSL, but i am pretty sure that current slice is really useless in XKT especially in hard courts. It just gives perfect ball to accelerate without any challange.

[Thomas]

When Alcaraz uses the slice against Sinner he often get destroyed... Dimitrov and Evans have never been successful on the tour because they rely too much on their slice, like 7 out of 10 BH. The slice is jut not a powerful weapon, which is why Federer introduced his "neo backhand" in 2017.

[manutoo]

One important thing that has changed in the last update and might be hard to apprehend : the slice alters less the spin imprecision of the opponent's trike, and thus it lowers the acceleration precision a bit less. I'll restore that for the next update, hopefully, it'll be enough to get to a decent balance.

[KINGBARBOZA]

Hey Manu,
Can I suggest you make the slice slightly faster if you have a long preparation? it's a bit slow and too easy to reach/run to good position to return it.
Please don't balance this by just making us hit more acceleration green errors off slices and actually try and change the slice to be more viable rather than just producing more green errors.

[manutoo]

KINGBARBOZA,
it's more realistic to prevent doing acceleration on a slice, except if it's prepared early enough.
I'll see for the speed ; maybe I'll do a tiny boot (+~3km/h) when the ball is high.