Mana Games

[BallBasher]

Firstly, I've don't know if anyone else has noticed this but the CPU player seems to drain its stamina far too quickly. Almost any best of three or five set matches with long rallies ends up with the CPU exhausting their stamina bar by the end of the second set. I'm not entirely sure why, but the CPU's overuse of accelerations during rallies, their overuse of the B1 serve on second serve and the fact that they chase down too many shots, even ones which will be forced errors anyway, possibly contributes to this. I usually play best of three games a set, but I've noticed this problem on six games a set as well.

Secondly, I'm having real problem generating winners going DTL, particularly with my backhand. Hitting cross-court winners (short acceleration) is extremely easy by comparison. I know my current topspin level (87%) and CPU level (Incredible-1) isn't the best for that type of shot, but it just seems like the CPU reads and defends against that particular shot far too well, but not so well against the cross-court shot. If anyone else has some tips to improve my DTL shot, I'd be happy to listen.

[manutoo]

Hello,

1- could you post your MatchLog ? ie: "C:\Program Files\Tennis Elbow 2011\Profiles\Default\MatchLog - <NameOfYourPlayer> [<SomeCode>].html" ; replace "Default" by the name of your Profile if you created one ; zip it or send it to the email address you got your License Key from.
With what Build/SubBuild are you playing ?

2- with such high topspin, it's almost impossible to hit a DTL winner against the Incredible-1, except if you stand well inside the baseline and the CPU is well deported to the opposite side (for example after a good short cross-court shot)

[BallBasher]

1. I'm playing with build 89, subbuild 2012.7.19. I've just redone a completely clean install of TE 2011 because the courts on Sam's Megapatch were screwed up for some reason so I'll have to play some matches on a non-modded clean install of TE and send the matchlog to you.

2. Fair enough, I would have thought the higher topspin would have given me greater depth and net clearance for a DTL shot. It makes sense though given the rather sizeable shot speed penalty that heavy topspin players get. Also Incredible-level CPU doesn't get wrong footed that easily due to its anticipation, which is where most DTL winners come from in real life tennis.

[BallBasher]

OK, forget what I said about 6-game sets being a problem, they aren't I just happened to have a very long clay-court match . 3-game sets however are most definitely not right, the overall energy (the lower stamina bar) doesn't refill at all and it drops way too quickly. You could try playing some 3-game sets and see if it is bugged on your end as well.

[manutoo]

BallBasher,
ouch, the overall energy was really not restored _at all_ when playing with less than 6 games per set..!
I'll fix this for the next update.

[BallBasher]

Since I mentioned topspin level earlier and I don't want to start a new thread, is it intended that flat-hitting CPUs are considerably more difficult to beat than topspin hitters? While its relatively easy to beat mid-range and heavy topspin AI players on all surfaces, even clay, flat hitters are considerably harder to beat, even on slow courts, which I find pretty unrealistic. It seems to me that flat groundstrokes penetrate slower courts far too well and the shoulder height acceleration bonus against heavy topspin has made this worse. Also, shouldn't flat hitters, particularly those in the 0 to 10% range have a considerably higher error rate?

Sorry if I come across as moaning too much, you've made a really good game here and I'm just at the nitpicking stage now.

[manutoo]

BallBasher,
there's no error in the game, as long as the player is well placed and prepares his strike early enough. Less topspin mean a bit less precision, but the CPU is careful and do only very few accelerations when they are not precise enough.

What difficulty level are you playing at ?

[BallBasher]

By errors I mean less precision and consistency on the part of the flat hitters. At the level I'm at (Incredible 1/Master 10) the CPU is so precise with its groundstrokes that the precision bonus and high kick given by a higher topspin level is negligible and thus flatter groundstrokes, due to the roughly 10% speed advantage on accelerations (comparing 90 and 10% topspin) are far more favourable. The end result is that the heavy topspin CPU cannot hurt me, they simply don't hit hard enough and I can turn their high balls into monster accelerations.

Flat hitting CPUs dictate play far easier, are able to hit far more effective shots from defensive positions and the slice, which in real life is an effective way of curbing flat hitters (think Federer against Berdych or Del Potro) is not very effective. In addition flat hitting CPUs have better and more aggressive slices from defensive positions. This is one of the reasons I dislike the effectiveness of the slice being inverse to the topspin skill. Finally, I don't notice flat hitters being that much worse than topspin hitters when they use short accelerations or short strikes.

If you want I can get FRAPS running and record two matches against the same CPU player with the same stats on clay or hard court, one where he has 90% topspin and another where he has 10% and you will see the difference. I'm not complaining because I can't beat flat-hitting CPUs, I can and do so, its just odd that there seems to be such a big gap in difficulty between flat hitters and mid-range/heavy topspin players. It just seems as if the higher the difficulty is, the bigger the disparity between low and high topspin levels.

[manutoo]

Yup, the CPU balance changes with the difficulty level ; with higher difficulty, it gets primarily more defense, so the types of CPU with weaker defense improve the most when raising the difficulty...

You should do .dmo , not movie, look here : topic29-2061.php .
And I'll check them (not sure I'll have the time soon to do some tuning about that, though ).