Mana Games

[lucho]

Ok, I played quite a bit.
I really like the game for now.
The only thing, that has already been said by others, is that it may be a bit too easy. And after about two seasons, my player's cash was something like 10E2019191.

I'm looking forward to playing the final game, I'm sure it will be great.

[manutoo]

Hello,

I just tested the double, and I found a few bugs, including 2 bad ones :
- a bug that was probably leading to be sometimes registered 2 times in tournament
- a bug that was making a part of interface disappear in the training screen, after we had a look at the "Character Sheet" of our possible double partners

I also corrected :
- the player style which was always shown as "defender"
- inverted "Head to head" results
- exponent display of cash (ie: 1.0478957e+006)
- R3 instead of R1 in 7-round draws
- and maybe a couple other things that I already forgot...

For the difficulty level, it's clear it's too easy now.
I never played very long time, but after 3 or 4 months, our player is already at the level of top #100 player, so the training is too efficient.
I guess the current difficult is around 2/5, a bit like "Club" mode in TE2006.

If you have idea to make it hard, thanks to let me know.

For the statistics, I didn't do anything new now. I'll add them at the end, so u're more than welcome to let me know what you'd like to see, as I'll try to implement the most popular demands from this forum !

You can download the Alpha again, I just updated it.

@Rob4590 :
thanks for ur detailed report !
U're right, I'll have to force the players to choose between master series & grand slam or not play at all when they have the needed ranking to enter them directly.

@lucho :
thanks for your encouragements.

[Rob4590]

With regard to the difficulty, perhaps once you get to certain levels of skill, then the training will increase the skills by less per hour that you put in them. I ddon't think you want to change the skill increases right at the beginning of the game, because for 3-4 events that I played, I could not get past the qualifying. If you make the skill increases less at that level (ie when most skills are 5-20%) then people will get discouraged.
But then it should slow down, so it is harder to get from 50 to 60% in a skill than it is to get from 20 to 30%

When my guy got to no 1, his skills were all around 80% on the left of the screen, and nearly all 95-100% on the right, and I was pretty much unbeatable at that point, so to get from 70% to 80% should take a hell of a lot of hard work (and a little bit of luck)

By the way - I did all that with only hiring 1 coach - so if I hired a load more then I reckon I could have got better even quicker.


So to summarise - slow down the rate of increase per hour of training at the higher levels, and maybe increase the speed of decrease if you don't train in a skill.

Also - the injuries should actually last the number of days that they say - every injury I had, I was back playing very quickly by just doing 42 hours rest the next week, and it seemed to be cleared up even though I was told on a couple that I was out for 25 days.

[michaelwest777]

I tend to agree with Rob, and my experience matches his: Once I become good enough to win challengers I can easily push my way up the rankings.

I like the flights feature etc, this will give an incentive to staying within one region.

I, like Rob, have found the game a little mechanical: i.e. keep getting better and better and in time you win big. There seems to be few setbacks and few trade offs to be made. The game should be much more about managing form and getting th eplayer to peak at the right the moments rather than just get better and better.

I may be missing something, perhaps I've been lucky so far. I will play it more to see Overall I really enjoy the game. Just it can feel like you'll win as soon as your skills get to a certain level.

[manutoo]

Hello,

the training is already more efficient when you're at 0% than when you're nearly your max (represented by the little blue smoke).
But it obviously needs more tuning.

My idea is that you need trainers to reach 80%+, and without them, it should be nearly impossible to have 80%+ everywhere.
Another thing is that when you reach higher levels, and play more matches, your injury risk level should raise more quickly, forcing you to observe resting (or half-resting) period.

The training can be less efficient at 1st, coz in the full game, there will be 1000 players, and u'll start in Future's qualification, not Challengers, so the initial training should be a lot less powerful, else you'll be able to win any Future, Satellite & Challenger tournament only after a few months.
(note: Future & Satellite won't be handled like in real life, ie : no special tour, points & ranking for them)

It'll be possible to really tune the global difficulty when everything will be place (right now, it only lacks the full player & tournament bases, and the match tactic that will allow you to play on "half-speed" to save energy when you play against weak players or change your tactic depending of the surface)

I'll add difficulty levels in the Beta, and with the helps of your comments, I hope TEM will be nicely challenging...

[Rob4590]

Just played another game of TEM, and I have the following observations / bugs / suggestions to mention.


In doubles, the seeding in the game seems to be done on the best ranking of the pair. I believe in real life it is done on the combined total ranking of the pair (certainly is in women's, not sure about the mens, because they don't put the rankings on their drawsheets)

In the early doubles games it appears to have WAY too many service breaks - a service hold is very unusual. Might need tweaking.

I feel that when you click on a player, you should be able to get to see his skills as an option as well as his tournament results. This would be really helpful in a couple of ways - firstly in choosing a decent doubles partner - I chose the highest ranked player of the choices, and then a few months later played him in singles and found that all his skills were 8%. Also when you are in the tournament week, if you know that your next opponent is weak then you can do some technical training in the 2-6 hours between matches, rather than bother with resting to get your form up.

Another suggestion would be to have the date always visible in the game. Just be nice to know where you are in the season at all times.

Had a strange thing happen one week. Entered the singles and doubles at a challenger event, got straight into the main draw in singles, but had to go to qualifying in doubles. So it took me through the flight screen, then I looked at the Qual draw and we got 3 byes straight into the main draw (which in itself seems a bit strange) so I went to do my training, and suddenly I had 48 hours available that week!! Not only that, the picture of the player in the middle of the training screen had gone, replaced with Not Found in a red circle???

Then I got to the week of that event, played 3 singles matches first (normally was single / double / single etc) winning all of them 60 60 !!! Then in the doubles I won the first set, got into a tie break in the 2nd and it became an unending breaker - literally 100-100 points, with NO mini breaks at all. I then clicked on the show result button and the game locked up, so I had to use CTRL-ALT-DEL to get out of the game.

Hope this all helps

[Rob4590]

Manutoo - I had the unending tiebreak happen again, this time in a singles match, but still after the 48 hour training week and the picture disappearing.


Also - one minor correction needed - when a coach leaves you because of negative money - the pop up reads X quitted work for you - should just be X quit work for you.

[Rob4590]

Another bug - I played the 2nd years Australian Open in both singles and doubles. Went out 3rd round of singles and 2nd round of doubles (with Puerta). Did the rest of that weeks training, then decided to change doubles partner to Nadal, and then was put back into the rest of the doubles draw that Nadal was still in (with Vliegen) (and also got the points that Nadal and Vliegen would have got)

It just needs changing to stop you either changing partners after week 1 of a slam, or that it only actually takes effect after week 2 of the event

[manutoo]

Hello Rob4590,

it seems you can't stop to play anymore !

>> doubles seeding

Ok, i changed the seeding, it was simple enough, but only the best ranked partner still counts to enter tournaments, as it is quite delicate to change it now...

>> too much break in the early doubles games

by early, do you mean the 1st games of the matches..?

>> when you click on a player
>> you should be able to get to see his skills

click on his name !
(I think I'll add clickable names during the match as well)

>> date always visible in the game

I thought about that too and I was waiting for someone to request it !
I added "year 2006, week 1" in the help text zone in the "World Tour" menu, when the mouse cursor isn't on any icon...

>> we got 3 byes straight into the main draw

it's someway normal, because right now, there's not enough players to fill all the draws, it'll be fixed as soon as the player base will be completed.

>> 48 hours available that week

It's normal too, as the game sums up all your available training hours before the 1st match in a tournament, even when there's a week change (ie: for the Grand Slams).

>> picture of the player replaced with Not Found in a red circle

Ok, this one is a bad bug, and I have no idea how it arrived there...

>> unending tiebreak

somehow, the player data must have been overwritten, and that leads to a too strong service ( 10'000% or even more) and so no break nor mini-break was possible anymore...
I hope I could locate this bug with some test...

>> stop you either changing partners
>> after week 1 of a slam

I corrected that...


Thanks a lot for all these reports..!

PS : I don't update the Alpha anymore now, all changes & bug fixes will be for the Beta.

[Rob4590]

With regard to the breaks of serve in doubles matches : when I wrote early, I meant early in the players career. But since then, I've played 1 1/2 years of doubles, and the problem isn't just when the 4 players ratings are poor. In all the doubles matches (including playing with and against top 20 ranked players), it seems that >50% of games are breaks of serve, which is somewhat too high (imo) although I don't know the actual stats in real life.

On the other hand, I feel, in singles, that the breaks of serve are much more realistic, although perhaps too many extremely one sided matches in the user's favour (6-0 6-0 / 6-0 6-1) - these kind of scorelines would be fairly rare even for Federer v challenger players. In a really one sided match it should be more like 6-2 6-2, but having said that, its not a problem - I like winning .

One other little thing that I would mention is that I don't feel that there are quite enough mini breaks in tie breaks (even without the 10000% service ratings lol) - I've had quite a lot of 18-16 ish tie break scores, and in real life you very very rarely get past 10-10.

[Rob4590]

Me again!

Just a couple of small points to add. If you play permanently in doubles with the same partner, and therefore have exactly the same points and same tournaments as him - would it be possible to be ranked as equals ?

eg Rob4590 2nd =
Davydenko 2nd = rather than at 2 and 3. It was just that in my game we got this position and Davydenko was ranked 2 and me 3 - just meant I could never get to number 1 (even assuming we could ever get past you know who!)

Also on this subject, there might be a problem with your permanent doubles partner not entering many singles events. Playing with Davydenko, I played approx 22 events, both singles and doubles, but he only played 12 singles events in that year, including missing about 4 or 5 of the Masters Series events. Maybe there could be some way of negotiating with your permanent partner as to which events you play in together? Or perhaps make it possible for you to have a temporary (1 tournament) partner if your main one doesn't want to play in the same event that week with you?

[Rob4590]

One more little thing - when you qualify for Masters Cup in doubles, you get a message the week before (at the start of the Paris Masters) saying that you didn't qualify, and that there is no qualifying draw to get you in it, even though you then get to play it no problem the next week.

[manutoo]

Hello Rob4590,

>> too much breaks of serve in doubles matches

I found the trouble : the serve power was not calculated for the 3rd & 4th players, so it was always at 0%, leading to this problem...

>> these kind of scorelines would be fairly rare
>> even for Federer v challenger players

actually, when I see how Federer played last week, I doubt a challenger player could take a game from him (6/0 against Blake in the 1st set of the final ! ).
But it made me think something : in fact, Federer would play relaxed and without much effort when playing against such players. So I changed a bit the simulation, and now, when a player is playing a lot less well ranked opponent, he can play less good, to save his energy : it gives more realistic result in the draws, now, I think.
Your player can do the same, but it's your decision to make before each match.

>> not enough mini breaks in tie breaks

I'll have a look at this...

>> would it be possible to be ranked as equals in double ?

yup, I changed this, even for the singles.

>> doubles partner not entering many singles events

It's a bit delicate, but now I give him more chances to enter the single draw of tournaments you're playing in double, it should already help a bit.
I'll try to make him go away for 1 week when he has a forced tournament to play.

>> Masters Cup in doubles

Ok, I removed this message !


thanks for all these reports !

[Rob4590]

Manutoo - is there any predicted date for the beta ?

And are there any new features that you can tell us about which will make an appearance in the beta ? (eg the news reports that have been requested)

Thanks

[manutoo]

hello Rob4590,

new features :
- select match tactic : allow you to change your play style for the time of the match, for a malus (example : from defender to puncher = -5%)
- select energy mode : allow you to save your energy when you play against a lot weaker player, for a malus; 2 modes : save 25% of energy => malus of 10% ; save 50% of energy => malus of 20%
- all tournaments & players
- possibility to build tennis courts in the coach center, to train on the desired surface
- hire new players (up to a total of 4)
- full tournament & player list, with players evolving every year
- player age

I hope to have the beta for Christmas...

I'll add the new stat screens just after, as it doesn't have influence of the data, it's more logical to do them at the end.