Mana Games

[Cenc]

Great
However, evidently I made the mistake of praising the new update way too much before having tried it myself (just saw my nephew play)
So here I am again starting a new game (finished a couple of previous careers between 13 and 20 slams and 2 to 7 years at world n1) - 4 stars at luck
So I make a varied player 185 tall with stars as follows: 1 - early ball hit, 1 - fast learner, 2 - injury resistance, slice mastery, 2 - champion, 1 - chameleon, globetrotter
Season 1: 3 KNEE INJURIES WITHOUT HAVING PLAYED A TOURNAMENT - 2 of them lasting over 70 days, one lasting 20-something days; ankle sprain lasting 15 days
start playing futures, the 1st two times I reach the main draw I retire the 1st round because of gastric problems...
Due to all that it was season 3 (1999) when i started playing main tournaments. By the end of 2000 I had already won the 1st slam and reached top 10.
Year 2001 - ranking number 4 - won Miami and Wimbledon and played some other great tournaments.
My skills are as follows: stroke power (both fh and bh - around 85 all the time) - the rest about baseline play always over 80
serve 80-ish all 3 things
special skills around 85 all of them
volleys around 60
physical skills - stamina 90-ish, speed and strength 80ish, the rest around 90
at the start of each tournament both short and long term form are at least 70
all the mental skills around 80 except concentration cold blood and consistency which are between 85-95 depending on the time of the year
So the year 2002 starts, I'm almost convinced this should be the year to be n1
Doha - winner without losing a set
and then baaaang
Australian Slam - 1st round loss to Nalbandian
Rotterdam - QF loss to Bjorkman
Dubai - Finals loss to Henman
Indian Wells - 3rd round loss to Gonzalez
Miami - QF loss to Moya
Monte Carlo 3rd round loss to Costa
Roma - QF loss to Kuerten
Madrid - 3rd round loss to Costa
French Slam - 1st round loss to Schuettler
Halle - won
UK Slam - 3rd round loss to Gonzalez
Toronto - 1st round loss to Corretja
Cincinnati - QF loss to Novak
US Slam - 3rd round loss to Gonzalez
Shanghai - 1st round loss to Bhupatthi (or however it is spelled)
Paris - 3rd round loss to Hewitt

kinda weird isn't it?!

So I decided to further train him until Australian Open: Baseline play 90!!! Serve 85!!! Volleys 70!!! Special shots 85!!! Physical stuff 90-ish!!!
Australian Slam 3rd round straight set loss to Spadea... sorry but wtf?!
Oh and in mostly all the matches including all the slam losses my energy was 99 or 100%, usually higher than that of my opponent, yet nothing helps... My ranking is 20ish :S

PS I also noticed that the majority of tie breaks still end with ONLY one mini break happening at 6-5... I do not remember ever having seen a single match in real life where 2-3 tie breaks end 7-5 with only that one mini break
I get the feeling there are more breaks during the set than mini breaks during the tie break which is kind of ridiculous is it not?!

Thanks for reading and hopefully considering stuff I said again, I do that because I like the game and I believe this game does have a potential to be much better than it currently is. Constructive criticism, I believe it is called...

[Cenc]

And a little addition, improved my player even more.
2003 season... of all the masters series and grand slams I reached 2 quarter finals and lost most of the tournaments 1st-3rd round...
any possible explanation for that? My ranking is constantly around 30 and no matter what I do there is that weird problem for my player: he can't win a match :S (tried to spend all the exp points on self esteem - got it to over 90 - didn't help)

But then of course I was too stubborn to stop playing and just delete the game so I took some time off between USO and AO and managed to achieve something I have never achieved before (despite having a career with 19 slams earlier) - got each skill to its maximum potential, with mental skills around 90... started extremely well in the next season
and then starting with Australian Slam my player would start like one in three matches with energy of 80 or so :S of course still unable to win more than 3 matches at ANY tournament since sooner or later I would come up against a decent player who would BAGEL me when my energy is at 80 (haven't lost a 6/0 set since 1998 and then lost like 3 in 4 tournaments)
2 min ago my concentration was 94, consistency 92, cold blood 91, stamina 96
Why the hell do I start matches with 80% energy so often?! And why does it happen MOSTLY against top opponents.
(For instance: 1st and 2nd round easy straight set victories such as 61 62 61 and then 3rd round against Agassi i get 83% energy and lose 36 46 06 :S ) (Oh yes and both short and long term form were over 75)

I had complaints before but this is unarguably the worst I have ever experienced... And yeah after this last thing I lost all the interest in playing again until the next update because apparently there's nothing that can be done regarding training, buying courts, making sure player is ready to play on the exact surface (always over 90)...
I think you should really look into what the hell this is... (and possibly change something?!)

Thank you for reading the 2 essays.

[manutoo]

Hello,

are you sure you play with the v1.0h ?
I checked for the tiebreak, and it should definitively has a bit more mini-break than before.
For other things, I'm not sure, I didn't play the game since several years now...
Maybe you got a series of bad luck & coincidences, coz nothing changed much in the game engine since a couple of years at least...

[Cenc]

Huh that certainly is weird. I can try to redownload the game, maybe I did use the wrong version...
But how much of a coincidence can it be if I haven't reached the quarter finals of a single Slam and Semi's of a single MS tournament in 3 years? Reached the 2nd week of a Slam only ONCE.
That is a little too much of bad luck?!
And I noticed that "luck" skill isn't really useful. Since with 4 stars at luck I tend to get the worst of the worst opponents tournament after tournament (for instance Schuettler was in top 10 in 2003 - I get him in the 1st round of French Slam and so on...)

[Rob4590]

(Oh yes and both short and long term form were over 75)

And there's your problem - to consistently do well in slams (ie 5 set matches), you need to have your form over 90 ---- 75 will simply not cut it.

[Cenc]

Huh...
I have made a couple of careers with over 10 slams and I have never played any tournaments with form over 90
75 is relatively high compared to what I used to have
Oh and can someone please explain what exactly "long term form" is?! never figured it out haha

[Cenc]

Oh, just reinstalled the game, copied back the old save and tried to do that stuff with form
Entered each tournament with 95+ at both STF and LTF
Halle - 2nd round loss to Youzhny straight sets
UK Slam - 3rd round loss to Bjorkman straight sets
Toronto - 1st round loss to Dent
Cincinnati - 3rd round loss to Moya straight sets
US Slam - 3rd round loss to Youzhny straight sets
other skills unchanged
oh yes and since my short and long term form have been above 90 the entire time, I got blisters twice in 6 weeks...

[Rob4590]

Whats your self confidence at? Cos the only times I ever get lots of losses that I don't expect is when either my form is low (60-70) or my self confidence is very low (<30) due to previous bad losses.

[Cenc]

My self confidence is around 80... (I train it after each loss lol)

[Cenc]

Writing again with quite a simple question...
What the hell happened to this game?!?!?!?!?!?!
Seriously, back in versions 1.0A and 1.0B with a few minor bugs it was an excellent manager game... This sucks, I am sorry to be so blunt.
I redownloaded the game, created a new career with the EXACT skills I had back in 1.0A when I made a career with 19 slams.
I climbed up the rankings rapidly, unrealistically even. (started the game in 1990) Kept beating guys like Edberg, Sampras, Agassi in 5 sets, winning all the tie breaks despite mental skills being around 75 in my 1st 2-3 seasons. Got to number 1 in the beginning of 3rd season (won Wimbledon, 2 MS and played USO finals). Then I hired more coaches, got all the skills to extremely high level and all of a sudden I started losing again, and when I say losing I mean losing early rounds times after times again. And it kept happening ONLY at Slams and MS, I was still winning basically every IS tournament while losing in 1st 3 rounds at every other tournament.
Then suddenly it got all better after 2 seasons for no apparent reason (and before you diagnose the problem my mental skills are ALL above 90)
Lost USO finals one year, Wimbledon finals the next year. However, despite those skills I kept losing almost every tie break and 5th set I play (again for no apparent reason ) and then to make things even better after that wimbledon, I havent managed to pass the 3rd round of ANY TOURNAMENT in a year...
This included countless losses against players ranked 60-70 who entered the match with lower STF as well as energy and whose skills are far inferior to mine (not to mention losses against some unknown claycourters on carpet and so on)
I am obviously not going to play this game till the next update but I am begging you to tell me what the hell happened to this game?!?!

[manutoo]

Cenc,
if you want, send me your saved games just before you lose in a GS during the 1st rounds, or against way worse player than yours : I'll have a look...

[Cenc]

OK, sure. The next time I have a day or two off I am going to reinstall it again and make a new game and then when this thing starts I am going to send you saves from both before, after and screenshots of what happened, ok?

[manutoo]

Yup, that's a plan..!

[Cenc]

Yup, that's a plan..!

how do i send you a save file?
started a game
reached no3 quickly
won 1st slam - all of a sudden n15 or so
including a series of really really weird losses (losing 51 in the 5th in slam finals, losing countless slam semis in 5 (with good mental skills) losing 5 MS finals in one season not winning titles at all, losing wimbledon finals against moya who happened to be at 80 energy compared to 100 for my player plus exp boost... so if he was at 100% and i had no boost id have lost 60 60 60 against moya in wimbledon?! oh yes and my stress was lower)
overall my ranking dropped and since it caused mental skills to drop very low it was impossible to train well any more - i train mental skills to get them to the point when he can actually win matches - everything else drops meanwhile, train one thing - mental skills down again wtf - training does not affect mental skills negatively as far as i know...)


PS after which i took some 15 weeks to train train and train
won doha
3rd round aussie open vs nadal (2005) - loss
won rotterdam
F dubai
IW last 16 loss to ljubicic
miami QF loss to hewitt
= world n2
and then after reaching world n2 for the 1st time (and yes having all the mental skills well above 90)
monte carlo R3
roma R2
estoril QF
madrid QF
french slam R3
halle SF (best opponent being ranked 50-ish)
wimbledon R2 loss to chela
toronto QF
cincinnati QF
USO R3 loss to hrbaty

cant wait to send you the save just plz tell me how to
sorry but theres something SERIOUSLY wrong with this game

[manutoo]

How to send saved games : topic19-4589.php
Ideally, send me a saved game just _before_ a match you lost and thought you should have won.

Read this topic if you still didn't : topic11-6508.php .