Mana Games

[solarisaint]

[manutoo]

@S.Williamz :
Counter style => unlimited but weaker regular accelerations
Power baseliner style => +3 accelerations
Stamina => determine the number of accelerations

Other details will come with the doc, in 3 weeks... (hopefully )

>> Return
I'm not sure to understand ur problem with the return.
You can't return coz u lack of reflexes, or coz the ball goes through ur player, or coz it's so crossed that u can't move to the correct position ?
I just did a quick test, and it seemed to be working fine.


@Brad1981 :
I just did a little try, and it has been quite hard to see the power baseliner coming to the net. He did it on only 1 strike out of 20 or 30, while I was using the short strike, the slice & the safe strike to try to make him come to the Net.
Are u sure he really comes a bit too easily ?

I did a very lil tuning now, but I think I won't change it a lot.


@CC :
Yup, I can't do much about the sound without having Win98 myself.

About the "connecting..." hanging, maybe I found the problem, but I think there's also a bug in the network subsystem I'm using, so I'm not sure if it's alright or not now.

And glad to know u enjoy the lightness of the TE Engine..!

>> I take a little step into the strike as I hit the ball
It's not needed, but u may get a 1 or 2 km/h bonus on ur ball speed by doing this.


@solarisaint :
Yup, writing with the caps lock on is hard on my eyes as well...

About the volley, I didn't exactly do a tuning, it was more a bug fixing : it was easier to put the volley in the court with low volley % than with high ones..!
So I just tuned a bit the depth aiming of the volley with high skill %.
Now it's still not too easy to succeed the volley. If you don't react fast enough or are not well placed, u'll still fail them, so no worry, it should be still good & balanced...

[Brad1981]

Ok. Yes, I played a tiebreak (surprise, surprise), and in 11 points, he came to net on 5 of them.

Edit: Another one, out of 13 points played, power baseliner cpu came to net 7 times.

[S.Williamz]

Well Manu I did a little demonstration...it's ONLY these two cases.

Left-handed player serves wide to ad court:


Right-handed player serves wide to deuce court:


Now it might be lack of skill why I can't reach those serves, but as I said it's only these two cases, not when right-handed serves wide to AD court or left-handed to DEUCE court. Also I have tried everything, and only when I'm almost out of the screen waiting for the ball I can get it back sometimes, but then the server can serve easy aces down the middle, so it's not exactly helpful.
It's especially hard when the server uses a weaker spin serve(I think it's slice), and can ace me pretty much everytime even with second serves.

I'll test this more and add more info if I can.

[manutoo]

S.Williamz, yup there was a problem with sliced serves, they were way too hard to return, as u needed to step a lot into the court to catch them.
I just fixed that, although it'll be still a bit hard, but at least, really not impossible anymore... I'll update the version on the website later...
But CPU don't slice serve, so I don't think u should have too much problem against him...

[S.Williamz]

Yeah the problem was only online...and yeah it's also only the slice serves, not other...glad to see it fixed!

[milos]

If a reboot didn't fix your display problem, could u tell me what is ur video card, and try to update to the latest video drivers for it ?

ok, the reboot didn't fix the problem, neither did the updated version, and i am using the latest drivers for my
SiS Mirage 3 graphic card. any help manu? the problem only started after the version with the new camera view...

[manutoo]

@Everybody :
Version updated :
- sliced tuned down to be less lethal
- lowered a bit the CPU success rate on serve
- fixed the mouse aiming on serve & in match


@Milos :
I very wonder why u got this bug just lately, coz even though I changed the court display in the version with the new camera, I didn't change the menu display, and still u got the same bug in both cases...
Anyway, I did a little display fix in the latest version, maybe it'll help...

[btaylor]

Hi Manu, I just downloaded the latest test version and I think it's coming along great! I especially like the close-up camera view in the forecourt as it adds a more realistic perspective to the game and helps to see the ball better on the volleys. One observance....you say to volley better we have to center the ball on the strings (like in real tennis) but I seem to notice that especially on the first volley the ball usually doesn't even touch the racquet (even when you hit a solid winning volley) Maybe you could tune a little bit more? Also something I noticed in TE2006 as well as TE2009...when playing on the clay court the sound of the ball contacting the ground sounds like the ball is bouncing in a hollow box. It should be much more muted (softer than the bounce on a hard/indoor court) The shadows are great, but don't forget the squeaky tennis shoe sounds on the hardcourt!

[manutoo]

btaylor, during warm-up the 1st volley is very high, so it's above the racket, but the center matters only on the horizontal axis, not on the vertical one (else, I'd have to do adaptive animations... ).

The sound for the clay court is taken from Roland Garros...

And thanks to remind me about the skidding sounds, they went MIA after some modification a few weeks ago, and I didn't notice that...

[milos]

unfortunately, the graphics have not fixed! i have no idea what's going on, but its just not working...

[manutoo]

milos, could u send me your "C:\Program Files\Tennis Elbow 2009\System.log" file to contact(at)managames.com ..?

[jenks10s]

Why does the CPU seem like he is so much faster than my player, even though my speed is about 15% higher than his.

Also, I don't like the camera zoom when i go to the net. Can you make this an option?

[manutoo]

milos, I got ur System.log , everything seems normal.
Could u edit your "Tennis.ini" and change this line, under [3dEngine], from :
T&L = 2
to :
T&L = 1
(if it's already on 1, try to set it to 2)
& let me know if it changes something or not ..?

jenks10s, the CPU has a little advantage coz he can accelerate in any direction, while you, you can accelerate only in 8 (left, right, up & down + the diagonals).
You can of course set the camera like u prefer, in the In-game options.

[jenks10s]

why can't we accelerate in all the directions?
it just seems like he starts off sprinting, while I have to do some shuffles before the sprinting starts.