Mana Games

[btaylor]

Manu,I was wondering...when you played the Pro level CPU player on the last youtube video clip, what settings did you use for your player and the CPU player? (for example,everything on 50, 75, or 100?) Also, what sublevel setting for the CPU player.

[manutoo]

Hello,

my player :
- style : volleyer
- net presence : 100
- Smash / FH & BH Volley : 90
- Speed : 85
- Stamina : 75
- FH & BH : 80
- Service : 75
- Special : 75
- Spin : 30
- Simulation controls

the CPU:
- difficulty : Pro-10
- style : Power baseliner
- FH : 90
- BH : 75
- Net : 60
- Service : 75
- Fitness : 75
- Special : 75
- Top Spin : 35

It was with the latest build (the one with slightly easier volleying & a bit more efficient low volleys)

Why ..? You have trouble to do same volleys than me ..?

[btaylor]

Naw...since I haven't played anyone in a long time I just want to see if I can come close to the maestro!

[manutoo]

hopefully, with a bit of training, you should be able to do better than me... I usually prefer to play puncher style, I'm not so good at serve-volleying...

[btaylor]

I take it that you are a lefty?

[btaylor]

In the .ini parameters how do you have the accelleration and maxspeed set? I set everything like you said and got beat o-6 the first time I played. That almost never happens...It felt like my player didn't have a chance with almost no quickness at net, worse along the baseline. I admit, I had gotten used to using MTRUN but lately I've been going "natural" and have been having pretty good success when the cpu is set everything at 75 with my player at 90 to 100. Granted, with my player at these settings I had been winning pretty comfortably, but I will back off of these some to keep it competitive. I'll try a bit more with your settings (as long as patience and sanity permit ) No wonder you have trouble volleying with these settings!! I'm older than you ( i won't divulge how much ) and a US 4.5-5.0 level player which is pretty good and when I play against similar opponents in real tennis I'm much,much quicker and effective around the net (quick side-to-side movements/reflex volleys) than my player at these settings! All-in-all I like the way you have the volleys tuned now and I hope everybody is happy with it! p.s. happy much belated birthday

[manutoo]

Hello,

yup, I'm left-handed...

I use the standard acceleration & maxspeed, coz I don't like to cheat...
I'm sure u feel fast against 4-5.0 players, but imagine how fast u'd feel if u were at the net against Djokovic...
Personally, on a real court I feel slow when I do serve-volley against my brother, and I think he hits the ball like a very average club player, so I think it's well tuned in TE against an opponent with a FH at 90%...

If u have some time to test that, u should measure the time u need to run from left line to right line and back to left line on a real tennis court, and measure the time needed in the game with a speed at 90%. I'm pretty sure it'll be faster in the game.

And to do the video, I got beaten 6-0 or 1 at least 5 times, and at 1st it seemed almost impossible to win a game for me ; that's why I slightly lowered the volley difficulty...
But actually, it wasn't much different, I mainly needed to practice, and after a long hour, I got the grip & the rhythm to not be totally slashed...

[btaylor]

by the way Manu....what is the default settings for acceleration & maxspeed? I've fooled around so much with it that I have forgotten

[manutoo]

1 & 1..!

[btaylor]

Hi Manu... in response to your example of Djokovic, If I were at the net against HIM I would surely hope to be at the SAME LEVEL as him (top pro vs. top pro, not top pro vs. 5.0 amateur) If I choose to play master/incredible I feel I should be somewhat incredible also. Since the master/incredible level cpu can accelerate in all directions and we can't, plus I think he can hit earlier, ie. on the rise and we can't, to play against him with a level of 1 in accel/maxspeed doesn't seem very sensible (at least as far as winning) I mean why go into a gunfight with a slingshot!? I've read elsewhere in the forum where some players have said that they beat (regularly?) the incredible player without the code. My hat's off to them. Even though I'm always practicing it seems amazing to me for them to be able to reach enough of Incredible's endless power shots using only regular speed. Please don't get me wrong, as I've stated many times, I enjoy the game immensly and when I play against the lower levels I go back to lower levels in accel/maxspeed. I like to test my skills against the top levels every once in a while, but if the cpu player has crazy speed/power, to be competitive I feel I need crazy speed/power too! I guess I'm just trying to justify why I (and maybe Brad1981) tend to use the mtrun code, the difference being I don't necessarily feel you need to increase the no. of accelerations.

[manutoo]

Hello,

tennis is all about balance.
If you play well, u'd make your opponent play bad, and vice versa.

The main reason there are many difficulty levels, it's coz all people have different levels of reflexes, aiming skill & tactics.
What you probably miss to beat the Master level (which doesn't cheat, except he can aim anywhere all the time) is reflex & aiming skill. Starting to run 0.1s second earlier & aiming a bit closer of the lines can totally transform a match...

The Incredible level has the quickest reflexes possible (around 1/20th of second, sometimes even less), and a 10% relative bonus on all his skills (so 100% for him = 110% for you; 50% for him = 55% for you). But he doesn't have any other bonus, so he gets about as much trouble as u on the rising balls (ie: if he has 90% in consistency & u have 99%, then ur completely equal to strike a rising ball).

It's not forbidden to use the MtRun cheat code, but personally I prefer to compete with the Pro level, which is well balanced for my own skills...
But some people are a lot more skilled than me, and they need greater challenges, that's why Master & Incredible are there..!
In TE2006, some people complained the Incredible level was too easy, so I greatly raised him in TE2009.

Also, I understand u can have fun to try to match the Incredible level using a little speed help...

[btaylor]

Hey Manu...thx for responding so swiftly. About the hitting on the rise thing, I notice it most when I'm returning serve...the higher level CPU player takes the ball right off the bounce (usually for a winner, or for me, an error.) Scenario: CPU hits a 133 mph serve and stays back, I get a decent return back, then he swoops in and smacks the ball right off the bounce, more often than not. I don't seem to be able to do this to him. Is it something to do with my auto-positioning? I have it set at fast.

[manutoo]

yup, u should set the Auto-Pos to medium, else it prevents you to strike the ball on the rise.

[Brad1981]

Just wanted to say that I use MTRUN for acceleration only. I have it set to 1.55 and to me this is realistic. BUT, I LOWER the GENERAL SPEED down even less than 1.0. So this kinda makes things even.
And for the courts, I find that if I add about 8-15 points (i.e. from default of 0.85 up to 0.93 for clay court, and from 0.68 to 0.82 for grass court) to the Elasticity, it is more realistic bounce. I compare with Youtube videos of respected surfaces. These are the only 2 surfaces I have done so far...
I find that I have to create a separate folder for this just for playing against CPU, because I get desync error if I try to play online with the altered courts...but, it works for me I applaud the ability to do these modifications.
I am having a problem though, extracting the court.jpg files for every court EXCEPT NewLine Synthetic and Blue-Green Cement. I want to brighten the grass court, but when I export the .jpg and try to view it, it is not recognized and I get no image. Is there a way to view this properly?

[manutoo]

Brad1981, you can only edit the Blue-Green cement, other courts are replaceable but not editable.
And yup, if you modify the court physics, it modifies them for the online mode as well, so it's a wise decision to do this in a separate folder....