Mana Games

[babatunde]

Hi Manu.

I have been playing this game for about a year now, and I notice how much it supports the way of backboarding and allows defence to be so easily accessible and attack to be extremely difficult to play as when playing online. Players can parade the baseline, just countering hoping for a deep shot that lands on the baseline once or 2 twice per rally, this shot is ridiculous and ruins the realism of the game, attack is so hard to achieve when players can just run in circles and hope for luck to win a point. Another issue is why does it take 4 or 5 shots on the line to achieve a winner in TE3? Watch some real tennis on clay or any surface, winners come from the open court, relatively far away from the line, hitting the lines in real tennis is a huge achievement, which is why shots like djokovics backhand down the line are so highly hailed by fans alike, as its such a difficult shot to achieve. In TE, I have found this isn't the case unfortunately, and it is a really big turn off to players seeking some realism in this game, when its so close to perfection, this really brings it down. I hope in TE4 that these issues are addressed because attack is just as a justifiable playstyle than defence and backboarding.

Thanks Manu I hope this finds you well!

babatunde

[Burned]

Hello,

Tennis Elbow Manager 2 and Tennis Elbow 4 are already MUCH better when it comes to realism.
Being aggressive is much easier.

For now, in TE2013, you can use MtRun in your tennis.ini or the .ini file of the profile you play with.
I suggest you look for more informations on the forum about that. It's explained somewhere. Try using the search bar.
Using this will decrease the speed of the rival so the defence would be less easy and hitting winners or rushing the net should be more efficient.
It's only an off-line opportunity though.

Regards

Burned

[manutoo]

babatunde,
you don't play TE2013. You play the ITST Mod on TE2013, which changes the gameplay in noticeable ways.

Look here : viewtopic.php?p=205165#p205165

So here a guy who beat the Incredible-5 doing more winners than errors and having an average rally length of only 4.7.

And even more, let's pick me, that barely played the game since the beginning of 2012. At the end of 2014, with a power baseliner style, I could beat a heavy defending Incredible-1, on Clay, after only ~2 hours of training : viewtopic.php?p=201483#p201483 . (and God knows I suck at my own game and knows nothing about it, right ? )

So it's true that TE2013 slightly favors defense, but it's in no proportion of what you get when you play the ITST Mod. I wrote this nearly 6 years ago, and it's still valid today : viewtopic.php?p=200388#p200388 (as well as what I wrote in the rest of that topic ; eg: viewtopic.php?p=200552#p200552 )

So you can ask the people who created the ITST Mod to fix it (I can help them if they wish so), but complaining to me about things that are outside of my reach won't solve anything...

[pro10]

Why did you remove my message on other topic Manu? It was a good message.

[babatunde]

thanks for da reply manu i appreciate your works and don't listen to these trolls,

it seem in the thread you post u don't like ITST why is it I have great fun playing this mod and your game!!


boris babatunde

[pro10]

It's strange he doesn't like ITST as the mod yielded him tons of sales. He should thank ITST staff day and night for the value they brought to his game and to his company. Tennis Elbow would be even less known than now without such an online mod...

[manutoo]

babatunde,
I don't have an issue with ITST as a whole per se. I have an issue with several of their members being aggressive towards me and not trying to understand what I wrote and twisting my words, using guest accounts to "hide", etc.

The generic issue I have with the ITST is what I have stated above : people complaining about issues from the ITST Mod thinking it comes from the original game and thus it's my fault (it's annoying in itself, but understandable as it's not easy to know the difference), and then refusing my explanations that I wrote in a sensed manner and took time to detail (this is really annoying).

But I'm glad to know you enjoy my game and the ITST Mod.

BTW, if you're skilled at the game, you're welcome to take a try at the Incredible Challenges (either the #1 or the #2, or both of them), but using Slow AutoPos instead of the Medium one, and the Simulation controls instead of the Elite ones, without any preview, trying to play a Power Baseliner style (ie: doing as many winners from the baseline as possible). The results might be good food for thoughts for TE4..!
Incredible Challenge #1 : topic15-19616.php
Incredible Challenge #2 : topic15-20004.php
Warning : do not change the court physics ; you can change the 2D court texture if you like, but be sure not to change its physics parameters.
If you do it, do not forget to post a .dmo (so be sure to turn on the recording 1st).


pro10,
1) your message was hijacking a bit that other topic, was slightly sarcastic (and thus trolling a bit), and mostly shown you didn't read what I have written just in the last line before your comment. I really don't have time to answer messages if people aren't going to read them and just keep on piling stuff already answered years ago.
Plus I'm not changing TE2013 now, I'm working on TE4 ; if you want to help, you can buy it, test it & provide some feedback. You can also still try the demo of TEM2 for free.

2) Let's observe 2 Mods :
a) Maxou Patch : its influence on the Modding scene is at least 10 times bigger than the ITST one ; its author barely dared to ask for my help and when he did he thanked me both for the game and my help, and he praises the game (and thus my work) at start of his topic : topic29-24824.php . He never asked me to thank him for that Mod, nor anyone else (I did, though ).

b) ITST Mod : I never worked that hard to help a Mod emerge ; I wrote dozen (or hundred ?) of messages, got 0 thanks, but I got ton & ton of insults, arrogance and aggression from a few ITST members (including its boss) ; the Mod author thought he didn't own me anything and I had to do any requested change without proof the requested change was needed ; etc. ; etc.
So excuse me if I'm a bit dubious when some ITST users come here, trying to hide they play ITST, and trying to trick me with their questions...

Thus said, I'm still glad people play the ITST Mod and enjoy it.

[pidzi]

]Yo,

I tried you take on your challenge with Incredible 5 cpu. I took it a bit further and did so in vanilla with your suggested settings and compared it to ITST mod.

Here are stats from Vanilla Match:

https://imgur.com/a/JX4oRQK

2020-05-10.23-29 - pidzi vs P.2 6-3.dmo

Here are stats from ITST Match:

https://imgur.com/a/HUZ7Bjt

2020-05-09.13-48 - T.BER vs N.DJO 6-1.dmo

Few comments and observations. Vanilla match was on second try. I had to change from Power Baseliner to Counter after 2/1. I was simply unable to penetrate cpu defense, while counter style gave that precious few more kmh from its style to do so.Well in a sense. Still in both matches, there were extremely low amount of winners from baseline. Most of them came from volleys and passings. But if you strongly insist i can do the power baseliner too but it would be just even worse w/ue ratio and even longer average rally lenght.
When we are in rally lenght its almost uncomparable. In vanilla match it lasted twice as long as in ITST match. W/Ue ratio was a bit less obvious but still much more in favor of winners in ITST (and on ITST i could hit way more winners from baseline or make CPU do an error). In ITST match i could generally feel i would do better attacking rather than waiting. But you can see this all by yourself from demos.
Objectively, only thing which was better in Vanilla was netplay. That one felt better, however not to the point it would offset horrible baseline play. Plus it was still very easy to pass with those stats.

That being said im not even playing well currently as in past and we have much better players than me who could run down even more balls in Vanilla settings, since i felt like superman with thsoe speed stats and slower courts physics.
If you also insist i can do an original Elite Controls + All prievew and all that stuff. But my prediction is it would be even less rewarding to try attack from baseline.

I hope this helps somehow.

Have a nice a day!


Quick Edit:

Vanilla Match Stats with Original Settings (elite controls, medium auto-pos, etc..)

https://imgur.com/a/tTlhU4i

2020-05-11.00-18 - pidzi vs P.2 6-1.dmo

quicky observations. As i expected, match was much more oriented for pushing as one was penalized much more from attacking attempts. Even CPU knew this and pushed more even if he had chances to attack but learnt better not trying to penetrate my way superior defense. He tried to employ more dropshots to offset this but to no real avail. Overally a big no for me was higher penalization for tryting to hit ball on the rise in these settings and short accels and short shots being more risky. Stats and demos says all tho.

Btw these were my stats if its worth it anything
https://imgur.com/a/q4ywFf3

[manutoo]

pidzi,
thanks for having taken the time to do these tests !

A few things, though :
- yes, you should play with a Power Baseliner ; the main thing to check is if you can beat that Chinese dude (or at least nearly equal him) when playing with Slow AutoPos + Simulation Controls and no Preview ; so the goal is to get the rally length under 5, with a couple of net approaches at maximum (he did only 1!), and winning by 6/x (ie: no 7/5 nor 7/6) ; if you're rusty, you're welcome to ask your current best ITST attacker to give it a try if he has the time & mood for it
- your CPU CRC is incorrect ; the CRC calculation slightly changed since 2014 so for Sub5 you should now get 11314251 (for Sub1 11314291) ; just download the P_Y.ini and copy it to your Profile folder to avoid any issue
- your player has 95% in speed & 46% in topspin ; he should have 100% in speed, and 35% max in topspin and more likely something between 0 & 25% when playing as Power Baseliner
- I don't think it's possible to efficiently switch to Medium AutoPos + Elite Controls without serious training (ie: several hours) ; but if you feel you can, you can of course also try again with these settings with the correct players for yourself & the CPU (turning on the Danger Zone isn't an issue, though )

[pidzi]

Good morning,

Chinese guy got beaten.

Thanks for swift reply. So i tried to do exactly the same as you suggested, also copy/pasted p_Y profile so CRC should be ok now, went with 30 top spin and baseliner. Since i got accomodated a bit better by now and could hit more clean shots and risk it more on the lines and went for more net play as you said (probably even too much), the average rally lenght went down, tho still not hittting numbers i have from ITST matches against CPU, but it was okish now. That being said i cant see how it could be lower with this setup anymore, if anything it could only go higher significantly once i straight up my movement and return.
The main issue i had preserved still and that still most of winners came from passings and volleys, only a fraction of them were straight up baseline winners. Especially the cpu had issues to penetrate my defense (it was even more pronounced on Elite controls). I still stand by my opinion that elite controls and previews on is not the solution, definitely not with this setup.

Overal impressions are that in simulation controls it was closer to ITST in terms of attacking potential, tho defense potential is also way higher(since itst has lower speed and run acceleration). In elite, as i could imagine from my experience offline and since humans are crafty creatures, one is better of just pushing until the other guy makes and error.

In demos you will see i put real effort to attacking whenever i had a just a slight chance, even went often for some tough shots where most would instead just play it safe. Same goes for elite. No stalling, no necessary pushing.

I hope this helps again!

Happy rest of the day.

Sim controls/ no preview Match Stats

https://imgur.com/a/LTxvx4D

2020-05-11.09-07 - pidzi vs A.Aga 6-1.dmo

Elite controls/ preview on Match Stats

https://imgur.com/a/S87sVEW

2020-05-11.09-28 - pidzi vs A.Aga 6-2.dmo

[manutoo]

pidzi,,
sorry, I guess I was not clear : I meant you cannot go to the net more than a couple of times in the whole set, so you have to do baseline winners, as that Chinese guy did.

I already know the best players can beat the Incredible level by never doing any errors or by volleying a lot. But so far, only that guy did it with baseline winners at such level ; however not too many people participated in the Incredible challenge, and only 1 top online player but he was playing defensive.

Also, your rally length is sensibly higher than his. The 2nd goal is to go under 5.

Thanks for your tries anyway, they are still interesting results !

[pidzi]

Yo,

If i were to go to net minimun of times or not at all, the average rally lenght would be just much higher. I could lower it by going for brainless risks and thus doing more errors (even though as you can see in demos, i already went for quite risky shots) but that absolutely does not work in online were people can defend even better cpu, so you have bigger chance of doing error from sheer amount of shots you gotta play now. The chinese guy got also lower average rally lenght due to him having (i guess) maxed serve stats, doing 7 df and 3 aces (both df and aces counts as 0 for purposes of averaging rally lenght), and he went for accel 2nd serves as well, thus cpu giving him easier balls from 2nd serve returns. This approach simply does not work online too.

All i wanted to prove is that the issue hitting baseline winners afte last short acc/normal short shots are not issue of ITST but vanilla version too (which i think i did) and how it is almost impossible to score winner against human from baseline despite groundstrokes clocking at almost max speed game allows (i did not even trihard while defend Ing and There are better movers currently) f anything i can hit more winners from baseline on ITST still and a bit more easily.

Tho i Will try one last attempt with your finál suggestion once i got home again.

Thanks again for quick reply.

[pidzi]

So the last attempt is done,

Chinese guy beaten second time and that as you said yourself game has changed since as well.

3 times broken. Did it exactly as you said, tried my best to attack and risk whenever i could while also defending much better as before. Even upped my power on both groundstrokes and serve so there would be no doubt i hindered pace of the match. The only two times i was at the net was due to desperation of cpu when it came to trying to outbashing from baseline, after few points cpu knew better not to try that and instead resorted to overly use of dropshots and especially net approaches (15 net approaches from baseliner CPU is EXTREMELY high in such short set). Now when i actually took it a bit more seriously IC5 aint got nothing on my movement, 4 measly winners says it all. As i said earlier it was never issue to score winners against cpu, issue is scoring winners agaisnt crafty, resourceful humans. Average rally lenght was same as last test but artificially shortened due to excessive net approaches desperation tactics from cpu as he could not penetrate my defense from baseline. Also i got pretty sloppy on return once it was 4/0 (as it posed no real challenge), hence aces. Otherwise we would be close to 7. IN other words i cant see how to achieve in such setup under 5 average rally lenght with decent mover, unless he intentionally is doing mistakes or such stuff. As you will also see in the demo, short accels from cpu were very inefficient. THats about it i guess, if you have any questions, feel free to ask i will be glad to try to answer as best i can.

Have a nice day!

https://imgur.com/a/9tGte4X

2020-05-11.17-01 - pidzi vs A.Aga 6-1.dmo

[pro10]

Not to hijack topics, your discussion is good, but why don't you play vs ai? Play against top level guys from ITST and forum MG tour in Vanilla setting. It's also perhaps an online issue...

Anyway, in the MG ranking, you can see the player "POLAND" being n6 forum MG Tour, he is also in ITST where he gets destroyed 60 60 by top40 players... He's also been defeated 60-61 by Khallil Guedria who is also on forum MG Tour & ITST.
Khallil has not reached anything better than a quarter-final in small ITST Tournaments... The gap between ITST tour and forum MG tour is obviously as as the one between WTA and ATP.

[manutoo]

pidzi,
the main goal was to do winners from the baseline, so nothing to "beat" here, and the secondary goal was to have a rally length as low as possible, and there you didn't beat the Chinse guy ; even if you remove the aces & double faults, he's at 5.4, while you got 6.7 when removing aces & double faults. And on top of that, the CPU did way too many net rushes which denatures the result. He didn't do that out of "desperation", but because you camp on the wall and thus do short defensive strikes quite often. However, "beating" his rally length was not needed ; I just wanted a somewhat similar way to play to have something that can be compared.

Anyway, I watched the whole thing (or almost : I got some really weird desyncs for 1 whole game around 3/0). I then watched your previous match with Medium AutoPos + Elite Controls.

So I can start to conclude a bit of stuff :
- You have insane reflexes (I measured them as low as 117ms : I measured Pros on a real court at around 160-200ms)
- Slow AutoPos + Simu Controls, in comparison to Medium + Elite, allow both easier defense & attack, mostly because they are less exigent on the up/down positioning (this was expectable)
- You play extremely well with AutoPos + Simu Controls (expectable as well)
- You position yourself well but not very well with Elite controls : strangely, you walk back easily, but often you don't step in as you should, given away some precious ms to your opponent (eg: you likely missed a couple of direct winners with the short acceleration)
- You often prepare your strike late for the Medium AutoPos and thus don't enjoy all its benefits (ie: you start to press the button like if you were playing with Slow AutoPos, which I was kinda suspecting)

Thus said, I think it shows the differences between the 2 setups are a bit smaller than what I thought, but they are here.

If you don't bore to do these tests, I'd like to run one where the CPU won't rush all the time to the net (it was 40% of the points in that game ). The Incredible Challenge #1 should be a better fit for that, I guess : topic15-19616.php ; you can pick the Incredible CPU sub-level where it's a bit hard for you to do winners but still possible (eg: rally length goal, without aces & double faults, should be around 8 or 9).
If you got enough of this, it's totally ok, but I hope you'll be able to do some more with TE4 once its gameplay bases will have been stabilized, so hopefully, we could find some way for you & your fellows to enjoy the game more !

pro10,
1) You're not hijacking the topic, this is a very valid question !

So, it's true it could be good to analyse from online matches as well, but :
- I have very low time & energy to put into this in these times
- I have no idea of the current level on the MG Tour ; I didn't see any .dmo from it in years
- I know the CPU : I know its limits & its advantages ; and it doesn't have mental weaknesses nor ego ; and if I had the time, I would have even tuned it right now so it would have been a better test
- I want to isolate the influence of some specific parameters so the test environment needs to be as stable as possible

2) There's no definable gap between the ITST & MG Tour (especially as the level of the MG evolves with the time, up & down, and I guess it may be the same on the ITST).
But mostly it's like playing 2 different games where one game is easy to pick when you play the other one, but not the other way around ; here one of the reasons :
- when you play with the Medium AutoPos, you expect to reach the ball once you're ~50cm away from it, and you're supposed to do so because else your strikes aren't accurate enough (from the lack of preparation)
- on ITST, it's the opposite, you have to be exactly on the ball (or at ~20cm) else you miss it
So a MG player going to the ITST will miss the ball for a while and will have to fight its instinct a lot.
On the other hand, a good ITST player coming on the MG Tour will be able to trash low-level MG players but then will fail against the 1st experienced player because his positioning & strike preparation won't be optimal (like pidzi in his Elite test above) : it's what happened to the only ITST player I'm aware of that tried this.