Mana Games

[Jirafalox]

As stated in the subject, I remember vividly that we all talked about this in the community discord saying how it would bring a lot more balance to the service games, because as the game currently is, service is heavily underpowered compared to the irl importance it has in a match overall. Personally I always felt even more "comfortable" returning than serving just because I knew that every second serve was almost guaranteed to be a point when I'd start in control right away, and even most of the first serves you can return 1 step from the baseline every single time if you have quick reflexes all because of the autopositioning return trick.

IRL we see a lot of variance in the returning positions of serve, because different players need different amount of time to read the ball and react to it accordingly, and in TE4 we don't see that at all. Most use the default position or closer, so I think it would highly improve the service games dynamics at the medium and high level of play online at least. We'd see the people taking the risk of returning closer and maybe taking time away, but producing way more weak returns as a result, and others who would prefer returning way deeper gaining consistency but losing the "counter attack" aspect of the return, which is a fair sacrifice to do in my opinion whereas in the current state of service vs return, the returner can return aggresively and consistently from close almost every time which is nothing like irl tennis.

I also know that this is a game, and maybe some people will find it frustrating because for some returning is hard even as it is right now. This change would introduce a lot more of service winners (unreturned serves that aren't aces) and also serves+1, specially on fast surfaces, but if we want to keep saying TE4 is the best tennis sim (which it is by the way), i don't think this change would be detrimental to the game itself but only portray better how hard it is to return serves at the high level of play (irl and online in te4 for example)

For the offline side of the community, most of them don't even know about the return trick to begging with but I think most would say it's not very "realistic" if we want to use this word.

I'm also suggesting this because of the general unnefectiveness of serve as a shot overall, which it's another topic (I think the mostly RNG system is not ideal and I know Manu did a poll in the past because he wanted to make it more interactive and the community didn't want that but still).

What do you guys think? Also manu have you ever considered this?

[Xnate]

Hello retired GOAT <3,

My 2 cents as random 2k elo player. I think there's indeed an issue on second serve being too weak if you secure it with a safe serve because returner instantly gets advantage.
On the other side, I don't want to play a game being serve botted, and I think the majority does not want to neither. It would just remove some fun...
Also, we have some great serves on the tour such as Franchicha or Dani, so... serve can definitely be a weapon aswell ?

I'm open to try any potential changes tho... Maybe it could just be removed on second ball ? I know that it would be weird but well...

Also, I can't agree more. if everything remains like it is currently, autopos trick should definitely be shown in tutorial so everyone could know it without going to read the documentation.

[Derek]

Personally I tried the autopos trick on return in the past, but it just doesn't feel natural to me. I always used to rely on my instinct and reflexes when returning, so I'm kinda curious what the return games among the best TE4 players will look like without the trick. After the discussion on Discord, I tried the trick once again... maybe it IS a little easier to return, but it still feels a bit of a "cheaty" way to return. I always consider TE4 as the best tennis simulation game ever, so the return trick just doesn't fit for me in terms of realism and comparison with the real tennis game.

Maybe a poll could be a good idea here to see what players are thinking about the topic.

[Rodri Fergo]

From my point of view, it’s quite a complex issue whichever way you look at it, whether:

1. Aiming for greater realism and a closer resemblance to real-life tennis.
2. Aiming for less frustration and more enjoyment in online matches (which is subjective depending on who you ask, but let’s assume that not conceding 20 aces per set isn’t much fun for the average player).

I believe that the autopos allows you to emulate, to some extent, the anticipation that comes from reading your opponent’s biomechanics. Obviously, the very best servers always keep their toss very consistent across different types of serve, but I would say (though please correct me if I’m wrong) that not all top-level players have a serve so perfectly mechanised that there are no variations in their toss and their opponent doesn’t notice them. Relying on reading the moment in the match, the opponent’s serving preferences and trying to guess… I think that would only lead to a lot of frustration, because my bet is that we’d be on the receiving end of far more aces than in real life. There’s no time to react after seeing the direction of the serve if the ball’s travelling at over 200 km/h; the only alternative is to guess where the ball is going to land.

My suggestion is to slightly nerf the autopos only at the moment of the return, to make serves a bit more effective and bring us a little closer to the reality of tennis, whilst not forgetting that it’s a video game (a tennis simulation one, yes, but a video game).

I’d also want to mention that there are players with great skill at serving in Tennis Elbow (and talents that allow them to serve better when facing break points, for example) and even with autopos, it’s difficult to react in time if the ball is travelling at over 200 km/h hitting the line. I’ll say it again: it’s a game, and however good I am at it, I don’t work on or train my reflexes like a professional player, and I can’t react as quickly as a professional. The average reaction time of a player in this video game cannot be compared to that of a properly trained professional tennis player.

TLDR: nerf the auto-positioning on the serve a little, but don’t remove it.

[lewfx]

might make it more try hard, maybe for the wtsl mod

[GregoryDuViveiro]

I agree on that. Serve is not as efficient as it should. Every person that plays this game, know how to return because of the "holding button". I strongly believe you should remove it. Less automatic help will increase player's effort in the game.

[squeakybum]

Don’t care either way personally, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to change the return mechanic but not change the serving mechanics. Serve should also be skill based, if we make return skill based. Right now we lack variance in serving skill (timing (toss + contact point), power, net clearance, depth) as speed and net clearance depends on RNG (with exceptions for some players when it comes to aiming skill, + animation differences which wouldn’t be the case if animations were standardised and approved for competitive play). Scorelines for all matches would be closer if serve remained how it was as many people would find it harder to break serve, but if serve skill became a factor we would genuinely have differences amongst players in how well they serve too, (could read their tosses for example) increasing ability to break. Right now a 400 elo can serve as well as a 3000 elo. If serve required skill, it would be much harder to aim left and right too or in any position of the service box, compensating for any difficulties people have returning serve. I believe the full range of realistic serve speed should still be possible, but with the full range of returning difficulty and serving difficulty, even though it’s a game, online. Maybe there can be a difference online vs offline for this, the option to play with legacy controls offline for example. If players don’t have the hardware to compete online with full skill returning then maybe there’d be less of a player base, but depends on the relative importance of numbers vs realism. However I’d only be in support this if serve mechanics were changed (at the same time even during tests) otherwise I don’t think this is a positive change.

[Debuffy]

Hello! For those who don't know me, I am a 6 year veteran of tennis elbow, slam champ on the XKT tour, and the current WTSL tour #1. Usually I do not reply to these threads, but I find that this change would be very problematic for a few reasons.

1. Tennis elbow serving is completely RNG. Auto positioning serves as a balance for this, without there being any real skill involved in hitting quick serves (for aiming sure, but I'm referencing in terms of the ball going long or into the net). This has been a gripe of mine for many years that serving really isn't skill based. Autopos helps to balance this, and outright removing this feature without changing the serving mechanics would ruin any sort of balance there was.

2. Hardware limitations: Reacting to a serve in time, even with the autopos, requires a quick reaction as soon as you see where the ball is going. Players on PS, and those limited to 60 FPS don't have the higher refresh rates to be able to react as quickly as others on better hardware, some of us at this point use from 144 hz - 360 hz! Autopos helps to balance this out just like having the indicator tell you where the ball is going to land. Again, removing autopos with no other consideration for changing serve mechanics would impact these players greater than others on better hardware.

3. (and a minor gripe): AI serve speeds (at incredible level) are consistently at 220 km/hr + and are very hard to return even with the autopos. Again, this is something that could be addressed if serve mechanics themselves are looked at, but this is another issue to consider nonetheless.

I agree with you Jira that second serves a bit too weak and returning them is slightly too easy, this is something that maybe looking at the entire serving system it could change. But without also looking at changing of the serving mechanics, removing autopos outright is a bad idea for the balance of the game.

[Ypsilandis_7000]

Good evening, everyone. I’ve been here for about two months. After 200 online matches and learned the serve-return mechanic specifically the button-holding aspec very good, of course you can't return a perfect serve.—I’ve realized this is by far the best tennis game ever released.. it’s a true simulation. If you want to perfect it, just remove the " holding button trick" from the serves but make the serve mechanic a lit bit harder i dont know how —or at least remove the trick of returning from the second serve—because the second serve is a guaranteed point 80% of the time.

[Franky Franchicha]

my 2cents for removing the auto-pos on returning

[Rodri Fergo]

I agree with Debuffy and Squeaky’s point of view. If autopos is modified or removed, the serve mechanic should be more skill based to prevent abuse.

If the return mechanic end up becoming harder, the serve should become harder.

[Authalox]

From someone whos only been playing the tour a few months and at a lower ELO, I have to disagree that this should be removed entirely. I do think this would discourage some lower level players from playing if this is removed.

I played TE4 for like 3 years offline on the tournament mode before playing online and I never even realised the autopos trick existed. I didn't find out until about a few weeks into playing online, because I was struggling to get returns in play online, I thought my reaction times were really bad, I was easily ready to give up playing as I just felt everyone was way too good. Once I knew about the autopos trick it really helped a lot - and yet, I still feel like return of serve is the hardest part of the online tour, I personally find myself struggling with this, even on 2nd serves sometimes. Maybe it's just me that needs to get better, but I think that at minimum it could be tweaked slightly but not removed entirely.

[Dani21]

Well to me there’s several aspects to consider.
Everybody knows i am a proponent of changes that make the game more skill based. I have mentioned removing rally previews several times throughout different threads in officials because in my opinion it leads to prolonging rallies considerably. To me if we remove previews that would improve the game without many more changes.
Now with regards to the autopos trick, the topic at hand. The complaint that second serves are a bit weak is logical to a degree. It is pretty easy to accelerate even against good second serves. But that in my opinion is more related to the way that the game simulates spins. Bounces don’t impact return quality that much and a 200 kph 1st serve doesn’t bounce that high meaning the game always takes the contact as clean if you put a racket on it. However i don’t think that with the current state of the game outright removing autoposition is a solution without significantly changing the serve and return mechanics.
At the moment the return from deep (nadal, nole style let alone medvedev) is very weak since it is very easily exploited with short angles. IRL these players afforded giving themselves more reaction time while still hitting deeper returns. To me before removing autoposition, deep returns should become way more viable, in order to actually give options to play against the serve and not just make serve better outright. Of course irl serves and 1-2s are way more powerful than in game but on the other hand making the game realistic would just lead to playerbase loss.
Additionally, serving mechanics are very simplistic. If you want to remove autopos it would make return a very skill based part of the gameplay. I am all for that but then in that case serve aiming should become more complex and it should be more difficult to hit 200kph bombs on the line. I don’t know what a solution here would be and to me it would be a lengthy process for change.
What i could see as an idea though is to have autopos return on slice returning and on normal shots to not have any autopos. This would simulate let’s say a player stretching to get the ball in play while not getting too much pace off of it.
But again, main point is that i wouldn’t want a removal of autoposition entirely in the current gamestate, some balancing would definitely be required in order to keep the game as fun to play as possible
Thanks,
Dani21

LE : Many thanks Gyrmik for making this a discussion on discord before implementing the change! Appreciate it! Wouldn’t have seen the thread otherwise

[HSM88]

As a mediocre online player I'd love to see a wider variety of return positions that mirror rl, and I agree serving isn't quite the decisive weapon ingame that it is on tour.
That said, TE4 already has a brutal learning curve for newcomers. Around 70% of the player base plays exclusively offline “i think”, so removing return auto-pos would hurt the casual experience immensely. Tbh, getting aced in most service games is very disheartening to be honest. I don’t think majority of players would continue playing the game while getting aced left and right.
The game already strikes a good balance between realism and fun for players at the same skill level. Just because TE is sim doesn't mean we should push it so far that it stops being enjoyable to play.

Having said that, I’m open to improving 2nd serve effectiveness either by increasing the power or removing the return trick.

[lewisrambles]

Echoing Authalox, I have only been playing for a couple months at a similarly low ELO and would hate the removal of the Auto positioning. At this current juncture, it's impossible to judge where the serve is going otherwise - based on the toss or angle. Getting rid of this mechanic would mean that lower levelled players like myself would be Ace'd to kingdom come and be less inclined to play more online tournament matches.

Whilst I understand the arguments for, I would vote for it to remain.

Suggestion: a toggle for Auto-pos to be turned off IF agreed by both members.... or if the match is featuring two players with high enough ELO (2500+), it defaults to off?