Mana Games

[alejandro]

In my opinion autopos should be removed on serve , without it i believe game wont be that robotic.

[Ruze]

Currently, serves are considered underpowered almost solely because of the autopos return trick. If the autopos return trick were to be removed, I think it would considered overpowered as it's too easy to consistently place strong serves where you'd like, with (basically) the only chance of failure being essentially random. If autopos on return were to be removed, then service would definitely have to be reworked as well to introduce more skill to the serve.

People also like to reference "realism" as a point against autopos on return, but my counter argument for that is that autopos could be considered this game's interpretation of a split step.

Granted, I'm just a low/mid elo online player (~1400) so I can't comment on the game from as high a level as some players here, but I do want to say I agree heavily with the points Squeaky and Debuffy have made on this thread already.

[gifu]

I've played at low fps for a long time, so I understand this pretty well. I think the people who find returning too easy are mainly strong players and those playing at high fps. For everyone else, returning is still quite difficult.

Playing at below 60 fps without autopos would honestly be a nightmare, and I think a lot of people would quickly give up on this game. Especially for PS5 players, since using a controller takes just a little longer to input compared to a keyboard, I think it would be extremely difficult for them.

I also think the lack of variety in return positions is mainly an issue among stronger players too. Outside of that group, there are definitely players who prefer to return from further back even while using autopos.

That said, I do agree that returning feels too easy for me personally, especially in xkt. I think it could be interesting to have an option similar to the preview levels, where autopos could be turned on or off, and perhaps have it disabled in the main tour.

However, completely removing it would change the gameplay very drastically. So it might be better to first reduce the amount of assistance autopos provides.

[YurrrNick-_-]

I do not think it fits how a sim game is supposed to be played. Especially in a sport where your serve is honestly your biggest weapon more times than not. With it no doubt it separates people who can rally and win points vs those who can not don't get me wrong. But without it, would lead to more realistic points, games, and outcomes. That way maybe a lesser player has more of a chance to stay in a game, because he can at least count on his serve a little bit.

[rezoderson]

Meanwhile me struggling with returning serves even though I’m holding all the time normal shot button 🌝

[Guest]

Hi! I think removing autopos would increase the realism of the game, but the serve would have to be changed aswell to counter balance things. As it is now i think its too easy to hit great first serves, which is why the auto pos trick is so important to use to give yourself that extra time to react in time to a serve that too often lands on the line. At the same time, unless you go for a big second serve, its generally a pretty weak shot that perhaps is too easy to hit a great shot on.

Adding a bigger skill element to the serve would make the game better i think. How that would look i dont know, we have other tennis games on the market that use different things for serving that might also work for tennis elbow. Atleast it would be great to try something different and see what people think.

[Jirafalox]

I don't think it would be fair to ask Manu to develop a whole new serve system at this point in TE4 life cycle, but maybe we all agree that indeed the autopos on return is somewhat a solution to a problem more related to the easiness of serving? (Even tho I think serve is not as strong as it should be in my opinion, specially in regards to the speeds we hit on average with 100 power and using only strong serve and I also think we have total consensus on the weakness of the second serves with the autopositioning on return).

Maybe the aiming reticles and speed spreads could be touched a bit to balance it out?
Strong serve having a considerable wider spread in the aiming even at equal power and precision but maybe make the deviation of the speed of the serve a bit smaller and also higher overall? Just giving an idea for example. 100 power (90 ingame) could give 220 on average, making like 80% of the serves be on the 210 to 230 range, but also the distribution of the landing spots could be way wider and also in depth inside the aiming box. So you can go big on serve at will but the aiming will be heavily penalized for the extra speed, and if you want to really hit your targets you should go for a normal serve instead (which could remain with the current aiming reticle logics or even make it a bit more spread out to compensate ie. like the old accel serve), and also the normal serve being in the 180 km/h avg at the same power stat for example.

I also agree with Dani in regards that serves really don't bounce as aggressively as they should or at least this bounce doesn't affect much the quality of return. Indeed if you get the racquet to the ball you always hit it in with good decent quality no matter how close you are (ofc if you return like inside the court is different but that's some extreme scenario)

So, yes I do agree with Buffy and Squeaky that the perfect ideal scenario would be no autopos + new serve mechanics but I really don't think Manu has the energy and motivation to work on such task at this point even if a majority of the community would want it (which is totally understandable) so maybe some other changes could be proposed taking the balance of serving vs autopos off in mind and also not being as task demanding from manu? Like the after mentioned or other sugestions by you guys? (I don't think the autopos on slice only would work bc I sometimes do that right now and I can change mid movement to a normal strike and it works just like it does right now if you hold any button sadly, it was a great idea tho)

And yes, if it's decided that no change will take place then maybe adding a little return section to the tutorial would be cool for all new players!

Any opinions guys?

[Dani21]

I was thinking that based on autopos the strike gets locked to slice if u use it to autopos

[Debuffy]

I'm not sure you addressed any of the points I said, I am not task demanding anything from manutoo. I am saying that there is a balance between serving and returning right now, and while removing the autopos may not be that difficult for manutoo to implement that shouldn't be a reason why he just does the change. I am not telling Manutoo to change the serve system, but that is the only way I can see that a change like this could be fair. You can't just remove a feature (that has been around for years) because YOU feel like serving is underpowered, as others have stated on this thread it doesn't make sense at this point without looking at the system as a whole. Reference my first reply to my opinion on this matter, thanks!

[Jirafalox]

I did in fact not said that you demanded anything from manu, I just stated the obvious that a whole serve system revamp is out of the question even if Manu hasn't said anything about this it's the most likely answer he'll give about that possibility.
Also I never asked or demanded to removed it just because I feel like it's underpowered, or return is too easy (which is the same). I literally just started the conversation sharing my personal point of view and I think a lot of people think that return is either too easy or serve is weak (which is very similar perspective), so no it's not only a thing I think about on my own that I'm somewhat imposing lol you can read for yourself.
Also I know removing it without doing anything else may be problematic, that's why I said that other ways of balance it could be talked about IF it was decided to actually try to do any change at all to begin with xD. I like to talk about options and possibilities that are the "ideal" solution but we also can talk about what is the realm of plausible things that could also help but be more doable for Manu to do if he ever agrees to do something about this topic to begin with.That's all.

Edit.: I actually find Dani's proposal (if doable) a fantastic option in between of all suggested and commented stuff.

[Madferit]

In my opinion serve feels pretty balanced as is. Without autopos it'd be really difficult to return and the quality of play overall would be worse. The only way would be to revamp the whole serve mechanic which is not going to happen. That's how I see it.

[manutoo]

Thanks for all your feedback ; I’ve been thinking about all this.

I agree that returning 2nd serves is currently a bit too easy, and this has actually been an issue since TE2013. However, there is no simple and clean solution to it.

I don’t want to artificially forbid accelerations on 2nd-serve returns, because in real tennis it is perfectly possible to attack them quite regularly. The difficulty is getting the right proportion: "all the time" would be unrealistic, but "almost never" would be unrealistic too.

It’s also difficult to solve through the general strike physics, because anything that makes it much harder to hit strongly with short preparation time can also make baseline rallies too difficult.

The AutoPos will stay in one form or another. It is needed for nearly everybody except the very best online players (and around 95% of TE4 players don't play or barely play online at all). It also effectively simulates the split-step on serve returns, as in real tennis you don’t simply wait for the ball to leave the racket before starting to react.

That said, one thing I’m going to test is reducing the AutoPos speed specifically on serve returns. On 1st serves, this may not change much, because players normally have to take manual control very quickly anyway. On 2nd serves, though, especially when returning very close to the baseline or slightly inside it, it may make a bigger difference. Currently, AutoPos can sometimes be enough to move the player to the ball without interrupting the strike preparation (but it might not happen often, except maybe if the player stands within the baseline ?).

Anyway, it should lead to a few more off-center contacts, making the serve a bit more effective in general.

I’m not sure yet how strong the effect will be, but this seems like the cleanest first thing to test. I don't know when I'll get to it, though.

[Franky Franchicha]

[...]

Any opinions guys?

hey Jira mate how's life going with the time you invested in writing this reply you could have played a tour tournament

[manutoo]

I did some tests and lowered the AutoPos speed a bit (only the Average one) when the strike button is pressed before the serve ; I made only a small change that I can already feel, hoping I won't get complaints from offline players...

I also prevented strike preparation before the service is hit.

Hopefully, these 2 changes will be enough to rebalance sensibly in the direction of the 2nd serve, and a bit the 1st serve as well.

The next update is coming within a few days.

[manutoo]

So how was the change ?

I'm wondering if I should tune it down a bit for the next update ? ie: the AutoPos on return of serve lost 0.25 m/s, and I'd bring back this loss to only 0.20 m/s ..?