Mana Games

[Authalox]

(I'm purely going to voice my opinion based on online play, as I don't play offline much anymore. I'm roughly 1000 ELO.)

Returning is so much more difficult since this update. The balance between serve and return feels so much worse. I've seen some people have been saying that the level of aces in matches are a lot higher - and I am finding it is a real struggle to break people's serve, and I am personally finding the game less enjoyable. Maybe at a high level it's more balanced, but it doesn't feel this way for me.

If this is to stay, the serve needs to be looked at. And I feel like my serve is fairly decent, but if I can't get anywhere with return games, what's the point? I feel like a poll should have been made to ask people how they truly feel about the balance of serve/return since the update because I personally think most of the people supporting this change are higher level online players. I don't personally feel like there's a lot of guides on how to practice return of serve and get better for online play at least, and nerfing the auto pos just feels like it's harder to get any better.

I've seen people who support the change say just get better at the game, just practice, you have to just react better, some people don't have time in their life to be spending perfecting their game all day. Sure I definitely can improve. But some people don't have god-like reaction times. At the end of the day this is a game, not a real life tennis match. And unfortunately, for me, it's not fun to play right now. The balance is not there. I think if this auto-pos level is to be kept, then serve needs to be nerfed... or just something needs to change - return of serve needs to be made easier. It's such a difficult part of the game for me.

I know there'll be plenty of people who probably disagree, but this is how I feel. If i'm in the minority, so be it.

[HSM88]

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 ..?

I play only online, with elo around 1300. I have been struggling with the return very much, serve is kinda op now and most sets I played with similar level Elo players went to TB. Heck, I played 3 sets official match that had record breaking aces for the tour

Since Serve is still not very skill-based, I think a middle ground between the previous value and the new one is best.


PS: Manu is it possible to put a popup window announcement in-game only for changes that directly affect gameplay mechanics?

Many players have struggled with return of serve and they didn’t know about the update since they play mostly offline and don’t know about the forum.

[Gyrmik]

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 ..?

In my opinion, return should not be this hard and matches right now have become just a serve fest. What the serve-return system needs is an actual overhaul, where serve should be strong, but still depending on how efficient the "Technique" of the server is and only in a small part depending on RNG, same thing for return. But it's something that would be extremely heavy work for the game at the stage it is, and for this reason i think the autopos loss should be brought back to only 0.20 m/s (Or just slightly more), BUT without the preparation of shot before the server hits the ball.

[Gyrmik]

In addition, easy serving to win more matches over time will drastically reduce the overall skill level.

[Xnate]

I think returning became basically too hard and made the game less enjoyable aswell.
The only way to return correctly is... to exploit the perfect frame autopos which is... the old autopos speed ? And that tips is even more hidden for playerbase...

Also, main problem was mostly second serve, and it is still so easy to return agressively second serve if opponent goes for safe serve.

I'm only talking for XKT, didn't play WTSL with it.

[Jirafalox]

I think we get a lot of answers based on feel alone and perception. i think it would be super useful to actually tone it better to just check some match logs of players, so maybe someone could share some matchlogs of them playing vs a similar level player before the update in hard courts and then some matchlogs where we could see playing against someone of the same level in a hard courts post patch to compare number of aces, how much more short rallies had been played and how the rally average has changed overall.


Now in my personal opinion, I think the change isnt as big as everyone is making it out to be because I still can put back almost every serve from very close, just the quality of the shot has toned down a little which is totally fine imo, before I always felt the server wasn’t at an noticeable advantage compared to the returner and now is a bit more noticeable in my opinion.
Also no tournament has been played where high level players have faced off to see how it has affected at the levels where return of serve was problematic to begin with.

I think maybe a solution would be to add a new gamemode apart from the realistic, freeand fair ones, and rename them all to like:
Competitive mode: 30-90 remap, no footwork boost,autopos on slow or average idk but if average with the slowed down return, 4 stars of talents. elite controls
Simulation mode: 30-90 remap, autopos on fast, no footwork boost, 5 starts on talents. Simulation controls
Casual mode: 25-85 remap, autopos on fast, footwork boost on slow-medium 6 stars on talents. Arcade controls
Free mode: same as now
(Tour matches from challenger could be played in simulation mode and futures in casual mode for example, while competitive remaining for atp and slams)

But this is maybe too much work of a solution for something that could just be toned down if everyone feels and agrees that now breaking serve is too difficult (which remember guys, it should be as the best returner irl novak djokovic had a return games won of around 31% and myself even against top 10 opponents have an almost 50% return games won and that shouldn’t be possible)

[Ambience]

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 ..?

As someone who only plays online, I actually think this change was very positive. The new return mechanic hasn't felt all that different to me tbh, it's a bit harder sure, but far from unplayable. Serving well feels much more rewarding now, and returns don't feel as overpowered or easy as they used to. In my opinion, it's a good fix as far as the current system goes, though the ultimate solution would probably be a revised serving system that doesn't rely so heavily on RNG.

Honestly, I think the ManaGames Tour gameplay has much more pressing issues right now, like character speed making rallies drag on forever and the ball preview.

Note: I play the wtsl mod not xkt.

[lewfx]

I think we get a lot of answers based on feel alone and perception. i think it would be super useful to actually tone it better to just check some match logs of players, so maybe someone could share some matchlogs of them playing vs a similar level player before the update in hard courts and then some matchlogs where we could see playing against someone of the same level in a hard courts post patch to compare number of aces, how much more short rallies had been played and how the rally average has changed overall.

This is actually what I've was doing. Here is my match logs stats only playing people around my elo before and after the update

Number of aces went up and the mount of return point won also went down.

My games are significantly going into tie brakers more often than not

[Ruze]

Personally I find the change to be positive. As others have stated, there's not much more that can or should be done to return mechanics unless serve mechanics are also changed to increase skill expression. I have changed tactics to tap the strike button quickly just after service impact in order to trigger the old autopos speed instead of holding the button down the entire serve, and I find that I'm able to return a respectable amount of serves (maybe only slightly less serves than before the change). I think we set out in this thread to ask "Is autopos making returning too easy?" and there seemed to be a consensus that yes, it was. The change has made serving stronger (as it should be imo) but not to an egregious amount as some may have us believe. Second serve is even still not as effective as most would probably like. I might even propose that the fix to strike time preparation on serve returns is causing bigger issues for the player base than the autopos change.

I'm around 1500-1700 elo currently and while I've noticed more of my matches are going to tiebreak, I'm still able to find opportunities to break. Does the relationship and balance between serve and return feel 100% correct at the moment to me? Not quite, but personally I think it requires a mechanical change within how serving works rather than slight number tweaks on autopos.

In summary: I think it was a positive change to reduce autopos using the old return trick.

[Jirafalox]

Just goes to show that if TE5 is every going to happen in a distant future like 10-15 years from now, the biggest headache will definitely be the serve system lmao and even then, if a more complex serve system is implemented, when inevitably top players from that moment in time get the hang of it, it will end up with a very OP serve and the player base will ask for more assists on return and the whole situation will be pretty similar to where we are now too XD

[Ruze]

Gave it more thought.. One of the things that bugs me is that I can essentially input the correct direction of movement and still miss a return. This is especially apparent on extremely wide serves, or heavily sliced serves down the T. Character speed on return seems a tad bit too slow (this is without autopos) or perhaps the conservation of momentum out of autopos is not tuned correctly. For a fair competitive online environment, I think every serve should be reasonably returnable and it does feel right now that there are some serves you just will not ever be able to get to.

[Ypsilandis_7000]

hello .i think its perfect right now.harder ofc but perffect .i think y must make it 0.30 or 0.35 m/s