R1 during Serve

[Corbon]

This merely proves that you have a better timing with R1 serves than with regular serves...

"Sample size was 20 each, perfectly timed risk serves, straight down the T, average speed rounded. "

The timing is also different on R1 serves than regular serves. So a regular serve timing won't give the optimum serve using R1 serves and vice versa.

See above.

To further add upon this. Even if the timing feedback shows perfect, doesn't mean it is perfect. I can hit a perfect ace with pinpoint precision and the feedback sometimes show "Too late".

Perfect > Good > Too Early > Too Late.

Too late is the weakest timing and it produces the weakest serves (in terms of serve speed, not accuracy) while perfect serves are obviously the fastest ones. Which has nothing to do with the fact that perfect R1 serves are faster than perfect non-R1 serves. Which actually makes sense in real life if you toss the ball slightly into the court you can use your whole body weight to power it up. Venus serves pretty much like that, whether she advances to the net or not. There's however an increased risk in producing a foot fault which doesn't exist in TS4.

Thanks for reading!

[Ary1g]

This merely proves that you have a better timing with R1 serves than with regular serves...

"Sample size was 20 each, perfectly timed risk serves, straight down the T, average speed rounded. "

The timing is also different on R1 serves than regular serves. So a regular serve timing won't give the optimum serve using R1 serves and vice versa.

See above.

To further add upon this. Even if the timing feedback shows perfect, doesn't mean it is perfect. I can hit a perfect ace with pinpoint precision and the feedback sometimes show "Too late".

Perfect > Good > Too Early > Too Late.

Too late is the weakest timing and it produces the weakest serves (in terms of serve speed, not accuracy) while perfect serves are obviously the fastest ones. Which has nothing to do with the fact that perfect R1 serves are faster than perfect non-R1 serves. Which actually makes sense in real life if you toss the ball slightly into the court you can use your whole body weight to power it up. Venus serves pretty much like that, whether she advances to the net or not. There's however an increased risk in producing a foot fault which doesn't exist in TS4.

Thanks for reading!

You clearly don't have a clue about what I'm talking about.. No offense.

[Corbon]

Maybe it's because nothing in your post made any sense

All thing being equal, R1 serves are faster than non R1 serves. That's all I wanted to say. Are you going to deny this?

[Ary1g]

Maybe it's because nothing in your post made any sense

All thing being equal, R1 serves are faster than non R1 serves. That's all I wanted to say. Are you going to deny this?

Like I previously said. If you time the serves equally. One of the types is going to be better than the other, because they have different "sweetspot" timing. So yes, I disagree with your test and conclusion.

[Corbon]

Yes the sweet spot varies between R1 serves and no-R1 serves. I still don't know why this has any meaning to the fact that R1 serves are faster. There's no "superior" sweet spot in R1 serves.


But let's look at the speed range.

Without R1 button pressed: 172-199 km/h, Average 183 km/h

With R1 button pressed: 179-208 km/h, Average 192 km/h

The serve speed in both cases is quite variable (27 km/h and 29 km/h), let's figure out why.

1. There are better timings within a given timing window (sorta like bad perfect to perfect perfect) and if you manage to hit the absolute best spot every time, you will always hit serves on the high end. I find this solution to be highly unlikely because it could be more or less easily exploited. Now let's look at 2.

2. The CPU checks everything that affects your serve speed and metaphysically rolls a dice do determine the speed between 179-208 km/h (if R1 is pressed). This is actually how random numbers are generated in video games, it's easy to implement and creates a desirable uncertainty in gameplay, given the limited factors in a video game compared to IRL environments.

If you roll a normal 6-sided dice 30 times and the 6 appears 10 times it doesn't mean that the 6 appears more often on average than the other numbers, it just means that the samle size should be much bigger. But in my testing I feel like the sample size of 20 serves each was big enough to prove a point. I bet dollars and donuts that if you increase it to 100 serves each, the results would be almost the same.

TL DR version. All things being equal, R1 serves are faster on average because the button is pressed and not because the timing is different and I don't see a problem with it because, like you already mentioned before, everyone can do it with any setup but cheese-wise it's not nearly in the same league as tramline serving.

[Corbon]

Ok I am done with some more tests and the results were quite a shocker. This just in, if you think that R1 serves are faster, you're right. If you think that they are not faster, you're also right. Look at this (all serves perfect timing and risk as usual).

87 SRV, 96 PWR, female, 174 cm (coach was Gallo, to avoid any involvement of Babb's serve skills)

No R1, range: 172-201, average: 184
R1, range: 179-209, average: 193

Then I picked Federer just for giggles and those were the results.

No R1, range: 179-203, average: 188
R1, range: 177-201 (!), average: 188 (!!)

To rule out any pre-made char inconsistency, I made a custom male char.

85 SRV, 85, male, 174 cm, no coach skills

No R1, range: 190-217, average 202
R1, range: 194-218, average 202

So it appears that holding R1 while serving does produce a stronger serve: But for the ladies only.

PS: If you wonder why the male custom char serves faster than the female, there's a hidden bonus speed (about 9%) that was implemented because 2k thought that male players are supposed to serve faster than female players.

Conclusion:

-Me and djarvik like to play with girls.
-Aryg's theory of a soft spot still doesn't hold for me, I believe that within a timing window it's still random.
-The shot clock is broken in more than one way.
-Tennis Elbow is much better in this aspect.
-Save this topic for future generations.

[Rob ITST]

So it appears that holding R1 while serving does produce a stronger serve: But for the ladies only.

You're conclusion may be right, but I don't think you've proven it...

You assumed that the difference between the 3 characters is gender, but the characters were different in other ways - maybe in ways that are not easy to spot.

First, your male and female characters' attributes were different:

87 SRV, 96 PWR, female, 174 cm (coach was Gallo, to avoid any involvement of Babb's serve skills)
85 SRV, 85, male, 174 cm, no coach skills

There are two obvious differences - skills and stats. There's also other possibilities: stroke animations, build, race, racquets.... for all we know, haircuts could have some affect.

You also didn't test with any female pros.

There's other considerations as well.....

To get 20 perfect serves, how many serves did you have to hit with each character? If you had to hit a lot of "non-perfect" serves in the process, then different levels of fatigue could come into play. To completely eliminate fatigue as a variable, you would have to hit 1 serve and start a rematch. That's not very practical, but you could hit the serves in smaller bunches to reduce the possible affects of stamina (for example, you could rematch after every 5 serves).

You aimed "straight up the T". Can you really be sure that you aimed each one exactly the same? Aiming to different spots could give different results. You can eliminate this by simply not aiming.

I'm sure there's other differences - you just have too many variables to say that only females serve faster with R1. I'm also not convinced that 20 serves is enough - I'd have to see it with a higher number (maybe 50), and see that the speeds were the same as with 20. If not, then you need a higher number.

Like I said, you may be right, but you didn't prove it to me.

[Corbon]

Yes there are many variables that may come into play, however the differences in serve speed on my one created char are too glaring to ignore, with the other "test subjects" the results were basically interchangeable. So if females aren't the reason, what is it? For the record, I even picked an untrained bronze coach for this char (81 S, 82 P then) and still had a noticable serve difference.

I tested Ana Ivanovic using the same methods and there were no noticable differences between R1 or not (range was 164-182).

There were no signs of fatigue coming into play, I could hammer a maximum speed serve at any time but all players had orange stamina all the time anyway. BTW I chose Serve & Score 21, hence why I picked 20 serves each because it was convenient and the size is big enough to see the difference imo).

I will do some more testing later.

Edit: I have done some tests with both male and female chars which can be easily reproduced. Besides the things mentioned, no other character changes were made.

Female, minimum height, maximum body, 20 points OBL (85,85): Huge difference between R1 or not (170-195) vs (151-170)

Female, maximum height, minimum body, 20 points DBL (40,50): Very noticable difference between R1 or not. (148-161) vs (137-149)

Male, minimum height, maximum body, 20 points OBL (85,85): No noticable difference (even with both serve motions). (190-219)

Male, maximum height, minimum body, 20 points DBL (40,50): No noticable difference (165-184)

[djarvik]

All tests aside, it feels heavier. As in your return of it is weaker/slower then of the regular serve.

I don't not buy the SV argument and the "oh, but then he is going to know I am coming to net". Guess what? ...in real life, when I play you, in about 5-6 serves I will know exactly when you going to net. I will read your toss, eyes, movement etc...

Its same effect R1 does to a stroke. If you believe there is a benefit in using R1 strokes - no reason to believe serve is excluded.

[straightcash05]

All tests aside, it feels heavier. As in your return of it is weaker/slower then of the regular serve.

I agree. I don't think it's faster on the gun, but it feels, as you said "heavier." Returns come back short more often against them.

[Ali-Iqb93]

I disagree with this.. You can return the same way irrespective of your opponent holds r1 or not.. It all depends on your simultaneous return timings and analogue placement.. I m not a r1 serve user but i find it annoying when people hold r1 when planning not to come at the net.. Although I never had any problem against such players..

[Corbon]

Well serve speed is the only hard figure we can work with in a somewhat empirical way. Noise is also an indicator, if you hit a really good serve, you can hear a thumb-like sound for example. Otherwise it's simply the sheer time it takes for the ball to fly over the net. In TS3 there was no timing indicator, but you could listen to the sound and knew when you hit a good ball but timing was more tricky.

As for the opponent coming to the net or not, you can always look at his volley stats. If it's grey, chances are good that he isn't a S&V player.

I don't not buy the SV argument and the "oh, but then he is going to know I am coming to net".

This is a real issue with the CPU, you can always tell that it's coming to the net on a R1 serve. Against human players you can't. However you can tell that a human player is definitely not coming to the net when he/she isn't doing a R1 serve (unless it's some ZPS idiot).

[JohnCurveo]

Is Corbon the scientist of itst?

[Garghamell]

to me the issue is the same as with R1/RB shots:

if it didn't improve the shot, then people wouldn't use it.

truth is, when done well, R1/RB shots/serves are more effective than regular shots/serves. but that was the never the function intended for that button. it's an inadvertent byproduct, and thus, in my opinion, a glitch. a glitch that is thoroughly exploited by most (74%±4%) experienced TS4 players. and i find it incredibly, thoroughly, unnervingly annoying.

R1/RB was meant to serve&volley/approach the net or to "reposition fast" (which, to this day, i'm not completely clear what it means. but that's a whole other topic).

[inseedious]

I think it is impossible to SV without holding r1 during all serves... because even a player with 40 swings can make a slow and low return to make all kind of winning volleys impossible... so holding r1 is necessary to hide your intentions, so your opponent will have less time to choose the return shot. To me, if a r1 serve can be better than a normal one, is also unrealistic that a bad slow return can counter a SV player. And i think that in real tennis a good player must be good at hiding his intentions, so his SV must not be obvious.