"Catch-up Function" Letting everybody in on the secret

[BrushedBigJJ]

Sorry for the long post in advance.

This game like many other games has a "catch-up" function in it to keep the competition close. Its there to sell games so I guess its hard to argue with it on that aspect. I've seen it enough to be sure of it. The big problem is it stays on too long and can decide sets and matches.

First some background information on me. My grade in the World Tour is 49 at the moment, it doesn't mean I'm the best, but it is what it is. By my calculations the "catch up" function really starts to screw with your character around grade 43. My character starts hitting with less power further from the line, perfect control shots end up on the service line, and my character becomes a snail. So I'm just sayin, if you go on the world tour with a low grade and play someone with a high grade and you barely beat them or dominate them, it may not be what it seems. There I said it.

Where I live the World Tour starts over on Sunday night, and on Monday and Sunday night my character was fine, but as the week went on the things I mentioned above would slowly take their effect. I thought I was seeing things, but it has happened over and over and over again so I'm use to having to adjusting my play to what I have to work with on the given day. By the end of the week he can't even hit a short cross court angle flat shot with any pace or direction, its hard to get the ball by anyone good without that shot. I banned myself from playing the world tour on Saturday and early Sunday so I don't take years off my life.

One day I played the guy just under me in grade 3 times in a row in the World tour. His grade at the time was 43 and mine was around 47. He uses instant rocket monster defense, and I use instant rocket crushing passing shot. The first match went like this: he won the first 2 games I won the next 4 and won the match. I gave myself a "that a boy" what a come back.

We were matched up again 2 minutes later. He won the first two games easily again and there was nothing I could do. Then I won the next 2 games easily. I watched a little closer this time though. I changed nothing of what I was doing, but suddenly my guy could hit hard and close to the line the way he use to. We continued on and I won again 4-2. We got matched up again. This time I watched even closer. I got ahead in the first game 40-15, then clearly his monster defense kicked in and he rolled to a 2-0 lead. My guy hit crap shots, his guy hit spectacular shots, nothing I could do. However then we got to that magical third game. My guy decided to wake up once more and started hitting shots again, but this time I watched my opponent closer. He was slower, had less power, balls were no where near the line, and control shots were landing at the service line constantly, easy pickins. I thought I was looking at my end of the week on World Tour twin. When the score got to 3-2 me leading I sent him a message saying tie-break. I served up the middle and just let him wack four returns for a winner. Lets see what happens in the tie-break. It started 1 all, then I won 4 in a row with ease and then the message came up "opponent has forfeited." So even going to a tiebreak wont even the players up once again. Now its happened against me when I've been up 2-0, then crap player the rest of the match, I win some, I lose some. It doesn't happen every time though.

Now I thought it only did this weird thing because of grade and because he has the stat monster defense which totally screws around with the game. I thought maybe there was an anti-monster defense and I'm personally fine with an anti-monster defense if you have the monster defense stat. But unfortunately it does this thing in a match where no one has monster defense and I saw it today against bkristian in an itst match.

Obviously, since this is an itst match neither of us has monster defense. I won with a score of 6-1 7-6 2-6 7-5, but that does not tell the story. The real story is 6-1 first set. Second set 2-5, 4-1, tiebreak me, cant remember the tiebreak score. Third and fourth set 4-11, 5-0. I have played around 7 itst matches and never saw this thing rear its ugly head.

Score wise let me explain what it did. I am unaware if it weakened or strengthened one of our characters in the first set, it could have been even and I was just better or his character could have been weakened, I can't be sure either way. Because I rolled in the first set 6-1, my character was weakened and his was strengthened up to the point where he got up 2-5, then I felt my character suddenly spring back to life and won the set in the tiebreak. Then at the start of the third set my player was weakened and his was strengthened and he rolled 6-2. He continued to roll till it got to 2-5 in the fourth then clearly his player was weakened and mine was strengthened and I rolled winning 5 games in a row to finish the match. There wasn't much strategy change by either of us from my view.

In that match weakened means it is nearly impossible to hit a good cross court short angle flat shot, your down the line shots are slower and less accurate, and your player moves slower. Strengthened means you can hit the cross court short angle flat shot and its lethal a lot more often, down the line shots are closer to the line deeper and have more power, and the player moves faster (or maintains the original speed the game gave to the player). It was pretty obvious what was happening, whoever had the cross court angle flat shot could pull the other off the court enough to go down the line and whoever was given the "catch-up" could do it and the other couldn't and they were slower, which is why there was such big swings in the score.

This thing wouldn't be so bad if it would at least turn off once the score was tied and let the rest of the set play out even steven. But as you can tell from my post it doesn't do that, it continues to stay on for the one who was trailing even up to the conclusion of a set. Now because I've seen this so many times because of how my player is affected on the world tour I realized something was up when I started coming back in the second set. I so wanted to give him credit for adjusting something and dominating me at the begin of second set, but no disrespect to him he didn't really adjust anything, or if he did it wasn't the reason he started dominating. After I won the second set I knew what I was seeing. I thought because I made tactical adjustments I started winning, but alas no disrespect to myself nothing I adjusted allowed me to start dominating.

I made a decision after the second set that I would try to win every point with whatever player the game gave me (like I do in the World Tour) and not do anything to manipulate the score so the 'catch-up" function would help me. However I wasn't gonna try shots that I knew wouldn't work. After the second with my player weakened I tried to do a better job of picking when to go on offense, but it didn't really matter what I did he was going to steamroll me until the "catch-up" thing swung back to my side. That's the aspect that bkristian didn't understand, when that thing flipped his normal offense would just put him in a bad position, but he played the last five games the same way he played the first 7 of the fourth set, which really allowed me to roll the next five games. Had he been aware he would backed off trying to play offense and go into defense mode until the court was wide, wide, wide open, although it probably just would have delayed the inevitable. When I started to roll after being down 2-5 I said to my self "no mercy." I knew I had to win those 5 games in a row or the match was his, but my player played like I needed him to to get the job done.

Me understanding how the game does this was an advantage I had over him, I told him about it after the match, and told him I would post it in the itst forum so everyone is on fair footing when they see it happening. And anyone trying to cheat by giving away points so the "catch-up" thing helps you, good luck because its random when it kicks in and you may just be giving the match away, and if I'm wrong about the randomness, if people see you purposely giving a 5-1 or 5-2 lead you probably won't be in itst for long.

I don't know how you moderators want to police this, but most of the people at itst would never try to manipulate this so they could win, the few that would I hope you can catch and ban them.

[Kono]

Biggest problem of so many sportgames.. Glad you brought it up

[Agassi_Return]

Do you play on Xbox 360? I never noticed that "catch up" thing....only against monster defence.

[BrushedBigJJ]

Do you play on Xbox 360? I never noticed that "catch up" thing....only against monster defence.

Yes I play on xbox 360. Before today I thought it only did it with monster defense too. It's very hard to detect when neither player has monster defense. But honestly everyone might have some sort of monster defense that randomly kicks in if u lose enough points.

[bkristian]

Very interesting. Actually i didnt know about this until today. It was pretty obvious what was going on. I mean, out of nowhere, youre player just seemed really out of this world and i just couldnt win a point.

Obviously it was a huge advantage to you cause cause you knew all along what was going on.

So the real question is, how do we stop it?

[bkristian]

so you won that last set and 5 games in a row not because you did something extraordinaire but because that thing help you to pulled it through, am i correct!

[lucagiaco]

This is the problem of this game.In my opinion all the itst match we must use only glitch player.if i use my player in wt one day the shoots are good and other day no.Sorry my english.This is my opinion.

[iBullet91]

Hmmm...interesting.

Does this really happen?

It doesn't seem to affect the very top players (Fifa and Sho for example) if it does happen.

[I.Maturano]

i thought the problem was with me...i mean, so many times playing against top5 players i start winning then they can comeback.

I thought is my fault for lost concentration in the set and lost.

Last time i play against bk, he beat me 7-6 7-5 6-4, the first and second set i start winning like 5-2 and 4-1...then he comeback with a nice gamestyle...

the last pratice set against billvall i start winning 4-2 and i serve too 5-2 but he broke the server and beat me 6-4.

My question is... is that ''catch-up'' problem? or i really cant hold my results because this guys have more concentration and better ''mental'' game than me ?

i really think i have problem to concentrate after some minutes in set and game...

sorry for my english

[JohnCurveo]

Ok perfect, so everybody use this "catch up" thing against me please. Personally i will not use it.

I come back from a lot of matches, but thats because when im behind the score i play better and concentrate a lot more. A prove is that when i play a friendly match, i lost almost every match, but when the match is from ITST, my level gives up like 4 times. Like when im underscore.
And lag of concentration, is the reason why is hard to play when ure leading or when the score is equal. When ure losing, u concentrate more to hit better shots and u hve less pressure.

And...I think this "catch up" thing is useless against my Babb.

[Biscaia_]

Personally, I don't believe in this catch up thing! There are other factors, mostly mental, that can make you believe that your player is not as good as it seems. The player that I use in ITST (PS3 tour) is not the one in the WT, so its grade is 0. Even then, I feel that sometimes my player is not that good, other times it looks great. But I think it is a question of looks. It looks like it because we stuck it into our heads.

No personal offence of course But I think it is mental, and catch-up doesn't exist.

i thought the problem was with me...i mean, so many times playing against top5 players i start winning then they can comeback.

I thought is my fault for lost concentration in the set and lost.

Last time i play against bk, he beat me 7-6 7-5 6-4, the first and second set i start winning like 5-2 and 4-1...then he comeback with a nice gamestyle...

the last pratice set against billvall i start winning 4-2 and i serve too 5-2 but he broke the server and beat me 6-4.

My question is... is that ''catch-up'' problem? or i really cant hold my results because this guys have more concentration and better ''mental'' game than me ?

i really think i have problem to concentrate after some minutes in set and game...

sorry for my english

I'd go for mental gaming.

[I.Maturano]

Personally, I don't believe in this catch up thing! There are other factors, mostly mental, that can make you believe that your player is not as good as it seems. The player that I use in ITST (PS3 tour) is not the one in the WT, so its grade is 0. Even then, I feel that sometimes my player is not that good, other times it looks great. But I think it is a question of looks. It looks like it because we stuck it into our heads.

No personal offence of course But I think it is mental, and catch-up doesn't exist.

i thought the problem was with me...i mean, so many times playing against top5 players i start winning then they can comeback.

I thought is my fault for lost concentration in the set and lost.

Last time i play against bk, he beat me 7-6 7-5 6-4, the first and second set i start winning like 5-2 and 4-1...then he comeback with a nice gamestyle...

the last pratice set against billvall i start winning 4-2 and i serve too 5-2 but he broke the server and beat me 6-4.

My question is... is that ''catch-up'' problem? or i really cant hold my results because this guys have more concentration and better ''mental'' game than me ?

i really think i have problem to concentrate after some minutes in set and game...

sorry for my english

I'd go for mental gaming.

yes agreed

[Ali-Iqb93]

Yes agreed with biscaia_

It's all mental game

[BrushedBigJJ]

Very interesting. Actually i didnt know about this until today. It was pretty obvious what was going on. I mean, out of nowhere, youre player just seemed really out of this world and i just couldnt win a point.

Obviously it was a huge advantage to you cause cause you knew all along what was going on.

So the real question is, how do we stop it?

Before I played you bkristian I too did not know this happened when no one has monster defense, and there isn't a big gap in grade, never seen it before. And in our match I didn't figure it out until after the second set.

From my perspective my player finally started playing the way he does when I practice with him against the ai when it came to offensive capabilities.

so you won that last set and 5 games in a row not because you did something extraordinaire but because that thing help you to pulled it through, am i correct!

I won the last five games because my player returned to his normal offensive capabilities, where he could go down the line with some pace and direction and could get some bite on the cross court flat short angle shot. At the same time however your offensive capabilities were taken away like mine were the previous 15 games. You tried to continue to play aggressive offense in those five games which under those conditions is near impossible. In those 15 games you won 11 of them, and from my perspective it seemed like you're player was unstoppable, every ball deep and perfect cross court angles that dragged me way off court. I would assume you felt he played like your use to, am I right?

What was the difference in the match was who could win more games when their character was weakened in sets 2 through 4. By my count you won 1 and I won 6 which decided the match. I won 2 in the second set, and you won 1 in the second set(it was 2-5 and we ended up in a tiebreak). I won 2 in the 3rd set (ended 2-6) and I won 2 in the fourth set (2-5 then to 7-5).

And unless they patch this thing out when two coaches/players are equal you must find a way to win games if your player becomes weakened.

i thought the problem was with me...i mean, so many times playing against top5 players i start winning then they can comeback.

I thought is my fault for lost concentration in the set and lost.

Last time i play against bk, he beat me 7-6 7-5 6-4, the first and second set i start winning like 5-2 and 4-1...then he comeback with a nice gamestyle...

the last pratice set against billvall i start winning 4-2 and i serve too 5-2 but he broke the server and beat me 6-4.

My question is... is that ''catch-up'' problem? or i really cant hold my results because this guys have more concentration and better ''mental'' game than me ?

i really think i have problem to concentrate after some minutes in set and game...

sorry for my english

Because I've played you many times Maturano I feel qualified to answer your question. I do not feel its your concentration because I never see your defensive capabilities lapse when I play you. When the game weakens your player and you try to play offense you can put yourself in bad positions and the other player can easily blast balls by you. So if you suddenly see your offense isn't working you have to be patient and make sure you don't put your player in a bad situation that you can't defend. And you have to keep doing it until you offense comes back.

[I.Maturano]

good job, thanks for the advice