The main changes are about speed, serves, and power, plus some few individual changes.
speed
At first as pointed by Djarvik i started trying to change char speeds individually but progressivelly draw the conslusion that the new speeds i was setting up, were more or less a simple range scaling like i intended to try from the start. I did some online match up tests, especially using the extremes slow vs. fast chars, like Monfils/Raonic, etc. And those tests corroborated the fact the match ups were more balanced and pleasant with a speed range in between 70-92 instead of the current 59-96.
So i finally used a math linear normalization and reduced the range, from 70 to 92. with some individual slight manual changes, like Simon, wich still should be aroud 90% after norm, but i fixed him to 85% trying out to balance him as a counter.
Still those online speed tests took place before the recent inertia movement changes, therefore this has to be tested a bit more with the current build and movement.
power
Here no way i could use any linear / norm function due to game mechanics and the way the spin values impairs ball speed. So i changed all power values individually, testing the chars and using the ball speed radar, rallying a bit with each char, trying to preserve a decent shot speed/winner ability for each char. In a general way the power loss is larger when the char has a lower spin, and fewer when a high spin, some chars even gained some power due to high spin.
What counts really is the shot efficiency rendered by the power/spin couple values, so please try the chars and shots efficiency , avoid comparing raw power values.
About the heavy spinners i had the choice to decrease considerably the spin, but i choosed to decrease it only a bit, to keep a better trajectory feel and realism. therefore increasing the power,so they mostly now have a higher power value than most chars, but their shot efficiency is just on par with others or a bit lower in term of speed, considering that heavy top spinners have some advantage creating short crosses.
The heavyweight class, del potro, gulbis, berdych, etc, mainly most of the guys under 80% speed generally kept more powerful strokes, and considering the reduced speed gap they should be pretty good contenders now.
Again this needs to be digged more and thorougly tested and your feedback will allow to fine tune this and tune again power and/or speed if needed.
serves
You probably saw all our sharing about serves on the forum, max speeds, consistency etc. So here is the deal, these are pretty considerable stats changes, to reach as much as possible realistic end match stats, speeds and first serves %. No char out there has anymore a consistency > power, avoiding first serves % higher than 70% using b1+b2 in most cases. the power is decreased to target the average max speed i could find for each player using grand slam websites statistics, not aiming for the fastest speed a player reaches one time a year or in a career.
Some special cases :
* Simon
as a counter style char felt pretty overpowered / on par with tier1, so, instead of 90 speed after normalization, i fixed him to 85%. I also lowered his power considerably, and increased a bit his top spin (10 to 15%). He now has the lower power values in the roster, (from 7% only though), still has decent shots due to low spin, but those accels shots are not enough by themselves to create winners consistently. Simon will need to use the opponent ball speed to create his own speed, more than before. In this intent i also increased his Counter stat from 87 to 95.
* Murray
Well. Murray if we want him to take place as a tier 1 needs some decent power, nothing exceptional but i couldnt let him with too low values due to a pretty high spin, cause i really couldn't felt possible to compete decently vs Federer, Djokovic. So he kept his previous power, and even got a bit more, just a bit behind Djokovic. Still keeping a bit more spin (i reduced a bit Djokovic and Murray spin respectively to 47 and 49, mainly to fine tune ball speed with their power values).
It's a proposition. I couldn't feel doing less than this to balance him as a Tier1 char. I think it feels pretty nice to play him and nothing exagerrated with those values.
* Nadal
i had mainly the choice to keep his previous power values, lowering the spin to 75 or 80% to reach some decent ball speed. But visually in my opinion it wasn't feeling that great regarding Nadal, spin wise. So i decided to decrease the spin from 99% to 90% only. Then increasing considerably his wings power. At the moment with 92/88 power, his shots are still slower than the other tier1 chars and even slower than some other chars with around 70-75% power and low spin values. Though he has the advantage of spin, and still a decent ball speed, not a ridiculous one anymore. Nadal tier1 balance should be tested further now.
*Tomic
Well this char was pretty useless not being a specialist in any way, just decent shots but low speed and stamina, so i really wasn't sure what to do with him to make him more desirable to play, or to drop him. I just gave him a decent average speed in the roster (80 still in the lower end just on the top of the heavyer chars), and some stamina boost. In my opinion he's more viable like this, but there is still better chars around..
*llodra has now a better backhand than forehand (switched power values), and also raised his backhand consistency to from 49 to 66.
*Soderling got 76 speed instead of 75, mainly coz' he still have to be an alternative to Del Potro wich has a 76 speed. not a big change, but just felt right in regard to keep some interest in this char.
* Gulbis, after normalization reached 80 speed, i dropped him from 80 speed to 79. not a big change, but just as a principle i just feel right to keep the heavy hitters under the 80 speed mark. He's very powerful among the roster due to the low spin so i have to maintain him in a reasonable speed range like Tsonga, Soder etc.
As a last note, Federer still has one of the best forehand in the roster, except some heavy chars. But still not some "i win" button.
After all, what we aim to is to see the macthes won by players ability to control their character as well as possible, not because they use an overpowered char, right
*********
Well, as a final note, i was pretty busy last weeks so i couldn't finish before, but still this tooks me a looot of testing time, really, so please be kind with your comments and please take the time to test several match-ups, preferably online (mainly because the power can feel a bit frustrating offline due to the CPU high ball recovery/reflexes skills, humans get wrongfooted a lot more), and on different surfaces.
Overall with this set up one should have to work out the point much more.
Feel free to post screen stats and comments.
I've seen the wimbledon draw has been released, i wish the tournament can be put in a break right now to test this roster before starting, this way if this new balance is welcomed then i will release a more official 1.07 ITST mod version.
For reference info :
Serve Power/Cons stats and max/average serve speed values :
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... U1SZHgwYnc
Roster overall stats :
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... 0pJUjR0aEE
(i didn't filled the #CRC numbers yet)
Roster Profile download :
It is just the ITST profile folder, to test it, just replace your current ITST profile in your TE folder, (make a copy of your current profile before).
http://depositfiles.com/files/03a4dq2yy
http://www.mediafire.com/?hfa76he0u5em3ag
http://bayfiles.com/file/eweP/P3SVHy/IT ... er1.07.rar
