De(ep)fense

[Fez]

I have a few minutes free so thought I would address a long standing question regarding defense in TE. I believe that once players have reached a high level it is defense that at last distinguishes top-level players. The one with the better defense wins in TE. Whether you agree with this or not is not important. The following is the purpose of this post.

I can think of so many times when playing one of the elite (Richie, Vmoe, Butcher, Clog) and .....oh so many times vs MaGav, when I work very hard to finally be in control of a point, then have the control taken away by one deep defensive strike they manage. I mean I can be honest, these guys are better players than I am, they move better, make better decisions, select strikes better, finish points better. They do everything better. So this is why when I am actually managing a very high level and actually have control of the point----they are running their ass off to get to my shots----and over and over again, in this situation, they hit a very deep shot (sometimes normal strike or topspin, vs MaGav a slice) that bails them out of trouble and forces me to run backwards to hit the ball that lands at my baseline---it kills me!

These rally-changing deep shots are key in TE. If a player could do this consistently, he would rule TE. IMO, this is the most important shot in TE once players reach a high level. But, after 2 years of playing TE, I still don't understand these shots. I have spoken to several people about it, read about it, experimented....and I still don't get it. Someone please explain. Here's what I have seen/read/heard. As you will see, its conflicting data:

1 Some say these deep-landing defensive shots are simply counters. OK, but if they were counters then that means that they are somewhat random right? I mean, I can try to get a counter shot by tapping button last minute right? Ok, but in my experience, counters only happen on occasion even if you time it right. Is that true? If I could time a counter perfectly every time would this result in a counter every time?? Or just increase my chances of a counter? So, if these deep defensive shots were merely counters, it doesn't explain matches where my opponent is doing this EVERYTIME he is in trouble. (this is funny, i just talked to MaGav about his match vs Pidzi in Wimby and he was talking about how amazing it was that pidzi was hitting these amazing normal strike defense shots so deep and so consitently! He said he never saw anything like it! I think MaGav would say that this was indeed not random, hence, not purely counters)

2 Some people say that these deep defensive shots arent counters at all. They say that they are just deep shots, randomly going deep because of the aiming zone, nothing more. In the same conversation with MaGav, he said Pidzi was somehow "using MaGav's power shots by using normal strike to send ball back deep". Tell me if I am wrong, but Magav seems to be saying that deep normal strikes are in part related to "using the accels of opponent's strikes". This further confuses matters. Anyway, if these deep defensive shots arent counters, what the hell are they??? Totally random? If they are totally random, it doesnt make sense that its the elites that manage to do them more than others. IF they are not random and are not counters, then how the hell do I do them??
The same ones who say its just random, would also say that when your opponent gets a lot of deep defensive shots against you, well, it will all even out over time. But that just isn't true. Again, top players do this way more than lower players.

3 What I say: Well, when i try to do last minute deep slices/normal/topspins, they only go deep for me about 2/10 times. This number is not high enough to be very effective. Usually my last minute tap shots land very short (Btw, this is how it should be in TE. I think those bailout defensive shots should be VERY rare). Maybe I am just not good with the timing of counters or something since i have to play so many different delays. It seems to me, that there is definitely a technique that is used to create these deep defensive shots. But nobody is able to explain it precisely to me.
Sorry if this sound like typical Fez ranting here but I have to say it. When MaGav said he never saw anything like what he saw vs pidzi, he never saw so many of his opponent's shots landing so deep so often....I had to think to myself that Magav had just experienced for the first time what I have experienced countless times. And this is why he got smoked 6-1 6-0 6-1. Why, after all, would a player like MaGav actually play a match where he would see something he had NEVER seen before? That is strange if you think about it. Pidzi, do tell, how were you managing all those deep defensive shots vs MaGav? For the record, Magav wasn't complaining, he was simply amazed at Pidzi's skill and wondered how he did it. So if Magav is right and its simply skill, what IS the skill??

thanks for readin'

[djarvik]

For once, this is not a Fez rant.


In for answers on this one......I am in the same boat.

[J. Grilo]

I don't believe it is only skill, but couple of techniques. I say this, because i reached a point, where i'm getting stumped. I know, where i have to improve, but i don't know how - "productive practising" is maybe the right word.

Concerning the movement: Especially pidzi moves so fast, that he has very often enough time, to get enough pressure in his shots. Personally, i just can't believe, that it's only aiming, because he moves almost everytime in the right direction. I could be wrong, but i think, that it's all about little tricks / techniques, little things what makes the big difference.

Skills only matters a little in overall, skills makes the difference, when 1 players wins a set closely with 7:5 for example. But not when i loose 6:1, 6:0, 6:0 almost everytime against pidzi...There have to be something, what i don't know or understand. I get the tip, to play against the CPU and practise. I play against the CPU (Incredible, level 4) since a quit long time now. I won only once, mostly i loose 6:1 or so and i don't know how to play better, there have to be something more..

Maybe some top guys use some combos?

[Robbin92]

I have a remapped my controls so that I have a separate button for deep counters.

[inseedious]

Interesting points of view shown by fez and grilo.

On the one hand, I agree about the fact that sometimes it's a matter of tricks, some little differences in the way of playing (a slightly different technique in footwork, for example). Tennis score is really unique because it doesn't show the real difference between you and your opponent. You can play constantly 10% better than your opponent, winning a set scoring 24 points to 12, and winning 6-0. As long as the "game moments" are grouped in more "blocks" (games, sets, etc.) the score amplifies the difference. That said, I disagree about the idea that what makes the difference between high level and top level guys is defense. Actually, I think the difference is in attack. Defense makes the difference only between top 25 and the rest, where the learning curve is still fast. I think that top 10, maybe top 15 almost have the same defensive skills, but top 5 can close the points more easily, and, first of all, can keep the control of the point, while lots of guys just lose precision after the opponent returns 2-3 attacks, letting him take the control. Obviously, a better attack also means better movement to be earlier on the ball (pidzi for example), so when I talk about defense, I just mean the ability to reach difficult balls and make deep counters. Some guys like grilo, for example, have excellent defensive skills (maybe playing too behind), and can constantly hit deep counters, but lack of offensive skills, so you can break them putting pressure and playing difficult balls.

But, on the other hand, I must say that training and being used to play certain shots (for example short accels on the run) really makes the difference, because when playing on clay I manage to get close scores vs top guys (even a 7-5 from pidzi in an official), and on clay you have more time to charge your shots to max, so hard-to-master skills like quick precise positioning are less useful. On faster surfaces, instead, despite it's easier to keep serve, playing vs top 5 seems to be a suicide. This is because top 5 have the skill to be well positioned on the ball even when time is really short, so they will simply own you. These kinds of skills are really hard to master, and come from more and more training (especially vs AI). Don't look at pidzi and moe's few online matches played, because they mostly train offline. Obviously, mental is another very important thing (look at pidzi vs richie matches), but it plays a really leading role only when the levels are really similar (top5 vs top5, for example).

As last, I know deep counters are annoying and can be considered unfair under some points of view. There even are some guys who managed to be in top 20 just waiting for hitting deep counters, and making the opponent fail or shoot short balls. But I can assure you that if you keep a high level, deep counters won't be a problem, both because you'll counter them, and because if you play more precise balls, the opponent won't be able to reach the ball well and make a deep counter.

[djarvik]

I just hate counters all other points are arguable. Even though I do think there is a "trick" to moving efficiently, I can sometime feel it - if you get into right pattern of movement your player feels lighting fast, but if you miss these same patterns the player feels WAY behind each rally. I don't know, but maybe the top guys simply cannot put in words what exactly they are doing, but I am damn sure there is a ONE "key" to all of this. Once you learn using it, it becomes more of a strategy game as both players know how to execute and now they are choosing "what" to execute.

I wish I can understand, grasp that "key" as I think I have a lot to offer as far as strategy, shot selection and points building.

Of course there is an issue of actual hand eye coordination. If you lack that, no amount of strategy or movement keys will compensate. The amount of time that passes from the moment you see the play, make a choice how to react and actually press a button is the single most important skill one can posses. You cannot out strategize the lack of reaction time. With age we lose this ability, but that is well over 30-35 and you lose it slowly, BUT#2 - most people in life rarely get to their biological capacity for that hand-eye coordination skill, simply because they don't get enough training in life. That is saying that a 40-50 year old man can still improve his hand-eye coordination as he probably never approached his biological limit. So bottom line, 99% of us are nowhere near our limits, unless you are an accomplished musician or a sportsman - in which case you are more then likely there...

...it was always amusing to me to find out that lots of top 10 players in TS3 where actually people playing musical instruments

Best way to improve that skill - challenge yourself. As in playing other players who are SLIGHTLY better then you and playing AI where you lose close matches. Playing players who are significantly better or AI who is significantly better does not help that much, most time you are just a spectator and you need to participate to get better.

Note about playing AI: as good as it is, the reason why some people including me cannot translate that into online is because AI has patterns and weak points that you can exploit. So if you know these - try to avoid them. Sure you score the point, but you are robbing yourself off valuable practice.

[Fez]

thanks for the replies, but nobody really addressed the question. What ARE those deep shots? Are we certain they are counters?

Also, along with Grilo, I feel the same. There must be something most of us are missing. There must me some little technique that has escaped us.

[Fez]

I have a remapped my controls so that I have a separate button for deep counters.

??? "Counter" isnt a button. Either u are kidding or u mean u map normal strike/ts/slice to separate buttons. I did that ages ago. What do mean Robbin?

[inseedious]

thanks for the replies, but nobody really addressed the question. What ARE those deep shots? Are we certain they are counters?

Also, along with Grilo, I feel the same. There must be something most of us are missing. There must me some little technique that has escaped us.

Have you ever tried to play offline with visible aiming zones? Deep shots have without any doubt a bigger aiming zone, so they are barely charged. Additionally, they need to be hit in a certain position to work (not necessarily the best tough), it is a sort of "sweet spot". And, yes, they need to use the opponent power to be effective, both because you need some timing to do that, and maybe if you try to do them with slow balls you'll have a smaller aiming zone, so less deepness potential.
P.S. Robbin was obviously joking.

[Uchiha Muss]

In my opinion deep counters are just random. But it takes half skill and half luck to do it. I see a lot of players hit acceleration more often than necessary and then the ball lands short obviously. They take time away from themselves, opponent has easier ball to attack etc. So hitting normal strike in certain moments would be more productive in terms of defending. The other, half luck part is self-explanatory. If you get the sweet spot right, it could be deep or just normal strike with average depth.

Regarding the movement I got it all figured out. Theoretically I think I know how to move like to player.
It's all about looking at the opponent and stop your movement right around the time when he's striking the ball.
It's a bit like using auto-pos in a sense that you have to release all the movement buttons right before the player hits the ball. If you can do that I think it's possible to reduce wrong footing by at least 50%. I already see that in some moments I'm able to do quick 180 degree turn around, like i'm running in one direction and i actually manage to move in the opposite direction without stopping at all. I think this should help with movement.

Top players still have the skill of positioning, playing closer to the baseline, diagonal movement AND they have perfected all of these. I can do what I said up above but only with great deal of focus. It's really hard to look opponent and then time your shots, position all at the same time. But it's doable.

And of course most players need to learn how to return. So many above average movers get undone by simply not having a clue about returning.

[Fez]

thanks for the replies, but nobody really addressed the question. What ARE those deep shots? Are we certain they are counters?

Also, along with Grilo, I feel the same. There must be something most of us are missing. There must me some little technique that has escaped us.

Have you ever tried to play offline with visible aiming zones? Deep shots have without any doubt a bigger aiming zone, so they are barely charged. Additionally, they need to be hit in a certain position to work (not necessarily the best tough), it is a sort of "sweet spot". And, yes, they need to use the opponent power to be effective, both because you need some timing to do that, and maybe if you try to do them with slow balls you'll have a smaller aiming zone, so less deepness potential.
P.S. Robbin was obviously joking.

Thank you seed. You are the first one who has said something I can process. So let me get this straight. I shouldn't try a tapping shot if my opponent is hitting a slower ball, only when it is an accel? Ok, makes sense. But I do that all the time, when opponent hits an accel to the line and I run and get there and I hit slice last second, ball on strings...and it hardly every goes long. It goes short and my opponent attacks it. But this thing you said about the position to be in is "not necessarily the best" is interesting. So the million dollar question is "What exactly IS that position that will give you deep returns?" Because hitting ball perfectly on strings sure aint it.

Also, you've addressed something that I have noticed is fundamentally wrong with TE. It often rewards bad position and less charge time! I notice that very often my opponent will have no charge time and his ball is sailing deep (because of this bullshit aiming zone thing), and when I charge for a full half second, my ball wont go that deep (because of same aiming zone bullshit). IMO, the game should not reward having less charge time. Supposedly, the whole point of this game is to move better so that you can charge more, but much of the time more charge doesn't help, less charge time does!! Soooooo backwards.

[Robbin92]

On a more serious note, I believe that deep counters are caused by hitting the perfect sweetspot (perfect sweetspot =/= middle of snares in some animations/cases).
To find out where the sweetspot for an animation is turn on devmode.
Once you turn on this devmode, you will see some information in the left top of your screen. The thing you want to look at to get information about the sweetspot is the "Sweet"-variable.
If it's 0.00 when you hit you hit the perfect sweetspot, and the further away it is from 0.0 the further you are from hitting the sweetspot.

[Uchiha Muss]

Off Topic.

Thanks robbin, that seems very useful for practicing purposes. While I'm running and hitting I usually think i'm hitting it cleanly enough, but when I watch replays and look at myself from the other half, I always see that I hit it with a bit of my racket, just not much with strings.

This looks like it's gonna help to see how clean i'm hitting it every time.

[Richie1308]

That's quite a debate i see here and I find it great as I find you guys gave good arguments and analysis here. In fact here there are 2 questions I've noticed : The deep shot and what top players do better than the other. I'll give my feeling about this.

What I do believe is that the deepshot is caused by the aiming zone that is big on the run if you can't push the button for some time but instead have to make a quick tap on it (I remind that I use a controller, can be interesting to know for some people).
I think this point is hardly discutable, it's linked to TE's mechanics.

Now I understand the feeling Fez and others can have wondering why these deep shots seem to occur more often by the top players than others and wondering if there isn't a sort of trick used there.
In the first place and I think the other top guys feel the same, we haven't really thought of tricks to play good in the game. What I mean is that things than can look like tricks (for example the running in circles defense that I discovered could be seen as a sort of trick) are more to be considered a natural consequence of TE's mechanics.
The fact of going backwards when in defense and in the same movement going right or left made sense to me and came naturally as I felt my player moves better like this in some situations. I've never noticed me trying to learn doing something like that, it came in the most natural way in my game and I never thought of it.

Now I can say the same about the famous deep shot. I know why it exists as I said, but I never gave it much thought neither. And I'm 100% sure that (at least on my side but I don't see how it could be otherwise) there is nothing special I do to trigger some. I try to hit the best shot I can in the best position possible on the run (I don't search for this sweetspot which I didn't even know the existence of in this situation) but try to hit in the best position possible for my racket, simply. But there is nothing magical around it, if you aim to do the shot by doing something special like on purpose pushing the button late, it won't work. I only hit those on shots where I can do nothing more than a quick tap at the very last moment. If there is a ball where I can aim and make a defensive top spin with a very few time, I do it and no quick tap on purpose (the same on grass but here especially with berdych it's obvious I prefer trying accels on the run). Also I never use the "normal shot" but always top spin, I have a button on my controller to trigger it without having to do up in the same time which is useful, though normal shot is okay on grass, on other surfaces top spin is always more interesting.

Now why do top players seem (and that's the case) to make them easier and more often ? I think that first of all we're the fastest in ITST and can reach some balls with the quick tap system as I would call it that most of the people wouldn't get. So instead of a winner, we can make a shot that is likely (don't know the %) to have a good deepness. And as we're able to hit it in the middle of the racket correctly even on the run (because if you're too close to the ball you'll never make a deep shot that's for sure), we have the maximum chance of hitting a deep shot. Now in the play I don't even think "oh he did a deep shot", I consider it a shot like others and try to adapt my position to it. I'd almost say that the capacity of hitting a deep shot is linked to the level of the player, that's something I could notice without exception.
To finish on it, I feel like the less I thought of them the more often I could make them without really noticing it.


Aside from that, there is the other question about the difference between great players and the top ones. I can't say I have the answer, especially because I can't have the same feeling as a player in the other category, I can only talk as how I feel in mine. I think it's more an overall thing than special things like serve etc. Top guys have an almost perfect execution in what they do in TE. For example, if I make an unforced error, I don't feel like I failed in my aim zone but I was willing to take the risk (not that we don't make UEs or are perfect but we know exactly what to expect of our shots). We can make the shot we want each time if the situation in the point allows it of course. As Djarvik says, for example against Vmoe in RG, I never questionned really my own level but focused way more on my tactic to try to comeback. But to be able to think like that, you need to be confident in what you can do and be able to do it naturally. Otherwise, against top players, you would have to worry about 2 things : being able to get yourself to play at this level consistently and being able to adapt your tactic to what your opponent do. And to me it's too hard to do.

Against players I know I have an advantage in terms of level, I'll honestly say that I don't worry about my tactic because I know that with just the execution part (the level itself, moving fastly, good placements,..) I'll probably not have any trouble. What I want to show is that until the very best level you can get, the strategy part is not that important and not what you should focus on. I remember what I did before coming to TE and then getting the level I have now : I started playing for fun with the IA (Djokovic/Nadal always on clay) and then Vram also bought the game and we kept on playing and playing, for fun but also to get better. There were a lot of misshots/stupid wrongfooting and we always got to tie-break as we were so poor on returns. With time we improved our level each time on focusing each time on things we saw we were not doing well. The objective was to get a bit better everyday anyway, each time concentrating really on one thing we were bad on. The result is that we wer progressing as fastly and got to the top at the almost same time.

I don't say everyone will get the level but focusing on things you don't do great one by one, improving them until you do them well naturally without having to think of it is the best way to improve in my opinion. Playing offline and online are good to do but online is an absolute necessity in my opinion at a point.
Now, after that part, we were great players, capable of going top 10 but we had no chance against Florian for example. I was never able to take him any set and I thought "Wow, how can he go this fast, change direction of the ball and aim such great zones like that ?". At this point I was, like Vram, quite good overall but it lacked something everywhere. Here what made me (for Vram I don't really know but it must be a bit the same) make the step was fully understanding the mechanics of TE that I didn't really consider until then. I tried things like playing soon, very far from the baseline and other crazy things and used a lot offline to see how the aim zone worked. For example it's here I got to understand the importance of my placement, not only left or right but also to always adjust myself forward/barckward on each ball to be in the best position possible (especially on clay, I began to be able to hit shoulder accels whenever I wanted while I did not consider this thing a second before).

So if people ask me "How do you play this great ?" I can't really answer because it was a step by step progress, from time to time noticing things about how the game reallys works.

To finish with, I don't think top guys have bionic eyes or epic reflexes because we all were slow to react at the start and even later, and all got through a lot of misshots, wrongfooting and bad return's reaction before getting there for a long time. I still think a lot of guys could reach a near level as I don't feel we're playing an insane level as it's not a game that involve such skills (if I were to compare being a top player in street fighter is really something completely insane and involving skills that a lot of people like me will never have even with a lot of training, that why as I consider myself a good player in videogames but not a superplayer, if I can get there a lot of guys can do also aside the other top guys).

That's it, I said things like it came to my mind and I'm not rereading this, I have enough, so deal with the parts that may not really be linked together.

[Fez]

Ok, will someone explain 2 things? I dont understand "wrong footing" im TE. I know what it is in real life of course but I dont see it in TE. Second what the hell is "circles" defense?