The Players.

[Elias]

Elias,
I just posted this in the v1.0e topic in MG's Forums :

ok, I did some tests, and I think I found the root cause of your issue ; currently, there's a forward inertia after each strike & serve, and it was not too noticeable before because it wasn't too much above the speed conversion limit, but now it's way beyond it, so for next Build, I'm going to drastically reduce it, so you'll have a better control of your player after your strikes & serves (which should help lower the number of return winners) ; I won't reduce it on accelerations, though, coz the balance is ok for them (ie: it's easy enough to hit winners, so it's ok to be a bit get penalized if you use an acceleration that doesn't give you an advantage in the rally).

I'll add this just here : so I may even reduce more the speed conversion limit ; I lowered by 40% so far on all surfaces except clay, and I may go to 45%, so it'll be almost same than on current Clay (which is currently reduced to 46% if you used the un-modded Court.ini, and next Clay will get reduced by 47.5%).

So don't spend time tuning the whole roster right now.

I'll try to release the next Build around end of this week, I'm going to let my idea mature a bit 1st...

Noted.

About our clay i just modded the court.ini for hud display purposes, but kept physics untouched (though i can't see any value relative to speed conversion in it ? just curious wich variable is tied to it ?).

About the forward inertia issue you found, this should only affect forward movement, not much left/right movement, or do i get it wrong ?

Well, many thanks for warning about incoming changes, i'll wait your next update then to go any further with our stats, no waste of time then

Anyway TE is tweakable enough therefore i'm confident after some tests with the stats that we'll be able anyway to reach an acceptable balance whatever the inertia value will be fixed to.

.

[manutoo]

Elias,
in Court.ini , it's "CounterBalance" (out of inspiration, I chose this term from french "Balance Contre-Pied" ), and it should be 0.9 in the Clay one. I'll likely set it to 0.95 in next update.

The left/right speed conversion is actually an opposite speed conversion (but left/right sounded simpler to get for TE users ).
So it works also for forward/backward , which is why we feel stuck after the serve, and also any opposite speed like for example forward-left vs backward-right .

[Elias]

Elias,
in Court.ini , it's "CounterBalance" (out of inspiration, I chose this term from french "Balance Contre-Pied" ), and it should be 0.9 in the Clay one. I'll likely set it to 0.95 in next update.

The left/right speed conversion is actually an opposite speed conversion (but left/right sounded simpler to get for TE users ).
So it works also for forward/backward , which is why we feel stuck after the serve, and also any opposite speed like for example forward-left vs backward-right .

Ok ! Does that means the inertia / counterbalance is moddable and tied to the court physics then ? i think you told me it was offline but not online, but what happens if i add a 0.1 counterbalance to some customcourt ?

[manutoo]

oh yup, it'd work online if modded..!
I make the game so moddable, I have trouble to keep track of everything...
The global one in the Tennis.ini isn't moddable online ; it'll always take the official value for online matches.
That value is then multiplied by the one in the Court.ini .

[Elias]

oh yup, it'd work online if modded..!

Well i tried out of pure curiosity to mod it yesterday but it seems it doesn't changed anything. didn't tried with the last build though. Anyway i won't aim to change the inertia wich is imo a good thing, but moreover to find the right balance with power.

I played 3 sets this evening with Eliomelma, using the last build, on clay, and
we still had a pretty high proportion of short rallies (71%), 22% average ones, 7% long ones.





Elio wich is a natural defender couldn't really play his fav game, and thats using a 94% speed stat (we played with the same char, djokovic).
Overall it was a bit better than before but i would say only slightly, Elio could'nt himself feel a difference.

Then i suggested again trying to play with modified stats, lowering power (and serve consistency but that's another subjet). using the same stats as yesterday with C4ill. And again, it felt better, more defense possible, more adversity, more exciting points, longer ones but still more shorter ones than before thanks to the inertia and wrongfooting, an overall better tennis feeling.

Then we tested some games on grass (still our grass is 0.58/0.77 here ). And it felt pretty good also, the difference was really noticeable with clay, more acing, more winners, more shorts rallies, but still some average ones and no monotony.

So all in all Elio like C4iLL was pretty happy with it like "TE is back" if i have to quote him It's not exactly back, but it's better in my opinion. Before there was some utterly long rallies sometimes, now there is more wrongfooting, on any surfaces even with a decreased power.

So i think i will go for it among the roster, though with this last build probably lowering a bit less than i would have aimed to with the previous one, 80-82 for fed should be better for example now. It's been already suggested around here that our stats should'nt go over 90, and i think it's a pretty good guess about power with this inertia, and such max stat would probably be reserved for the heavy freaks like Del Potro or Berdych. Should be enough also considering we'll probably lower the speed gap between lower and faster chars wich is too high.

Overall i feel like the new movement scheme is a good addition to TE, but i think you should set the current 85% power being the new 100%. Though it's not really a good idea because of high spin values wich can considerably impair the ball speed

[manutoo]

Elias,
I checked to mod it offline, and it worked (I put 10 and got a ridiculous result ).
I guess it should work online as well, but anyway, I think you're better tuning the power ; it'll make the maximum strike speed a bit lower than in real, but the average strike speed will be closer of the real players, and you'll keep the wrong footing, and together that's what matter the most to get a good simulation experience, imho.

I also still think after a while you'll get more used to it, so you'll play a bit better as well...

[Elias]

Elias,
I checked to mod it offline, and it worked (I put 10 and got a ridiculous result ).
I guess it should work online as well, but anyway, I think you're better tuning the power ; it'll make the maximum strike speed a bit lower than in real, but the average strike speed will be closer of the real players, and you'll keep the wrong footing, and together that's what matter the most to get a good simulation experience, imho.

Yep i think so, as well our players have pretty high counter stats overall so their shots also gain some speed during the rallies, with like an average 80-85 mph but reaching 91-94 mph on some hits from high bounces (thats is with lowered power, i'm in the process to review all chars).

I also still think after a while you'll get more used to it, so you'll play a bit better as well...

Probably
Don't forget still that our average speed in the roster is around 85% so most of the time we don't have that super100%human acceleration
Well that is if we're not all using djokofast

[Elias]

Manutoo,

Now dealing with the serves, i have some questions :

When you serve using b1+b2, you try to do your fastest serve possible. If you power is equal to your consistency, then you have 70% chances of success. If your power is above your consistency, then you have less than 70% chances of success, and in the opposite case, you have more than 70% chances of success.

Is there some formula i could find somewhere to calculate the exact value ?
eg. knowing power, calculate the consistency needed to have exactly 62% chances, etc.

Same question about the average serve speed.

from the doc :

50% power = 110 mph average.
75% power = 123 mph average.
100% power = 136 mph ..

it seems linear from 50% to 100%, is it ?

(75-50) / (123-110) * 7 + 50 = 63,46 % = power needed for 117mph average ?

Thus if i refer to some answer you gave in 2009, quoting :

Power defines the Min/Max speed ; Consistency defines the mean in this range, and thus influence the standard -/+ deviations around this mean.

Consistency defines the mean in this range, or Consistency/Power difference defines it (like it defines the b1+b2 serve % success) ?
Can i reduce this range without affecting the serve % success ?
i guess it's a no


This average speed will also be affected by consistency, meaning if i lower the consistency to reach a first serve % target, i may also lower the average first serve speed, right ?

Also, is holding the down (top spin serve i guess) key when serving required to reach the max speed ? just asking coz doing tests it seems with some chars that it's easyer to reach max speed hitting flat.

ty

[manutoo]

Elias,
max serve speed = (140 + 75 * ServePower * 0.01) * 1.1
min serve speed = (140 + 75 * ServePower * 0.01) * 0.9
avrg speed for Power == Consistency = 140 + 75 * ServePower * 0.01

If Consistency > Power, then the average is higher, if < Power, then average is lower

Serves in :
+30% Consistency ~= 77% rate
+15% Consistency ~= 73% rate
-15% Consistency ~= 63% rate
-30% Consistency ~= 57% rate


>> This average speed will also be affected by consistency, meaning if i lower the consistency to reach a first serve % target,
>> i may also lower the average first serve speed, right ?

Right ; to compensate, you can raise a bit the Power, though.


Spin in serve = always lower speed leaving the racket, but can lead to almost same speed after the bounce (for topsin serve)

[L Sanchez MD]

Playing against Dimitrov on Pro 7 at Halle, and it's like the guy is unbeatable at the net! WTF!
I do better against Federer...
No matter what I throw at him, it's nearly impossible to make this guy miss a volley. I played a match against him, and it took until 22 minutes in, nearly match point, for him to miss a volley. o______o

[Ugadalou]

Dolgo IRL seems to often end his matches with a pretty low firsts serve % ( => http://2011.usopen.org/en_US/players/ov ... 1.html#pps ) that's why he has such a low consistency in our roster. Still this guy often end matches with a good bunch of aces, so overall it's pretty difficult to translate it in TE stats, because a lower consistency unfortunately also prevents him to reach his max serve speed often.
Maybe we should open a new thread for stats discussions and future balance updates to discuss this btw, or we may just continue in "The Players" thread

I don't think we should change his serve.

I feel with the current stats he's pretty close to the real dolgo.

Only objection I have is I feel more comfortable risking on his bh side rather than his fh,which could be because of the fh animation.

Anyway, his bh feels a bit too strong, while his fh should be more dangerous.

[L Sanchez MD]

Seems like the AI is still WAY too aggressive/good on return of first serve.
I can hit 200 kph serves consistently and have them sail past me for return winners, doesn't matter if it's flat or has spin, in fact slice serves get destroyed even more so.

[PerfectAce]

Seems like the AI is still WAY too aggressive/good on return of first serve.
I can hit 200 kph serves consistently and have them sail past me for return winners, doesn't matter if it's flat or has spin, in fact slice serves get destroyed even more so.

True. My service make much more damage playing against human. I believe the b1+b2 should be much more effective against AI, but much more risky to achieve. This can be a request to Manutoo. What do you think, mates?

[polca456321]

Something I noticed about the game is that some players are really better than others, obviously the top 4 is just on top of the roster and it's hard for 2 players with the same levels and with for instance Djokovic and Harrison to equilibrate the match. But we can't equilibrate all the players because it would be totally unrealistic.

So maybe it could be a good idea to make some rules about that, maybe divide the players in "Tiers" and for each type of tournaments you can only use a player of each tier a precise number of times per year. Doesn't seem very clear I think For instance, you can only play one GS per year with a Tier 1 player, 1 with a Tier 2 and 2 with a Tier 3. It's just an idea, and probably not a very good one, but it could equilibrate draws and force the players to discover all the work Djarvik and Elias did on the roster by testing everyone.

And sorry for my bad english, hope you guys understood what I mean

[SlicerITST]

You shouldnt be saying sorry for your English. You used the word equilibrate properly(i think ).

The notion of tiers is not a new idea and if set up well might be a good addition to the tour. Thing is that we really want to try and balance the roster further instead of diving into alternatives. Its also worth to mention there is no need for the entire roster to be balanced. Just that there is a good diversity. Other players like Harrison and Gulbis might just be suited for practise matches outside the tour.

I think further balancing will be succesfull it we use the real life players as a measurement and not as a fixed guideline. So for example, Nadal's spins could be a bit less then in real life just to balance him out with the rest of the pack.