Public Preview Version of ITST 1.16

[Elias]

But about counter style you are forgetting one very important aspect which is that counter style has a serious accel reduction on every shot he is facing except the accels, so it means yeah you can be agressive whole rally but if i decide to use only top spin shots then it will not be so effective. Actually to use counter style at the highest effectivness you not only have to be great mover but you also need to play as close to baseline as possible and this feat possess only 1 or 2 guys in tour to constantly play on baseline.

Well you can do it as well to some extent with a 100% counter stat. You were not there to see the mess with this TE style in the past (*scared*), ask VMoe he'll tell you about it This style was well known as overpowered @ MG as well actually. We don't really want to take risks with it anymore.

i'll probably test some setups (though i have quite an amount of chars to take care off..). This Hewitt can be a spare character in the roster for friendlies, not available for tournaments for a start, for test purposes, we'll see.

[isaldor]

Just about the Fed anim in FH, I prefer it as you can take the ball earlier. Fed lacks of power versus Djokovic and other good runners currently, if you give him a less efficient anim, it will be dead.

Totally agree ! FH's anim in 1.15 is way better. The gesture is more fluid, we can eat shots down the line and cross court easier. The FH in 1.16 is weak whereas Fed's FH should be one of the best of the roaster.
Nothing to do with Lucian. His anim is really nice (as always) but i think it doesn't match with our mod and our expectations.

[pidzi]

OK so Manutoo already made changes to TE, just few hours ago released his probably first patch in interseason and he already made quite a bunch of changes and most of them are very good.

[Elias]

OK so Manutoo already made changes to TE, just few hours ago released his probably first patch in interseason and he already made quite a bunch of changes and most of them are very good.

Right. So for now this invalidates 1.16 setup (though i think we'll go more or less the same way with some adjustments).

We need to take our time, see how it plays out with 1.15 (and use 1.16 test version to test things, to see how we are going to adapt our setup). For now i only played a few sets offline with 1.0b.103. The changes seems promising regarding speed conversion differences (forward/backwards), and even if not mentionned, it feels like horizontal one changed a bit as well (maybe only a wromg impression due to this habit of moving a bit backwards though). This difference between forward and backward movement seems really positive.

First thoughts :

It should definitely help with the defense issue caused by the previous backward speed conversion.
That should help with the "circle dance" phenomenon.

The heavy run acceleration decrease we used in 1.15 (around -15%) to counter these issues, and collaterally damaged
the netplay, will probably be a bit too heavy with this new movement mechanics. But that is good news. I think
that we will be able to restore a bit of run accel (and thus restoring a better netplay/approach) without having too
much impact on defense. I compared a bit 1.15 and 1.16 with fast characters, eg : 66 vs 70 run accel, different
max speeds though, and the little higher run accels didn't felt like it will create huge defense problems with
the new TE update, and we still get faster net approaches and jump reaction. Though VMoe and I have mixed opinions
about this, so i guess we'll need some time to choose the way to go about run acceleration.

The change to the slice shot feels pretty nice. it may be more useful as an approach than before when we
have enough time to charge it.

So we'll see, for now we have to sit up and play a bit with the setup to see where we're wanting to go.

I think that being back to around 68-70 run accel won't be much an issue now (along with reducing the max speed
considerably still, and increasing a bit power). Probably not going too far with precision, but finding some middle ground in between 1.15 / 1.16 to avoid that slight arcade feeling we had (but test yourself 1.16 with this new TE update, cause the feeling is a bit different).


I also noticed some issue with the stamina bar disappearing (but i only patched, didn't made a fresh install), not sure where it comes from, i'll try to find out.

[leonM]

When will this be used on the real tour?

[Lucian86]

Just about the Fed anim in FH, I prefer it as you can take the ball earlier. Fed lacks of power versus Djokovic and other good runners currently, if you give him a less efficient anim, it will be dead.

Well, that's not entirely true! After looking very close, I noticed that in my anim the player actually takes the ball earlier (I'm at work now so I can't show you some pics about that).
Why do you feel it's otherwise then ? Well, M4n4c0r's anim has a faster wrist action and a faster swing before hitting the ball. That's why you feel it takes the ball earlier and generates more power.
I choosed to make it slower in order to see better Federer's wrist action, one of the most important features of his forehand and let me say that this is how his forehand looks in reality, except some rare and very powerful shots.
I understand though that you feel more comfortable with M4n4c0r's version. All that I can say it's that I feel great with my own (which it's obvious you would say) but I'm not the only one...It's a matter of preference.

Totally agree ! FH's anim in 1.15 is way better. The gesture is more fluid, we can eat shots down the line and cross court easier. The FH in 1.16 is weak whereas Fed's FH should be one of the best of the roaster.
Nothing to do with Lucian. His anim is really nice (as always) but i think it doesn't match with our mod and our expectations.

I'd never take this personally

Anyway, here's the same situation as the previous time when many people didn't like the M4n4c0r's version (the one from 1.15) over the one made by Neeky McDeez (which was made for Dimitrov in reality). It involves Federer again...I wonder why (seriously)

[inseedious]

What will you do after the latest managames update? It messes up a bit with movements, but seems to have a great potential. Manutoo is starting to follow our suggestions about different speeds for different directions.

[Elias]

What will you do after the latest managames update? It messes up a bit with movements, but seems to have a great potential. Manutoo is starting to follow our suggestions about different speeds for different directions.

Dunno yet. Hesitation times for now. Not sure to go for the higher precision we tried in this 1.16 test finally. Sure it brings more action and nervosity to the gameplay, great forehands and crisp short crosses for more winners, but also overall less faults, and renders the game easyer, leading to get some arcadish feeling, i agree on this one with Pidzi and Moe. That could remove some depth to the gameplay (i guess higher precisions would probably fit better with Elite mode). So not sure about it, especially as 1.15 characters were pretty well balanced, thanks to precision. And the defense issue had a major influence on making this choice.

We'll pretty surely go for more power on wings though, and better serves.

As for the new TE update/setup, yes i think it's going in a good direction with these changes, but there comes hesitation times for Manutoo as well

For run forward bonus, I'll raise a bit the efficiency of the dropshot, but I might also tune the forward bonus (and the backward handicap) as I'm not sure I'm satisfied with current results ; I'm thinking about lowering both effects by about 30%.

So i think on our side we need to let things settle down a bit. Some adjustments are probably coming in the next TE sub-build.

In my opinion the current backward handicap seems Ok. Especially at 70+ run acceleration the defense potential is still very strong and one can still step back efficiently enough to adjust positionning on the deep counter shots; maybe horizontal speed conversion could be lowered a bit, if lowering the backward handicap. I'd be glad to have these variables public for testing/modding purposes. It's not the case so anyway we just have to wait for Manutoo definitive choices to see how we'll adjust our setup.

[J. Grilo]

Hi all,

i had a match yesterday against magav, it was my first (official) match with the new patch of manutoo and i'm really disappointed to be honest. In my opinion (and of magav) defenders have even more advantage, than before the update - and there were already an advantage.

One point is about the netplay. We are slower now, when we go backwards. 90% of his lobs were successed, which i found weird. So he cleared me up, with the lower speed.

The result was 7:5 & 6:3 and we played almost an hour, with some really long rallies. But we had both only 20 or 25 winners, which is a joke. On our matches before on this tournament, we had 50 or even 60 winners. As a consequence, our stamina went rapidly down (like i never seen before). For a time, we hadn't even the half of stamina (the second bar).

So i tried to short up our rallies, but i couldn't make enough pressure. It was enough, when he play a safety (really) long shot, to destroy my whole "attack". In this point, there are several points to make it shorter:

1.) Short cross shot
2.) going to the net
3.) Dropshot

But with nearly no stamina, it's quite impossible to do that things with no errors, besides of the lob thing. There is 1 thing, which i found better now and that is the slice, also as a dropshot.

I know, that defenders had an advantage, but now it's even more to me, it's ridiculous. As i said to magav: May the best defender wins in the final!

I really hope that ITST 1.16 make some progress on the gameplay and that you doing it with some justice.

PS: i'm not upset about the losing game, but of the current situation concerning the gameplay.

Greets

J. Grilo

[campa100anni]

maybe that's the right time to stop considering short slice as cheesy play
if defenders are too advantaged now let's not consider short slice forbidden anymore so that we can balance things a little bit

[Elias]

@J.Grilo

Well, remembering a match i played with you some months ago @ rogers cup, i think you were the typical defender type, i couldn't hit a winner (well, some, but hardly), fed vs.fed, you were recovering mostly all my attacks, cross courts etc, cumfortably behind your baseline, and when reaching the low stamina state, you usually took the net after some random deep counter to finsih the point (with success most of the time). Magav on his side is renowned to be a pushing king of sorts (no offense mate, reputation follows you ). So i can imagine a match between you both being endless
But it seems you were the frustrated attacker this time

Don't take it wrongly, no offense there, when someone attacks well, we defend, naturally, everyone is simply exploiting the game mechanics available, and there is a considerable gap between offense and defense in the current TE, efficiency wise, and skill wise. Like someone said recently : "I bet one could train a monkey to become the best defender in TE" .

In my opinion the backwards penalty actually brings more to the game to lower the defense issue than it removes from it, depends how people play. But yes it makes the lob more effective (though this shot was often seen as not effective enough before), and the drop less effective. I think Manutoo aknowledged the issues and will probably try to adjust things in a following update.

On our side unfortunately we can't do magic with the"'all mighty" defense situation. We have not the tools, modding wise, plain and simple. We'll simply go for a higher power towards speed ratio, and also use a very large chunk of stamina, to avoid reaching (too quickly..) the low stamina state, wich resulting gameplay isn't much skill based anyways, nor fun to watch either. Or even play with fatigue off, if needed.

Personnaly i think the baseline reach is still too high, even with 80+ power and 70/70 speed/RA type of setup (1.16 like). Thus i would adjust the horizontal speed conversion, lowering it until reaching a good baseline balance with a typical standard setup, as the unconditional priority. I'm pretty sure as well removing the auto-defend-back little one wicked step would help a great deal cause imo that thing has much more influence overall than one may think.

About the lobs, here is a first answer from Manutoo :

the problem is that now when your player has already turned to run back to catch the lob, for the engine his backward direction is still toward the back of the court, thus the slowness ; I'm going to fix that so his backward direction will be to the net (or the side if he's doing sidesteps), so it'll work better..! :yes:

and ..

For run forward bonus, I'll raise a bit the efficiency of the dropshot

So we have to wait for the next fix/update, to see how it goes, before even thinking of our next stats scheme.

[isaldor]

Manutoo released a new patch today. It's catastrophic. Circles are back ! We'll see unbelievable defenses once again !

[Elias]

Manutoo released a new patch today. It's catastrophic. Circles are back ! We'll see unbelievable defenses once again !

Unfortunately this was to be expected by reducing the backward handicap by 30% ......
Even with it VMoe and Magav could play a set @ 12 av rally length (on plexi. though).

It's helpless i'm done with this ****, good luck to you guys.

Last summer one year ago we had somewhat a good build. Just figuring out it was random luck.
Thus the need for a custom control setup with all these variables being tweakable (and we're not asking for open source, more about mind openness..)

Manutoo is pushing too much with his updates, he should attack more. Well, finally he's dancing forward/backward, seems fashionable, nowadays..

btw, nice avatar Pidzi, i'm joining your academy, if you don't mind.

and that was my 1000th post. funny one.

[VMoe86]

I join the academy but with a different perspective: The forward/backward thing, the circle dancing, it is not the major area where one should look at when improving TE. How can one expect that such a small area of the game would lead to a fundamentally different feeling on court?

[Elias]

I agree it's not the one and only issue, though an obvious one. Step by step Moe, if you can't even expect such thing to be fixed, then how the world one could expect more, especially when it's "too much work".