Mana Games

[antimouse]

Manu, I'm on Windows 7, and Auto is selected. I sent you a bug report with Scroll Lock key.
Thanks!

[manutoo]

noname1988,
I have a blurred memory from it, but I think I did the max reasonable range for the Aperture ; after, it might show too much clipped stadium or something like this. If you want to try to change it more, you can alter it directly within your Tennis.ini before launching the game.

antimouse,
I just got your Bug Report and tried the game with your Tennis.ini and it worked correctly. I see you have modded the Tour base, so I guess you have copied other stuff into your Mods folder, likely the GameSys.ini, which you should not do.

Strikeware203,
1) Fixed in today's build, thanks to your report !

2) I changed a bit the way it works in today's build ; let me know if it helps or not.

3) Fps counter is updated in tody's build.

4) I did some changes about that so really strong doubles players shouldn't happen like in TE2013 anymore (ie: if he has strong FH & serve, he should be noticeably slow or something else).
In the base, Brunstrom isn't flagged as a true doubles specialist and he never gets really strong. Are you playing in 2019 (or later) ? If yes, you might be facing a generated fictional player, which is going to be Top 10 or 20 this year.
If you play in 2017 or before, send me a Bug Report. (HowTo => topic5-31732.php )

And normally, the coach does a mix between current strength and ranking.

[Sale93]

I just checked requirements for a new TE4 and it is really too much. There are not many players that fulfil everything especially for 5000 or 1000 points on graphic card. It is a total failure. Forum is dying slowly few years, but this will speed up. Average graphic card with 5000 points costs about 300 dolars which is too expensive for our standard. Here you can find some people who work for 200-300e per month. You should think to get some new players and with this 80% from forum players will not be able to start Tennis Elbow 4.

[antimouse]

Hey Manu,

I'm sorry for the "fake" bug report. I had checked if there was any mod, but I totally forgot TE4 stores its mods in AppData folder. Indeed, I have a folder in there with an additional 2D court and possibly modded tour files. No GameSys.ini though. I'll check later what I had changed, but problem solved. Thanks!

[manutoo]

Sale93,
a few things :

1) You can get a 1000-point 3D card for $50

2) The GeForce GTX 1650, released about 1 year ago, has 7800 points and cost ~$170

3) Powerful IGPs of the past 6 years have ~1000 points ; that's likely dozens of millions of PCs and laptops

4) There are nearly 100 million Steam users ; most of them have a decent 3D GPU : https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

5) XBox One is likely around 2500 points and sold ~50 million units ; PS4 is likely around 2800 points and sold ~110 million units

[noname1988]

Thanks Manutoo for answer.

I tried several options and it actually almost works (I didn't know about "custom 1" in camer asection before )
Almost ... because I have the same problem as the antimouse with the court surface.
When I upload the camera settings from court.ini then the surface is always hard green.
The only "non-original" file is court.ini

[Snake Doctor]

Manutoo, there's a couple of things I wanted to ask.

One of the things I noticed about TE2013 was that on the run chasing a wide ball into the duece court as a lefty, I was far more likely to return a backhand slice into play than I was returning a forehand slice while chasing a wide ball into the ad court. This may have something to do with the backhand/forehand animations, but I also know that many pros struggle with forehand slices on the run. The best two pros at forehand slices IMO are Nadal and Djokovic, but I've seen a lot of errors off this side in matches. Was this something you programmed, or a happy accident, and what is your thoughts on it? Should it be the same to return slices forehand or backhand, or should there be a disparity?

People have mentioned sliding on clay in the past, but I'm more concerned with sliding on other surfaces, ala Novak. Djoker has made an art of sliding on grass, and isn't too shabby sliding on hard court, but I'm not certain if this is something that can be replicated in a game. I would love to see some abilities in TE4, i.e. Nadal's banana shot, Djoker's flexibility to slide and basically do the splits to get to balls, Kyrigios and Del Potro's 100 mph forehand winners, etc. Do you think this is something that can be done?

[manutoo]

noname1988,
don't use "Court.ini", use "Court_Mod.ini" instead, so the game will still have access to the stuff needed to init the surface.

Snake Doctor,
1) In TE2013 and even more in TE4, the slice is less efficient on the forehand. It's because it's less easy to put backspin on the forehand side.

2) Hopefuly, we'll get an extension that works everywhere, and on clay, it'll slide more.

There's already the banana shot in TE2013 & TE4 (although the CPU doesn't make it). There are 110mph FHs in TE4. And a lot of stuff like that already.

[Snake Doctor]

Brilliant, Manutoo.

One other quick thing: do we have access to tennis.ini yet? I'd like to turn off skill diminishment for my first foray into world tour.

Oh, and while I remember: I recall you mentioning how the different builds had access to more power strikes in TE2013, like a baseliner had 4 and a defender 3. Is that the case now? Will a bulldog have less power strikes than a baseliner again?

[manutoo]

Snake Doctor,
1) Settings -> Profiles -> Show Data Folder

2) Yes ; although with Tiredness on, the accelerations are more or less tiring => https://www.managames.com/tennismanager ... ml#3dmatch

[Snake Doctor]

Thanks for that, Manutoo.

A few things from my first twenty-five hours of game time. Hope it's okay to post them here:

Bear in mind, I'm a veteran of TE2013, with 1400 hours in it last I checked, so I'm inevitably comparing it against that, which may not be fair as this is only an alpha. But as TE2013 is the greatest tennis game ever made, I can only surmise that this is the standard by which its successor must be measured.

My first thoughts are: very promising. A lot of what made TE2013 great is here, and I adore the new talent system. I just hope we're going to see more talents down the line. Just spitballing, but things like Sampras' slam dunk; Djokovic's incredible defensive shots and slices, including flexibility (Google "Djokovic splits" if you've never seen it) if the game engine supports such a thing; Nadal's insane topspin revolutions that allows him to push opponents back, most noticeably on clay; bonuses to return percentages, to match incredible returners like Djokovic and Murray, and maybe quicker reaction speed left and right in returns; and so on. Great start, but I think there's more talents that can added later on.

I have tested prime Djokovic with 98 speed, and I have noticed what I consider a small issue. It takes a long time to stop running one direction and turn to run the other, even more noticeably than TE2013, and it's just not indicative of fast and agile tennis players. Wrong-footing is obviously a massive part of tennis, but we've so often seen players going one way, turn instantly, and get to a shot played behind them. Maybe it's my settings, but I have noticed that.

Clay court shots bounce too high in my opinion. I was playing a challenger tournament and this guy with 15% topspin was making the ball bounce like Nadal in his prime. I know balls bounce on clay more than the other courts, but it felt like I was playing against Nadal, and very few people can match the revolutions he gets to get that high bounce.

Serving feels as it ever did. The talents seem to make a big difference to certain serves, as they should.

Volley with the talent for "feel around the net" greatly increases the accuracy of volleys and I like it. One question that I've always wondered: does higher topspin make it easy to convert a topspin lob? I assume it would, but I rarely play with high topspin characters.

Just some thoughts.

[manutoo]

Snake Doctor,
0) yup, this is the place to post comments about the Alpha
And sure, TE4 has to be compared to TE2013.

1) Nadal can have a 100% topspin skill, there's no need for a Talent here. Plus he gets a little topspin bonus from his Bulldog style.
There's a return skill (it's hidden, though, like in TE2013).

2) TE doesn't simulate the new way to stop to run ; it does it like 90's & early 2000's players did it, but better so in term of performances, it's not far if not equivalent to current top players. It might change if I can make new anims to simulate that more correctly.
If you can time exactly what you mean by "turn instantly", providing some video, I'm interested.

3) I just checked the clay and I think it's alright (more or less) ; I guess your opponent didn't hit the ball strongly and thus did relatively high balls, producing a high bounce. (or he was a defender and got a good bonus on his topsin, even with a low topspin skill)

4) Yes, attack lobs are more effective with a high topspin skill

[Lucian86]

Hi Manutoo

Not sure if this was addressed before. Pardon me if it did

I struggle a little bit with movement in the last alpha versions. More particularly with the acceleration. They get off quite late after instructed to do so (by physically moving the player) so makes it really hard to get to some balls, some quite easy to reach I'd say. Wrong footing is a certain condamnation as there's no way to correct the movement to get the ball back.
Not sure if there's an issue here. I can't see either a acceleration parameter to touch (maybe by default it a very low level which we're not used to).

Other than that, the game looks a lot more difficult to handle and I really like how heavy the balls seem now, especially when you're not prepared for a shot. Just like the real thing

[Lucian86]

Another issue is with animations.
The animations start a bit late. The image below illustrates it:



in this case, the forehand animation starts when the the ball has hit the ground already. By that time, the player should have been in a ready position to hit the ball (like in TE2013)

[Snake Doctor]

Manutoo, I've been looking.

So, Djokovic at 1.24 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iTiRvk4FHY. Look at how Nadal goes to wrong-foot him, Djoker realises, and turns instantly, getting back a lob. I concede this is amazingly difficult to replicate in a video game, but it is a possibility in real tennis. And then, at 1.27, he's literally moving left thinking the ball's going that way, and powers out of it to get to the shot up the line. It's otherworldly agility and explosiveness.

Again, Djokovic at 2.02 in the same video. Not quite the same, but watch how Djoker anticipates Fed going either to the middle of the court or backhand down the line, and then watch the instant repositioning of his feet when he realises it's coming back to him. There's no delay. He's got his weight one way anticipating a shot, brain instantly realises it's not going that way, and the readjustment is as quick as it is effortless.

Then, watch Nadal at 2.32. He pushes off to go one way, realises, and then instantly turns the other. In TE4 at the moment, that would be a winner for Djokovic after going one way and trying to reposition for the shot. At least it feels that way for me. There's a sluggishness there that IMO shouldn't be.

You could watch that entire video and see what I mean, but for another perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZSm4QoHZwY

Pause at 4.49 to 4.50. Nadal has started going left to get back to the middle of the court. He's played a short ball and Berdych is coming in to take it on the rise. Nadal's trying to anticipate. He moves left, and then explodes right to get to the ball. Again, even that slight movement in TE4 going one way, even with 99 speed, you're not getting to that ball. But my point is: the best players can get to that ball.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV2s9aSyy9k. And in this one, at 1.30 to 1.31, Nadal once again weight going to the left, Federer blasts the forehand right, and Nadal changes direction and explodes towards the ball and chips it back in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwBCCvWRoFQ. Here, at 3.22, Djokovic going one way, realises, stops on a dime to return the backhand. Again at 3.28, Nadal plays a shot behind Djokovic. Watch how Novak realises, stops, and turns. He doesn't get it back, but damn if he doesn't make a good effort. And watch the entire tiebreak from 4.30 onwards to see some of the most incredible 'explosive' defense ever. Then, look at Novak at 12.31. The movement is so subtle, but he's going left and Nadal isn't playing it left, but he adjusts instantly.

I mean, you could watch the entire highlights of that Djokovic Nadal AO 2012 match and you'll see what I mean. It's the two greatest defensive players in the history of tennis trying to get a winner past the other. And it's like trying to find hen's teeth. It's incredible, almost alien, footwork. And that, for me, is what's missing right now from TE4. I move one way, and there's no chance of getting back, even the most subtle movements.

I hope these videos have shown what I mean. I think we need an explosive agility stat or talent because what Nadal and Djokovic make possible in the real world, isn't possible in the game.