My findings/bugs/tweaks etc so far/wishlist

[djarvik]

Well, I have to agree that even IRL it is difficult to hit a shot out.
I mean, look at this rally for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LAVrnQ9tOY

Nothing but cheesy drop shot and lobs! Horrible tennis match!

[TomBs]

Well, I have to agree that even IRL it is difficult to hit a shot out.

When you play a double do you really think it's difficult to hit a shot in the double alleys ? lol.

No, that wouldn't be out.
And you might want to read on

[TomBs]

Well, I have to agree that even IRL it is difficult to hit a shot out.
I mean, look at this rally for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LAVrnQ9tOY

Nothing but cheesy drop shot and lobs! Horrible tennis match!

There should be a game made of it, it's where the ts-cheesers can play.

[Elias]

Well, I have to agree that even IRL it is difficult to hit a shot out.

When you play a double do you really think it's difficult to hit a shot in the double alleys ? lol.

No, that wouldn't be out.
And you might want to read on

Ok, so a tennis game where you can't hit out is a good sim in your opinion. I just don't agree. To me this sounds arcadish virtua tennis like just having to hit left or right is not anything near aiming.

[TomBs]

I stand by my point. And you didn't check the vid, did you?

[Elias]

Hopefully TS4 is about Tennis not badmington

[KDZaster]

That's like having a baseball game where you can intentionally throw it into the crowd rather than the players. And that it's not a good sim unless you can.

[Elias]

Most unforced misses in real tennis are not 5 meters misses or ball throw in the crowd, but more like some centimeters out due to the amount of risk taken to paint the lines, it happens because it is physically possible, obviously

[djarvik]

Is tennis even a sport?

[venom400]

Gameplay experiences:

Capriatifan wrote :

* Serving is too big, especially if you have high stats on serve and power combined with extra serve abilities, there's way too many aces if you play against someone who knows how to place a ball. Even if you can still win these matches, they are NO fun to play. I would like it if 2K got rid of the extra serve skills or if they would just make it WAY harder to exactly place a serve on the lines, make it so that even the best servers can only get to about 65/70% if they go for the big serves on the line, also second serves hit with this much "risk" should even be harder to make.

-Serving is counterable , if the oponent is hitting big ass serves , then learn to predict and take a chance , you can't just sit there and react with the big servers , I beat a guy with the berserker trait by just trying to mind read where he was going with his serve , the moment he started his motion i would start running , this awarded me a lot of double faults and if i guessed right I would hit it back and try to start the point , hit the ball with top spin deep on one of the corners and switch it around to keep the oponent guessing .-


* Too much power; if you play someone with 90+ power, there's not a whole lot you can do about that. I think that it should be a bit toned down and also make people miss way more shot if they go for a power shot from difficult positions on the cout. Now if you can just get to the ball it's always possible to go full power and almost never miss a shot. Make this harder for difficult to reach shots please.

-sure there is , keep it deep ! and wait for the right moment , if you hit short balls then expect to get killed by these guys.-


* Lobs too easy; lobs get almost never missed, even if you try to hit it from an almost impossible position, which is too unrealistic. Please make the timing harder on this.

-like someone else said lobs are easy in RL too , but the trick is a good aproach shot , most of the lobs against my serve and volley character land on my head or out , not nearly as bad as Ts2-

* Angles are too sharp; I do like the idea of being able to hit angles to move your opponent out of court, but hitting balls that arrive very hard to you with you standing behind the baseline, it should not be possible to hit shots that are almost floating parallel to the net, this just can't be done in real tennis and though this is a game, please a bit more realistic.

-angles are ok , hit it deep and don't give oponents angles , if they go for the angle then punish them by hiting a winner -

* Fatigue should play a bigger part; now there is too much recovery, especially in 3 and 5 set matches the player should get more tired if they have low stats on stamina. Now recovery is too big and you don't get punished enough for having low stats on that part. Also, especially if you play the CPU, even though they don't have any more gas in the tank they still get to almost impossible to get to balls. Just make it so that you CAN reagain fitness, but only by tanking or making the rallies shorter.

- This I do agree , there is no way a guy is completely out of stamina and keeps hitting huge deep shots without missing with only 50 stamina , stamina should be like a clock , when the clock runs out anything but a perfect shot on a big power shot should be a frame and sent flying out -

* adding the lob volley, not in the game yet and would be a nice addition

-true , but it would add to a lot of cheese , I would only support it if it is realistic to pull off (although even in real life is easy lol)

* More errors; with bad timing you should miss more balls. Now I realise this will scare away the more arcade/ Virtua Tennis players, so maybe add a SIM option or something

-no the mechanics are fine , part of the reason why Ts3 was a fail is because it was too hard the game is fine on this sense -

* Footwork glitch (already being worked on so no further explanation needed)

To sum it up, just want a more balanced gameplay; when 2 players of the same quality play against each other 10 times with both having players with different styles/strengths, both should win about 5 matches. Any style should be able to beat any other style.

-the only week type of game right now is defensive but doable , serve and volley is extremely strong if played right ,. I went on and defeated tons of cookie cutter spec players that had berserker serving and full power , it was a close match but I pulled it off at the end in a tight tie breaker-

Other aspects (maybe for Top Spin 5)
* much better Move implementation -as long as my character doesn't stop moving when I want it to move is fine as is, but of course it could also be improved-
* animated ballboys -good idea but its just eye candy-
* linesmen ducking away when balls get fired at them-this I have seen them do already in game-
* Challenge system-this would be fun , but only if they added a random bad line call system , but I'm all up for it-
* true to life service motions from pro players-more types would be awesome-good idea , we need more types of bacjhands and forehands too-
* Save replay option-good idea-
* More stats (fastest serve/ average 1st and 2ns serve, slowest serve etc)-good idea-
* breaking strings (if you play a lot of top spin shots for example they should break more easily), with you being forced to move up to the net to end the point-changing rackets would be nice with different tension on the strings to add power or control , but popping strings I don't know how this would add to the game lol)
* Ability to turn off the auto swing/auto movement-autoswing is fine ,and a life saver , just fix it when the player auto swings when you actually tried to hit -
* add Wimbledon and other real tournaments-licensing issues mostly , the ATP are a bunch of money mongering idiots which is why is hard to be able to watch a match on tv in the first place


Tell me how you guys think about this or add your own remarks/ideas!

-some good and some bad -

[jayl0ve]

Is tennis even a sport?

It is a Hobby invented by European Ladies to entertain them while their husbands knit them sweaters

[v_x_m]

From the matches i have played so far, I think the use of R1 button is ruins the gameplay.
Currently 9 out of 10 matches in WT, the opponent press R1 on every shot and return without comming to the net.
Why? because they react (zoom in to perfect position) despite of speed or reflex ratings, hit harder and with better angles, no rhythm, no footwork, just running and hit with one foot.
In my opinion the auto-position functionality must be disabled, and if u hit R1 without coming to the net the player should penalized with very slow reactions.

[MJordan23]

If we're choosing a sim option then you guys would complain about serving even more. If the opponent got a 135+ serve into the box, your chance of a good return against in at all would be null.

There would also need to be slight visual cues that signify where their serve is going / what type, based on ball toss position, meaning the serve stick wouldn't work, since you have to decide on what serve you're gonna hit before the toss. This should the case for everyone but Sampras, Federer, and Joker... maybe Becker.

You'd barely be able to get it back in at all. At 138+mph even if you get to the ball, anything but a perfect or good timing should result in you missing the shot 80% of the time. First Serve should fail 30-40% of the time on principal. The more important the point is, the harder it should be to get the first serve in, and the slower your second serves should get... with of course the exception of certain players who'll have a *clutch* modifier as one of their attributes.

Intentionally miss a shot out? This is a sport where you can just not swing at the ball to lose the point. There's never been a player who tries to flub a shot on purpose. SIM Mode would mean if the shot was early or late you whiff. You want to miss a shot? Do a late power drop shot, should miss every time.

You guys don't really want what you're asking for.

Nobody is asking for a perfect SIM. Just some tweaking for more realistic gameplay, or simply an option to have more SIM based games. A lot of shot is missed in tennis, forced or unforced. Stats like 75-5 winners/UE-ratio simply doesn`t exist IRL, even Federer at his very best would come anywhere near those numbers.

I`ll be fine if 2k don`t do any tweaks to the gameplay, I enjoy the game very much. But for an even greater lifespan, an option for SIM-based gameplay would be fantastic.

[venom400]

From the matches i have played so far, I think the use of R1 button is ruins the gameplay.
Currently 9 out of 10 matches in WT, the opponent press R1 on every shot and return without comming to the net.
Why? because they react (zoom in to perfect position) despite of speed or reflex ratings, hit harder and with better angles, no rhythm, no footwork, just running and hit with one foot.
In my opinion the auto-position functionality must be disabled, and if u hit R1 without coming to the net the player should penalized with very slow reactions.

The penalty of the R1 button is stamina drain , but stamina doesn't help much if they can still get to every single hard to reach ball regardless of stamina , .