Why is Tennis Elbow so popular ?

[peter27]

I was just wondering why is tennis elbow so popular ?
I do understand it has great calendar, players, photographic courts but when you look at gameplay to me it looks and feels bit like a pong. The rallies are very long compare to real life, players running very fast on court catching almost every ball and once they are on the net its very hard to play ball on the sides as they catch almost everything, Not saying when both players come to the net and there is this incredible quick return of the ball from one player to another

I have tried full ace tennis and feels much more realistic but it seems that it is not very popular as almost nobody playing it. I was just wondering why ?

[peter27]

I played demo and trying to make a decision before buying a full game. That's all.
You go to car shop to buy 4x4 but then you can see that everybody else is preferring exotic cars, so you start thinking.
I am thinking of buying full ace as i think it suits me more. But then TE might be a better option.
Trying to get opinions before making a purchase. That is all.

[peter27]

I have just tried Dream Match tennis demo and I have to say I like it very much as well.
I cannot make a decision now as I am torn between the two (DM or FA).
Fa seems to have great calendar and players (I also like line challenge) but in DM I have discovered a perfect DMT league which I prefer more.
Tell me which one would you go for and why ?

[Fez]

First of all, TE is way better than those other games. Tennis Elbow is very hard to learn, has much depth. You must play longer to understand this. ITs most popular because it is way better. Trust me.

[Lucian86]

gameplay to me it looks and feels bit like a pong. The rallies are very long compare to real life, players running very fast on court catching almost every ball and once they are on the net its very hard to play ball on the sides as they catch almost everything

I think you guys fail to understand how fast tennis is nowadays...really, the speed is not an issue in this game. Let me show you a straight comparison between real life and TE; the camera is almost the same so it catches pretty well the speed differentials:
Real life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6KXbqph2lI

Tennis Elbow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPPjnvIxGJg

Of course, TE is not perfect and I agree that the rallies are little bit longer than real life; anyway, if you play with "elite" controls, you'll have more unforced errors and less shots precision. Unfortunately elite controls don't work so well online because of lag issues and imo volleys shot difficulty (offline as well) which makes it not so fun to play overall.

Tell me which one would you go for and why ?

You can't ask that here knowing that most of the people here play Tennis Elbow !
I've never played Full Ace Tennis (because of my crappy computer); it looks very nice but has some very very bad animations.
Dream Match Tennis was pretty nice while ago but really, it doesn't worth the effort explaining to you why is not remotely better than Tennis Elbow..not in the same league

[Florian]

Speed wouldn't be an issue in TE if it wasn't too easy to make 90% of the shots with the greatest precision.

[djarvik]

We (ITST management) know the creator of Full Ace Tennis. It is a fine game, but lacking animations and a bit of "polish".

Tennis elbow right now is the best Tennis game played online.

DMT is one DEEP game and every ounce as good as Tennis Elbow, but, the lack of support left it behind, in the dust. Kudos to Manu for being so involved in TE.

[Don_]

I don't know Full Ace but TE is actually little better than DMT (I played few years). However both games has their strenght and weakness. DMT = best aim control, you can hit in exact (to the inch) place on court, in TE there are some bigger zones, not so accurate. Its very big advantage for DMT, not only comparing to TE. This causes that DMT will never get you bored.
But DMT has big disadvantages like neverending rallies (no stamina factor), its too easy to defend, not enough variation of shots speed (in other way - you can't hit much stronger than usually, even if you are in good situation). Also if you are in not best situation your shots are better than it should be, if you get the ball in last moment it doesn't make big difference, so you can go back to rallie... Overall this thing + no stamina factor causes that you are not rewarded enough for you good offensive play, so when are playing top players you have too small chance, too small margin for error, to win rallie by great shots selection/movement, only you are losing by errors (who first won't hold long rallie, won't be enough focused/patience). But I am talking right now if we are at quite high level, for most players it is not so noticeable and game is very enjoying. If DMT has support like TE (like Djarvik mention) it would be imho better game. But TE is great too, and right now it is better choice than DMT.

[C4iLL]

I've tried the demo of Full Ace Tennis a week ago. I've actually more fun on my smartphone with "Stick Tennis", which is a terrible game in comparaison to Tennis Elbow.

Comparing Tennis Elbow and Full Ace, it's like comparing a Ferrari to a a tractor. The real question is : why don't these guys offer their service to Manutoo ? They could help them to ameliorate faster Tennis Elbow. With Full Ace, they are so far from TE that it's irrelevant to still work on it ^^

[Elias]

Well, i have to say i can't really agree with this (about FA).

Full ace is a younger game, not mature enough, but in my opinion has pretty good physics and brillant mechanics. FA gameplay itself is more sim oriented in my opinion, less assisted, more skill based and provides more depth than TE wich is more assisted and shows more repetitive patterns, so i think FA in an online competition environment could do very well with more maturity, with more variety in rallies (i can't say about the netcode as i barely played it online though). Manutoo would correct me saying it's more "hardcore" instead of "simulation", though it's more of a point of view / lexical field thing, in my opinion, FA is the best tennis sim out there, gameplay mechanics / physics wise, but the game lacks appeal, thus also lacks an active community.

FA biggest drawback is it's poor appeal, very poor compared to TE, the major one being the animations. With all due respect, the wings animations really put's off many players.. it's way too much robotic and sometimes i even have to laugh watching my char hitting the ball. Immersion is a very important thing, and i think proper animations are a minimal requirement for this type of videogame. I understand that coding and animating are different skills, and obviously Galactig Gaming Guild is not much into animation. They should have hired a good animator right from the start in my opinion. I've read that Manutoo hired some animators services in the past to build TE, it's the way to go when you can't do the things yourself properly whatever the reason is, lack of skills, lack of time, doesn't matter, the result is the most important.

And FA animation is not open to modding at all .. since .. the start (years ???). So .. no possiblity for any free contribution to improve FA major weakness. I mean, some TE modders out there are providing animations for TE that are lightyears better than FA stock animations.. even better than TE vanilla animations .. and Manutoo can even include them in his stock game releases for free with modders agreement !

The most talented of them is probably Lucian, even if some new faces are showing some goodness with time. I can remember that Lucian asked around 120$ to Manutoo for including three characters animation packs into TE in the past (that was i think Federer, Djokovic, Murray, or Nadal). I mean that was the price for custom backhands, forehands, serves, receiving stances, smashes, volleys.. that's a bunch of anims.. And when i see how the quality of this anim pack compares to FA anims, i have to say i can't understand how they can't hire such an animator to make their game better, especially when such price is offered (not offered to them allright.. but Lucian is probably not the only talented animator who could offer such services to a game company).

Off course gameplay, physics are important, but a good game is not only this. you can't neglect animations thinking your game controls and physics qualities are so good they will be enough to draw enough people in. Why using so much effort in realism, gameplay simulation, and neglecting the visuals/animations in such way ? it's a misjudgement and sadly kills the main engine work wich is brillant my opinion. Even Dream match tennis, wich is graphically pretty ugly in comparison, still has an active community after years, why ? he has a rich & intuitive gameplay, and decent animations/movement.

I always thought that FA deserves to keep an eye on. The day this game will have decent animations, being more open to modding, this game will compete with TE, or simply take over the hardcore simulator segment (dmt is good there but the game has poor support and pretty crappy netcode), TE is pretty assisted in comparison and doesn't offers enough flexibility allowing to customize his control scheme/assists to build a so called 'hardcore' mode providing the depth i'd wish to see, regarding movement & shots freedom; but maybe we can expect to see some improvements in this area in the next TE4 (wich should launch around 2015).

For now, for all these things, TE is indeed playing in another league and currently the better choice, also because TE community is alive, you can always find peolpe to play online, two online tours, ITST and MG.. More casual gameplay, easy to pick up, but still providing good enough depth and sensations. Not to mention TE regular updates and sustained support from the game creator (Manutoo).

[C4iLL]

When I play TE, i've the feeling to be on the court, hitting balls as the real players do. When I play Full Ace, I've not that feeling at all.

It's actually extremely frustrating and not fun at all : the characters are as heavy as if you would weight 100 kilos, the mechanisms of the gameplay are weird and not natural to hit the ball. Except the graphism motor and perhaps the physic which seems realistic, it's really bad.

In TE, the fact your shots may land in a zone that can evolve regarding different parameters is the best idea any tennis game invented. Because, in real life, you aim for a zone, but you can't really be 100% sure everytime the ball will land exactly where you wanted. I really think this little part of randomness is great.

Other great thing in TE is the variety of shots : you charge but you can also counter, you can aim the lines, take a lot of risk and put everything outside (you loose the match) or everything inside and you crush your opponent. You can be skilled, but nothing goes in on a specific day, because of other reasons : pressure, lack of precision etc.
Sometimes you can then be in "God Mode" and be a steamroller. This is awesome I think and it's due to the specificity of TE.

I mean, there is an incertainy in this game that cannot be reproduced. It's just perfect for competition.

The only BIG issue in TE is the net play. Definitely, there should be NO AUTO POS AT ALL at the net to assist the low skills guys that can't anticipate. The jump is a good idea but I think, it would be more natural if the speed of the character would just be drastically increased when he's at the net. So you wouldn't have to jump, just to run to catch the ball (and without helper which automatically direct your character toward the right place).

[Don_]

The only BIG issue in TE is the net play. Definitely, there should be NO AUTO POS AT ALL at the net to assist the low skills guys that can't anticipate.

I think there should be no auto positioning at all... Maybe TE would be closer to DMT in this matter.

[Fez]

gameplay to me it looks and feels bit like a pong. The rallies are very long compare to real life, players running very fast on court catching almost every ball and once they are on the net its very hard to play ball on the sides as they catch almost everything

I think you guys fail to understand how fast tennis is nowadays...really, the speed is not an issue in this game. Let me show you a straight comparison between real life and TE; the camera is almost the same so it catches pretty well the speed differentials:
Real life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6KXbqph2lI

Tennis Elbow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPPjnvIxGJg

Of course, TE is not perfect and I agree that the rallies are little bit longer than real life; anyway, if you play with "elite" controls, you'll have more unforced errors and less shots precision. Unfortunately elite controls don't work so well online because of lag issues and imo volleys shot difficulty (offline as well) which makes it not so fun to play overall.

Tell me which one would you go for and why ?

You can't ask that here knowing that most of the people here play Tennis Elbow !
I've never played Full Ace Tennis (because of my crappy computer); it looks very nice but has some very very bad animations.
Dream Match Tennis was pretty nice while ago but really, it doesn't worth the effort explaining to you why is not remotely better than Tennis Elbow..not in the same league

Excuse me but just watched the vid links. How did they get andy murray to do different celebration graphics? He does the karate thing! And the crowd sounds seem different from default! How I get this on my itst mod? Was this sam's patch or something?

[C4iLL]

@Don : of course I agree, no auto pos at all as you said would be even better But at minima, at least the net !