Tennis Elbow Tour. What direction to take?

[djarvik]

Hello fella ITST-ers!

It brings me great pleasure to announce to you that we have decided to pursue the Tennis Elbow Tour for ITST. After a few lengthy discussions, we have chosen two ways for our future tour. Below you can see the out line for both.

We ask you to please vote on the poll and express your opinion in this thread. These are the two directions we have, we will make a decision based on community feedback. Please argument yourself regarding your choice, think "long-term", "longevity of the tour".

Tennis Elbow is a current game with a full support of the developer who is very much interested in supporting the game and improving the game for years to come.

I thank you for your time and effort!


Roster of Current Pro Players
ITST would make and maintain a patch available for download for our members, which will include pre-made, balanced and tested players. Current ATP pros like Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Juan Martin DelPotro....etc. We would start with a roster of about 32 and will add pros later on, as requested by community or as the need arise. The tour will require you to pick a player for each tournament and stay with him throughout that tournament. You will be able to pick a different player when entering a new tournament. This will allow us to balance players on the fly and will allow for more realism and variety on the tour. It will also allow our draws to display players name for even more strategy and match-ups.

Rules for Creating Players
ITST would devise a limitations to certain stats and place the rules for these in place. We may revise rules from time to time if there is a need at a later stage. This will allow for more creativity when it comes to player creation but will slightly reduce the variety and match-up as most competitive players will tend to build the stats around the most effective game-play plans. We won't be able to utilize our draws to show the next opponent's player of choice.

If you have questions about each direction, or if you need me to clarify certain things, please do ask before making your choice.

- djarvik

[beltic caldy]

fantastic! delighted to hear - have only just started belting the ball around - liking it so far

[Ugadalou]

You're right thinking long-term about this tour and the only option is using a roster by pros created by you guys.
After a while,there will be a few dominating set-ups and the tour will be repetitive and boring once again.Same setups using the same tactics to prevail.
Plus there is no ATP-Pros tour in ITST at the moment which is quite exciting.Especially if you find a way to make it balanced and not narrow it down to the top 4 being competitive.For example someone who wants to use someone like Benneteau will not be overpowered by Nadal.

[ILuvBillVal]

Gulbis?

[djarvik]

Gulbis?

Is scheduled to be the first player made. Correct.

[SlicerITST]

Im an avid fan of going for slowly implementing rules for creating players. Im not dismissing that at one point a roster of players would be better. But at the moment we just dont know enough about the game yet. Are we actually preventing something from happening that is a problem? Someone mentioned that things will get repetitive fast. You are making two assumptions:

1. That this game has no chance of having a balanced character build up. And so only a few character builds will be possible.
2. That having 1,2 or a few more possible characters will ruin a tour. That wasnt the case with for example Top Spin 1.

And if we go for a roster i would never go for pro players. Just makes no sense to me.

[VillaJ100]

How is the player creation on this game though slicer? If it is stat based everyone will stack power, strokes and serve.

[djarvik]

Im an avid fan of going for slowly implementing rules for creating players. Im not dismissing that at one point a roster of players would be better. But at the moment we just dont know enough about the game yet. Are we actually preventing something from happening that is a problem? Someone mentioned that things will get repetitive fast. You are making two assumptions:

1. That this game has no chance of having a balanced character build up. And so only a few character builds will be possible.
2. That having 1,2 or a few more possible characters will ruin a tour. That wasnt the case with for example Top Spin 1.

And if we go for a roster i would never go for pro players. Just makes no sense to me.

I'll try to answer. From a personal level, I feel like the game is made for the Set roster. There are so many options even within the Stroke that it would be a shame of putting a stagnant limit on all.

For example we have for each stroke: Power, Consistency and Precision. If we were to make the rules and limit these say to 90, most ITST players would be trying to maximize these. We would lose so many variations of the Forehand and Backhand. We would lose the Big Powerful but very inconsistent Forehand that Gulbis has, extremely Consistent medium powered but lacking precision Nadal's Backhand, Murray's inconsistent forehand, Federer precise powerful but inconsistent Backhand...and so on.

Through creating a roster we can ensure that these wonderful nuances are translated well into the game.

This is just one of many advantages in my opinion. We need more feedback from you guys. If you unsure about how the game works, or treats certain aspects - please do ask. I'll take the time and will attempt to explain.

Pro Players name is the "life of the party". This is the topping that makes this ice-cream taste so much better!

[SlicerITST]

Like i said before, you guys might be right and it might be the way to go. I cant really judge the character creation yet as i have no experience with this game. That being said, im sure that goes for most of the ITST players. Im just saying we should look at it very carefully before potentially wasting time setting up the roster.

Ill give my opinion about it in a week. I bought the game this evening and that should give me some time to be able to scratch the surface enough to give my opinion on this matter.

Oh and Al, will you handle the "**** idiots, player x is all wrong" threads?

As for Gulbis, im pretty sure his ranking would not merit an inclusion any time soon.

[djarvik]

LOL

I will handle the threads about the pros in question. That's a great point though, people will argue about it. But I think such arguments cam be a welcomes addition, as long as the kept civilized and actually drive a point. Of course sacrifices will have to be made, we cannot Make Federer a god, but what we can do is make sure other guys have a chance. Lets face it, the biggest difference in the TOP 50 now is mental, talent-wise difference is not significant enough and every player has something to offer skill wise. Thankfully, the game breaks down the stats and adds a layer of styles to allow us to interpret the roster better.

Gulbis is poised to win a GS this year!
(in ITST tournament, navigated my me)

[djarvik]

How is the player creation on this game though slicer? If it is stat based everyone will stack power, strokes and serve.

Here is a glimpse:

Characteristics' Influence:

Forehand & Backhand:

The higher your power is, the stronger you hit the ball, especially on the normal strike, the topspin and the accelerations.

The higher your consistency is, the more you can strike the ball in a difficult situation (low, fast or high ball) without accuracy handicap.

The precision skill is relative to the power one. For example, having 60% in power and 70% in precision will give you as much precision in your strikes as having 30% in power and 40% in precision.

Therefore, the more your precision is above your power, the less time you need to prepare your strike to make it accurate. And the more your precision is below your power, the more time you need to prepare your strike to make it accurate.

1-handed vs 2-handed strikes:

Compared to the 1-handed forehand & backhand, the 2-handed backhand & forehand are :

a bit less powerful : you hit your strikes with a bit less speed
a bit less wide : you have to go closer of the ball to strike it
a bit more safe : you get a bit less handicap by striking balls in the orange and red part of the Danger Zone, so often, your shot is a bit more accurate
better to counter powerful shots : you get 15 more points in your counter skill

Service:

Like the forehand and the backhand, the service precision is relative to its power: having 80% in power and 70% in precision will give you as much precision in your serve as having 50% in power and 40% in precision.

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.

When you serve using b2, you have 100% chances of success ; the speed of your serve depends of your power, and the difference between your power and your consistency.

When you serve using b1, you do a serve between the b1+b2 & b2 ones. If your power and your consistency are equals, then you have 85% chances of success.

The average maximal speed of your serve depends mainly of your power:
Power Percentage | Average maximal speed

0% | 140 km/h 87 mph

25% | 160 km/h 100 mph

50% | 177 km/h 110 mph

75% | 196 km/h 123 mph

100% | 215 km/h 136 mph


Volley & Smash:

Depending of the strike you do, the Net Presence skill is combined with the volley forehand, volley backhand or smash skill, to define the precision and the consistency of your strike. The power doesn't depend of the Net Presence.

Except that, the volleys & smashes work like the forehands and backhands from the baseline.

Moreover, the higher your Net Presence is, the more you can run while striking the ball without getting any handicap.

When you play at the net, you need to have high volley skills if you want to strike winners that overwhelm your opponent. Also, the normal strike at the net is only a ball pushing, which often will be too slow to be out of your opponent reach, even if it's well placed. If you want to do winning volleys, you should use the acceleration, but only on easy balls, i.e. not too high, not too low nor too fast, else you might do a fault.

Lob & Dropshot:

The lob and dropshot skills define your ability to do lobs and dropshots, but each skill is balanced with the skills of the forehand or the backhand, depending if you're doing a forehand or a backhand.

The higher this balanced skill is, the more you'll keep the control of the fast incoming balls, being able to normally execute your strike, without sending the ball too long.

Counter:

The counter skill is the ability to use the incoming ball speed to send it back faster. So the counter skill gives you a speed bonus of up to 7.5 km/h on your normal and topspin strikes when the ball is coming really fast.

Moreover, the higher your counter skill is, the less you are constrained by fast incoming balls, but the slow incoming balls are also a bit less easy for you.

Topspin:

The topspin is the effect from down to up given to the ball by the racket during the strike, which makes it spin quickly on itself. Topspin balls have more curved trajectories, with a higher and quicker rebound which forces your opponent to step back. But beware, the topspin has very little effect on fast surface, especially on grass.

The higher your topspin skill is, the more you will give topspin on your strikes, especially with the normal strike, the topspin strike and the acceleration. A topspin ball gives more accuracy on length, but it loses some gross speed.

Speed:

The higher your speed is, the more:

your maximum speed is high
you accelerate quickly
you do big jumps at the net

Height:

The smaller you are, the more you accelerate quickly. But this bonus is very small, just big enough to compensate the difference of wingspan with taller players, so that it doesn't give a handicap to play with a smaller player.

Stamina:

The stamina defines the maximum number of accelerations you can do before they lose in accuracy and power because of the tiredness:\

Percentage | Accelerations + Aggressive Lob
0% - 24% | 1
25% - 49% | 2
50% - 74% | 3
75% - 99% | 4
100% | 5


Play style:

Depending of your play style you choose, you'll get different bonus and handicap.

Defender:
- unlimited attack lobs
- 1 extra acceleration
- topspin bonus on the topspin strike
- lower handicap on length and speed of topspin strikes
Power Baseliner:
- 3 extra accelerations
Puncher:
- 2 extra accelerations
- slightly bigger jumps at the net
Varied:
- 1 extra acceleration
- bigger jumps at the net
Volleyer:
- really bigger jumps at the net
Counter :
- unlimited number of regular acceleration, but the power is sharply lowered, especially on slow incoming balls ; the counter skill is used to give additional power depending of incoming ball speed
- some Counter skill effects raised
- can play the ball ealier after the bounce with less penalties
- bigger jumps at the net

Note: when Tiredness is on, the extra acceleration bonus means your accelerations are less tiring ; also Counter style acceleration is tiring as a normal strike.

[C4iLL]

Personally, I think that the best idea is to create something like ATP Tour. But it must be as balanced as the roster is in TS4 : every characters has their strength, everyone one can beat everyone and are funny to play with.

I mean : don't do the roster as in Sim where the players are a little more balanced than in the pro roster, but have worst stats comparing to the regular tour. It can kill some parts of the game by lowering stats.

I think that starting from the stats of the pros in TS4 would be a good basis even if it's not the same game.

ex : Federer is not as good as in real life in TS4 but he's balanced, as Djokovic, Murray and Nadal (his skills are overpowered not his stats).

[L Sanchez MD]

Gulbis?

Is scheduled to be the first player made. Correct.

Can you confirm this?

[eliomelma]

And if you create 2 tour as in top spin4? The first men singles with created players, and the second for example men singles PRO, with pro players created and balanced ( substitution of SIM tour ts4)

[C4iLL]

Yep the 2 tours could be nice as well