HUGE DISCOVERY!! TOP 15: Is this what you use?

[Uchiha Muss]

My question is about how to run on the court and this was pretty big discovery for me. I gotta thank Richie for that because I learnt it from his replay of Rome Masters. If you know this trick please confirm so I can know that I'm not the only "weirdo". Richie was constantly going up and down so I tried it myself and found this.

The situation is I've been playing for 4 months and there was this weird thing that would make my player move automatically towards the ball. It was like a gravity assist, I would literally feel that my player is swaying. I'd watch replay of that point and pull my hair on "How the hell did I just do this". In the past I tried to imitate CPU because I preferred it. 3 days ago I remembered the advice from Butcher that I should watch top player's replay. So I watched Richie vs Vmoe in 1/2 slow motion and I figured out this:

I'll try to explain it as cleanly as I can. This move kinda requires that you should be moving all the time. If you ever stop it's not that good but no-one is stopping you. So what I do is, I will move back or forward when the ball is coming at me. Now I practice with previews on so right now I can use it 80% offline and maybe 15% online. I'll get there eventually. The point of preview is my player always gets gravity assist ONLY when i move back/forward towards the green area position. You know the one which tells you where to hit from to get perfect accel strike. The basic idea is:
1. You shouldn't be moving left/right
2. For low short accel you always hit up button because the green area will be inside the court.
3. For top spin or deep shots you hit down arrow, because the green area will be waaaay behind the baseline.
4. If you do it in right time you will definitely feel the auto-move yourself.

Long story short this is very helpful if you didn't know about it. Don't dismiss it as a drunken discovery. With this trick I was able to keep up with wawrinka and I was slow big Monfils. In the past waw would eat me alive now I can fight back.
Obviously I'm still not good, my return is so so, my shot selection is poor, I still lack experience.

Can anybody confirm that this is real? Does anybody else use it?

[VMoe86]

There are a couple of things moving you automatically:

1. AutoPosition: No need to explain, it is in effect when you are holding a shot button and it makes the last little steps in positioning towards the ball.

2. Inertia: Even when you have stopped holding the direction key, inertia make you move further in that direction. So, it is useful to use inertia to your advantage: Used properly they give you more time to charge your shot.

3. AutoStep Back: Introduced in TE 2011 v1.0f (see http://www.managames.com/Forum/topic15-9021.php).

- Gameplay : the new Auto-step back feature makes you start to run in the opposite direction a tiny bit faster ; this is especially useful if you use a gamepad that is slow to change left/right direction, but has low effect for players with a good keyboard (2)

- (2) : with a good keyboard, you need around 30-50 milliseconds to press the left key after stopping to press the right one ; with a gamepad, this time can go up to 100-150ms ; and with a joystick a lot more than that ; the Auto-step back considers you start to press left just after you unpressed right when the ball is going to your left (and vice versa from left to right) ; this feature makes the game more fair as it removes a disadvantage of playing with a gamepad

[Uchiha Muss]

There are a couple of things moving you automatically:

1. AutoPosition: No need to explain, it is in effect when you are holding a shot button and it makes the last little steps in positioning towards the ball.

2. Inertia: Even when you have stopped holding the direction key, inertia make you move further in that direction. So, it is useful to use inertia to your advantage: Used properly they give you more time to charge your shot.

3. AutoStep Back: Introduced in TE 2011 v1.0f (see http://www.managames.com/Forum/topic15-9021.php).

1. Nope not autopos, because I can do it without pressing any button. I know what auto-pos and yes it still helps to hit when stopped. On the run? no.

2. Inertia. This is actually interesting because in the past I would make a foot fault when I ran too much and tried to run in the opposite direction right away. It still applies. But with this little tricky trick, my players suddenly stops and turns himself around very quickly. That's just crazy.

3. Auto-Step back. This is probably what that is. You can do the same by going forward for low balls but yeah the principle works the same way.

Would be nice if you answered the title. Do you use it? do you know what I'm talking about?

[VMoe86]

Well, you watched Richie against me: Did you notice something about me? AutoPosition and inertia everyone is using to their advantage, with AutoStep Back I don't know. AutoStep Back is active all the time, when you are in movement. However, I noticed sometimes players making left/right movement after they have stopped, as if they want AutoStep Back to trigger. That's something I don't do (at least not consciously).

[Uchiha Muss]

Well, you watched Richie against me: Did you notice something about me? AutoPosition and inertia everyone is using to their advantage, with AutoStep Back I don't know. AutoStep Back is active all the time, when you are in movement. However, I noticed sometimes players making left/right movement after they have stopped, as if they want AutoStep Back to trigger. That's something I don't do (at least not consciously).

I've no idea how you played. I just waited for some good rallies where richie won the point. I was looking at his feet all the time. I don't even know how you guys played. Took me well 25 minutes until I started noticing that he just kept going forward and back. At first I thought he just wanted to attack closer but realized the ball would land deep and retreated.
His point was to go closer and attack if the ball was short, or he could get that Gravity assist I'm talking about.
I don't think he's gonna reveal his secrets publicly but you Vmoe can ask him and confirm if he's using it for your own good.

[J. Grilo]

I can agree with Uchiha. I tried it yesterday too, moving all the time and sometimes i saw really a boost. It is really enough to move just a little to get a "love tap" or something like that. But in my case, i just move to the left & right, not up & down. Maybe that explain, why many of my dropshots aren't good enough for really good players and why i have problems to get them sometimes.

[Uchiha Muss]

I can agree with Uchiha. I tried it yesterday too, moving all the time and sometimes i saw really a boost. It is really enough to move just a little to get a "love tap" or something like that. But in my case, i just move to the left & right, not up & down. Maybe that explain, why many of my dropshots aren't good enough for really good players and why i have problems to get them sometimes.

You bet your ass I'm right. As I said your problem is that you don't move up and down. I told about how you should always move towards the green area with previews on. You know that ball is not gonna be the same height every time, therefore green area is somewhere behind you while you just move left/right. G.Dimitrov confirmed my hypothesis as well.
Of course it works. The problem is "being able to identify green area when previews are off". That's the biggest obstacle.

Dropshot is a special human skill. You can't just do good ones during fast rallies because you don't know how or when to execute them. It'll come to you someday just wait and play.

BTW. It's not that you should always be moving, that's too resource consuming. When you have the advantage chill, have a cup of coffee just play on. No need to stress over that you should never stop.