movement online matches

[Rusty96]

Hi,
I recognized that all good players online seem to move so much better than I do. Even when I hit very hard shots very accurat they seem to get everything, obviously anticipate every shot correctly. When they hit average baseline shots I in contrast to this feel unable to do move even close to that well so they hit winers so easily. I know that there is AutoPos for return of serve though it is set slow as I play with ITST Mod. Still return is quite difficult for me. Is there any trick for movement in general?
I feel like I do the absolute maximum possible in terms of movement but despite this I have no chance to win because of the movement. I play this game for hundreds of hours now but I don't get how these players can move like this.
Has anybody the same problem or can somebody who knows how to move well help me, please?

[C4iLL]

Learn about tennis theory, its territorial aspect, geometry things, it can help you to reposition yourself better in TE. You could also watch videos of top players on youtube, and watch closely what they do when they are not hitting the ball (or on serve service).

The key is to reposition as quickly as possible in this game, to be able to charge more your shot to reach more precision & power. So if you're late, it's not good, except if you master the art of the Counter Shot (--> tap the button at the very last moment instead of doing the classic "charge the button + release").

Globally, when a ball you receive is short, you should come inside the court to shorten the time you let to your opponent to reposition himself.
You must always be focused on the deepness of the shot you receive and constantly adjust your position regarding the baseline (if you're in defense, you should go a few steps backs from baseline, if you're in attack, you should be close to baseline). Stuff like that !

[Rusty96]

The thing is i know how to position in real tennis. I watch a lot of tennis and play pretty good myself. My problem is simply that I have major problems to anticipate where the opponents shot is coming. Despite watching the opponfnts motion all the time I just can't see it early and additionally it feels like my players would be slower than the ones of the good opponents allthough I play with pretty fast players.
I play this game for a very long time now and feel like I do everything possible but movement is so much worse than the opponent's ones.

[djarvik]

Don't listen to C4iLL

Want to move and position better? Forget about trying to replicate real life tennis and learn the movement patterns of the game. Learn what works best and when your player feels faster. For example moving slightly back THEN to the side will propel your player much faster towards the ball then simply moving to the side.

There are quite a few "moving patterns" in TE that are unique to the game. Each situation requires a certain movement pattern. With time this will be done automatically, unless you are like me and Real World tennis movement is engraved in your brain....then you are doomed.

[Rusty96]

Can you tell me all the "moving paterns", please?Or give a link to a tutorial?

[Elias]

Don't listen to C4iLL

Want to move and position better? Forget about trying to replicate real life tennis and learn the movement patterns of the game. Learn what works best and when your player feels faster. For example moving slightly back THEN to the side will propel your player much faster towards the ball then simply moving to the side.

There are quite a few "moving patterns" in TE that are unique to the game. Each situation requires a certain movement pattern. With time this will be done automatically, unless you are like me and Real World tennis movement is engraved in your brain....then you are doomed.

Yeah, i would second this, unfortunately it's not only a matter of pure moving skills, but also how to notice how works the passive "helpers" (aka auto step back for instance) wich moves and propels your char giving some slight boost in the right direction. Some people are using the game inner mechanics better, even of course if it's not the only thing making a difference, some people are simply better at moving (a great pad user using analog sticks perfectly is imo stronger in the long run moving on the X/Y axis and diagonals, wich is an important aspect for instance).

See how your char moves alone without hitting a key sometimes ? ugly thing eh ? (the poorest thing i ever saw in a tennis game by the way, an algorithm ment to "think" instead of you, removing controls from you, for the sake of the "looks" or keyboard vs pad balance, wich was not needed, the result being more an exploit than anything else). Well, try to "use" it, trigger it, it's like surfing on waves, try to get on the wave at the right moment If you get on it at the right time, and the thing triggers, you get some sort of acceleration "stacking" to your movement.

[Rusty96]

I don't get this slight boost. I tried very long just to move up and down and then left/right but I don't have any boost. I play with playstation 4 controller and move with analog stick...Is this a problem?

[Elias]

Well, i guess this "wave surfing" thing is a bit foggy explained like this. Fact is, it's a bit difficult to explain a feeling, about feeling the movement patterns that "works"', and even if i'm myself a decent mover, i'm not the best at it.

Anyways, don't take this as some secret holy grail, there is no such secret weapon that makes someone above the melee, really, most very good players are where they are because they are skilled/gifted using their controller, and because they have a deep experience of the game.

If any, about these movement patterns, and movement "following", i think the best advice, or more explicit one, would be to say : try to stay always in movement, never really standing still, not stopping, even if for this you have to use the slightest little step. This negates a lot the inertia effet in several situations.

For example, you are running to the left, your opponent drop shots behind the net on the right side of the court. If you change direction straight away to the right, you will get full blown inertia and will be screwed, most of the time, in this case, i would move in some sort of circle, upward circle, up/left first, then up, then up/right, then right (adjusting to get to the ball), that would not look natural, but using this trajectory, my character would continue his run without slowing down much, and that would work only if i didn't stopped my char when i was running toward the left on the court behind the baseline from the start of this action, not stopping = keeping speed and saving run acceleration time.
I's just a specific situation example, but wich can translate to other situations or help getting a grasp with understanding some beneficial movement behaviours.

[C4iLL]

I don't want to make it personal guys, but this is what I told to several persons here when they started and their levels drastically increased once they applied what I mentioned here. The main problem of the beginners is that they mainly don't reposition well, and don't slide from a side to another correctly (as in real life... Sorry Djarvik ).
They remain static once the shot is made, which is the biggest error (a few guys in top 20 still did this mistake when I stopped in august...).

Everyone in top 10 applies what I mentioned, except one guy, Pidzi. No one had perhaps perceived this before (or ar least stated it publicly), but he had a very special way to deal with repositioning, certainly due to his intense training with AI.

I don't know if he forced himself to do that, but his pattern was the following : he remains on the side where he has just hit the ball, and he never moved into the other side of the court until the coming ball has crossed the net.

Even if he let the court opened after a shot down the line, he generally never moved beyond the middle of the court, he remains more or less down the line ; and he starts running on the other side, if he sees the ball flying on this side, when it has just crossed the net (more or less).

Whereas me and other guys just reposition, most of the time, at the middle of the opponent possibilities in terms of angles (which sometimes gives option to wrong foot for the opponent).
I figured out this fact when there was a VMoe-Pidzi (involving a Davydenko and a streaming on Twitch) like, 1 year ago. The difference in the repositioning approach was really spectacular
This is the key to beat the higher level of incredible levels, and to dominate the tour. I don't advice to play like that first, because it requires to master the classic approach first... And it's not really natural at the end, except on clay where the ball is less fast, and where there are more wrong foot.

[Rusty96]

So it is no problem to play with ps4 controller and use analog stick for movement?
I think you misunderstood me, my problem is not that I can't dominate top players. My problem is that because of footwork I loss all matches 0-6 0-6 against the top players which is really no fun.
So moving up/down and then right/leftvis not correct?
I tried to keep moving all the time but still really don't get to many balls. Maybe somebody of you could play a short match and maybe could tell me after what I do wrong?

[Elias]

So it is no problem to play with ps4 controller and use analog stick for movement?

Well our n°1 Richie uses this controller with analog stick so i guess there is no problem using it

[djarvik]

I don't want to make it personal guys, but this is what I told to several persons here when they started and their levels drastically increased once they applied what I mentioned here. The main problem of the beginners is that they mainly don't reposition well, and don't slide from a side to another correctly (as in real life... Sorry Djarvik ).
They remain static once the shot is made, which is the biggest error (a few guys in top 20 still did this mistake when I stopped in august...)

Nonsense in this case. The guy clearly told you he has a good understanding of tennis and re-positioning. The new players you speak of are the ones that have never played tennis on a decent level. These are the ones you need to explain to "how" to re-position in respect to the opponents position. What OP is asking is complete different and something I struggle with as well - the actual movement in the game. ...to which you pose no answers or suggestions. I think Elias post is a good start for him, after that you just need to explore a bit more or maybe ask for a concrete situational questions, as it happens in the game - and hopefully the opponent can put it in words for him.

You may have helped improve the game of guys that are simply not "real life" players. They may have been and are great at pushing buttons on time, but without knowing the game they were still behind. So here you come and tell them - "hey, you know what would be great? ....if you would position yourself in a certain way". That hardly qualifies you to make "real life" arguments

Simple fact is, as Elias described, TE movement is vastly different from real life tennis movement. Looking at the TV screen and the TE Screen is deceiving, as C4iLL illustrates perfectly. We may see a similar result on both Monitors, but the steps to be taken to get those results are quite different.

For example in real life, a player constantly does split steps. They are done so you can balance yourself before incoming shot or serve. By doing so, you are able to quickly push off either foot to the right direction. In TE - you need to constantly be moving. Running backwards in real life, then right, then forward again (circle) will cause you to simply lose your balance and is a very slow movement pattern. Another example is diagonal movement and keyboard (maybe doesn't apply in your case) - in real life I can move at ANY diagonal angle - while in TE it is near impossible to do so: you have left, you have right, and you have the 45% angle......getting a 70% or 30% is impossible, unless you start quickly tapping left-right buttons and up down, to sort of "trace" the pattern.

....the list goes on and on..... Treat TE movement, actually, the whole package as a game, as a Street Fighter if you will. Learn the "combos", learn the way the game "works" and then use that to replicate a Tennis Game on screen. Once again, abandon your real life correlation all together, think of this as a combo: left+left+lef+up+B1 - Hold - down+right+right+b2 - hold......etc

To me, there are 3 types of players and the reasons the struggle:
1 the button pusher
2 the tennis players
3 the button pushing tennis player

#1 is a great "gamer" but has little understanding of tennis, but no worries for him as a simple 10 min course on how angles and preposition works will make him really good. C4iLL is an example of such player.

#2 these players have a clear understanding on how tennis works, but they have no idea how the game does. They mostly struggle. djarvik is an example of such player.

#3 these are tennis players that are great gamers at the same time. They are usually the best. Pidzi would be an example of such.

These are just main 3, but of course that are the in-between types.

With that said, your best "teacher" would be C4iLL. His mind is not cluttered with "real life" stuff and while training with him he will be able to explain you better on what needs to be pushed and when, as long as he spares you of his attempts to correlate to real life.

[Rusty96]

Concerning your combos " down, right,right,..."...I play as already mentioned with analog stick and I always consistently hold left or right and recently tried to move shorly bck/up/ and then consistently hold left/right until i hit the ball. So I have to tap left/right/up/down always only shortly and repeat this all the time?

[djarvik]

Concerning your combos " down, right,right,..."...I play as already mentioned with analog stick and I always consistently hold left or right and recently tried to move shorly bck/up/ and then consistently hold left/right until i hit the ball. So I have to tap left/right/up/down always only shortly and repeat this all the time?

You dont have to type, but you have to release direction and then press it again to aim. That works better then simply running and then adding the shot button.

[Rusty96]

So I have to release the analog stick short before the opponent hits the ball and my player makes a step in the right direction and I can then consistently hold the stick to right/left?