Challengers, Futures and Pros.

[djarvik]

I decided to make a public thread about it as I feel this questions needs to be viewed by all, to better understand how things work on our Tour.

Hi mate, I don't want to talk about this on the forum because it should not look as a complain.

I just think that ATP 250s are very undervalued because of challengers and futures. I mean, looking at the last month (and even before), that most players ranked 25-50 prefer to join challengers, being sure to reach at least semifinals, instead of "risky" 250, where they can lose early. You saw that we even had to merge two different 250s a few months ago.

We are unable to let two 250s start with a full 32 draw (meaning 28 players or even 24, cause the first four/eight have a bye), while signups for the next challenger starting on Monday are almost closed.

I think there's unbalancing in challengers, cause some players among the "top 15 best forms" are just dominating there, scoring insane win/loss records, and even being able to reach great rounds in Grand Slams and Masters 1000. On the other side, 250s are a too big fight, as even the top seeded guys have to fight against great players since the first round, instead of being able to warm-up with the first match.

At the end, after challenger signups are closed, the guys who are unable to join them will signup for 250s, causing another unrealistic feeling. I repeat, this is not a complain, I want to be helpful for the community, so I can suggest something:
1) Make challengers 50+ as real ones, because players like sedas, butcher, vramvrim, tdbchess, and the challengers current dominators) should not be able to join challengers, as their level is way good enough to compete in 250s/500s and even beat some top10s;
2) Creating some "reverse wild cards", denying some outsiders with still bad ranking (like alexjasmins, clog, richie when they were not ranked high) to join challengers, forcing them to sign up for 250s and more.

Hope it can help. I think that 50+ challengers are still enough to have a full filled 16 draw.

I understand your concern, but I disagree a bit. I will explain why.

First, the way we make the cut-off for challengers and futures are based on participation within the ranking system. So if we cut off the challenger ranking at 50, it will not be filled at all. But that is not the point why I think you thinking about it all wrong.

The only two competing for sign-ups are Challengers and Pro. As Futures start on a different date and are an Addition to the tour events, a warm-up for new players and an escape for players who don't play well yet.

Right now, Futures are the most popular place, for many reasons:
- They start on different day
- They have little points
- They offer a chance to win 1st round to ANYONE

It is easy to see why most people who qualify - prefer to play them. It is also true to life, as there are more "less talented players" than there are talented. Add to this the fact that EVERYONE wants to win once in a while - and the answer is clear. Keep in mind, a lot of players prefer a win to a "higher point" count. It helps their confidence a great deal. It also helps ITST as confidence = desire to compete more. But at some point, they will out rank themselves from Futures and will be forced to choose Challenger VS Pro.

Here is when it becomes interesting and clear who really desires to climb the ranking ladder, who is out there purely for Ego Stroking, and who is simply not confident enough, yet.

The point difference for the SF is 29 VS 90. That is a lot. SO players who opt to play Challengers on weeks where there are 2 x 250 are really missing out. These weeks, challengers should be filled with low ranked players and a few players who are looking for some confidence after a few losses.

Lets examine the next weeks situation:
GUADALAJARA Mexico 25+
Martan (61) - Could play 250 this week, is on Challenger level.
ddotson (54) - Should be playing 250.
Dakra (62) - Could play 250 this week, is on Challenger level.
Vieira151 () - Future/Challenger level.
Uchiha Muss (98) - Should be playing 250.
zaid137 (85) - Future/Challenger level.
Jeepers () - Future/Challenger level.
leonmonstroso () - Future/Challenger level.
perrera vamos (47) - Should be playing 250.
Goroger1 (36) - Should be playing 250.
HAASy () - Future/Challenger level.
PaNcHuLoAlBo (128) - Future/Challenger level.
danmasino (65) - Challenger level.
Megadam () - Future/Challenger level.

Out of 14 signups, I would personally suggest 2 players only to play the 250 event: Uchiha Muss and ddotson. Both players in my opinion could pass the first round and get into QF. The rest of the guys who "should" be playing 250 are in need of "confidence wins" and are on losing streak of sorts.

So to me, this Challenger does not look bad at all. So knowing that, the main reasons for 250 draws being slow to fill are:
- general lack of sign-ups, we need more players.
- holding off sign-ups till the last day to pick the weaker field
- not liking the clay surface

Bottom line, I think we need more players. We are gaining slowly new players, but some also do not stick around. It would be interesting to hear the opinion of the ones who decide to not stick around and provide the reasons "why?". I think we have a very nice welcoming tour for the people who just starting up, Futures are our most popular circuit right now and I see almost everyone getting an occasional win. We need however for some of the 3-4 Future titlists to grow a pair and go play with the big boys. We are working on a possible CAP for Future titles VS participation.

Anyway, the reason I made this posts public is to get opinions, suggestions, involvement. Please voice your feedback guys, but try to avoid the "you should to this" suggestions, try to stick with what are your impression of current scheme and caps.

[C4iLL]

This debate is really interesting ; theorically I'm a bit okay with Inseedious opinion, but I haven't read the whole Djarvik's argument so I won't develop that tonight.

What I wanted to write is about the "Why people don't stay ?" and why we slowly grow. In fact, after a little marketin campaign on the vanilla servers, I discover one simple thing we all forget : there are players who just don't like the ITST mod.
They have generally two critizices from what I saw :

1) Too much aces due to the no preview
2) Exchanges too slow, inability to finish points

Maybe there are other reasons, but what is sure is the mod is not unknown and it seems there are some people who installed it but prefered playing without.
Now I really think there are farrrrr more people who like it, than people who don't like it

[Fez]

One basic way to get people to stay is to create a more friendly environs. This whole "noob/outsider" culture among online gaming nerds is absurd. ITST isnt too bad, but the feeling still exists. If the goal is to grow, all should be more patient and helpful. More inclusive. Even initiating assistance would be a novel endeavor. Actually trying to help others with the tour and the game itself. There are few out there with this attitude. But most have a very short fuse when it comes to helping and listening.

As an example...see replies to this.

[C4iLL]

I think the idea of academys can be great : top players become like mentors for some newcomers and organize practices, matches, advices. It's already the case, but it could become more official

[Uchiha Muss]

inseedious is kinda right. My examples are sedas and tdbchess. Just look at sedas. He won 5 futures and lost 2 finals. Who did he lose to? Tdbchess. Which brings us to our next player. Tdbchess simply dominates challengers, and he doesn't simply join them. He joins the ones with 100 points for the winner. As expected he's sure to win them. Again look at this:
http://www.intertopspintour.net/content ... +-3497.htm. He's in final, and 3 of us can't defeat him at all (djarvik, pigrosofo, me). His logical thinking is spot on. He lost at Miami and he joined challenger. But really? Why can't he just play where the top 20 is. (he's also in the top 20, race rank).

In my opinion make the challengers 40+ and futures 50+. And then you'll at least have full 32 draw for one tournament. Some have retired so that works out very nicely. These numbers are not based on anything. Just my 2 cents.

As for djarvik's point, he is also right. From the list of 14 players, I defeated mostly all of them except ddotson and I haven't played goroger yet. But then again I joined that Guadalajara 2 weeks ago. Back then I was almost worthless. I only made my progress in the last week. I'm also starting to think futures are becoming worthless for me. Like the bot @Brainless says on ITST: if it's one point why am I even playing then?. Seriously I win 1 point, next round I fight for 2. That's ridiculous, now I think about it. But I've already joined the future tournaments for the next 2 weeks so...

Why do players dislike ITST tour? Someone told me it's a big hassle to set up your matches.

[C4iLL]

I think the reverse wildcard is the best idea after having read all the opinions : the host of a tournament should suggest a player who is too good for the draw to cancel his sign-up. The first people who haven't anything to do in challengers were Michael D and Spencercarlos ; afterward it was AlexJasmins, now it's Sedas and perhaps Tdbchess.

If the host has a doubt about a player, he would just have to ask someone on the chat or a veteran who can' help him to judge the level of a specific player who would kill the interest of these challengers.

[inseedious]

I can understand why a little part of TE players dislikes ITST: we are too about simulation, according to someone. I think ours is not a game for hardcore gamers, but for tennis and realism fans. We should aim to abtract players from tennis forums, etc. (instead of Managames tour), and to do some good advertising, because after a great advertising, the growth will be exponential. 99% of players won't dislike ITST TE after discovering it, and will suggest their friends to try it. Also some google advertising or some youtube strategy should be a great time and money investment.

[djarvik]

Money is one resource we don't have. This whole operation is being financed mostly by our personal time investment.

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=438787

I have tried tennis forums and other places, but TE is a bit unique. It is both: Has a huge learning curve and SIM friendly. Which doesn't play well with a LOT of people out there, most of us are looking for instant gratification and most tennis fans that play recreationally - looking for the same thing.

But more marketing is definitely the key.

[inseedious]

We can try to make a new video, cause our most popular one has our old graphic, animations and overall settings. In fact, big part of the dislikes are caused by the first impressions. With some good marketing and help from the entire ITST community (especially the members who already have some experience on youtube, like elio), we can reach at least 50k views on youtube, or even create an ITST channel to gather lots of followers. I honestly casually found ITST, otherwise I'd never discover it without an aimed searching. I think viral video is the way.

[inseedious]

Sorry for double post, but I can suggest to make a 1-2 minutes video not showing particular situations, but average ones. We can pick some from this list, for example: a rally ended with a baseline winner, one ended by an forced/unforced error (net and/or out), one showing an ace, one showing a good net approach, a serve and volley one, one showing a passing shot winner. We should give the potential newcomers the impression that this is a very good simulator, with totally realistic situations. We need to explain it well, because they can't try our mod with a demo version, so they will likely think a lot about it before spending some money (for example, WoW gives a few days/levels of trial, otherwise most players wouldn't make a subscription without having played and tested the game). I think this is another very big limit to newcomers. We can try to ask manutoo to make our mod installable on demo version, for example denying them to have access to multiplayer functions till they buy a full version. This should meet his interests, as a new player in ITST is also a new one in TE.

[djarvik]

Well, it's hard to disagree with you here.

I think our main marketing point should be the wonderful Future and Challenger tours. Lots of action and lots of titles to be had. These tournaments usually fill up fast. Once people get better they can graduate. We have to keep in mind that not a lot of people have the time to chase rankings, but they do want to play and participate, and more importantly WIN at times. Hence such a great participation on these lower ranked tours. We have something unique here, we can build on that.

If anyone else has ideas about how to bring ore people, please voice them, and more importantly - act! No need to wait.

[pigrosofo]

Tdbchess simply dominates challengers, and he doesn't simply join them. He joins the ones with 100 points for the winner. As expected he's sure to win them. Again look at this:
http://www.intertopspintour.net/content ... +-3497.htm. He's in final, and 3 of us can't defeat him at all (djarvik, pigrosofo, me).

Uchiha, really I beat tdbchess in our first match, so talk for yourself!

[Uchiha Muss]

Tdbchess simply dominates challengers, and he doesn't simply join them. He joins the ones with 100 points for the winner. As expected he's sure to win them. Again look at this:
http://www.intertopspintour.net/content ... +-3497.htm. He's in final, and 3 of us can't defeat him at all (djarvik, pigrosofo, me).

Uchiha, really I beat tdbchess in our first match, so talk for yourself!

See that's just a cycle. tdbchess defeated me once, I defeated djarvik one time, djarvik defeated you few times, you seem to won the match against tdbchess.

[C4iLL]

Tdbchess lost 6-0 6-2 vs Inseedious just to stay in the challenger tour

[Waynebo]

I think a mentor program would be helpful in this case. I've only been playing TE for about three weeks, transitioned to ITST last week thanks to C4iLL dropping in on a vanilla game and discussing with me the glory that is Ernests Gulbis.

My issues are so far:

- Finding players to play exhibition ITST games while I figure out the best player that works for me. There are only a few players who are willing to play (and destroy) me. I am in the USA and find myself waiting upwards of 30 minutes for games and this is compounded by my low ELO (mid 800, which was around 1200 before I discovered ITST ) . Unless I'm mistaken, there's no way to play ITST mode in single player except for the match/practice components with a very weak AI player. This limits the ability for me to practice and figure out who works for me.

- Suggestions for improvement after the match. With no mentor or anyone to observe what I'm doing wrong, I have to look at my own game and try to figure out how to improve. Is it usually just a matter of experience (being able to time and hit DTL shots 100% of the time? Getting used to a player?) or strategy (optimal shots that I am not taking). I am at a loss at times when I feel like the matches are close, but not quite sure what I'm doing wrong. I know I'm quite shit at returning serves (like if it's gonna be 130+ and gonna hit a line, I'm not gonna be able to return it even using auto-pos trick), but I have very little idea on how to improve this.