Brisbane International (ELITE-TRIAL)

[Algo4]

Thought I'd open this as I just finished playing (and losing) my first match of the season against Spencercarlos.
We agree that we didn't feel much of a difference between elite and simulation controls, maybe because these lower skills that ITST characters have balances that out, what makes me feel that MG will be ok too despite criticism

Will check if I recorded it but don't think so. I did take a screen of the stats tho




PS: seems like there is a difference, this match had 3 times more errors than first match of the pic which was played in sim, although none of these (except maybe 2 or 3) were 'strange' or uncalled for.

[VMoe86]

Maybe a couple of more things that are interesting:

1. How was serve/return balance? With the new update the aiming precision on serve with Elite controls was lowered, which should balance well with return of serve precision. Was it on the same difficulty as SIM controls? Easier, because serves were less precise?

2. Did more errors happen on short accelerations? It should be the case, but such confirmations would be nice.

3. Length of rallies: I see that 18% of rallies were long, which is a realistic stat for Fed vs. Fed on Plexicushion. Did you have the impression that rallies were shorter with Elite?

[spencercarlos]

Maybe a couple of more things that are interesting:

1. How was serve/return balance? With the new update the aiming precision on serve with Elite controls was lowered, which should balance well with return of serve precision. Was it on the same difficulty as SIM controls? Easier, because serves were less precise?

2. Did more errors happen on short accelerations? It should be the case, but such confirmations would be nice.

3. Length of rallies: I see that 18% of rallies were long, which is a realistic stat for Fed vs. Fed on Plexicushion. Did you have the impression that rallies were shorter with Elite?

1. Serve was ok, but i saw more errors on returns (but when i tried to hit them B1+B2 so i guess that is ok), i made several and Rodrigo also made tons of errors on forehand returns but dont know how he tried to hit them.
2. Yes more errors happened on short accelerations, there were a couple that i had the point set up but found almost the middle of the net. But in general game play from the baseline is more or less the same...
3.I have no idea would have to test more, but yeah normally with Federer you look to finish points quick so..

[Marco_Theo_81]

Marco_Theo_81 ( Ruggerio Federizzi ) def. Dakra ( Antonio Murrotti ) 6:3 / 6:2


My last tournament with Ruggerio. Was able to play more with inside out this time. Was a good teaching playing against Rogael, a great inside outer!
Dakra with Murrotti was very quick and deep with his returns.

First set the score was 2:2, in the 5th game I was able to break him and score to 4:2 and later 6:3 for the final result in the first set. I tryed also to play variable with volley, but in Elite modus it feels so hard to execute. But I repeat I am not that good in volley. I can fisnish a volley, when the opponent is in trouble with a angled shot, and his return is slow. These are situations, where I can finish the point at the net.

Second set I was quick leading 3:0, one break. Then Dakra brought two times his serve at home to the score 2:5, the 8th game then again a break for me for the final score 6:2.

I like Elite, I play now exclusive in Elite modus against the cpu or humans opponents. I think, so I can improve my positioning and bring the new abilities in sim modus too.

I also noticed, that now the spin effect on the serve isn't so drastic like in 1.10.
Sometimes when you try to return with acc the UE increase, but maybe higher skilled players do not notice this particulary.

The errors were higher yes, sometimes a match is decided because of the errors and not because of the winners. So the errors dictate the way a match goes. But also here I have to say, that the statements of the big champs here are more significant.

You have to manage well the acc shots, because of the lower stamina, so yes the rallies are shorter, this is an aspect, I really appreciate.

Don or C4Ill, I wait for you

ciao ragazzi

[C4iLL]

Regarding how Llodra's volleys animations are extremely weird now, I'm not sure I will win one more match with him...

[Rogael Naderer]

Rogael Naderer - Cerji 7-6 2-6 6-4

All I can say is I was incredibly lucky coming from 2 breaks down in the final set.

I will do a detailed match report later tonight talking about elite controls along with screenshots.

[C4iLL]

Ouch impressive results to beat Cerji, congratulations !

[Rogael Naderer]

Ouch impressive results to beat Cerji, congratulations !

Thanks

Ok since I promised full match report here you go:

Full Report

Rogael Naderer (Djokovic) - Cerji (Verdasco) 7-6(5) 2-6 6-4

My first try at a match report. I have a poor memory so had to watch the dmo. I am not a native speaker so ignore any mistakes

Firstly, I would like to say that I am not too fond of playing against lefties simply because I am not used to, I have trouble in reading the lefty serve and crosscourt spinny forehand so facing Verdasco was a challenge for me. Moreover it was my first online match with elite controls and my first match on ITST tour so I was slightly nervous and started cautiously without taking much risks. My initial plan was to avoid his forehand and keep the ball to his backhand for the most part.

Set 1 - I am quite an average server and I noticed he had a fairly good ROS which was very deep. I faced 5 breakpoints in my very first service game (in total 9 or 10 deuce games) but managed to save all by taking initiative of the point on 4 occasions out of 5 and managing to get a deep ball while defending on the other occasion. In my second service game he had another 2 breakpoints at 15-40, I got lucky on one breakpoint where he made a simple volley error (hello elite controls ) but on 30-40 he played a well constructed point and made a great short acceleration backhand winner to draw the first blood.

He was managing to hold quite easily on the other side and I was still trying to figure out his serve. I was managing to get it back but it wasn't deep to trouble him (just around service line) so he was aggressive enough and whenever I tried to get in the rally on his serve he mixed up well using short slice and short cross court backhand (mind you its not easy to hit short angles in elite ). This changed at 4-2 where he played a slightly loose game and I managed to get up 0-40, 3 break chances to get on serve in the first set. I managed to convert the first one where he made a volley error at net to break at love making it 4-4 each. Then all of a sudden conditions became slightly tuff as ping started jumping from a stable 235 ms-240 ms to 300 ms and since the delay was tailored for a lower ping so it was tuff for me and him to handle. I was luckily able to dodge 3 break points in the next game and we both somehow held till 5-5. At 5-5 ping was still jumping and I didn't want to risk crucial games at the tail end of the set so I asked him if I could rehost, he told me we can continue later so we stopped at 5-5.

We continued from 5-5 after 2 days since I was busy with stuff. By the time I had played my other match at a challenger so I was slightly more confident now. From now on conditions were stable throughout till the end of set 3.

We both started out solid on our serve. I was slightly more aggressive than that day. We both held till 6-6. In the tiebreak, I won 7-5. It was close but I managed to keep my nerve and got a decisive error from him on return to seal the first set in my favour 7-6 (5). I can say I dodged a bullet in the first set and got slightly lucky as his break point conversion was 1/10. Part of it was me being clutch, part of it was me being lucky and him unlucky.

Set 2 - Since I got the first set, my initial thought was to be I should be slightly more aggressive and should swing more. My basic plan although was still the same i.e. to keep the rally ball to his BH 75-80 percent of the times.

We both held till 1-1. I also noticed he was also being more aggressive (much more aggressive than me) and was taking the ball fairly early. In my second service game, I played a loose game with some wild errors including a sitter at net and he broke me to love. But I broke immediately in next game with a lucky shot at break point where an off centered shot touched the baseline for some reason.

Although it was 2-2, I could sense his level was going up, he was returning deeper, going for his shots and moving me from side to side standing close to the baseline. He broke me to go up 3-2. He maintained this level throughout the set and broke me once more sealing the set 6-2. I couldn't do much, I was trying to be aggressive but pulled the trigger at wrong times. Running acceleration shots in elite controls against high spin wasn't a good choice but I didn't realise this yet. His bp conversion ratio was better in this set i.e. 3/6 while I had 1/1.

Set 3- Momentum was clearly on his side and I was still bewildered as to what happened in second set. He broke me in the opening game to love. He seemed to be holding fairly easily. I got a few 15-30 30-30 chances but no avail as either I was pulling the trigger at wrong times or he managed to get a deep ball. He broke me once again to go up 4*-1 on his serve with a double break advantage.

I hadn't given up but my intensity was down so a result I wasn't able to be that aggressive. In the mean process I was trying to vary my tactics a bit because I was being very predictable. I didn't do anything special but for some reason he played an average game at 4-1 so I got a break back at 4-2 and boy was I pumped. By the time I had recognised that outhitting him will only lead to errors. I cut down on short acceleration angles, mixed in few short slices (not usually a fan of short slices normally tho), started going more to his forehand.

Although he was still a break up but I could also see he was getting slightly frustrated (just a guess i might be wrong ) as he clapped on his own error at bp. When I am frustrated while playing TE, I answer it by aggression so I thought he might do the same and will swing hard and try to end the point quickly so I decided I wont try to paint lines and try to keep the ball in middle, not extremely middle but not very close to the lines. Everything started going my way. My shots started going deep and I got 3 break chances at 0-40. he saved 2 but I converted the third one where he sprayed a forehand short angle wide after 34 shots.

It was 4-4 and it was still anybody's match. He got to 0-30 but a timely ace (a rare occasion for me ) rescued me and I was able to hold to go up 5-4* with him serving to stay in the match. Momentum was on my side now. Everything started clicking, my average return which wasn't so deep throughout the match started landing on his baseline now leading to his errors. A forehand short slice error at match point sealed the deal for me.

It wasn't a very high quality match but neverthless it was enjoyable. Did Cerji choke? Maybe, maybe not. I didn't do anything special to win in the final set, just one of those matches where things started going my way for some reason and momentum switched, maybe you can call it luck. Thats what tennis is about

Nice to play with you Cerji. Although he clapped a few of his own errors but more or less quite a fair player. Pretty sure he would have beaten me had it been Nadal instead of Verdasco. Good luck for the rest of the season

Stats for second and third set --> http://tinypic.com/r/x3b7tk/6 and http://tinypic.com/r/nqnyhv/6

Stats for first set
Till 5-5 --> http://tinypic.com/r/2lkbolc/6 and http://tinypic.com/r/egbew0/6
After 5-5 --> http://tinypic.com/r/24e2h4y/6 and http://tinypic.com/r/166n71t/6 (Subtract 4 aces each here as I hosted 1 extra game by mistake)

Comments about elite controls - Frankly I don't like it, coz it forces me to play safe. Some points :

1. Short acceleration is a very tuff shot in elite controls, unless you are in perfect position, you would error.

2. ROS, in simulation I do an acceleration shot on 2nd serve, here it can lead to an error so I don't do that and do a topspin return.

3. This doesn;t affect me much but it affects people who take the ball early on 2 hander , its very risky in elite so one may tend to avoid it and prefer safe shot.

4. Running acceleration shots (one of my favourite shots in simulation), same as above, if you are in a bad position you would error so makes sense to do a normal strike or topspin strike.

5. Net play. My net play is quite poor but not poor enough to putaway floating no shot volleys. The few times I and my opponent approached net in this match, we failed to putaway a floater volley. More reasons to play safe from baseline than attacking.

6. Serve - Haven't played elite much to comment on this aspect.

So in my view I think elite controls promotes pushing. Arcade is way too easy so simulation is a good balance.

Wow this took almost an hour to write, will try to be brief in future

[C4iLL]

Interesting report indeed. I have exactly the same opinion as you about elite controls : it definitely kills creativity on the court, you're just waiting errors from the other side.

Personally my match against Don_ was a real nightmare of approximately 1 hour and a half.
I think I've never experienced such a bad tennis experience in a video game since Yannick Noah Tennis on Playstation.
I recommand nobody such a suffer, even to my worst ennemies...It was so boring that for the first time since I play on ITST in both TS4 and TE, I thought to leave the game before the end.

I then really advice the staff to watch the whole match because what I will describe can't totally reflect all the issues. I indeed made more than 75 unforced errors in 3 sets.... I think that in Simulation, I reach this amount of errors in like 4 or 5 matches with Llodra ! Just to precise : we had a great stable ping of 90 ms troughout the whole match.

So what's the problem ?
The volleys are completely random : always outside the court since the very first points of the match. You put the racket exactly on the ball, sometimes the ball is okay, sometimes completely out or sometimes just goes on the soil without any reason. And you can't aim at all, because it's way to sensitive. It was really insane ^^

So I told myself : you want to win or loose ? If you want to win, you must stay on the baseline and try to beat this Djokovic, with your poor Llodra only on the baseline.
Even if Don is a beginner, I was totally enable to dominate him from baseline with Llodra troughout the match because I could not hit a single cross court in. In Simulation, I often use these Cross Courts with Llodra, especially on BH.
Because of this, I was just able to moove him but it was not sufficient at all to hit winners.

So I just push the ball on the court, always trying to make him faults with acceleration but without aiming for lines, because when I did that, it was often out.
And as he spammed lobs, I came to the net and close points with smashes (48 smashes lol). This explains the high rate of points won at the net (more than 50%) whereas in fact, I have not won a lot of points by hitting a volley.

So here is how to play Elite mode with Llodra :
- NEVER going to the net
- NEVER do a cross court
- Rarely return with acceleration on a second serve
- Rarely or never aim lines with normal acceleration
- No problem with service however.

I have to say that this is only true with Llodra. I played with Gasquet afterwards with Elias, and it was better. But once again, the net play is too sensitive, and you make too much faults that are just not logical (green racket...). Concretly, you have less choices, and finish a point at the net become a kamikaze act.

Conclusion : this Elite mode Match was not tennis, it was an extremely simplificated vision of tennis which was not only boring, it was a real torture. I've lost 1h30 of my life ^^

[Algo4]

if the tour was to change to elite, maybe players should have a bit more consistency and precision to make it more playable.
Volleys are definitely an issue, but e.g I played a match in regular TE in realistic + elite and I didn't see anything wrong with that.

[VMoe86]

The difference between TE Vanilla in Realistic + Elite is the AutoPosition. As standard, the AutoPosition is set to Average in Realistic and Fair Mode. In the ITST Mod we use Free Mode where the AutoPosition can be set. In the ITST Mod we have Elite + Slow AutoPosition and this leads to Short Accelerations being very difficult to hit or to more Volley Errors. Personally, I liked ITST Mod + Elite + Average AutoPosition and suggested to have such a Test Tournament (the feeling there is close to that of ITST Mod + Sim + Slow AutoPosition, but you have some more errors).

Higher Precision wouldn't make much of a difference, since Precision is relative to Power, i.e. only Precision minus Power matters (90 Power and 90 Precision is as good as 70 Power and 70 Precision regarding aiming), and our Precision minus Power is pretty good among the roster.

[Elias]

Indeed, despite i always liked Elite myself, i always thought that the net game was the most impacted area of the game in this mode. Aiming at the net is probably too much sensitive in Elite, feels more penalizing than most other areas of the game (baseline, cross courts accels, lobs).

[Martan]

so elite is just for boring basline defending players? I have to agree, I like to rushing the net but its almost imposibble to get more than 50% of success at net with elite

[C4iLL]

Marco (Fed) vs C4iLL (Llodra), Quarter = 7-6, 6-3.

I thought Marco would write something but apparently not, so here is the report
Globally I felt a bit better than during the first match who was a nightmare to play. I don't know if it's the ping (40 ms instead of 90 vs Don) but it was funnier.

Despite that, I made 48 faults during the 2 sets and even if I was able to create more on the court today, I still don't like playing this Elite mode with Llodra because it's extremely limited and because volleys don't react logically.
In my opinion, Marco was also far from playing his best tennis to beat me.

First set : he quickly led 4-1 and 40-15 on his service. He asked me if I had an issue (lol), I answered no, and suddenly I came back, 4-2, 4-3, 4-4. Don't know what happened, he began to do more faults etc ^^

I went to tie-break, which I led with one break in advance. But with always these random volleys, I finish to loose it like 10-8 or something.

Second set : Regarding the condition of the Elite mode, the useless come back I did and the frustrating loss of the first set, I was really not motivated in the beginning of the second. Result : he led 5-0 ^^
At that moment I told myself "why not trying to get back to 5-5 and win the set, it would be funky".
I came back to 5-3, but Marco finally managed to finish the match, which was totally deserved

[Marco_Theo_81]

Hei C4Ill

Weekend was family day, that's why I couldn't write the report.

The key in this match was, like you said, your many errors at the net. I was surprised, how quick I led 4:1.
The crucial point was the situation at 4:1 and 40:15 for me. You remember? Freezing screen for maybe 20 seconds, after 10-12 seconds I controlled under my desk my modem, if anything was all right. During the ceck, I heard 40:30 from the judge. I said to my self, ok, C4Ill, would give me back that point for sure, despite it wuold be 5:1.... but wasn't so. 40:30 for my wondering. And from there I lost everything regarding concentration. 4:1 --> 4:5.
Consequence: very close Tie Break in my favour.
But in life everything comes back, you remember? 4:1 for you in Tie break, you hitted a volley winner and exactly in that moment resynchronisation. Then I wrote, the point should be yours, but also noticed that point at 40:15, 4:1. You agreed and from there on I was concentrate again. The gap was filled.

Thanks for the match and your report C4Ill. In sim modus, the score could be another one. But it is always a pleasure, to play against good friends on ITST!

Well, in elite modus I learned, how important it is, to have a perfect positioning. I can implement this in sim modus too. That's why I like elite. But also have to say, that errors, many times UE, decide over winning or losing.
In TS4 UE were rarely, in elite TE they are match decisive. Just wait, your opponent do some errors from its own.

Maybe when players like Alex, Florian, Cerij, Moe and other champs here play in elite, we can see more winners than errors. Cause these guys are not programmed to hit errors...

Djarvik, thanks again to have extented the deadline. Now the semifinal against Spencer is possible to play.

Spencer, when I see at your results.... brrr.... a little bit fear is existing...
But Ruggerio is ready of course!!