A new vision for the ITST Mod ?

[C4iLL]

After the very last debate launched by Spencercarlos on the Australian Open thread, I began to think about the mod, and this never ending debate of "realism". I wanted to write something there but I think it's better to open a new thread.

Regarding my experience with the game, I'm finally against one single thing : creating too much gap between what is called tier1 and tier2. Contrary to popular beliefs, it's indeed not realistic at all and I will demonstrate it here.

Even if the ATP results show the top4 globally destroy the other top guys, if you watch their matches it's absolutely not the case : the exchanges are often long, close and it's just on a few points the best players win.
The examples are extremely numerous : the close matches of Djokovic at RG last year vs Seppi and Tsonga where he was really close to loose, the match of Wawrinka vs Djokovic at AO 2013, the defeat of Del Potro vs Chardy in 5 sets and so on... And even when the top 4 wins in straight sets, the top 20 competes and bring them into long rallies.

Today with the current spirit, this is obvious : if you create Seppi, everybody would give him 70 on his wings, just because he's ranked n°17 and has a bad head-to-head vs the top4. What will be the consequences ?
Every guy picking him will loose 6-0 6-0 vs a good Djokovic or Nadal with no chances to hit winners.

Is it realistic ? Not at all ! Would it be fun to take Seppi ? Not all ! Is it then useless to create Seppi in such conditions ? Yes sir, absolutely ! Same thing applies with Goffin, Badghatis, Isner, and the big majority of the roster.

For me the difference between ATP top4 and top20 is indeed not technical, it's mainly mental.
Gasquet in training, Ljubicic said he has the level to be top5 or better. He can potentially play at Djokovic's level but its brain/mental is just not at the level... Everybody know, that a guy from the ATP top20 could raise big issues to the top 10, if he is on a good day.

So this is my proposition : why not imagining an ITST mod where finally, Gasquet, Wawrinka, Tsonga, Ferrer in good hands, would be players that can win a gran Slam ? With a great brain, these guy would deserve that ! And the brains, that would be us on this ITST tour ! The ITST tour should not be a copy : but an alternative reality.

How to translate this in the ITST Mod ? Technically speaking, all the characters of the roster should be close, as in reality. And us players, would be the "brains" of the players, the mental which make the difference.
A specialist of Wawrinka or Gasquet could then be able to take 2 sets vs a good Djokovic and even win. Currently, it's almost impossible because the gap in terms of stats is too big.

This was about the "realist" part. Now about fun... Recently I had the feeling that it was quite impossible to hit a winner with Gasquet vs a good Djokovic.
You not only know you will loose before the match, you are also frustrated by the ability of your opponent character to catch everything despite beautiful shots on lines. What's the point to play in such conditions ? You're not rewarded at all despite your great level !

So to sum-up : it's not realistic, it's not fun, it's frustrating and it kills the diversity of the tournaments.

What I suggest is to offer a mod where finally, the top4 have just a few advantages that give them like only 5% more chances to win against a Davydenko, a Badghatis or something.

Instead of creating a big hierarchy through the characters, let's just the ITST members create themselves the hierarchy. Let's just give them the keys. If the n°1 ITST use Nalbandian, fair enough, what's the problem ?
He deserved to reach the n°1 spot, nobody can contest that as the stats would be approximately the same for everybody. Maybe in real life, if Nalbadian would have a great mental, a great coach/team around him, he would be n°1 !

If the ITST tour stays as it is, a frustrating copy of the ATP Tour with a written hierarchy already determinated by the results of the real ATP Tour through the characters stats, in long term, it will become boring : everybody will pick the same 4 characters, the matches will always be the same with less diversity and everybody will stop.

If the ITST Tour becomes an alternative reality of the ATP Tour, with the premise that every player of the top 20-30 have aproximately the same physical and technical level, but differences in terms of style, it will be far more interesting and exciting to play.

ps : I don't suggest to give everybody the exact sames stats. I just say for instance, that not a single character should get any stats that make him innefficient to hit winners in the roster or to catch difficult balls.
For instance, Wawrinka deserves the best BH, Tsonga maybe the worst, but the difference between them should just be about 8 or 9 points, not more. Why ? Because in a good day, Tsonga can be great with his BH (remember the elimination of Fed vs him). If you give him 70 in BH, he has no chance to hit a winner regarding the speed of Djokovic. A Tsonga user will then definitely never produce winners with his BH vs these top players, which is absolutely not realistic.
Same thing for Ferrer.

Same thing for Wawrinka with his Fh : even if he's like top 20-30, do you really think he would bring Djokovic to a so long fifth set with a bad FH ? All these guys play approximately at the same level and have the same stamina/speed and the same ability to hit winners. Even Simon can hit extremely fast FH/BH.

ps 2 : apply this vision bring a lot of other advantages --> when an update comes with huge changes, nobody will be screwed as the stats would be approximately the same for everybody. This also means the rythm of updates would be far more important.

[VMoe86]

Devils seem to need many words, where this can be said with fewer words (Mathematicians are able to do that ): The differences in technical (and physical) aspects are not that great between Top 4 and rest of the field, in some cases it's the physical aspect, sometimes the mental or the lack skill shots (for variety for example; some players can play so well and are unable to finish points at the net). Many times you see close sets etc.

Regarding the roster, over time, the gap has been closed several times (also from 1.10 to 1.12, but this slow as ass surface called Plexicushion makes physical differences even more apparent, more difficult to hit winners) and -- as a little teaser -- will be closed even more in 1.13 (Gasquet getting 2% increase in Speed, while Djoko, Nadal, Davydenko, Murray get -1% there ). The advantage of picking Nadal, Federer, Murray, Djokovic should be more in secondary stats: A little bit more Stamina, a little bit better Counter ability or a little bit more consistent groundstrokes, better skill shots (Drop or Volleying). This is of course regarding the typical "baseliner", not the big hitter. The big hitters simply cannot have same Speed or Stamina, but should have the power to hit through and so on.

EDIT: Two nights ago in chat, Elias said to me "that we are smothering more and more the stats, they are all very close". There should sill be some special cases, like characters with lower power, but quick and high counter ability (it could be that I'm talking about the character I picked for AO ).

[djarvik]

You basically described exactly what we do now, no revelation here. We just take into account quite a few factors when we do that. A stat of 80 power with a certain animation can be less effective then a stat of 77 power with another animation.

I guess you finally understood the concept of what we try to do here...which is great. Cause others seem to think that Federer should have 90 on all stats as he is sooo much better then anyone who ever lived

[Martan]

So to sum-up : it's not realistic, it's not fun, it's frustrating and it kills the diversity of the tournaments.

epic


anyway I read it all and I totally agree with you, 90% of difference between TOP4 and TOP 30 is in head, their mental strenght is awesome and that is what makes the difference. And I would really love to see guys winning Grand Slam with Tsonga, Wawrinka, Berdych, Nalbandian, Del Potro etc. come on guys, make it happen Btw. with strong head, Gasquet would be No.1


btw. how many free time you have to write this long shit ?

[C4iLL]

Ok nice if it's the trend. For me the 5 sets of Vlad using Davydenko vs Djokovic-Elias, or Raonic vs Fed used by Fed are good examples.
About the time consumed, don't worry, as I type very quickly and think faster than mathematicians, it doesn't take a lot of time

By the way, Tsonga beat in 4 close sets an israelian ranked like 180th in Davis Cup today, this is once again representative of how the level is close at atp !

[Martan]

beat in 4 close sets an israelian ranked like 180th in Davis Cup today, this is once again representative of how the level is close at atp !

And how awesome is Davis Cup cant wait for ITST Davis cup!

[VMoe86]

About the time consumed, don't worry, as I type very quickly and think faster than mathematicians, it doesn't take a lot of time

I was not worried about the time you needed to write that post, I was more worried about how many people would actually read it, whereas it can be summarized in a few lines. I take on that challenge about thinking and writing faster.

Back on topic: The goal of the ITST TE Tour should be respectively is that those with the best combination of technical mastery of TE, mental toughness and tennis brain (shot selection, strategy/tactics, anticipation etc.) prevail and not the choice of character (even if the character is slightly worse). Sure, sometimes luck is also involved in outcome of a match (netcords come to my mind).

[inseedious]

Nothing to add to what vmoe and djarvick said, the main aim for 1.13 is without doubt balancing, and we'll keep up with this for a long time, we have tested on our skins that we will never reach both realism and balance because of the game mechanics, so we are wisely aiming to balance (realism will come from the very good scripted textures and animations).
Backhand is very difficult (maybe impossible) to balance. As reguards double handed bh, well some players like murray and nole have (had) a better bh than the fh, but they still move on bh side to hit fh (obviously, not as much as federer, for example). This because bh is a totally different wing than fh: it's awesome, maybe better than fh, when defending and countering, as 2 hands can give an excellent solidity when you have to return a fast ball. On the other side, men has more power than women and this means that they are all able to hit more powerful fh than bh. A few men hit better bh than fh just because they have more consistency on bh side, so they can hit strongly without losing control. To sum up: when they're attacking, all men prefer fh, while when defending, double handed backhand can give more solidity. Game mechanics are too "simple" to let us build a realistic double handed backhand, cause we need to give 2 different set of stats to defensive bh and offensive bh.
Switching to single-handed bh, it his more like a second fh, and a very little part of the men prefer this shot instead of fh. I think there is more difference between single and double handed bh than between single handed backhand and fh. While double handed backhanders prefer fh when they are attacking, single handed backhanders (even wawrinka and gasquet) prefer fh when they are defending, as their bh is very good when they are attacking, but it requires a lot of time to prepare this shot and this shot has a big handicap: high balls. So single handed bh can be realistic without using 2 different sets of stats for defense and attack, but just setting a lower consistency and more precision/power, but this will lead to some obvious unbalancing.

[Clog]

By the way, Tsonga beat in 4 close sets an israelian ranked like 180th in Davis Cup today, this is once again representative of how the level is close at atp !

Actually, since I'm studying in the city where this match was played yesterday, my tennis coach and a couple of friends were in the stadium, and they all told me that it was more representative of how pretentious Tsonga could be against "lower" players than the little difference there is between them.

[El Croato]

Very interesting stuff here!

If I understand well, the main problem about the realistic aspect of the ITST mod discussed right here is the so-called inability of tier 2 players to hit winners against tier 1 players.

I have read all the comments made on the topic and I realized that the focus was mainly on modifying the BH and FH stats of the players. I wonder if the key to the problem would not lie in changing the speed of all players competing on the ITST tour. I am curious to see what would happen if one decreased all players' speed by - say - 10 or 15%. Don't you think this could solve the "hitting winners" issue as it will prevent the players, even the ones belonging to tier 1, from returning in a comfortable way shots hit on the line by the opponent?

Could another solution also consist in bringing some changes to the physics of the courts ? Maybe we could make the bounce of the ball a bit lower on fast surfaces, which would result in having more winners during the game, wouldn't it?

These are just proposals. I am well aware of the tremendous work some ITST members have been doing to offer us the best simulation of tennis and I thank them for that as I really enjoy playing this game. However, I have to admit that the "issue" raised by some is worth being studied ands hopefully solved in the future.

Talking about realism, I also have a short question. Do you think that it would be possible to have different shot sounds depending on the surface you play on. The sound package by Bunbury is great, there is no denying it, but I have noticed that some guys on the managames forum released new shots sound pakcages, which are all of high quality and could be perfectly used for the next ITST mods so that the game will further gain in realism.

[Elias]

Yep we have different options to play with, the character speed, the power/consistencies, the surfaces.

About the surfaces we'll preferably stick to something visually close to the real world ones, lower bounce is not really a good solution (besides grass or indoors , though nowadays indoors are bouncing pretty high), also a low bounce doesnt allow for shoulder height accelerations, therefore less winners this way as well.

We already lowered the speeds so our next step will be tweaking up the power. It may not be perfect in one step though, better getting there carefully step by step rather than facing huge balance issues.

About the sounds, i think from all realeases Bunburry is still the best, crisp samples. For now TE doesn't allow for disticnt sounds pack depending the court used etc, so it's not possible. But you can modify locally your /Sound folder installing the sound pack you want, it's not a problem regarding online play and this will not create any desyncs issues.

[El Croato]

Thanks for your answer, Elias!

[ManicMoron100]

I really don't see any difference with what the current ITST staff are doing and striving to do with every release. Quite honestly, no offence, i gave up after the first two paras

I think at the end of the day, if a person ranked no. 1 is using,say a gasquet or another "tier 2" player and is able to beat the majority of people who seem to be on the "tier-1-bandwagon", it just goes to show how good he is at the game. The player he chooses is immaterial. If he is able to work his tactics around in a match and outwit his opponent (i think Vmoe or someone got through in 5 sets, winning the last three), then that shows that he knows how to play the game.

My only gripe would be that certain players are really not that good or are hardly being used by others, example : goffin or kohlscreiber. I think their stats aren't too far off from the reality of things, but they could be better since it is a bit difficult to win matches using them. If not, i feel they should be replaced with some other characters. Just my two cents...