i'm really not gone

[Fez]

I've posted something similar to this several times with no helpful, or even sympathetic response. Online TE is a friggin joke! Too much relies on connection!!! Europeans don't feel it much, so most of you don't care. But here's an absolute fact, and no bullshit response from anybody please about how there are "factors" n shit: When ping /delay is high 90% of my ball go short, when ping/delay is lower things are fine. I was playing fed in 160 ping on us open court all night last night, good matches, a few counters here and there, decent deep balls most the time. Today I play match vs Fed on us open in 240 ping environment and every goddamn ball, accell, top, regular strike when short 90% of the time. And I got 2 counters the entire friggin 3 set match. This is just one example of what happens ALL the time. I'm sick of this online bullshit ruining the game. What's the point in playing when this happens? Its impossible to win a match when every shot land in back of opponent's serve box during a ralley. Ball depth is half the key to this game, and when ping environment dictates shot depth every match....its a joke. If anyone dare challenge my conclusions with typical idiot responses, I'll swim the channel and choke yer balls then stew em'. I've seen this pattern over weeks and hundreds of games. PING/DELAY DICTATES SHOT DEPTH. Put it in writing somewhere, know it, accept it, preach it.

And if any shit brain wants to point to the kind of strikes my opponent is using, forget it. These are just acceleration rallies for the most part, nothing different from match to match, same character, same court, same strikes from opponent, same positioning patterns. The only difference is ping/delay.

forgive the swearing but i'm angry

[C4iLL]

I heard other persons complaining about these short shots in the same conditions. It's because the perfect timing for counter is different with such a ping, you have to find it throughout the match.

But globally speaking I agree with your opinion, the delay/ping has a real impact on matches.
I don't know if Manutoo could optimize this because from a match to another the conditions are often different and for competition it's not good. However in real life, with the wind, the weather etc, the conditions often change from a round to another in the same tournament so in terms of realism, it's not necessarily false.

[Uchiha Muss]

As always I have no choice but to agree with Fez. Connection is a real problem unlike some people who keeps saying it's not that big of a deal.

Just yesterday I played 2 sets with tdbchess. 1st one he hosted and apparently delay was at 150ms. Second time I hosted with 50ms delay which was adequate for our ping connection. Surprisingly his game didn't change at all between those 2 sets.

In high delay I got aced 4 times, returned many net shots. Average rally was 3.9 and I basically did lots of safe shots. Usual defensive slice looked like safe shot. No depth variety straight to the middle. 2nd set I was so much better. I still lost but my shots were deeper, I got only aced 1 since auto-pos return was working perfectly. In high delay my player freezes on spot when returning taking away precious seconds from me. Average rally was 6.6. I had at least break points even though i couldn't make use of them. Slices had some angle in them and were long short depending on randomness. After the 2nd set i asked if he felt different. He said no and said "i just need to concentrate". It's true, in both sets he had 17 and 18 winners.

My point is, his game is so different that even 100ms delay didn't change it. My game between those 2 sets were Antarctica and Arctica. Vmoe keeps mentioning that there are no tricks in the game. But then why can tdb charge his shots as usual in both situations while I could barely put an angle with more time than him? It's ridiculous because I couldn't even run and hit. I ran but since the delay was too high i returned safe shot. He could easily slice the ball back from hard situations and it was difficult to hit winners even from his safe shots.

P.S. I'm not gone by the way.

[Waynebo]

I haven't played online for ages because of these reasons. Exhibition games are usually good because I can restrict ping, but it is still wishy-washy at times. This is made even worse because I play strictly with the camera behind the player so the camera will lag at times and will follow the ball with significant delay. There's also usually no one around when I play so it's like 30-40 min waits for a match.

I'm in the US on Verizon Fios (75mbps down/35mbps up) and had horrible connections for *everyone* when I tried to play challenger tournaments.

I don't even bother anymore and just play against the CPU.

[Fez]

Thank you Uchi for mentioning the angle thing. I didn't even mention this. This too is ridiculous sometimes. I stand in position for ages, tons of time to angle shot and i cant get the angle, while my opponent has less time and can angle more. This is another absurd swing in high ping matches.

C4ill, your comparison to wind etc....isn't a good analogy because wind effects both players...often online this ping/delay thing effects the players differently so its not easy to just compare it to the normal changing conditions of weather.

Anyway, C4ill mentioned manutoo doing something, "optimizing". Is this possible? Is this tweakable?? Would be soooo interesting to see the change in match outcomes if things were fixed. I'd be "told ya' so'n " for years to follow!

IN the end, like everything else, its political. To really do anything about this we need influential people to make noise about it, enough noise to reach the top (manutoo). But unfortunately, the guys with this influence are either indifferent to the issue because they aren't effected by it, or they just simply don't care. Obviously Fez noise isn't enough, never will be. Thanks for adding your voices, Uchi, C4.... Thanks for seeing that this issue kills any chance at a purity of competition. And without this purity, or at least near-purity, my bones dry up.

[C4iLL]

Maybe it's time to force everyone to host at a delay as close as possible to the average ping. At the ITST level it's the only thing that may help to reduce these random (and unfair in my opinion) conditions.

At the beginning of each match you would check it in the stats sheet and if it's not the right delay, you would invite your opponent to re-host as it would be a written rule.

I think tdb still uses the auto-delay feature for the ping, that's why the delay is always too high when he hosts. Anyway there is worst around, when someone is for instance hosting by purpose at 130 delay with a 30ms average ping... I let you imagine how ridiculous a match like this can be on clay for instance...

[Fez]

i like that you are a man of action C4ill. Maybe that would help. But I think the real fix has to be more drastic. And I'm at a loss as to what that action could possible be.

Let me ask an honest question to the entire itst community. Please don't maintain your silence people!

Don't you want to see a level playing field? Isn't it THE MOST important thing in online gaming to get the basic conditions stabilized?? So that the competition is fair and consistent? Without these basic principles underlying the play, what on earth is the point? We''d all just be masturbating to scorelines that have no actual value!

[Uchiha Muss]

A month ago I found out how to set the delay manually and its values to some ping connections. After a month I realize I should only host like butcher, because I'm getting screwed too much. I remember that whenever I had good 6-7 win streak I was hosting and setting the delay as good as I thought. And when I join people I always see some uncomfortable delay that will make it hard for me. Most important being auto-pos return on serve.

Now I know that I should be even more reckless with delay to the point of having 6-7 turtles per set. That seems to be the only guarantee of right delay for me. For example just the other day I lost to Mikefare from USA. I set the delay at 133ms which seemed logical to 125ms average ping. But I was struggling. I can measure it by variety of slice shot in desperate situations. All of my slices were going to the center and middle of the court. I was gonna rehost after the 1st set as agreed before the match if problems arose. Unfortunately I won the 1st set and I thought I could continue playing. Then he started returning my serves his baseline rallies were already superior in the 1st set so he took the 2nd set 2-6. At the end I lost clearly because of my mistake setting the delay right.

I know it was wrong delay cause, we almost had no turtles. My player was feeling slower compared to 150ms delay with fez.
That's why I played maybe at 70% of my potential and lost. Couldn't put angles while he freely enjoyed them. My shots were short like Fez described.

So the lesson is for myself, don't join people and host the delay lower than average ping. That seems to make the game closer to offline where ALL OF MY SHOTS HAVE ALWAYS ANGLE ON THEM AND DEPTH VARIETY.
Will try this for a week or 2. I feel like I'm reaching the end of my improvement on this game. If even lower delay doesn't help my game then I'll just stay on my level forever.

P.S. Would be nice if these delay specialists (pidzi, vmoe, c4ill, robbin92) collaborated and did a tutorial for people like me.

[VMoe86]

I am currently preparing a thread about Ping, Delay and Lag. It's not finished, yet, and before Sunday I won't be able to finish it (I am on a trip from this afternoon until Sunday) but nevertheless here is how I put Delay and what effects Delay has.

First of all, I've played in all kind of ping and delay combinations: 167ms delay at 230ms ping, 117ms delay at 30ms ping, 150ms delay at 70ms ping, delay = ping or delay = ping + 17ms etc. Basically all kind of differences between ping and delay. The choice of delay for a certain ping does not determine the speed of the game if there are no turtles and no SpeedStep in action:

VMoe86,
if there's no Turtles (nor SpeedStep in action), then playing with 0 or 400ms Delay doesn't change anything at the speed of the game.

SpeedStep, that is something you cannot influence by hosting options. With each opponent, though, you can find a good delay value to play in. And the good delay value is determined by the quality of the connections. Let's distinguish two cases.


1. If both players have a stable connection (Ethernet or being very close to router when using WiFi, no other people using internet, no serious internet applications running), then you can set delay in the interval from 0.5 * Ping to Ping -- in some cases, there are no turtles at all (like 230ms ping at 167ms delay against some opponent), in some maybe very little turtles. The more you go to 0.5 * Ping with Delay, the more chances for turtles are there and the more you go to Delay = Ping the less chances for turtles are there.


2. If at least one player has an instable connection (varying ping with WiFi, having a bad router, other people using your internet while you are playing) then you should always put Delay > Ping. Depending on the ping variations, you can try Delay = Ping + x ms where x > 0 depends on the ping variation -- if the ping variation is small, you can choose a smaller value like x=17 or x=33, but with higher ping variations (and if you want to avoid turtles and thus animation glitches) you better put x=50 or x=67.

It is unfair having to go through case 2 at the start of a match due the opponent not making sure things are fine on his side.

Why even bother with setting up a good Delay value?

Let us quote from the Documentation:

The Delay is an internal latency which allows Tennis Elbow to run in parallel on your PC and your opponent's one. There's a aiming dead time which lasts half of the Delay, just before you hit the ball. During that time, the game considers you're pressing left (or right) if you were pressing left (or right) just before the start of that aiming dead time ; on the opposite, the game considers you're pressing nothing if you were pressing nothing just before the start of the dead time. Concretely, it means if you press left to aim to the left, and that you release left just before hitting the ball, your aiming won't come back to the center like when you're playing against the computer. So you need to prepare your aiming at the right time because you won't be able to fix an overaiming at the last instant, especially when you play with a high delay. Note that it's also the recommended way to do while playing against the computer, to have a consistent aiming.

Source: http://www.managames.com/tennis/doc/Tennis_Elbow-Tennis_Game.html#network (under "Game Creation")

Let's explain this in plain language:

1. Both games are running in the same way on both PCs.

2. If you don't release left/right before hitting the ball, then aiming is the same offline and online. This also applies to serving. If you have some weird aiming technique (be it groundstrokes or serve), where you release buttons earlier, then you will suffer from it online.

3. All shots based on tapping in the last instant (Counters, for example) have a different timing. With high delay you will see more safe shots when you try a last instant shot.

4. Delay does not influence movement because Delay only adds a deadtime for aiming and shot detection.

I play at least as much offline as I do online. Only with delay higher than 167ms I hit more safe shots when trying counters on defence or returns. You can compensate this lack of time by standing a bit further back when returning or defending. That is actually the only difference in my game when I have to play a match with higher delays (and high for me is 184ms, 200ms, 217ms).

[pidzi]

VMoe explained it understandably and as simply as he could and i can only agree with everything what he said above.

I also never experienced any movement restrictions while playing in high delay (and i already played multiple times guys like Felipe, MichaelD, juani, rardark and such) and i suggest the same advice VMoe gave in the last paragraph when you play in really high delay (for me its 150 ms and more ) that you should stand a step or two further behind baseline during the defending and especially returning than you are usually used to.

I can also say that even when i play guys who have 250 pings a still set the delay to <200 and never experienced any turtles or some crazy amount of safe shots.

[djarvik]

Do you really think if Lag would not exists you would be winning more matches? ...I highly doubt it.

The point that you are missing is that Lag DOES affect both players. One of them is able to adapt and thus prosevere, the other one is you. Sure, the easiest thing to do in this situation is to consider oneself "special" "Oh, it is MUCH laggier from my end then his, no way he can cope with lag like that if I cannot, after all, me, myself, I is the shit". But that aint the truth, that is a self pity, an excuse making mechanism that all of us humans have. We are quick to pet ourselves on the back for achieving something, even if it happened by accident, and we are unable to accept failure without a reason, an excuse for why we failed....and that excuse very rarely means "us", it usually refers to outside factors....easier to cope with that then admit failure in one self.

THE only case you MAY have is the fact that "some" individuals ALWAYS have lag, and thus are more accustomed to deal with it. But they DO have lag just as much as you.

Want to get better at it? ...seek out those individuals and play them as much as possible.

[Fez]

AGAIN! Again, famously, the actual issue is averted and denied.


For me its NOT about winning matches dammit. Its about fairness for me AND my opponent. Here's a goddamn fact, and the reason it will be denied by some is that they don't experience it:

Some matches, opponent gets depth variety and good angling capability and counter strikes---and I DO NOT. Some matches, I get depth variety and good angling capability and counter strikes----and my opponents DO NOT. SOMETIMES its balanced and fair.

I just want to see it balanced and fair all the time.

Djarvik, you make same counterargument that has been made since the beginning, "Your opponent is just used to the lag, so they play better in it" Lol, this doesn't even get close to addressing what I said! Being "used to" lag doesn't buy you angling and depth!! I know that lag effects both players, I never said it didn't. why are you saying that? "Adapting" is such a loaded word. It implies that there is something you can do in conditions to create better play. THIS is exactly what my issue is, it certain matches, one CANNOT adapt. Damn man, read what I wrote. You ennervate more than anyone because you don't recognize whay i'm saying and reply to arguments I don't even make.
Let me ask you, answer honestly please. Have you ever played a match, where every shot u took, every serve return, was going super shallow now matter what you did to adapt? even play a match where u couldn't get a good angly no matter what u did to adapt? Have you? Then you stroke yourself and try to talk like u are expert in human behavior by describing the most basic function of human pride. Bravo djarvik, you have enlightened all of us by telling us that human pride can play a role in life's affairs. But let my ask you DJ Freud, what if I am not moved by pride and self-deception? Then produce an argument. OR is this "pride" argument all you have?

Vmoe, i appreciate the explanations you provided, I really do. I agree with all of it. UNfortunately, it doesn't explain why vs vamosrafa i could get almost nothing to go deep and he was cracking deep defense all game long, when in trouble, serve returns, etc.. No matter what i tried my balls were doomed to go shallow during rallies and especially serve returns. All the technical documentation about lag effects and delay philosophy doesn't EXPLAIN this disparity.

IF you want to deny the above based on your OWN experience, do so. But Uchi, C4ill, myself, and others (unspoken), are not just assholes (well...C4ill IS a bit of an asshole ) who are looking for a reason to blame game for losing. We are pointing up a REAL problem. WE play video games, we have experience with them. WHile perhaps not having technical understanding, we have FEEL and patteren recognition. To continue to deny the claims made is just bizarre. Try something novel: Trust us!!!

[djarvik]

Actually they are

I say this because I have been through this...multiple times, many tennis games etc.

Read Moes post, you are simply "driving" it wrong. There are many ways to navigate this game, you are doing it wrong. That's the problem. The only problem, if you don't consider lag handling a skill.

Don't get me started on "Feel".....slight variation in your reaction time, that is being affected by things like lack of sleep, too much sleep, different foods, different moods....etc...they can make you feel things that are not there. For example one day you have a perfect reaction time, and do everything right, feel like god, the next day your reaction time is slow due to over eating at lunch and skipping a few hours of sleep. Now you lose the same match-up, you don't react in time and struggle to reproduce that timing and form from the other day. So instead of calling it is like it is - you make up a theory to explain your own shortcomings. Your ego simply doesn't want to accept reality.

I dont think you have a slightest understanding of what "feel" really is and how terribly misleading it can be in every day life. You rather trust in your feel than common sense and extremely detailed explanations of what you are experiencing.

[Fez]

Ok, so according to you, its all just in my imagination! this is your counterargument! REally? That just makes you a tyrant i think! YOu have no real argument, u just attack the sensibilities of the one speaking. This is the method of fools if you read history books.

And if it is that i don't want to accept my failure, the why O why would i state that i benefit sometimes from this problem, that short circuits your whole theory boy!

[Fez]

While TE is a deep game it is not so deep that one cannot pinpoint repeating scenerios. For example, Fed serves to left corner of my box with b1+b2 serve, i step a bit, hit ball with strings, done this thousands of times,... ball returns to inside of his serve box all game long. 15 min later, vs Fed, different match, i do same thing, ball goes deep many times. I didn't sleep in between matches, nor drink tequla, nor step away to expel my semen and return in a less vital state of mind. What changed? How do i now adapt djarvik? How doth i get serve returns to goeth deepeth? Do telleth me!

i suspect djarvik may not answer the above. He will stay silent on it because it demands actualy substance from him.

TELL ME HOW TO ADAPT TO ABOVE SCENERIO TO MAKE BALL GO DEEPER

And remember, i've already tried returning with EVERY kind of strike.