Full Ace new version preview

[kschoice]

Here is my review so far by playing the demo, and I play almost everyday 2-3 sets because I like the game.

Keep in mind im still learning the gameplay and I dont have knowledge of context of the early years updates and reasons for these settings.

Sure thing. First of all, thank you for this thorough report, and I must say I am glad you enjoy playing Full Ace.

Crosshair:

I noticed that we cannot aim outside the lines. Personally I dont like this and I think the more we press directions, it should aim outside the lines. This will make it even more challenging when aiming your shots, especially those double click accels.

To hit a perfect deep shot, all you do is keep forward and a direction pressed, its like set and forget, which makes it a bit unrealistic. Thats why most of my shots always are super deep.

But for example, If I want to hit a short accel, and I aim too much down, the ball goes to the net and that is good. I think it should be the same with deep balls, the more you press up, it should not stop at the lines, it should go further out so we have to get the feeling how far. Same with the directions.

I see your point, and it gives me food for thought. But just to let you know, the original philosophy of the game is that the player controls are supposed to give instructions to the 'brain' of the character you control. In this regard, the possibility of aiming out of the lines seems absurd to me. At the same time, as there is an element of inconsistency in each shot (as in real life), you are supposed to apply a margin of error on each of your shots to avoid making too much faults.
Ans even if you could aim outside, skilled players would soon find the right timing to always avoid it. However, I have an idea that I think could be a middle ground between the philosophy of the game and what you are seeking.

Motions:

I love the idea of preparing and releasing at a certain timing. It resembles real life tennis in a way. But there is one thing that I believe should get a fix, is the prepare waiting anim.

Irl, a good swing is a constant motion, you dont wait with your raquet (racket, dno which one is the right spelling lel) back untill the ball comes to you, that way you will loose leverage on your swing. Its a constant motion, but there are some players with exeptions like Gulbis but no one cares about him besides djarvik. However, even Gulbis has his own way of timing and smoothing his racket, it just looks more static then the rest.

Obviously this would be hard to kinda fix the issue and I understand that. Maybe you can make the prepare anim slower and smooth, so untill the ball comes to you, you swing and it could look like a constant motion? Or maybe you can make that anim less obvious?

Maybe it is hard to tell in the videos I uploaded on youTube because those are two CPU AIs playing, but I have already changed the swinging system and motions so that :
* The motion of swinging is more a constant one, as you said.
* Even if your player gets stuck waiting for the ball for a fraction of a second, the prepare waiting position is more accurate.

Camera:

I think there should be more modes with camera, because right now there is only 1 mode. In TE there is like 6-7 camera modes and I love the freedom of that.

What I am hoping for is a 3rd person following camera with zoom options. This is the cam I played with in TE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMlMhQPV8ts

Maybe also a 1st person cam too, why not ? Ultimate realism. I would play with it

So, the more options and modes, the better it is.

Adding cameras is not a major issue, I had already planned adding a 3rd person camera after your first feedback. I'll also experiment with a 1st person one.

Modding:

How far can we go with modding ? I heared that we will be able to make our own anims in the game, does that include also running, idle, cheering, ect.. anims too ?

I am very open with modding. I can work closely with the modders to open any new area to modding, as long as there are means for modders to create the assets, and export them to the game. In the previous versions, the issue with modding anims was that we were using a proprietary animation tool and all the publicly available ones, and their file formats, were too complicated to transfer into. Now we use akeytsu for creating anims (https://www.nukeygara.com) and we can use FBX as a file format. So all anims in the game can be open to modding eventually.
There could also be some experimentation with modding 3D assets via FBX, if some modders are versed and interested in it.

The gameplay is awsome right now, and with a couple tweaks it could be super awsome.

Also, I believe, to attract more players to this game, anims are very important. The biggest reason I think TE is being played, is the smoothess of the anims, and the rythm of the game, it kinda looks realistic.

The reason why I never played this game in the first place, were the ugly (no offense, im just giving feedback ) anims which pushed me away from the game.

I hope I could be of some help.

What you say here is on par with what I think. The feedback from people who would not give the game a chance was, most of the time, that anims were too poor. It is hard to realize what you have in your game is ugly when you're deep in it every day, and it was a major undertaking to rework that aspect late in the development, but now I am taking the time to do it, so I hope it will bear fruit.

Once again, thank you for your thorough feedback and kind words.

[o SenSei o]

As soon as your new major update will be released, I will buy it a second time over steam and give it another shot. thx for your work.

and after i played it a while i let you know what I think.

Tell me did you already passed steam greenlight cause you talked about a steam release?

As I said I will but it another time over steam as soon as you make it with your game there. I use steam alot and got already many games on my old account.

By the way I bought a first copy of your game almost five years ago in august 2012 and just got a new licence over your games homepage.

means i will try out the current version of your game the next days here and there and let you know what i think, ofcourse softly with an eye and mind that you are just about to tweak the game with a new 2017 version.

Gotta work and fight through the tutorial once more cause I forgot how to play it.

[o SenSei o]

What you say here is on par with what I think. The feedback from people who would not give the game a chance was, most of the time, that anims were too poor. It is hard to realize what you have in your game is ugly when you're deep in it every day, and it was a major undertaking to rework that aspect late in the development, but now I am taking the time to do it, so I hope it will bear fruit.

Once again, thank you for your thorough feedback and kind words.

If you do so it will succeed and will be played by many people interested in virtual tennis, so much is safe to say. I played a bit of the turtorial and more important watched some gameplay of the latest build over YouTube. your game has huge potential even to become a top one competitor in the itst before Tennis elbow. it seems to have a deep learning curve what all good multiplayer competition games have and need to succeed.

but what you gotta tweak are animations in a realistic way, which looks just to (I would call it) hasty and unnatural in the current state and mabye doing good by tweaking the controls a bit here and there all with an eye on realism.

everything else is wonderful. we could mod the game the way we like and make the game a itst hit.

also graphics are still good enough, i like the games look. so keep on working and we will support you buy buying it, with Feedback, attracting new players and playing it.

You know all successful games in terms of gameplay no matter what genre have one thing in common. they just feel good what's even more important than the graphical look. so now, what you can do and what your job is, is to make the gameplay of your full ace tennis game to a experience as good as possible for your customers senses. make customers and us smile when we learn and playing the game and exploring the gameplay-depth if you know what i mean. if you do that the game will succeed as good as it's possible.

you already had and have the ideas to do it and if you aim for simulation then do it and make us smile and excited to join your virtual courts.

EDIT:

So I played the whole tutorial of the current version 5.4.6. and immediately felt the enormous depth the game has to offer.

It's much harder to jump in and play compared to tennis elbow, but that's not bad, it's good.

If you really tweak the animations here and there and do some other tweaks here and there we would have a great game to play. also the ballphysics offer so much variability and realism. awesome work done till yet.

and i didn't even play it for real against human competition yet, cause in human battles this must be a superb and very interesting game.

please tweak it as good as you can with everything you have in mind and we will battle it out on the courts.

[kschoice]

As soon as your new major update will be released, I will buy it a second time over steam and give it another shot. thx for your work.

and after i played it a while i let you know what I think.

Tell me did you already passed steam greenlight cause you talked about a steam release?

As I said I will but it another time over steam as soon as you make it with your game there. I use steam alot and got already many games on my old account.

By the way I bought a first copy of your game almost five years ago in august 2012 and just got a new licence over your games homepage.

Thanks for your feedback, thanks for your support, and thanks for buying the game again and be prepared to buy it yet again !

Full Ace hasn't undergone the Greenlight process. There is plans to go with a publisher and therefore circumvent it.

[o SenSei o]

One more thing kschocie dude.

What I noticed playing a career and the first match against the best cpu level is that I am playing like a freaking bot.

Means this game seems to be damn hard to play and master, the hardest tennis game i ever played and I almost played them all. Do you believe or know it's easy for experienced players to play some great longer rallies in your game?

You know that shot preparing with the controller triggers isn't hard to understand but it feels hard to get used to it combining it with the other strikes.

but at the same time and exactly because of those controlmechanics you developed I got high hopes for the game to come close to a simulation as possible. In real tennis you also see all possible outcomes of points. Returnwinners, Aces, 3 to 5 Strikes Rallies only or even a 15 Strike rally here and there. unforced errors, outplays.

By the way. Is it possible in your game to touch the net with the ball flying over by doing a net-cord shot? cause I didn't see that yet.

and as i said, you gotta work on the strike animations, cause the game doesn't feel as good as it could be right now, but you are working on it you said.

I am just wondering how much of a natural flow experienced human players can develop in your game playing at the highest level. What you think buddy?

[kschoice]

By the way. Is it possible in your game to touch the net with the ball flying over by doing a net-cord shot? cause I didn't see that yet.

Of course.

In real tennis you also see all possible outcomes of points. Returnwinners, Aces, 3 to 5 Strikes Rallies only or even a 15 Strike rally here and there. unforced errors, outplays

I pay much attention to that. I want all the variety of rallies to be featured in Full Ace, and long rallies to really mean something.

One more thing kschocie dude.

What I noticed playing a career and the first match against the best cpu level is that I am playing like a freaking bot.

Means this game seems to be damn hard to play and master, the hardest tennis game i ever played and I almost played them all. Do you believe or know it's easy for experienced players to play some great longer rallies in your game?

You know that shot preparing with the controller triggers isn't hard to understand but it feels hard to get used to it combining it with the other strikes.

Full Ace gameplay can seem overwhelming at first. But overall, I think Full Ace is about as hard to learn as Pro Evolution Soccer or FIFA. The main point you may want to focus on about shot preparing is that you have to do it as soon as possible. Ideally, you should prepare as soon as you know where the ball is going, before or at the same time you begin running. I have plans to stress that in the future version, both during the tutorial and with reminders during actual play. If all else fails, you can always use automatic preparation.

I am just wondering how much of a natural flow experienced human players can develop in your game playing at the highest level. What you think buddy?

You can find several videos on youtube of experienced human players.
Here is one where I play : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgW-CG-cINI
Here is one from a player with nice rallies : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLxCWbJ6Nrc

[o SenSei o]

Thank you for taking time to answer all that kschoice. I can't wait for your release on steam and ps4 and will get your Game for both platforms.

Cheerrs

[JasonBourne]

Here is one from a player with nice rallies : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLxCWbJ6Nrc

lol this comment in the video is mine :

yasinozkan 5 years ago:
lol it's like zombies playing tennis



Anyway, so here are some other ideas I came up with after playing the game. I hope I can explain it correctly.

The gap between the stats: The gap between the stats are too small. I felt Nadal and Federers stats where too high, they were hitting too strong, so I tried to mod and find some stats that I felt was more realistic. One thing I found out is, even if power is 0, you can still hit some explosive shots. I mean, the difference of 100 and 0 stats isnt really that different. Imo, 0 power should be very slow shots.

So after trying to find the suitable stat, I gave rafa and fed both 50 power on fh, and 40 on bh. They still hit so hard, but its a bit slower.

Same thing with the speed, and service. 0 speed, he can still run fast. And 0 service power, you can still hit 100 mph service. That way too much fo a 0 power. Even Nadal hits 110 mph irl . Maybe nerf it to 80 mph I dno.

Why am I saying this? Because then its hard to give stats to certain players because you wont feel it that much. But if going lower would be softer than it is right now, you would be able to feel the difference from a 90 power vs 95 power for example.

Another thing on service though, 100 power can only server max 130 mph. I think that is too soft There are tennis players who can hit at least 140 mph era consistant, think of Roddick with his 140 mph services, or Karlovic who once did 155 mph . My suggestion would be; buff the max power of service and nerf the min power of service.

Replay of point: This happened to me a couple times. When I hit a winner, and the ref calls it out I challenged it and it took the line. My opponent didnt returned the ball, so normally I should get the winner, but instead the game gave it a replay point. Normally, as far as I know, point can only be replayed if opponent returns the ball back. Otherwise it should be a winner. I think this is a bug in the game.

Adding stats for accel shots: Maybe it could be usefull if we can control how hard, consistent en presice we can accel our shots (dubble click shot). Maybe sepperate too ? One for the spin and one for the flat. Its just an idea.

About the prepare anim: I like the concept of the prepare, charge and release button of this game. It adds more skill and it does kinda resembles real tennis. We also had mentioned the prepare anim before, and I have an idea that maybe can be of help.

Ive also noticed on your new videos, that the prepare anim is less obvious, but its still there.

So, why not just replace that anim with an indication ? For example, if you prepare forehand side, instead of anim waiting with the racket sideways (which is not realistic), remove the anim and set a small indicating picture on the right of the screen, or on the right next to the stamina bar that his player is gonna use the forehand. And when the ball comes to him, the char will just use the forehand anim. This way it will be more realistic.

Also, I use manual preparing, and I hate it when the char instantly turns sideways. Sometimes I prepare to the wrong side then I quickly switch it. Thats why I didnt only suggested to remove the prepare anim but the replace it with a small indicator.

Thus instead of waiting with the racket sideways, I think maybe just a small indicator will do it, then it will look realistic. The new anims look very good btw.

What do you think ?

PS: Can you also upload a longer video with new anims ? Like 1 set.

[kschoice]

Thank you for your feedback.

The gap between the stats: The gap between the stats are too small. I felt Nadal and Federers stats where too high, they were hitting too strong, so I tried to mod and find some stats that I felt was more realistic. One thing I found out is, even if power is 0, you can still hit some explosive shots. I mean, the difference of 100 and 0 stats isnt really that different. Imo, 0 power should be very slow shots.

So after trying to find the suitable stat, I gave rafa and fed both 50 power on fh, and 40 on bh. They still hit so hard, but its a bit slower.

I tried to make the players in the game hit as hard as pro players in real life. There might still be need for some tweaking, either for realism or the player's preference. In any case, I can add tools in the player editor that would allow easy modification of all players' stats uniformly according to a new scale. For example 0-100 ==> 0-75.
Another thing is that in Full Ace, even a player with all 0 stats is supposed to be a pro player, it doesn't mean he can't hit a ball.

Same thing with the speed, and service. 0 speed, he can still run fast. And 0 service power, you can still hit 100 mph service. That way too much fo a 0 power. Even Nadal hits 110 mph irl . Maybe nerf it to 80 mph I dno.

Why am I saying this? Because then its hard to give stats to certain players because you wont feel it that much. But if going lower would be softer than it is right now, you would be able to feel the difference from a 90 power vs 95 power for example.

Not being able to feel that much difference between 90 and 95 is by design, and seems accurate to me. We are still looking at a 5% difference compared to the entirety of the pro players' abilities.

Another thing on service though, 100 power can only server max 130 mph. I think that is too soft There are tennis players who can hit at least 140 mph era consistant, think of Roddick with his 140 mph services, or Karlovic who once did 155 mph . My suggestion would be; buff the max power of service and nerf the min power of service.

Good point. But there must be improvements in the serve-return gameplay before I can do this, so that one could stand a chance against a player serving that hard. On the other end, I am concerned that going too low would result in the player not standing a chance at pro level.

Replay of point: This happened to me a couple times. When I hit a winner, and the ref calls it out I challenged it and it took the line. My opponent didnt returned the ball, so normally I should get the winner, but instead the game gave it a replay point. Normally, as far as I know, point can only be replayed if opponent returns the ball back. Otherwise it should be a winner. I think this is a bug in the game.

In general, I think saying that the opponent not returning the ball in a challenge overrule situation automatically awards a winner is a misconception. It is the referee's decision, and he can decide that the player refrained from hitting the ball because of hearing the call.
Now, I agree that such a situation doesn't happen much in pro tennis. The reason it happens in Full Ace is because I have to juggle with 2 things : when there is a call, the AI should, upon hearing it (there is a delay for reaction), stop playing, or it would seem unrealistic. If the ball is in reach, they will still hit it, but if not, they will just stop running. In the case this call is challenged, then overruled, we are exactly in the situation described above : The AI stopped playing because of the call, and thus it is only fair that the point should be replayed.
Therefore, depending on the situation, the reaction delay, and other factors, it can result in outcomes that seem unrealistic to the human player. The only way I can try and make this better is if people save and send me a replay of the point where it happened.

Adding stats for accel shots: Maybe it could be usefull if we can control how hard, consistent en presice we can accel our shots (dubble click shot). Maybe sepperate too ? One for the spin and one for the flat. Its just an idea.

I think there already are an awful lot of stats, and new ones must be added carefully. More than that, double-tap accel forehand topspin shots are still forehand topspin shots, so I don't see the point in splitting them, stat-wise.

About the prepare anim: I like the concept of the prepare, charge and release button of this game. It adds more skill and it does kinda resembles real tennis. We also had mentioned the prepare anim before, and I have an idea that maybe can be of help.

Ive also noticed on your new videos, that the prepare anim is less obvious, but its still there.

So, why not just replace that anim with an indication ? For example, if you prepare forehand side, instead of anim waiting with the racket sideways (which is not realistic), remove the anim and set a small indicating picture on the right of the screen, or on the right next to the stamina bar that his player is gonna use the forehand. And when the ball comes to him, the char will just use the forehand anim. This way it will be more realistic.

Also, I use manual preparing, and I hate it when the char instantly turns sideways. Sometimes I prepare to the wrong side then I quickly switch it. Thats why I didnt only suggested to remove the prepare anim but the replace it with a small indicator.

Thus instead of waiting with the racket sideways, I think maybe just a small indicator will do it, then it will look realistic. The new anims look very good btw.

This part I'm afraid I completely disagree with you about.

The problem I have with what you're saying is that waiting with the racket sideways, and body oriented towards the shot, is the only sensible thing to do.

One of the first things we learn about playing tennis is that we must prepare our shot as soon as possible, pivoting our body according to it and bringing the racket to a suitable position. It is not different, but actually even more crucial, in pro tennis.

Unless I didn't understand correctly, what you suggest is that the player should keep his body facing the net until he begins swinging. This strikes me as the highly unrealistic option.

For instance, look at Nishikori's forehand below. Especially how soon he prepares (basically as soon as he knows he's gonna hit a forehand ; the ball hasn't even cleared the net that his waist has already finished pivoting), and how long he keeps his racket up before actually beginning his swing motion. This to me is the standard that ought to be replicated in Full Ace.

PS: Can you also upload a longer video with new anims ? Like 1 set.

At some point, yes. But for now I focus on short videos that are designed to show specific improvements of the new version.

[Yippie-Caiay]

That gif is not representative of a standard rally. Young just hit a defensive shot, and therefore Nishikori can start preparing his shot very early, as soon as he sees the ball floating slowly he is already in a stance to hit.

I'm not saying you're not right on this one, but that situation shouldn't be used for comparison to the game's rallies.

Edit: It wasn't Nadal

[kschoice]

That gif is not representative of a standard rally. Nadal just hit a defensive shot, and therefore Nishikori can start preparing his shot very early, as soon as he sees the ball floating slowly he is already in a stance to hit.

I'm not saying you're not right on this one, but that situation shouldn't be used for comparison to the game's rallies.

I understand what you mean, but I have chosen that forehand in order to illustrate the point I was making : how early a pro player prepares his shot, even if he has ample time to prepare.
Obviously, if he has less time before the ball reaches him, it makes sense that he will not wait more time to prepare, than in this situation. I hope you agree on this.

And just so you know, this is Donald Young, not Nadal, on the far side.

[JasonBourne]

This part I'm afraid I completely disagree with you about.

The problem I have with what you're saying is that waiting with the racket sideways, and body oriented towards the shot, is the only sensible thing to do.

One of the first things we learn about playing tennis is that we must prepare our shot as soon as possible, pivoting our body according to it and bringing the racket to a suitable position. It is not different, but actually even more crucial, in pro tennis.

Unless I didn't understand correctly, what you suggest is that the player should keep his body facing the net until he begins swinging. This strikes me as the highly unrealistic option.

For instance, look at Nishikori's forehand below. Especially how soon he prepares (basically as soon as he knows he's gonna hit a forehand ; the ball hasn't even cleared the net that his waist has already finished pivoting), and how long he keeps his racket up before actually beginning his swing motion. This to me is the standard that ought to be replicated in Full Ace.

Thanks for replying in dept!

Ok, I understand what you mean, and you are right in tennis you have to prepare as soon as possible.
Also, Nishikori is also an exeption, he does take his racket back very early then other pro players, also he does it way faster then other players so it looks like he is waiting with his racket back.

Look at Federer, he prepares a bit later, and hes racket back is so slow and smooth, then he swings the ball and it all happens in 1 motion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w-EEtFDz3A&t=3m19s

The thing I see what lacks in full ace is the constant motion. Because the prepare and swing are 2 sepperate concepts, but they should happen in 1 constant motion. Even with Nishikori, he does prepare very early, but he doesnt wait with his racket pointing backwards in a static way. He also times his motion and it is also 1 motion. Because when you stop the motion, you stop the rythm of your swing (off course there are exeptional players but they are very rare).

Maybe then my first suggestion would be a better idea, is to make the prepare anim very slow and smooth like Federer does in the video, so when the ball comes, you can swing and it would look like 1 smooth motion. Or maybe, every players should have his own prepare anim and modders can mod it, why not ?

My point is, its not natural that a player is standing or running with his racket pointing back in a static position (or sideways in case of the new anims) and its one of the first things that catches the eye and makes you think "huh?!".

Thats also one of the things TE does well, the prepare and swing anim is 1 anim and thats why its smooth but then it becomes more arcade.

I think, sepperating the prepare and swing like in full ace is better, needs more timing and skill, but then there needs to be a solution to the static position. irl tennis players time it and they are used to it, they take the racket back slowly and then swing in a constant motion. Thats what we need

This is my opinion thought and I just trying to help. I want this game to be succesfull, more then TE and I played TE like 5 years or so.

[kschoice]

The thing I see what lacks in full ace is the constant motion. Because the prepare and swing are 2 sepperate concepts, but they should happen in 1 constant motion.

We are in agreement again . This is exactly what I am trying to achieve in the new version : changing the speed of the motion so it adapts to the amount of time before the actual shot. I think it already shows in the latest videos I released.

Maybe then my first suggestion would be a better idea, is to make the prepare anim very slow and smooth like Federer does in the video, so when the ball comes, you can swing and it would look like 1 smooth motion. Or maybe, every players should have his own prepare anim and modders can mod it, why not ?

The problem is there are times where the prepare motion needs to be very fast, and thus, in the end, it's up to the game to decide the speed of it.
Maybe in time, we can have a system with different prepare motions, but for now, I have to draw priorities if I want to release something reasonably soon.

My point is, its not natural that a player is standing or running with his racket pointing back in a static position (or sideways in case of the new anims) and its one of the first things that catches the eye and makes you think "huh?!".

Agreed again. There used to be specific motions for moving around with preparation, and some felt like they were carrying the racket as a dead weight. I made changes to that system and I think it's already way better.

This is my opinion thought and I just trying to help. I want this game to be succesfull, more then TE and I played TE like 5 years or so.

You can be sure that your help, opinion, and support are all well appreciated

[JasonBourne]

Thanks for the reply

[o SenSei o]

Nice read.