Top Spin 4 Impressions/Questions Thread

[The Visualizer]

Quote: Originally Posted by sportdan30

Thanks for the early impressions. Sounds very promising. A couple questions. 1. I read where signature styles are only present with a few of the tennis stars (Sampras, Agassi, etc.). Meaning, you won't see the Boris Becker serve animation. Rather, the player animations are fairly generic. Have you noticed that? 2. Also, someone said you can't play against your created player. Also true?

#1) I'm not a huge tennis historian so I couldn't really comment accurately on player's signature animations.

#2) Not sure, I'll try making one soon, I didn't see anywhere the created player's would be listed on the exhibition player select.

Quote: Originally Posted by Seymour Scagnetti

Thanx for the impressions. Can you play 6 game sets next because I like to see how fatigue is handled with unforced errors in a longer 2\3 or 3\5 match. You said that there were a few unforced errors but those stats showed you to have 25 of them. That's more than a few. Is that accurate or do stats group forced and unforced errors together. The only thing I'm not liking is Roddick's 100% 1st serve percentage but I guess as long as every 1st serve isn't impossible to return then I can live with that. Any let serves (serves that hit the net but still go over) happen?

-Not sure about the forced/unforced error calculation in stats. I'll play a match with 6 game sets next for ya.

-Yeah Roddick worked me with the serve, I think I broke him in maybe 2 games and that's it. It wasn't overdone despite what the numbers say, and it was my first game so take what will from it.

-I've seen 3 or 4 let serves in my 2 games. 1 or 2 from the CPU and 2 from me.

-Also saw something unique in the 1st game I forgot to mention, I hit a pretty hard shot right at Roddick during a volley and when he went to return it, it kind of glanced up off his racket and went behind him like he really botched or couldn't handle it. Looked pretty cool. Only happened once so far.

[The Visualizer]

Quote: Originally Posted by Seymour Scagnetti

I thought there was 2 difficulty levels above hard? You said there was only 1.

I remember reading the same, but it's not there unless it's unlockable, there are 5 difficulty levels displayed

very easy
easy
normal
hard
very hard

[Seymour Scagnetti]

Quote: Originally Posted by The Visualizer

I remember reading the same, but it's not there unless it's unlockable, there are 5 difficulty levels displayed very easy easy normal hard very hard

How long have you been playing the game today because you already are beating everybody on hard. Were you playing the demo non stop because I'm a little worried that Hard will be a little bit too easy and very hard will be way too difficult and cheezy.

Or maybe it's because you're playing serve and volley and that's easier to beat the AI that way?

[econoodle]

Quote: Originally Posted by Yeah...THAT Guy

I jumped into career mode playing on hard, doing the real tennis format. First match, I was down 3 games to 2 but went on to win the last 10 games to win 6-3 6-0. I had like 25 unforced errors. Next match I won 7-5 6-2 with 15ish unforced errors and a few aces. Championship game I won 6-0 6-1 and only had 9 unforced errors. You see a lot of poorly hit balls and a lot of errors at least in the early levels of career mode. I could tell when myself and the AI got tired too. All of a sudden I couldn't get to many balls at all. Could barely run. And it became much harder to hit accurate shots.

Thanks That,

What overall early feel are you getting for Career mode?

[Methlab]

If you jump into the career on hard, can you drop back down to normal if you are getting crushed? Or vice versa?

I started beating the demo on hard about 50% of the time or so..seems like the game moves a lot better on that level though..normal felt sluggish.

[rangerrick012]

Haven't played career mode, but played a few quick matches online:

-1st match - Blake (me) against Serena - Serena was able to manhandle me (no pun intended). Kinda disappointing that the women's players can beat the mens regardless, but NBD.

-2nd match - Nadal vs Nadal (3 gms/3 sets). The one thing that came through in this match was that fatigue does play a factor in your ability to hit certain shots. When my fatigue was green, shots were a lot easier than when it was yellow. I lost the 1st set 1-3, and was down match point in the 2nd set TB but won it. Got up 2-0 in the 3rd w/ a couple of match points my way, but couldn't captialize, and lost it in the TB.

Overall impressions of online (so far):
-Little to no lag at all, which is great
-Doesn't seem to be too many exploits, at least from the two games I played
-Negative - Not a lot of UEs at all. In a 3 set/3 gms match I think we had less than 15 UEs between us. Could be a difficulty issue, since online defaults to normal if i had to guess, and I don't see any options to change the difficulty for online matches.

[Yeah...THAT Guy]

Quote: Originally Posted by econoodle

Thanks That, What overall early feel are you getting for Career mode?

I've played 2 sparring partner matches which were crazy easy (I don't think they scored on me at all in 3 games) and 1 minor tournament where you play the quarter finals, semi finals, and then the championship. After winning that tournament, I'm up to level 6 and my coach gives me a +10 speed and stamina.

Overall, I'm pretty happy. The AI gave me a run for my money in the first set of the first two matches, but I swept the 2nd set in my first match, won 6-2 my 2nd match, and won 6-1 in the championship in the 2nd sets. I was also given the first pack of clothes from the sponsor of the tournament and gained 6,117 fans.

To get promoted to Rookie status and be able to play in major tournaments (not grand slams, but the next level below them), I need 5,000 fans (which I got since I won the tournament), I need to win a minor tournament (which I did), and I have to play in 2 minor tournaments, so after my next tournament I'll be able to face tougher competition.

You start out as the #80 ranked player in the circuit and in my first tournament I was playing against guys in the upper 60's.

And regarding the guy that thought there was 2 difficulties above hard, I think I read somewhere that you have to somehow unlock a "Super" Hard difficulty.



One question though: I thought I had read on one of the developer diaries that once you achieve all of your coach's goals, you get his bonus permanently and can switch to a new coach and still have the bonus from the old one. Can anyone confirm that? It doesn't look like that is true from what I've seen.

[The Visualizer]

Quote: Originally Posted by Seymour Scagnetti

How long have you been playing the game today because you already are beating everybody on hard. Were you playing the demo non stop because I'm a little worried that Hard will be a little bit too easy and very hard will be way too difficult and cheezy. Or maybe it's because you're playing serve and volley and that's easier to beat the AI that way?

Seymour, I've only played 3 matches today so far, I pretty much didn't lose to the CPU on the demo on Hard, I didn't think there was anything "hard" about it. The 2 matches I won today were hardly walks in the park. I consider myself an above-average player to good players so I'm not sure what you can take from that...keep reading though.

Played my 3rd match, Ivan Lendl vs CPU Boris Becker, decided to move the difficulty up to Very Hard...yeah that didn't turn out very well



-to answer someone's question from the last page, I created a player and you were right, it wouldn't allow the CPU to play with them, it said "Not for CPU" when I tried to have the CPU use them in an exhibition match. Also for Create-A-Player, there are only 4 slots. I was looking forward to maybe making some other legends and players to add to the roster, but I guess that's not happening.

-OK, back to the "Very Hard" match I played. I won the very first match primarily because I had 2 aces and forced Becker into some bad shots. Was pretty confident at that point, then he decided to completely annihilate me in straight sets. I won one other game, the first one at Match Point, but he completely outclassed and outsmarted me. So I don't think you guys should be too wary of only 1 difficulty level about Hard because it's def tough.

-As far as a 6 set match, I noticed stamina didn't drain as much in each game & set. Some of this was that the CPU was destroying me pretty quickly so there weren't the number of long volleys I had on Hard difficulty, but there were a few and I noticed the stamina bar jumped back up to almost full right after them. On Hard, the stamina bar would be down in the yellow at about halfway after almost any long volley that wasn't at the very beginning of the match.

-On Very Hard the CPU punishes pretty much every mistake and does a good job of keeping you off balance. I could def see their missed opportunities when playing on Hard. They took full advantage of them on Very Hard.

gonna take a break for awhile, and lick my wounds from that last match...