[Brian Swartz]

Now you've gone and done it. One of the most dangerous things you can do is invite me to unload a massive wall of text by asking for strategy on this game. You asked for it. I am not responsible for the consequences :P.

In all seriousness, I'm glad that people other than me are still enjoying this game. I love the fact that it doesn't have the 'micro-transaction' concept so common to many online games, forcing you to actually manage your players well to succeed.

So, here we go.

Originally Posted by britrock88

-Do you train for skill or serve first?

My rule of thumb is to have the marginal skill cost be at least twice as high as the marginal service cost. That infers that skill is twice as valuable as service--conversely, that service is half as valuable as skill. That's a minimum, I would think.

This is exactly what I do: skill until it's at least double the service cost. The logic here is that skill is used on all points, service on only half. Most managers train service more than I do but I'm not sure that's a good idea. The reason for that is higher service will help in terms of 'free points'; that is, more aces(and fewer double faults, but that's less of an issue at the top level). Other side of the 'free points' coin is having slightly better odds on each point by going the skill route. I think being close to the line where skill is double the service cost is best, but maybe one could argue for having service at 60% of skill cost. I wouldn't go more than that though.

Originally Posted by britrock88

-How do you best control Form?

This varies based on the stage of a player's career. Until they are playing at a peak level (major/challenger-level singles or doubles), the experience you gain in practice is just as important, in my book. So I will enter players into tournaments until their form approaches 30 (the max without penalty to ability and experience), then keep them out of tournaments until their form drops to just about 15 (the min).

I disagree somewhat here, but that may be partly due to playing in a slow world. Optimally for development you want to stay as close to the 15 minimum for maximum experience(without going below). That means not playing any tournaments in the following week if you are above about 16.4. For faster worlds I might do something more like britrock just to make sure you don't drop below or miss weeks, but when a daily check is enough to keep players active every week it's not necessary. Some of this, from a practical point of view, depends on how often you can check in on your players.

At the top level it's different. By top level, I mean this: ranked in the Top 32 by the above method. Before that, and this is important, you 98% don't care what your ranking is. Moving up in ranking doesn't make it a good year; getting enough experience to train a lot of skill/service makes it a good year. Wins and losses are comparatively irrelevant.

But once you get there, you have to play other top players to advance anyway. The way it works out is, if you are good enough to consistently win big Challenger events, you will soon reach the Top 32 even with a limited schedule(the point at which you are seeded in Slams). If you aren't good enough to win the big Challengers, development is more important. There really isn't any in-between. Once at the elite stage, competition for ranking points becomes the priority. And it's more or less enforced really, since you are penalized for skipping Masters if you were Top 30 the previous year. So your schedule then becomes Slams + Masters + the occasional 500/250 where it fits. Everything is then about maximizing your results in the Slams and secondarily the Masters. You want to be in the 'optimal zone' of 20-25 form at the end of the Slams, which means starting them in the 19-20 range. Sometimes(Madrid/Rome, or Canada/Cincy) you'll have to be below the optimal range for the preceding Masters in order to make that happen; at other points you can prepare for maximum results in the Masters. After a couple years you get a good hang for it. Anything else just serves to set you up with the number of matches you need to get form ready for those big events, and whatever points you get are just icing on the cake.

Originally Posted by britrock88

-How do you decide when a player is ready to move up to the next level of tournaments?

The comment about being seeded at the next level up is right on the money I think. There are some cases that are different. For example, breaking into the futures you can only go up to making the Top 1000 in amateurs, then you have to qualify in futures; there's a similar point when making the futures/challenger jump. But in general, it's the right way to go. If you aren't seeded, it's too soon because you can get stuck playing a powerful top seed in the first round and then having a nearly wasted week.

Originally Posted by britrock88

-What do you look for when you hire a player?

Here we get to the wall of text part rather severely. I did a long post on this before that I'll just reproduce here.

Originally Posted by me

Most of this is in the game documentation but some is either not explained all that well or not synthesized in a way that, at least to me, makes sense.

Aging Factor -- All players have somewhere from 95% to 105% -- the lower end will result in a longer 'prime' as a professional, but players will not be as good as juniors and will not be able to train as much. Overall, less is better in terms of great pros which is what I focus on. Mehul is 95%, Girsh 96%, Mooljee 97% so my players are all on that end of the scale, quite intentionally. Most of the Top 10 is as well. Perry Hogue is a notable exception; he's about to turn 26 which isn't that old at all -- Mehul will probably hit his peak about then -- but I note him as a player in decline because he has a 103%(hence the meteoric label). Generally speaking junior #1 will have a 103% or more. A great example in my universe is a dominant junior between Alastra and Benda in age, Lubos Nedved. He is now almost 27, and basically won everything in juniors as a 17 and 18-year old and terrorized up-and-coming players(including Mehul) for a few years after that. He won the last five junior grand slams he was eligible for, but as a pro he has won just a pair of 250-level events and nothing higher, peaking at 19th and now 28th in the world and declining. Hogue is obviously a better version of this but he was never going to be a top player for long.

Age % -- This can be confused with aging factor but is not the same thing. This describes where a player is in their development, and is a multiplier that determines their actual ability at the time. For example, Mooljee has a raw ability of a little over 2.0 in skill, but because he's a young player, age % is only 68% and so he plays at a level of 1.4 instead. Skill, service, speed, strength, and endurance(twice, i.e. multiplied by 68% or whatever twice instead of once) are all affected by Age %, but the other abilities(mentality, doubles, talent, etc.) are not.

Static Attributes

These do not change throughout a player's career. They do not improve or decline with age, and they cannot be trained. They simply are -- a player is either good at them, or they are not, as a natural ability or lack thereof.

Talent -- Every player gains experience points, to be used in improving trainable skills(below) on a daily basis. It is the same amount every day. Mooljee(4.7) gets 31 xp per day, Manohar(2.0) gets 20 xp per day, etc. For particularly young and old players, this is especially important since they can't practice as much, meaning a higher proportion of their experience comes from their natural affinity or talent for the sport.

Mentality -- 'Clutch' ability that is used on important points, game points, break points, match points, etc.

Home Advantage -- Bonus given to players in front of their home crowd. This is largest in small events, and smallest in bigger ones: it disappears completely as a non-factor in Slams. I note it here only because it's there, but really it has a quite minor impact on the game. All else being equal I will play junior/future events in a player's home country, but of course all else is rarely equal and by the time you reach the level where it's really important to win, this virtually doesn't matter anymore .


Variable Attributes

All other attributes change based on a player's natural development curve(i.e., their age % which depends on the aging factor). The ones listed in this section cannot be trained either.

Endurance -- As I've mentioned, this is in my opinion the single most important attribute of a player. It defines how much a player can practice before become too tired to benefit from it. The formula here is simple: points played divided by endurance equals fatigue. I.e., a match with 100 points(for simplicity) and a player with 2.0 endurance will result in 50 fatigue. Above 500 fatigue performance penalties set in very quickly, so overworking a player beyond a certain point is just counterproductive. Since age % is divided in twice here, endurance both improves and declines much faster than anything else. This makes it doubly important to take advantadge of the 2-3 year 'physical peak' at which a player is at their maximum endurance(Girsh is about in the middle of this right now for me). That period is where trainers really shine, since these players can't play enough practice matches at that point to use up all of their fatigue allotment.

Strength -- Added directly to a player's skill to determine their playing ability in matches, but at a 20% rate(i.e., divided by five).

Speed -- The admin mentioned some years back that speed is a more complicated matter than strength, and never released the formula for it's effect. They said it was probably about the same impact as strength, but a number of players have mentioned they think strength is actually more effective in their players. It is generally thought to have the most impact on return of serve, but this is purely a logic-based conjecture.


Trainable Attributes

I've referred to these as the 'technical abilities/skills' at times. These are what I, as a manager, can improve using the experience points saved up via talent, matches, and training sessions.

Skill -- Basic rally ability of a player. This is used in all points, and is affected by age % as well.

Serve -- A player's serve ability is added to skill when they are the server. I.e, a player with 4.0 skill and 3.0 serve would have a base ability of 4.0 when returning, 7.0 when serving(before adding in speed/strength/mentality/etc. affects). Serve is also affected by age %.

Doubles -- Doubles is added to Skill in doubles matches, and(obviously) not used in singles. Importantly, it is not affected by age %, unlike the other trainable attributes.

Since Skill is always used but Serve only when serving, it is sensible and pretty much universally practiced to train Skill at least somewhat more.

Ok, so that's pretty much everything I know about the player attributes, all of which is a setup for:


Bryan's Overall Player Rating Formula

** Skill +
** 50% of Serve(again, since it's used half the time) +
** 40% of Mentality(a guess on it's importance, this is a matter of personal taste and the magnitude of the effect has not been publicly defined. Based on what I've seen this is a reasonable guess in my opinion. It may be a bit high but I don't think by much if it is) +
** 20% of Strength(official) +
** 20% of Speed(official estimate)

There are other matters such as a player's bonuses on the four surfaces, bonus or penalty depending on their form, and so on but all of these are completely within the control of the manager to properly prepare their player for success. The rating here is meant to simply describe the overall ability of a player at a given point in their career, to which good/mediocre/bad player management will add it's attendant effects.