Rocking Rackets Strategy and Tips Thread

[daahdeedaa]

Originally Posted by MarkBGregory

If you're talking about Tisserand, then I suggest you play him in AMA events, maybe even Futures, before he graduates the junior tour.

I've done it before, on GW12 I had Anton Barth ranked around #700 in the world, and at the same time he finished the year ranked #1 in juniors too.

However, unfortunately it doesn't mean your player will start playing practice events with other seniors. Until Week 52 of the final year of junior eligibility (i.e. after the Casablanca Cup), all U18s play junior practices. It was a bit of an issue for Barth, because he was significantly better than most of the other juniors at the time, and so his practice weeks were barely scraping any exp, because he was winning 6-0 6-1, 6-1 6-1, 6-0 6-2 etc. all the time.

I know some managers deliberately hold back on using their experience points in the final year of junior eligibility if this looks like it's going to be the case, i.e. "store" exp (up to 20000 points) without using them to boost skill and service. That keeps things a little more even and, while it might mean you don't sweep all the junior competitions, it probably works better for long-term growth.

Thanks for the info and advice. Yes, it's tisserand. What's weird is if you look at augosto colarte, number 8 ranked juniors player in world 12. He apparently was able to practice in juniors, singles and doubles week 17, 19 after getting a singles rank. Probably just a bug since he is cpu controlled. He's what originally made me think of getting to tisserand to regular practice (though I admit I didn't realize he was also doing juniors practice the same week)

[Umbrella]

I have yet another question. Sometimes there are players with a WC for their seeding. What does this mean?

[Brian Swartz]

WC means wild card. I don't know what criteria the game uses, but for example there are a few extra Americans that always make the real-life USO field by use of these exceptions. Usually they are players who wouldn't make the field otherwhise and would have to qualify.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by daahdeedaa

have a feeling I'm not just interpreting correctly what you mean by 60-40 split? I mean my player won 33% of the points, isn't that a 67-33 split?

I neglected to clarify this initially. You are understanding it correctly. You're 100% correct that this is a 67-33 split. All I was saying is it's not far enough below the threshold to have a huge impact. It's a lot worse if you get into the 20s, or down around 18 like the match I mentioned. You still got not-horrible xp in this match, just wasn't as good as a more competitive loss or even a really close win. That's the only point I was making.

[MarkBGregory]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

WC means wild card. I don't know what criteria the game uses, but for example there are a few extra Americans that always make the real-life USO field by use of these exceptions. Usually they are players who wouldn't make the field otherwhise and would have to qualify.

I don't know the exact criteria, but I do know that if you're outside the direct entrance cut off BUT the country the tournament is in is the same as your nationality, then you're very likely to get a wildcard. Otherwise, generally the game just gives them to the next three/four players in line for direct entry.

[digamma]

Coming into year end, I have a player who sits 35th in the singles rankings. He is playing in a CH+ right now and will likely do no worse than make the semifinals. I haven't analyzed the points the three guys in front of him are set to lose, but it is like he will be within 25 points of 32nd, with one final week of CH tournaments before the end of year hiatus.

Is the play to try to get him the last tournament in to get into the top 32 or tank to stay out of the top 32?

[MarkBGregory]

Originally Posted by digamma

Coming into year end, I have a player who sits 35th in the singles rankings. He is playing in a CH+ right now and will likely do no worse than make the semifinals. I haven't analyzed the points the three guys in front of him are set to lose, but it is like he will be within 25 points of 32nd, with one final week of CH tournaments before the end of year hiatus.

Is the play to try to get him the last tournament in to get into the top 32 or tank to stay out of the top 32?

I think it depends on how ready you think the player is for top 32 tennis.

If you get inside, you'll then be required to play all the major tournaments and potentially risk losing vital experience by getting beaten early on in all of them. Alternatively, you're pretty much guaranteed a seeding at all the Slams, which generally sees you through at least two rounds, and if you push on to the top 16, you'll be guaranteed seedings at the Masters events too.

If he's not ready for going up against the big boys week-in week-out, then maybe it's better to stay outside the top 32. That way, you can pick and choose the bigger tournaments you think he'll do best in (on his preferred surfaces) and more than likely still find yourself inside the top 32 and with more chance of being competitive the following year.

Like I say, I feel it depends entirely on the player in question.

[Brian Swartz]

That's quite sensible advice. I would say don't base the decision on points or ranking; base it on whether you need the matches from a form perspective to get through the end-of-year break. If you don't, go ahead and take the extra week off. If the player's ready to be up in the Top 32, to piggyback off Mark's points, you'll get there next year anyway.

[daahdeedaa]

So my doubles player is reaching his shelf life, I've done the math and if I convert him to trainer right away he becomes a 5.0 trainer, that said he's only 35 so I could have him use up a roster spot and boost his stats for another 10 years of I wanted to. What kind of difference should I expect between a 5.0 trainer and say a 5.5 one?

[digamma]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

That's quite sensible advice. I would say don't base the decision on points or ranking; base it on whether you need the matches from a form perspective to get through the end-of-year break. If you don't, go ahead and take the extra week off. If the player's ready to be up in the Top 32, to piggyback off Mark's points, you'll get there next year anyway.

This is essentially the approach I took. I needed another tournament given the upcoming time off, so I am playing him. In doing the math, it looks like he'll come up short in any case and finish 33rd or 34th at year end.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by MarkBGregory

Let me provide you with an example: in GW12 right now, there's a 30-year-old player called Guillaume Saint-Waleri. He's roughly 4th/5th in the rankings, but was world number one for years. I checked out his stats when I re-signed up in Feb and I was like, eh, they don't seem that great. Speed/Strength was around 3 at 100%, while Endurance and Talent were 4.5+ - that is, he wasn't necessarily that strong or fast, but he was able to gain experience super, super quickly. I noticed that his Skill level was at 5.2(!) which was at least 0.2 ahead of everyone else - so despite his relatively weak Strength and Speed, it didn't matter because his Skill was so much higher than everyone else. That's why he was top of the world.

So, myself and a friend of mine came up with the following, and ranked our own players according to it:

(Bear in mind that all the values discussed are when a player reaches 100%)

a) Talent and Endurance totals (TE):

1) 9.0+: HIRE THIS PLAYER AT ALL COSTS. Even if the other stats are a little disappointing, you have a brilliant chance of making the top 10 at the very least. Top of the world if it's backed up with good other stats, and even if it's not. (see below).

2) 8.5-9.0: HIRE THIS PLAYER, but make sure they have fairly high other stats. At this level, players might get off to a slow start, but generally have good enough endurance to get through a full week of singles/dubs practice, plus a couple of training sessions/friendly matches, and can be competitive at the top.

3) 8.0-8.5: Worth hanging on to, especially if their other stats are high. In quiet gameworlds, and even in busy ones with the right schedule, these players can still push towards the top 10, but they will need good aging factors and strength and speed to maintain a high position, because otherwise their Endurance will drop too quickly and the player will start to decline.

4) Below 8.0: Don't bother.

b) Speed and Strength values (SS)

Assuming you've hired a player with at least 8.0 TE, then you want to look at their S+S potential, because obviously a player with 8.5 TE and 7.5 SS will do worse than one with the same TE but 8.0 SS

1) IF you can get a SS at 8.0 or higher, that's ideal. Players with 8.5+ TE and 8.0+ SS are generally going to be pretty strong.

2) If your SS is between 7.5-8.0, you could still have a pretty successful career with a player whose TE was 8.0+.

3) If your SS is between 7.0-7.5, then you really want 8.5+ in terms of TE to offset the poor physical stats.

4) If your SS is below 7.0, then unless you have a TE of 9.0+, it's not really worth training this player.

c) Mentality value (M)

Mentality is viewed (by us) as more of an 'added bonus', and we generally don't factor it in to our calculations when deciding whether or not to hire a player. If you're in two minds on a player (maybe one that has 8 TE and 7.5 SS), then if the Mentality is 3.5+, you might want to train the player up until a better option eventually comes along. Apart from that, a TE 9.0 player with 8.0 SS is going to rock, even if the Mentality is zero.

Generally speaking, if your Talent, Endurance, Speed and Strength totals at 100% (TESS value) is 15.5+, then your player has a decent chance of making it.

I've got two guys pushing these boundaries in RR12. Wanted to try raising a smaller country up the RR rankings, so Luxembourg's Arnoud Martens is a poor 5.7 SS with a 104% aging - normally two things I'd try hard to avoid. A solid 8.4 in TE, although unfortunately Talent at 4.9 & Endurance topping at 3.5 (and again, with a short peak). I'm not real certain yet on how high I can get him - being able to get all the extra WC points playing singles/doubles helps a little, but he's still only a 14.1 on the TE scale Arnoud Martens

And the crown jewel, Tommy Simms, who's probably just about peaking at 5.1/3.8 (hoping I can get to 5.2, but I just went early on a serve point because I'm in a slam final). 7.6 SS at his peak, only 3.1 Mentality, and missed out on a lot of WC teams because he was in a bit of a golden generation for Americans with Burle, Hoar and Eizaguirre. Just topped the 8.5 TE barrier. In 4th place right now, just lost a 2nd Slam Final, and facing strong contenders all around for the Slams. Eizaguirre's a grass specialist (unfortunate as Simms has 34% Grass pref and would be a shoo in to win multiple Wimbledon's without a top 10 player who's a grass specialist who's his exact age!), Moretta etc dominating clay, Burle/Jarinov two really solid hardcourt specialists with hardcourt pref just higher than ours. Did just pick up a Masters win, so I've proven I can win at that level. Will have to do a better job managing his form next "year"
Tommy Simms

[MarkBGregory]

I'd noticed Arnoud Mertens! Because my other eldest player, Anton Barth, is the same age but graduated a year later from the junior tour. He's doing exceptionally well for his age group, constantly at the top of the 19-and-under players, although I'd like to think Barth is hot on his heels...

The rate things are going, the pair could be firm rivals for a few years. I notice their head-to-head is one each, with Mertens winning one at Junior level and Barth winning in last week's Shanghai CH3 final...

[digamma]

Originally Posted by digamma

This is essentially the approach I took. I needed another tournament given the upcoming time off, so I am playing him. In doing the math, it looks like he'll come up short in any case and finish 33rd or 34th at year end.

My guy quickly moved into the top 32 at #30 and is seeded 29th at the Aussie Open.

The opening round match was a triple bagel over an exhausted Swiss qualifier. The poor guy only won 7 points in three sets.

[MarkBGregory]

Some advice on the following issue from other gamers would be much appreciated.

Basic question: when do you stop playing your players in both singles and doubles tournaments, and start focusing them on just singles?

Example 1: I have a few players starting to make waves in GW2 and GW12. The most notable, simply because he's the oldest, is Juan Jose Elezgueta in GW2. At 21y35w, he has 4.5 Skill and 3.5 Serve. His aging factor is 105%, so he's already down to 99% - already declining as a player. He's currently ranked 76th in the world, going into Wimbledon in Week 27 next week. He defeated the world #14 Aniceto Lopezcastro in the Rome Masters a few weeks back. So far, I've continued to play him in both Singles and Doubles in all tournaments, simply to keep maximising experience each week. But when should I start focusing just on singles? When he gets in the top 32, or sooner?

Example 2: On GW12, I have a player hitting similar levels as Elezgueta, only sooner. Anton Barth is 19y41w as we head towards the end of another game year. Graduated from junior level last year. He has 4.3 Skill and 3.4 Serve. Again, aging factor 105%, which is a pain. Currently ranked 128th, but reached the second round of Wimbledon through qualifying and has two CH2 titles already this year, as well as a host of Futures. With a new year coming up, should I make the choice to try and get him further up the rankings, or should I continue to prioritise experience for another couple of years?

[digamma]

As a further aside to my post above, my player got a somewhat tough draw in the Australian Open. He cruised through the first two rounds but is now up against the #1 seed Daniel Wira. Wira is 25 and already has 5 Slams. He's got an Aging Factor of 95%, so he could well be in the top spot for some time. I hope we score more than 7 points.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by MarkBGregory

Basic question: when do you stop playing your players in both singles and doubles tournaments, and start focusing them on just singles?

Good question. First, my general answer is, as you suggested in part of your post, when you get to the Top 32. I talked about some of the why in a post earlier in the thread, but scheduling is really the reason here. The biggest scheduling change is when you go from playing challengers(at least largely) to playing Masters/Slams as the core of your tournaments, and optimally that's when you hit the Top 32 so you can be seeded at Slams and IW/Miami. At this point you no longer need to prioritize xp over ranking because they are both served best by the same thing -- getting as many matches in at the big events as possible. Due to the significant xp 'bonus' you get from matches in those events, the #1 thing to do for both concerns is to go as deep as you can in Masters and Slams, which means having your form peak in order to so is the top priority. At this stage I stop playing doubles all the time and only play doubles in the WTC or when it's useful to get form where I want it to be. What tends to happen is, the further you progress up the rankings, the less you need doubles matches to do this, and the very best players will basically not play doubles at all because it's counterproductive(pushes form too high).

Example 1: I'd say keep playing both until, as mentioned, you reach the Top 32.

Example 2: Even with the high aging, keep playing both. It's a frustrating point to go through trying to get up there, but until you are good enough to consistently win the top Challengers, you aren't good enough to make a lot of noise in Slams. Make the most of that short peak by training up as much as you can before you get there .

[law90026]

Figured this might be a better place to post.

So I'm wondering when is an ideal time to retire a player and make him a trainer? As an example, my main guy in world 2, Teo Rask, is probably on the downward swing of his career. Sure I could hold on for a year or 3 but he's never going to really have the chance to win anything.

So with that being said, any reason not to convert him to a trainer asap once I get enough for a 5+ skill as a trainer? I was thinking he might be able to play doubles with one of my other guys and get them do that way but not sure it's really fun worth it.

[Brian Swartz]

It's turning into a spam-posting day for me I guess. It depends on what your goals are really. I don't think there's any reason not to convert him when he reaches 5 or whatever you want your trainer to be. Sooner you do it the sooner you open up a spot for another up-and-coming player. I try to keep some years in between my players so that Sri Lanka will always have a couple of players who at least fairly close to their prime to let keep pushing as hard as possible in the WTC, but unless there's some particular timing thing like that you are waiting on I would think as soon as the player is ready is the right time to go.

[Umbrella]

I just picked up a youngster who is currently ranked 4th in his country in juniors. How can I tell who is on the team cup teams?

[digamma]

Here's another WTC question. I've got a guy from Bosnia who made his WTC team cup squad. Looking at the history, Bosnia hadn't been in the WTC team cup for 20 years. This season they get reinserted, and we've got a match for the Level 4 finals, going undefeated through pool play. Any reason they would have been left out for 20 years and then come back in at Level 4?

[digamma]

Umbrella,

The singles picks are the top two rated singles players in the country. I haven't tracked how the doubles teams are selected.

[britrock88]

Originally Posted by digamma

Umbrella,

The singles picks are the top two rated singles players in the country. I haven't tracked how the doubles teams are selected.

I'll add some shading to this.

At the senior level, the top two singles players play singles (2 matches each), and the top two double players play the doubles match.

At the junior level, the tournaments are broken out into 18U, 16U, and 15U divisions. I can't tell you exactly what gets non-competing teams in and out, but note that a player might compete at different levels of JTCs over the course of his junior career.

As for selection for JTCs... the top three eligible players (determined by overall juniors ranking) for a nation's JTC squad have the following responsibilities: #1--2 singles matches, #s 2 & 3--1 singles match, 1 doubles match.

[digamma]

Originally Posted by digamma

As a further aside to my post above, my player got a somewhat tough draw in the Australian Open. He cruised through the first two rounds but is now up against the #1 seed Daniel Wira. Wira is 25 and already has 5 Slams. He's got an Aging Factor of 95%, so he could well be in the top spot for some time. I hope we score more than 7 points.

It's US Open week and this is the third slam this year that I've drawn Wira as a third round opponent. Lame.

[Brian Swartz]

That's 'fun' ...

[kingfc22]

Do players go into slumps? My 16 yo was winning every JG4 with ease and then made it to the SF in 3 straight JG3's. Now he can't get out of the first round of a JG4 or JG3.

[Brian Swartz]

There's no mention of it in the game documentation, but I think they definitely do. I've seen players over or underachieve for up to a year and a half. On the other hand, I don't know what your sample size is and it's possible you can have also have a bad run of luck in terms of facing unusually tough early-round opponents.

[Alf]

I activated VIP for one week (but I am likely to at least get it for the first 3 months stint).

I am looking for a potential trainer (and I am playing in Game World 11) and looking for any possible hint from board pundits.

Eduard Van der Berg is a likely candidate (and frenchman ).


I'd appreciate other hints.

[law90026]

Originally Posted by Alf

I activated VIP for one week (but I am likely to at least get it for the first 3 months stint).

I am looking for a potential trainer (and I am playing in Game World 11) and looking for any possible hint from board pundits.

Eduard Van der Berg is a likely candidate (and frenchman ).


I'd appreciate other hints.

I've got M. Ngui and V. Borzakov down as a 4.9 trainer and 4.88 trainers respectively, if my corrected spreadsheet is now correct.

[Alf]

Originally Posted by law90026

I've got M. Ngui and V. Borzakov down as a 4.9 trainer and 4.88 trainers respectively, if my corrected spreadsheet is now correct.

In the "poor" games help, I don't see ageing factor in the trainer formula, but I guess you have it included ?

here is a copy/paste of gmaes help page : (skill+0.75*service+0.33*doubles)/2.3

[Brian Swartz]

It's based on the raw numbers, not after adjustments are made due to aging.

[Alf]

MMh, not sure how I then see raw numbers. It's all mystery to me. I hired the "russian" guy nevertheless.

[Alf]

Once hired

Vladislav Borzakov (36yr51wk) >" class="icon"> (5919 points)

	Points	Age%		Train Cost
Skill	120	68%		7289
Service	102	68%		5486
Doubles	82	100%		1332
Make trainer (retire)				7500

I plan on playing him a couple of seasons (at least). Is it betetr if I then up his service or doubles rating ? (or will that end up the same trainer wise) ?

Edit : looks like I just can't increase his service rating

[Brian Swartz]

Up his doubles at this point. I'm a little confused because I didn't think serve could be trained past 100, but you can use the trainer formula to decide what is better to train.

Example: currently takes 1332xp to train doubles. If needed serve xp is more than ((doubles / .33) * .75) -- which produces 3027, well under the 5486 listed -- then you want to train doubles before service. You can do similar math for comparing it to skill, etc.

Edit: You can't 'see' the raw numbers for players you don't have hired, but you can estimate it with some basic math. Doubles aren't affected by aging, so if a player has(for example), a 4.0 in doubles he's got about 80(multiply by 20). For skill and service, you multiply by 20 again and then divide by aging factor. So with the 68% aging, if a player had 4.0 skill, they would have about 80/.68 for their raw skill, or 117-118.

[law90026]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Edit: You can't 'see' the raw numbers for players you don't have hired, but you can estimate it with some basic math. Doubles aren't affected by aging, so if a player has(for example), a 4.0 in doubles he's got about 80(multiply by 20). For skill and service, you multiply by 20 again and then divide by aging factor. So with the 68% aging, if a player had 4.0 skill, they would have about 80/.68 for their raw skill, or 117-118.

Pretty much this except that I use a spreadsheet. I just chuck all the information for players on to it by copying it from the website (I'm sure someone will know some way to automate the process) then manually enter their aging factors to get their rough trainer ability.

I do the same for the 14 year old players every few days just to see if anyone pops up that might be interesting.

[MarkBGregory]

Question:

Does home advantage JUST count in the country in which they're from? Because my Belarussian player always seems to do exceptionally well in Ukraine and Russia...

[Brian Swartz]

Yes it just counts in their hope country.

A little something I thought would be useful here, the whole 'create player' thing which is basically VIP only. I posted about this in one of the dynasty threads, so to start with, here's what I wrote there:

Originally Posted by me

You're basically guaranteed to get a good player, they just may not be great. More on that in a bit here. I always create a new player on Sunday of Week 52. The first thing you have to do is fire an existing one, since you can't create a new one without an empty spot in your roster. This can make things a little interesting if you have enough credits to create more than one player, since if you want to try for someone better you have to fire someone first, and then if the RNG doesn't treat you well you're kind of sunk due to somebody else hiring whoever it is you got rid of. Doing it at the beginning of the week lets you use that week for xp before you enter any tournaments. A small thing, but grab every advantage you can. IIRC the players start off at exactly 20 form so you'll have time to put in a few practice weeks before you need to do your first junior tournaments.

You have three things you can control in terms of how good the player is. Name and nation obviously don't matter here. I don't remember the exact terminology the game uses, but I'll be creating a new player in less than two weeks now so this stuff is fairly fresh in my mind having done it a few times.

** Aging -- Three settings, something like Peak Early, Peak Normal, or Peak Late. I always choose the one that gives a low aging factor, for longevity(and poor juniors/early development of course as the tradeoff).

** Best Attribute -- You can choose one of strength, speed, endurance, talent, to have a better chance to get a good 'roll' on. I think those are the only ones in there but I would double-check it as I don't recall for certain. I go with endurance. As has been discussed it is in my opinion the most important. Having said that in a fast world I would consider whether talent may be more important for you.

** Worst Attribute -- You also have to choose one that has a better chance of being lower. I have always chosen one of the athletic ones, strength and speed. I think speed is probably the best choice here as strength is probably a little more important but you could argue that either way.

Finally, cross your fingers :P.

Prospective Results

I've created four players so far, with at least one more coming soon -- I have the credits to do two more at the end of the year here, so if the first one goes bad I have a 'backup' so to speak. Three of them are players I'm managing right now, the fourth wasn't quite as good so I jettisoned them. Here's how they came out on the TESS scale:

** Anil Mehul -- 8.9 TE(4.4 Talent, 4.5 Endurance), 6.6 SS(3.4 strength, 3.2 speed), 95% aging. Best of any of them in endurance and aging factor, but relatively 'meh' talent and athleticism.

** Girish Girsh -- 8.7 TE(4.4 Talent, 4.3 Endurance), 6.1 SS(2.9 strength, 3.2 speed), 96% aging. Girsh was the most developed(most starting skill and service) so that mitigated at least somewhat the fact that he was a little more limited. He also had a higher mentality(3.8), Mehul was at 3.4.

** Shyam Senepathy -- 8.8 TE(4.5 Talent, 4.3 Endurance), 5.7 SS(3.5 strength, 2.2 speed), 96% aging. I haven't written much about him because he's the one that I 'threw back'. This was mostly because of the low speed around the court. Another 3.4 mentality here. He's not terrible by any stretch, mismanagement has him barely inside the Top 300 at age 20, but he could have been good -- just not quite as good as the others.

** Prakash Mooljee -- 8.9 TE(4.7 Talent, 4.2 Endurance), 6.8 SS(3.5 Strength, 3.3 Speed), 97% aging. On the TESS scale he is the best I've turned out; on the other hand he was the least developed in terms of skill/service, sort of the other end of that process from Girsh. He's doing very well though. Mentality came out at 3.4 again.

Conclusions

The game promises a strong but not necessarily world class player, and I think these results bear that out. There has been a great degree of consistency in an admittedly very small sample size. From reading the forums years ago on the subject, it is or at least was possible to get a really fantastic player significantly better than this, but quite rare. I imagine it's also probably possible to get one somewhat worse. I do think you can expect to get players who are better than the ones you can hire in a busy world(unless you are consistently lucky and quick) this way.

Since I'm creating a player today I thought I'd add a bit to this. If you go to 'Hire Player' you can see whether or not you are able to create one(basically you can do so four times for each VIP payment you make, but you have to have a free slot in your players to do so).

Step 1: First Name, Surname, and Country. Pretty self-explanatory and they don't affect your players ability, with the exception that because of the number of US tournaments, US home advantage is reduced.

Step 2: Here's the important part. You can choose a different number, familiarize yourself with the process by trying an Example player(who you can't keep even if you really like them, it's just to give you an idea of how it works). Then, make sure you have all of the following as you want them before you click Create Player. Can't really emphasize that enough, because you can't change your mind afterwards. The game does at least give you a warning to check your work and confirm.

So these are the things you can impact:

** Age: 14, 15, or 16. I don't know why you'd pick anything other than 14. Maybe you could play around with Example and it gives them more development at the higher ages, but the younger you can start the better. So 14 is the only choice here.

** Surface(1st). Top surface for preferences. I'd go with hardcourt but it's trivial to change this as a junior so it doesn't really matter.

** Surface(2nd). Clay is my choice here but again not a significant thing.

** Strong In -- Now we're talking. This is the attribute to emphasize, options are Endurance, Speed, Strength, Mentality, and Talent.

** Weakness -- Same choices. Now you actually can select the same attribute for both, I've never tried it but I assume that it would basically cancel itself out and you'd get a more 'balanced' character that way.

** Aging Factor -- Peaks Early, Average, Peaks Late. Age and these these last three options are the key ones, see my recommendations in what I quoted.

[Brian Swartz]

I don't remember who and don't feel like going back into the thread and check, but someone mentioned training serve more for young players to minimize the double faults that are a really big issue. I've thought about this for a while and am trying it out with my new player. What I'm going to do is train serve and skill evenly at first, then gradually tilt it more towards skill as he improves, so that by the time he's a top player it will be at the usual balance of twice the cost for skill as service.

[brett32z]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

So this isn't entirely rambling, let's talk about Court Preferences. These can play a significant role, certainly during the initial years, but even at the highest level they play a big role each week. My goal right now is to get as close to a 60/40/0/0 split as I can on my players, making sure that one of Hard/Clay is built up, and then tailoring his secondary one based off his current percentages when I pick him up or maybe what courts seem most prominent in his country. (I know that's dumb, but when it's not a big difference I also try signing up for tournaments geographically close to his home country... unnecessary sure, but helps a little with my immersion!) I'm not sure if they are solely based off what percentage of your past matches have been on each surface or there is a little bit of hard coding built in for individual players, but they're definitely fairly set in stone by age 21/22. One other thing to note is that by that top level I've arrived at (Tommy Simms just turned 23, 4.9/3.6, ranked #23), practice sessions on grass (his secondary preference at 35%) are much less useful than practice sessions on hard/clay, partly because he's one of the best players in the world on grass but mostly because very few top players end up in those, and even being placed in Tier 1 I'd only get 2 decent practice matches at best in a week. So if you do try specializing in grass/indoor it might be worth baking a couple extra points in during those 18-22 year old years, because you'll likely be losing them once you're in the top 30 and playing such a varied schedule/dominating most practice opponents below the top 50.

Does anyone have any other thoughts on court preference strategy? I have a soon to be 15 year old in GW11 with 49%H/37%G/10%C/2%I. Should I be actively shaping that one way or another?

[Brian Swartz]

Depends on how good you think he's going to be a bit. I definitely think the grass is high though. It will help you at Wimbledon -- but that's about it. Sometimes a clay specialist can get enough points there(3 masters + 1 Slam) especially if there aren't many other clay player in the world.

If you look at the top-level events(Masters + Slams + Tour Finals), points available as are follows:

Hardcourt -- 9000
Clay -- 4000
Indoor -- 2500
Grass -- 2000

I'd definitely keep the hardcourt high, probably roughly reverse the clay and grass you have going, and move indoor up into the teens. Really depends on your preferences and what you are trying to do, but that will give you the best chance to do well on the surfaces that have the most opportunities -- again, assuming you have a player who can get to the elite level.

[brett32z]

Thanks! The points breakdown was exactly what I needed.

Assuming I did the math correctly, my player's peak stats should be:

Strength 4.3
Speed 2.1
Mentality 3.8
Talent 4.3
Endurance 4.8

The endurance looks great but none of the top players in my world have speed that low so... I have no idea how good he could be. I'll definitely let grass drop and try to replace it with clay though.

[Brian Swartz]

Should be quite a good player there if well handled. By Mark's TESS system, he's got 9.1 TE, 6.4 SS. The speed is low, but the strength is high enough to largely counterbalance that. I'd guess Top 10 for him. most important is to make use of all that endurance, which isn't easy in a fast world.

[Alf]

Haven't posted my latest junior pickup to pair with my Junior ranked#1 guy .

Hvalimir Kavazovic has spent nearly all season as #1 ranked junior. HE only let his #1 ranking to another guy for a couple of weeks as the other guy cheated by entering JG1 tournaments

Last offseason, I tried pairing up kavazovic with the highest rated 17yr old guy and found this one Eberhard Leitner as pairing with a guy with a highly ranked would nearly assure me of Kavazovic keeping his title. The plan went as scheduled as they won all 4 Grand Slams + All JGAs so far.

Now onto the interesting part is that Leitner is a 8.8 TE prospect with 7.3 SS. I will very likely dump the #1 ranked junior guy to try and develop Leitner instead. That was unexpected to start with.

[MarkBGregory]

Okay, here's one for you.

VIP Players, this may be of more interest to you.

When you 'Enter Tournaments', your players are positioned left-to-right in a seemingly random order.

Is it random?

Because I'm pretty sure they're ranked in order of how good that player might be in the future. Because on both of my worlds, my best players are on the left, and they gradually decline towards the right.

For example, in GW12, Ralph Dyer precedes Anton Barth, who is ahead of Charles Gayrard, before Nasir Kodumudi. I rate those four players also in that order.

Similarly, on GW2, my players are ranked Christian Kulle, Igor Borowski, Harald Babbel, Juan Jose Elezgueta.

Random? Or coincidence? And does anyone else feel this way?

[law90026]

So just a sidenote as I've been playing around with a couple of juniors in world 10.

The difference in talent is astounding between world 2 and world 10. Using Brian's rating system, here are a few differences:

No of players above 10 rating: World 2 has 3, World 10 has 1
No of players above 9.5 rating: World 2 has 24, World 10 has 17
No of players above 9 rating: World 2 has 75, World 10 has 38
No of players above 8.5 rating: World 2 has 184, World 10 has 105

The depth of talent in world 2 is significantly better than world 10. Not sure whether it would be similar in other worlds.

My point? World 2 probably should be a no go for someone just starting out because of how competitive it is. It's made me consider switching out my VIP status to another world when it's time to renew.

[Brian Swartz]

Wow that's insane. It also totally throws off my recommendations, at least to a degree. Guys like Mehul and Girsh would probably do well to be Top 5 in World 2. Mooljee(currently in the 60s) probably wouldn't even be Top 100 yet, or if so barely.

I'm also impressed that you went to the trouble of rating 200 or more players! For my world ...

10+ rating: 1(Iglar)
9.5+: 6
9.0+: roughly 30

So, as I've noticed, it's not even quite as deep as World 10 -- although this is a low spot, it's usually got more in the 9.5+ category. I've got it real easy over here, in other words.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by MarkBGregory

When you 'Enter Tournaments', your players are positioned left-to-right in a seemingly random order.

Is it random?

Because I'm pretty sure they're ranked in order of how good that player might be in the future.

Interesting theory. It seems to be the same order they are listed on the 'Use Experience' page, only there it's top to bottom. First, it's not random. Girsh and Manohar kept flipping spots every so often for me, which tells me it's something(who knows what) other than how good they are. Manohar was a complete waste of space compared to my other players, so if that's what it was he should always have been last. He wasn't. So I don't know what it is.

[Alf]

How do you guys project stats peak ? I know age% comes into effect but I still haven't been able to figure out how ?

Could anyone help share their formula ? Thanks.

[law90026]

You can calculate the strength, speed and endurance by taking the current score and dividing by the % next to their age (not to be confused with the ageing factor). For endurance, divide twice.

[Alf]

Peak talent = display talent (unaffected by age%)
Peak strength = display strength/(age%)
Peak speed= display speed/(age%)
Peak endurance = display endurance/(age%²) ?

Am I correct ?

[law90026]

Yup looks right