I picked this game up after hearing Lizard King talk about it (and having loved the first one). I was really liking for awhile. And then…
Once you get past the 200 ranking, it gets stupidly hard. Suddenly guys you were beating are now doing triple back flips from 2 miles away to hit the ball. I could understand if it was a gradual progression, but it literally changes at rank 199.
I also am not finding the controls as intuitive as I once thought. Part of the problem is that the game doesn’t do a good job of explaining a few nuances. Take power hitting and slams. It seems self-explanatory from the rules, but in practice I find it near impossible. I am timing the ball, hitting the shot button early, etc…all as explained. And yet for whatever reason am having a tough time with it.
The computer will slam you every time, but your player finds it difficult to hit anything other than a lob it seems like. I might be doing something wrong there…but that is part of the problem.
Anyone else playing it? Liking it or disliking it?
IIRC, I didn’t start having problems until the sub 100…probably around 50-60 is where I stopped, but mainly because other, more exciting titles were around.
Other than that, I really took a while to cue in on how important different shots were relative to your placement and anticipated speed of the ball.
From what you say, I’m guessing you’re hitting the shot button a bit earlier than you should, forcing your character to reach and airball it instead of getting a solid hit. That may not be your fault, depending on your character’s proficiency in footwork. I would recommend emphasizing the footwork training routines for a bit, and I think at higher levels you’ll see much greater ease in getting to the ball and doing the shot you want. Naturally, the training courses for those kinds of shots are the way to go if you want to twist your arm into doing it right…I agree that there’s not enough feedback or direction.
And, of course, the lob is the hardest shot for me to work effectively even when it’s not the result of bad placement. I’d recommend working on your slice and topspin and forgetting about that button altogether. If you do figure out how to do it, let me know.
Thanks for the advice. Have you seen a really big difference as your skill levels go up? I am averaging level 10 on all of my skills. Maybe I need to take some time and work them some more…
I have to say, besides the recent problems, I love the World Tour mode. I like the different choices and have to admit–showing even more of the geek in me–I like the different gear you can select, the different rackets, etc.
I had to boot it up again to make sure, as I felt I was ballparking too much. For my current rank of 72 (oops), I am at serve 23/19,footwork 20/20/23, volleying 17/18/18, and most crucially, stroke back 25/23/22 fore 27/26/25.
So that gives you an idea of how mighty Player 1 (in my defense, I thought you could change the name later) needed to be for rank 72.
I have to say, besides the recent problems, I love the World Tour mode. I like the different choices and have to admit–showing even more of the geek in me–I like the different gear you can select, the different rackets, etc.
I actually love most of the minigame training events, and I thought that was a place where Top Spin 2 really messed it up by turning them into a failure/money thing instead of the much more reasonable fatigue system.
And to this day the name LINDSAY DAVENPORT, that of my blood rival, can drive me into a homicidal rage. Possibly a worse nemesis is out there, but I’ve never run into it, and I feel like I chickened out by not playing anymore. Now to remember how the hell to play this again.
Ok, now I’ve played for a while and remembered other reasons why I stopped.
-Higher level training is unduly frustrating. I’m not saying they should hand it to you on a silver platter, but more guidance and less strict victory conditions would be much better. At level six training, the only games I can win are the fruit catching one and the barrel knockdown, and that’s only going to get me so far. The Pin Crusher is a nightmare of variables that aren’t explained to you and, of course, ridiculous pin placement when your choices are between hitting the ball to the center or out (I feel like I have no control over the serve, even when I “moderate” my speed).
That’s combined with collision detection that makes no sense. Enough said, I’m sure you know what I mean.
Which brings up the next point: serving at higher level games. I consistently break theirs, they consistently break mine but always in deuce. Since you start first and there’s no sudden death, I end up with a hard fought, hour long match that I get nothing for, and it all comes down to the serve. See, I know everything about how to receive it successfully, and the techniques work there. But there is no effective way that I’ve found to learn ball placement for the server, or what speeds are effective. Max speed is useless without placement, it doesn’t even knock them off balance a bit or anything even when we’re talking about my character’s 190 kph serve. But I’ll be damned if I can get that quick analog swivel during the serve meter to do what I want, and I shouldn’t have been able to get this far in the game without learning that.
Other things: Tournaments are too long, and you can’t save during. Sega needs to face up to the fact that this is a casual game for some of us, and these 5-5 sets against a tireless ai are just awful.
More feedback is needed for shots other than strokes. I know exactly when and why I’ve screwed those up, but volleys and serves are mystery (what constitutes good moderate serves? who knows?), forget about lobs.
Something I forgot to mention earlier: it’s not just about where the ball is, but about how the ball is bouncing. Seems obvious, but if you’re having trouble getting max speed returns, placing yourself at the peak of the bounce (and with your racket there, not your person) makes that last bit that footwork can’t cover work. But yeah, I think I’m stuck in this ranking, no matter how much better my mood gets when I use my playlist.
I went up in rank quite a bit yesterday…I am feeling your pain past the 100 ranking with some of the issues you mentioned.
I have yet to even remotely pull off a lob. I basically gave up, because every time it has meant an automatic score against me.
Agreed on the training as well. It gets pretty brutal.
One of the crazy things I find however, is that during doubles I cannot be defeated. I simply return and every other time my partner power-slams it into them. Which works for me.
Have you had any injuries yet? I broke (or my character did anyway :) my femur yesterday and was out for 12 weeks. The computer ensured that my skills dropped as a result. Awesome. I really did think I was getting enough rest…I guess I need to send the character on more vacations.
Yeah, I probably need to schedule some of those, I don’t recall them being a problem.
Have you had any injuries yet? I broke (or my character did anyway :) my femur yesterday and was out for 12 weeks. The computer ensured that my skills dropped as a result. Awesome. I really did think I was getting enough rest…I guess I need to send the character on more vacations.
Yes, every now and then, because I never vacation. I never power drink, either, but it seems that’s not enough. Honestly, between that kind of thing and the 20 year limit, it pretty much caps my other than casual interest in the game…how stupid do you have to be to think that arbitrarily putting time limits on a time sink grind fest like this one is a good idea? It blows my mind.
Yeah, that is baffling to me as well. At first I thought that it was a cool system, but then you start realizing you are running out of time, but are now getting your ass handed to you as well as getting injuries and such. Not to mention having to perfect your skills.
I wonder if it would have been better just taking the whole time management bit out…or at least revising it so that there is either no limit or changing the format.
Right around level five or six events the difficulty spiked significantly. I was particularly disappointed with the tennis school, where they took the whole “victory conditions that couldn’t ever be connected to teaching you how to play better” thing that happens to a lesser extent in some activities and went nuts with it. I imagine if there’s a level above advanced, it consists entirely of GHIIIesque challenges (“win a match with the screen turned off”).
And some of those other activities would probably be fine if there was some tutorial aspect integrating what you were doing in a meaningful manner to the main game. Metal Gear 2’s VR missions are the gold standard for making it obvious how you are becoming a better player, whereas with VT3 I felt like it was almost a straightforward RPG grind at times.
Once those grinds became onerous, I was done.
I wonder if it would have been better just taking the whole time management bit out…or at least revising it so that there is either no limit or changing the format.
Possibly. I think streamlining the interface so you can see everything that’s available easily and getting rid of fatigue altogether would be a great move. My own real life fatigue is more than enough of a limiting factor, thanks.
The 20 year limit isn’t so bad I guess, since I’m only on year 7 and the limit only kicks in if you aren’t number 1…I find it hard to believe that the last 70 spaces would take me 13 years, but I guess anything’s possible. But why bother? I can’t imagine how pissed I’d be if somehow it did end up being an obstacle.
No, if anything it’s more over the top.
I don’t mind some incentive to do the games, but I think you’re right. At least Tennis 2k2 as I remember it capped levels long before the minigames broke my balls, and most of the reason (I felt) I was able to take down the King and Queen was due to my own ability. For this one I felt like I was cruising on my character’s stats a lot of the time, and then having to learn the game all over again in order to merely tread water at higher levels. There are good mechanics in VT3, but they’re buried by stuff that’s impossible to perceive from the outside once you get to higher levels. I bet at least half of my problems with the game could be explained by in game text, replays that had more than just visual flash to offer, etc etc. Keep it clear why I made a mistake, or make it easy.
That said, it’s the only current gen option I’ve found, and it’s not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. I’m focusing on the negatives of the world tour mode, but what would have been the core game in VT1 is extremely solid and polished. It’s just been moved to the back burner for the tennis rpg to take the lead.
