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Top Spin 4: Dev Diary #3
Topic Started: Feb 11 2011, 10:19 AM (1,079 Views)
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Hello everyone,

I’m Rémi Ercolani, Gameplay Designer on Top Spin 4. During the development process, I was in charge of designing and tuning the gameplay. From the player behaviors, shot types and overall balancing, it was my job to impact how the game was actually played. As a huge tennis fan and player myself, it was really something I enjoyed. Today I’m going to explain how each gamer can experience Top Spin 4 differently based upon individual gameplay habits, specifically your play style.

When I say play style, I’m referring here to how you play the game of tennis and what strategy you choose in order to win a match: the shots you select, where you position yourself on the court, how you react to your opponent’s shots, etc. In Top Spin 4, we really wanted to give everyone the chance to truly craft their own unique playing style. So whether you prefer to attack from the baseline, play a more subtle/tactical game, or move to the net and volley, you can find success playing Top Spin 4 your way.

The team started with the feedback we received from fans of Top Spin 3. One common theme the team heard was that the game was too skewed towards power players who were too difficult to challenge no matter how well you played the game strategically. So we set out to improve on this aspect and provide a true variety of playing styles with Top Spin 4.

Balanced Play Styles = Balanced Gameplay

We took some time to think of ways to make all play styles equally competitive and better balanced. This resulted in Top Spin 4’s gameplay being very accessible while at the same time giving gamers a wider variety of shots and movements. The arsenal of shots at your disposal really allows you to play the game in many different ways and offers plenty of tactics to win a tennis match based upon your opponent’s key attributes and playing style. We spent months tuning and balancing the game, and have gotten the game to a place where we believe all play styles are really fun to play and that all of them are equally competitive. Of course, each of us on the team has our preference and believes they’re the Top Spin 4 master, but that’s another story…

After watching and studying thousands of matches and players, the team identified 3 well known play styles we wanted to showcase in the game: baseline offense, baseline defense, and serve-and-volley. These are archetypes of players you can play (and even create, thanks to the brand new player development system which we will explain in a future Dev Diary). Each of these play styles has its unique strengths and weaknesses and is better suited for some specific shots or movements. Let’s get into them.

Baseline Offense
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Serena Williams is a prime example of the Baseline Offense play style.

Baseline offense strategy is an extremely aggressive play style that seeks to give your opponent no chance at developing a counterstrategy. The main objective is to win the point as quickly as possible with devastating shots. Just like every other play style, using a player specifically built to play like this is highly recommended; otherwise, you will be far less effective. Baseline offense players usually rely on high power serve and stamina attributes, along with a solid baseline shot. On the flip side, offensive baseline players tend to be a bit slower and more vulnerable at the net. Andy Roddick, Jim Courier or Serena Williams are good example of baseline attackers. Let’s take a closer look at Serena’s profile and how the above ties directly into her individual play style.
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Note the very solid Baseline attributes of Forehand (FH) and Backhand (BH) as well as the explosive Serve (SRV) and Power (POW).

In terms of controls, power shots are critical to this play style. As you will discover in a future Dev Diary, power shots are performed by pressing and holding a shot button (usually flat shot) before releasing it at the best possible timing. Power serves, especially when using the right stick to perform an advanced serve, are extremely effective and therefore difficult for opponents to return.

Of course, it’s possible to neutralize offensive baseline players with clever shot selection. Since offensive baseline player types are a little slower in speed, they are not able to cover a lot of ground quickly and returning shots far from the center of the court is more difficult. Additionally, these player types are more vulnerable to low hit balls (slice shots for example), in which they can potentially lose power and precision on their shot resulting in a higher chance of making errors.

One of the greatest feelings you can have when playing baseline offense is to see your opponent struggle to reach one of your shots and return a very weak and short ball, giving you plenty of time to attack. When this situation occurs, you will see your player prepare his shot early, move inside the court with a long and very cool animation (we call them “a fatality”), and then hit the ball as hard as possible, usually winning the point with authority.

Baseline defense
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Andy Murray is an expert in the Baseline defense play style.

Baseline defense play style is quite different. Baseline defense is based on getting the rally going, being patient, forcing opponents to play difficult shots, moving them around the court to drain their stamina, and eventually forcing an error or playing a ball out of their reach. Players using this play style usually have excellent forehand and backhand skills and are very fast. Be careful though; as baseline defensive players have rather low power and serve attributes, as well as lower-than-average volley skills.

Michael Chang, Caroline Wozniacki and Andy Murray are typical baseline defenders, as you can see on Murray’s profile below.
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Note here the high attributes again in Baseline play. Also Reflexes (REF) and Speed (SPE) are very high, allowing fast reaction time and making Andy very hard to beat when at the baseline.

So with a baseline defense play style, it’s recommended that players use varying shots such as a slice or top spin. Slice shots create back spin on the ball making it bounce low and resulting in a loss of power and precision in your opponent’s return. Slice shots area great weapon to neutralize opponents allowing you to dictate the pace of the rally and decide how you want to win. Top spin shots, on the other hand, create a forward spin on the ball and can be aimed with better precision and angle. Top spin shots are very useful to move your opponent far from the center to set up a wide open court winner as your next shot.

Unlike the baseline offense play style, playing powerful shots is not what the baseline defense play style is about. They key word here is precision. By quickly tapping a shot button, your player will hit a control shot, which is slower but much more precise than any other shots. And I can tell you that winning a point while watching your opponent struggle to return your shots – not by overpowering them but by taking smart and selective shots – is really enjoyable.

Serve and volley
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Pete Sampras was a master at volley, his talent is yet to be matched.

How can we talk about play styles without talking about serve and volley? Well… we can’t. This is the third play style the team really wanted to push in Top Spin 4. First of all, we spent a lot of time in Motion Capture to have all the possible movements and shots a volley player can perform: player rushing to the net, shots followed to the net, split steps, powerful volleys, reflex volleys, smashes … the whole repertoire of a volley player is in your hands. We added hundreds of these new animations in order to deliver a truly authentic serve and volley play style, both in controls and visually.

Pete Sampras and Patrick Rafter are pure serve and volley players, which is an exciting style that current players tend to use less frequently.
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Note here the very high attributes in Serve (SRV) and Volley (VOL) which allow Sampras to quickly and efficiently rush the net on his serve and finish the point. Reflexes (REF) are also critical for a volley player.

Not surprisingly, the serve and volley play style is based on the strategy of going to the net at the first opportunity and putting pressure on your opponent with well-aimed or powerful volleys. To play Top Spin 4 like this, it’s recommended to use players with a good volley and an efficient serve. The character’s weaknesses are forehand, backhand and power, resulting in more efficiency near the net than at the baseline.

Volley players also have a wide arsenal of shots to choose from. You can decide to go for a safe volley with medium precision or to take more risks to hit power volleys or aim for the line. It’s also possible to perform drop volleys. These are very risky shots, but there is nothing like seeing your player play a very soft volley animation, the ball bouncing just on the other side of the net, and watching your opponent in horror as he is literally stuck at the baseline.

Of course, you’d better not give too much time to your opponent to set their feet. Otherwise, you will be vulnerable to passing shots or lobs. If you’re lobbed, you still have one last chance to run backward and try to return the ball with a ‘tweener’ or another spectacular shot.
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All players are different

Of course, it’s rather unusual to have players that only specialize in one of these play styles. It is possible, but it’s rare. Most of the players are all very different and have different levels of mastery in each play style. This creates an always-renewed experience when playing with or against them. If you want, you can even create the perfect all-round player who will be good, though not the best, in each specific play style in the game. Again, we’ll discuss created players in a future Developer Diary. In the end, Top Spin 4 really encourages you to try and play with many different players to meet your match and become the player to beat.
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Roger Federer is a great example of all-around player who doesn’t have any major weaknesses but doesn’t either reach very high attributes in all the areas of the game (except for his forehand, but hey, that’s Roger).
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Note how well balanced Roger’s attributes are, making him efficient in every aspect of the game.

Conclusion

As you can see, we really tried hard to make each play style unique. We also spent a lot of time testing them and making sure none was more effective than the other. Well that should do it for today’s Diary. We really hope you enjoyed learning about the variety of play styles in Top Spin 4 that will allow you to craft your own play style and compete against others to see who really is the best in the world. See you online!

Source: Top Spin FB
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