@kschoice: I didn't mean to be harsh with my criticism.
I don't say that the whole game feels like an alpha or beta but some aspects seem to be done a little bit "half-heartedly". It's been a long long sime since I've bought a (mainstream) tennis game so I can't tell about their strenghts and weaknesses but I can say that overall I haven't played a better tennis game than FAT since Great Courts II on the Amiga back in the early nineties (!) and in terms of shot-making of the human player you've certainly done a fantastic job. And while it would be nice to have the chair umpire announce the scoreline or a more tv-style presentation in matches this would never compensate for lacking depth in gameplay.
Nevertheless, for a game with its relatively small fanbase the career mode and thus the AI player is one of the most important aspects of the game so I'd rather see progress made in that department than adding of minor features like e.g. a reverse cam in replays. It's understandable that if you don't have the manpower it's hard to make significant progress in certain areas in a short space of time, but you have to at least start somewhere.
kschoice wrote:Programming an AI to make mistakes that seem genuine is probably one if not the hardest thing to achieve in terms of AI.
Well, if I had a character with perfect anticipation, positioning and decision-making then I would struggle to make mistakes, too. By the way, I'm not necessarily talking about
unforced errors here. You will never get a free point on your serve only because your opponent was guessing wrong. Passing your opponent at the net like you see it in real life is next to impossible in this game.
kschoice wrote:Full Ace's gameplay is very singular in the fact that it's not entirely up to you whether a shot goes in or out.
As in real life, you're aiming for a desired target, and depending on several parameters, the ball will land in a wider or narrower area around this target. These parameters include :
_ character abilities (precision, consistency)
_ position in relation to the ball
_ incoming ball speed
_ attempted shot's difficulty and speed
_ timing
Basically this reads like that you should have all the necessary tools already there and if you get the AI player to be less than perfect when it comes to "position in relation to the ball", "attempted shot's difficulty and speed" and "timing" that you theoretically should get some "genuine" errors for free. Right now you only seem to have black or white - either the AI is perfectly placed and performs an optimal shot or he completely fails to play the ball even if he is close to it whereas in real life a player would stretch or slide in a desperate attempt to get a piece of it with a mishit or a forced error being the most probable outcome.