top spin 3 - unbalanced?

Soldato
Joined
19 Oct 2002
Posts
3,480
hi guys...

been playing TS3 for a few sessions now... i think its a mint game (in fact possibly the best tennis game i've played) however, i dont think its balanced...

the first nine matches, i won flawlessly (9-0), then it went to the junior tournaments...

i tried hard to begin with, but it really was too hard... the oponenets are much faster than you and can hit stupidly powerful shots that you just can't get too... fair enough its the hard option...

so i chose the easy ones for a while, and havn't won one yet, the computer AI is really consistent and will just rally all day long the only way to get the buggers is to hit a hard shot (hold on R2) but they very very rarely even go in for me... just outplaying them isn't an option cuz even on the easy matches, the guys are have ratings of like 50-60 against my 32 - i havn't got a chance since they're nowhere near my levels of speed/power/stamina etc...

i vary the shots a lot, from drop shots to nice cross-court topspins and make em run a load but they just return them all with ease...

am i doing something wrong? or is it badly balanced?
 
I think the only real option is the drop the difficulty level down a notch. Was the only way I could win a few tournaments. I'm putting it back to medium when my player has a rating to contend with the 50s.
 
am i doing something wrong? or is it badly balanced?

No what you have to remember is your supposed to be playing a career. Your not supposed to be able to go up a level and win the hard tournies with ease. I struggled to win the easy ones. What your supposed to do is keep doing the easy ones for a year then go up to hards.

I didn't have the patience for that, so dropped it down a level.

Your thinking of the game along the lines of completing the season and moving up to the next level. It's not been designed to be played in that way. Which is why you start off as a 18/20 year old to work your way up.

a lot depends on what you put your stats on. If I played it through again I would either put my stats only on power serve forehand and backhand. Its unstoppable. Another good model to look at is the guys who are in the top 10 online. You will see there are areas that really dont need to be upgraded.
 
I have found the Junior games easier than the amateur games, won my first tournament on Junior last night, a hard one without dropping a game, whereas it took me 3 attempts to win the amateur game.

If I am honest I think its probably down to the fact I upgraded my skills once I made the move up to Junior, and I didnt at all in the amateur game.
 
I had the same problem, one guy told me to drop the difficulty down to easy. Now i call this absurd, i never play a game on easy because its a waste of my money.

The game is great but without a doubt it needs a serious patch to sort out all this niggling errors. Maybe there will be one or maybe there wont be one :mad:
 
I dont see whats absurd? Its a career your not supposed to be able to go up a level and win almost instantly without progressing your stats.
 
I had the same problem, one guy told me to drop the difficulty down to easy. Now i call this absurd, i never play a game on easy because its a waste of my money.

The game is great but without a doubt it needs a serious patch to sort out all this niggling errors. Maybe there will be one or maybe there wont be one :mad:

Oh noes, your not instantly good at a game... it must be bugs!

1) Your not as good as you think.

2) Learn to play the game, and get better at the game.

3) Enjoy it.


I honestly thought it was a little tough to start with, I found it difficult with Federa or Nadal in exhibition mode against the worst of the women on Medium.

Progressing through career on medium helps a great deal :)

Your not supposed to win every game or set in Top Spin 3, it's supposed to be a rewarding challenge. It wants you to enter a tournament and give you a real sense of achievement when you get to the finals, let alone win one.

Personally I believe that 2K sports have tried to do what EA did with Skate.

A game that you aren't instantly good at, a game that requires a bit of patience and some skill to become good at. A game that can put a smile on your face when you accomplish something.

Career mode is about you progressing through the ranks as a tennis player, from a outright novice to junior to amateur etc... When your up against a player that is a lot better than you, it isn't supposed to be a walk in the park.

When you get to Junior level your ranked 98th in the World, it's not going to be easy to be people that are 20-30+ ranks higher than you... just like in real life... what do you expect!?
 
The problem is these days the computer game market want to make everyone enjoy the game which is fine, but they tend to believe in order to enjoy a game you need to win. 90% of sports games these days, even on the higher difficulties, will allow you to surprisingly easily win nearly all (if not all) matches you take part in. The result of which is people are shocked when they actually lose more than they win in a game at first, which is a more realistic approach to building a sports career.
 
Sports games in particular need the learning curve to survive imo. With some genres your general ability will carry from one game to the next and you will still enjoy it, e.g. shooters.

But for me at least, if I know I can always win easily the game isn't going to even last half an hour.
 
I was getting annoyed when I first started playing as I was losing constantly. Now after some practice I'm getting better and thus enjoying it more.
 
The problem is these days the computer game market want to make everyone enjoy the game which is fine, but they tend to believe in order to enjoy a game you need to win. 90% of sports games these days, even on the higher difficulties, will allow you to surprisingly easily win nearly all (if not all) matches you take part in. The result of which is people are shocked when they actually lose more than they win in a game at first, which is a more realistic approach to building a sports career.

Spot on really, the majority of sports titles these days can let you white wash the opposition and in most cases an undefeated season isn't exactly unthinkable in fact is quite common.

I quite like the fact that 2K Sports are trying to take a different approach to it, much as EA took a different approach to a skating game (as I already said).
 
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