Another try

[This]

After more then a month not playing this game I decided it was time again to try it.
To be honest I am pleasantly suprized that they keep updating this game more than I thought they would.

I created a new player for a new career.

I still think they should give people the option to skip the intro movie that expalines the basics of the game. Because once seen is enough and it makes creating a new career very time consuming and boring.

The schedule has still the same "bug". When I give my created player the nationality "Netherlands"I get the schedule of the eastern part of the world. If I give it the Belgium , France or German nationality I get the western schedule. Furthermore I found out that the Swedish nationality gives the schedule of America.
I did send another ticket to Big Annt , I also did sent one 2 months ago , and I got this answer.

"We see your previous report and the team is aware. There is no ETA on when this will be updated."

In other words , they know it but they don't care and won't fix it.

I played a few games , and to be honest I think gameplay has improved some.
But still player reactions and crowd reactions are not great.
Still the AI knows when you are going to serve with a slice because they make a step aside when you choose that option.
Number of unforced errors of AI are better but they mainly come from hitting the ball into the net and hardly from hitting the ball out.
In replays the ball is still hardly visible and some of the camera angles are silly.
In a tiebreaker there is still only counting from the empire when it is even , so at 1-1 , 2-2 or 3-3 .

After playing 3 matches I can't give a opinion if the game has improved or not , I will have to play some more to find out. At fist glance i don't see much improvement on the careermode options but I will play some more to find out.

[The French]

For me. I decided to stop this game for the moment.
This last update:

Sound of the shot Ball is horrible and now too slow... the players looks like a old man (or begginers) playing tennis (or badminton) they don't punch the ball strong and online gameplay is worst...

Am very disapointed after all these update and Early Access !

[This]

After first tournament , playing at medium and simply winning it my thoughts.

I think this medium difficulty level should be qualified as the easy difficulty or as the medium difficulty with the possibility to adjust it up with sliders.
Winning this challenger gave me 80 points and now I am from zero within the top 300. I think this is too big a step. Look at the ATP or WTA rankings and with 80 points you are around place 500.
No pressconference after winning this first tournament.
The trophy presenting animation is the same as in AO2 and I think it is a shame that they haven't made a nicer version that looks more like a true cellebration.
AI opponent hits the net too often with easy shots. Too little they play the ball too long.

I am pleased to see that opponents have some stats now. This is a nice start but there should be more stats and I would like to see a head to head stats and the ranking with also the opponents highest ranking ever.

I do miss challenging the calls as in AO2. Now i do understatnd that the grand slams are now without linesmen and woman , at least I think they all are, but surely the smaller tournaments are still having the line judges present. Yesterday I was playing AO2 and challenged a call and I did see it right , the ball was called out but was indeed in. And that makes the game just a little more real.

One thing that also needs a fix is the replays. I can't understand why they still haven't done something about it . In the replays often the ball is not or hardly visable. In AO 2 it is always perfect visable. Also sometimes the angels of the replay is wrong and makes the replay not worth looking at.

I still think that they should bring the sliders back for ball speed and game speed for every surface. That way you can adjust the difficulty also a bit. I also think that the possibility to change the game difficulty for example from medium to hard and back again shoudl be possible in the match menu and not only in the main careermenu.

Now a few questions :

Something that puzzles me a while now but forgot to mention it earlier is when you create a new player's career. I only am able to set the date of birth , day and month , but not the year. I can choose the year that they turned pro. Is that the relation to their year of birth? If I choose 2024 I get a player at age 17 . Do I get an older player when I choose an earlier year? Why can;t I simply choose also the year of birth beside year of turning pro?

With winning my matches an tournament I have 5 skill points available . But I can;t find how I can use those.

I think maybe there should be some kind of manual so you can look up these things.

These are my remarks till now. I will keep playing some more but as it is now I still will keep playing AO 2 more.

[This]

I have played the next tournament on Hard.
And to be honest I don't see a different in this level from the medium level. On hard I still win every match with no game loss at all. Opponents still hit the net so often with easy returns.
And I have no difficulty at all to play the ball over the net and most of the times the ball is in and 100 % serve.
As a new created career player , age 17 and bottom skills , I should have a much harder time to get the ball over the net and in at even level medium.
I really think that level hard should be level easy at most.

I think also a problem is the schedule. Like in AO2 there should be ITF tournaments to start with. In real life you can't even play a challenger at the start.You need points and a certain ranking. Now I have played 2 tournaments and are already top 200. A challenger win gives 80 points , a futures win a lot less and that also makes it harder to climb up the rankings so fast.

A very possitive point is that when you are out of a tournament you can simulate the other matches again. In the beginning , I think it was pre release , this was also possible but at a certain moment it was gone. Very glad to have that option back.But if possible I would like 2 additions to this option. First the possibility to simulate game after game and the second option to watch any of these games.

Another possitive point is that now as far as I can judge we have the full schedule. At least I can choose now tournaments in Europe , America or for example Thailand.

I still think that the music during the side change should not always be the same tune.
during those side changes the ball boys and girls are still disapearing.Probably because those animations were made before they introduced the ball boys and girls.

I still think that the celebration animation should be renewed. The bending over , showing the crowd the backside to say nicely , is so stupid looking. I also would like to have more different animations and the best would be that we can choose what celebration animation we want for our player , a bit like in fifa where you can choose how to celibrate scoring a goal.

At a matchpoint or other important points the audience should make a lot more noise .

I will give it another try with level above hard and see if I will be able to loose.

[This]

Played the first tournament on expert level with my new careerplayer. This is the level I expect to see at medium. It was a WTA 250. In the second round I lost to a player with ranking 55 in 3 sets. I won the first , second was a tiebreak and third I think my energy was too low. But the game itself was like I would expect starting a career and playing against players that are simulair to my stats not a player ranking 55.

[This]

I played some after the latest updates. And for the first time since I started playing Tiebreak I enjoyed playing it. I started on expert level but found out that this level is too high for me and so switched back to level hard. And on this level I find myself challanged. It is the first time that I think this gameplay is better then AO 2 ever was.
Is it perfect? No. But is it prommising ? Yes.

But there are still a lot of things that need attention.

Although the gameplay has improved big time it is not realistic enough yet. The main reason is the unforced errors. Before the update there where too many AI unforced errors due too hitting the ball into the net to much on easy returns. Now after the update those are gone. But because these where almost the only unforced errors the number of UE is now close to nothing. There should be a way too insert UE in the game and not touch the gameplay of the AI as it is. AI is now capable of playing agressive balls and as it is now they are always in. This should also ocasionally result in a ball that goes too wide or long.

Every game I play , I play it in the same venue and the same surface , hard. Tournaments that should be clay or grass as also indicated in the schedule are played on hard.
Also using of community designed venues does not work. Maybe that is also the reason that there aren´t that many designed venues as there arein AO 2. To me it looks like the venue creator is the same as it was in AO2 ? Is it not possible to intergrate these venues in Tiebreak?

The combination shot RB+B is unrealistic. The ball bounces up so high that AI can't reach it.

Still would love to have the futures tournaments back in the schedule.

Training games are often too hard. On these trainingsgames I am missing a ball marker the most I really wish they would bring this back . I have still no clue how to aim with pressission.

So yes I like the way this game is going. I still think they could have made an effort to make some more of the careermode options like mannagement and sponsorships , pressconferences instead of copying it from AO2.
But this game has now some real improvements like gameplay , simulating the tournaments after you have been kicked out.