Little things to look into

[FrostyVGaming]

So there were a few things that I noticed while I have been playing that act a tiny bit weird and I wanted to bring up.

The first being when me and either the CPU teammate or my mate sitting next to me both go for the receive on the serve, then one of us goes to set for the other player, but then the spiker hits and the game counts it as a 4 hit. I can understand that it is probably both players touching the ball at nearly the exact time and only the second touch player is slightly greyed out to indicate the last touch. It has happened to me many times.

Second, There are times where the ball is either received by the other team and sent over the net back, spiked by the other team or one touched by the blocker and the red ball landing marker is shown as landing outside the court. There are times where the marker is anywhere between 95% outside the court and is left thinking its out and is counted as in, or 70% out and thinking it could go both ways. I swear there wasa few times where it looked 100% out and was called in.
"A good serve must land on the line or inside the court. If any part of the ball touches the line, then the ball is considered to be "good"." there are just times where I totally believed it would count as out aha

The last thing that I am not 100% sure of rule wise is for when a ball is crossing over the nets crossing space. Now I know that the ball can only pass over to the other side of the net through this zone.

(Crossing Space: The crossing space is defined by: - the horizontal band at the top of the
net; - the antennae and their extension;- the ceiling. The ball must cross to the opponent’s
COURT through the crossing space.)

What I am unsure of that I couldn't find reference for is this scenario

1. Ball is served over the net.
2. Ball is received but ends up going back over the net through the crossing zone out of bounds, which would count as a point to the serving team.
3. Player runs around the net outside of the court and gets the second touch to send it back to their team for a spike or third hit back to the serving teams side.

From what I can read is that once it crosses over the center line through the Crossing Space, the ball has effectively been sent over to the other teams court and is now theirs called a Free Ball, but if is left untouched and goes out, is out of bounds by the receiving team and points get awarded to the serving team. So then wouldn't the above scenario count as a foul? I know if it does not cross the Crossing Space, the ball is still in that teams play for the set and spike.

Food for thought I guess on that one. Just seemed weird to me when NPC's did it after I power served it back over and out of bounds on my side yet they still got it back over.

[Arkorim]

Hey! thanks for taking your time on this valuable feedback :)

1- I implemented some solutions to that problem but didn't work out well so I kept the possibility of two players hitting the ball consecutively (there is a check to avoid same frame hits) if both go to the ball. It's a problem that also can happen in real volleyball, but it's true that is more frustrating when you play with an AI that you can't communicate properly :P I will try to think about a new solution.

2- I know it's difficult for players to check if a ball is in or out. The camera and custom perspective (which make court lines not comepletely straight) are not helping. I tried to set the logical lines exactly over the visual ones, so I think we can't do much more here. We thought of putting some kind of hawk-eye camera for very controversial balls, but I think it doesn't fit the volley sport.

3- You are completely right! There are two volley rules we have skipped for fun's sake. One is the one you said, if the right team hits the ball through the crossing space but goes out, right team can not go to try to save it. The other one is that, if they hit the ball outside the crossing space and they are able to save the ball, they should return it also outside the crossing space. We didn't implement those exact rules because we think that saving a ball in the other side of the court is a difficult task but a very fun one, so we want to promote those plays.

I hope you enjoy the game! We just released the Super Blast Party mode that completely changes the real volley rules, so don't be too strict there :)

[FrostyVGaming]

Cool thanks for the reply. Yea I'm loving the game a lot and you guys have done an awesome job overall. I play myself on my off time but having a love for both volleyball and video games, this is a great fit at home and portably on my Switch.

Can you answer one question I have about the recieving in the game for serves? Do I have to point the thumb stick in the direction of the other player on my team as I receive the ball in order for it to go to that player in a controlled manner? I tested it out a bit just running to the location and doing a recieve where the character would dive for the ball (which is understandable not being able to stop instantly) as well as standing in position with no input and receive and vice versa putting directional input towards my teammate. Its feels like adding the directional input helped but was a bit inconsistant sometimes.

Also one other thing I also did notice was that there are some things you can do in game that are not mentioned in the tutorial. Was that done on purpose to leave it up to players who want to think outside the box for how to make plays?

And out of curiosity sake, are there plans to add online multiplayer added to the game? Having this on my switch is great for when I go places and play locally with friends, so I was wondering if there will be a online option for pc at some point in the distant future.

Again, thanks for the reply before. I'm glad you took the time to respond =)

[Arkorim]

You are welcome :)

1- How well players receive a ball is based on the position of the reception relative to the ball and the horizontal speed of the ball (for high speed balls, a certain random amount is applied, this way also teammates need to be alert when receiving strong balls).

2- Yup, we wanted to keep the tutorial as simple as possible: we show the minimum needed to play a game, plus the spike. Then lobs, touches, blocks and other moves are learned naturally by playing: trying all the buttons and combinations and seeing AIs and other players doing those moves.

3- Unfortunately online multiplayer means a huge amount of work and we can't afford it at all (we are a very small team). Maybe in the future if things go well :)

Thanks for your support and enjoy the game!