[devblog] Pixel Tennis - Milestone 1

[WongKit]

Hi there,

I am glad to announce that Milestone 1 is here! This means, that Pixel Tennis got to a state which I would consider as “playable”. Surely, there are still a ton of visuals missing and it is far from being feature complete, but it already makes kinda fun.



Actual 1on1 and 2on2 matches were also successfully tested internally, although they are not part of the video.

Now, it is time for you to get your hands on the game! As noted in [devblog] Pixel Tennis at the end of 2019, there are specified time spans where you will be able to play. The reason is not to annoy you, but to load test the game server and to get more people playing at the same time. See the list below for upcoming schedules. If everything went well, this restriction will be removed later.

Pixel Tennis game server online

• Thursday, 20.02.2020 from 18:00 to 20:00 CET
• Sunday, 23.02.2020 from 16:00 to 18:00 CET
• Wednesday, 04.03.2020 from 18:00 to 20:00 CET
• Sunday, 08.03.2020 from 16:00 to 18:00 CET
• Friday, 10.04.2020 to Monday, 13.04.2020 20:00 CET
• Sunday, 31.05.2020 from 16:00 to 20:00 CET
• regular test runs starting from 14.06.2020, see announcement

Your forum account serves as your games login credentials. If you have not registered yet, you can do it here - it is free! You can grab the game client in the downloads section.

Currently, Pixel Tennis does not feature a shop or an inventory system, so there are some changes in the RPG logic. First of all, you will receive two attribute points per gained level instead of one to compensate for missing equipment. Second, your available special shot is based on your player level.

• Level 1 - 3: Power Shot
• Level 4 - 6: Eagle Shot
• Level 7 - 9: Banana Shot
• Level 10 - 12: Mole Shot
• Level 11 - 15: Snake Shot
• Level 16+: Dragon Shot

The maximum player level is 50. Although I am aiming to preserve your player progress across future releases, I cannot guarantee it at the current stage.

Court Arena Pixel Tennis Milestone 1.jpg (83.07 KiB) Viewed 60362 times

More than 2 years passed since the official announcement of the project and lots of hours were put into creating the game. So if you had the chance to play Pixel Tennis, please take a moment to post your honest feedback in the feedback section. It does not matter if your opinion is positive, negative or mixed, if you want to focus on gameplay, visuals, performance or other areas. Every response I get will help to improve the game further.

I am very excited to see how the game is received.

[MrJivoirien]

hey,

what a surprise ! i'm so excited !
i can't be there thursday 18-20h... 20h-22h would be perfect to me
anyway, i hope some people will be up to test this one. it looks really good i already love it !

does it support a gamepad ?

thanks a lot Wong and be strong as always

[Emre]

Amazing news and way faster than I actually thought. You put in so much work I'm sure, I'll try to be there and test it. Pretty excited to see where this will go.

[matt090]

Wow i wasn't expecting it so eary, i'll be testing it out for sure

[WongKit]

does it support a gamepad ?

Yes, it does. You can remap the controls when holding Shift during the start of the game.

Pixel Tennis Gamepad Controls.png (20.75 KiB) Viewed 60284 times

I wonder why the video got more dislikes. Maybe it was pushed to a non FT/development related channel.

See you on the court!

[WongKit]

Game Server is online now for 2 hours
Thank you very much for participating!

I am locking the topic to prevent feedback here. Instead, please use the feedback section :P

[Emre]

Well since we had the first beta, I'll post some stuff here.

First off, good job Wong - it's fun to play and feels like old FT!!
But there were some little issues when we played, which should be normal I guess.
I'll just list what I remembered:

- If 2 players hit the ball at the same time, it's like rng which ball gets registered and will be shown to the opponent, can lead to confused team players who thought the ball went to a different direction
- the ball goes outside of the court while the ball gets hit normally, idk if that's intended but in FT the ball went outside less I think
- pressing down + a should be a shorther lob than the one we have now, could check on official FT videos from before, but shouldn't be at the middle line
- you can slice before the ball hits the ground, idk if that's intended but in FT you could only slice a ball that hit the ground once before, could be op like this

I think that's it for now, others could also point out their observations while playing.

[WongKit]

Thanks for your feedback, Suijake! I am glad you like it.

If 2 players hit the ball at the same time, it's like rng which ball gets registered and will be shown to the opponent, can lead to confused team players who thought the ball went to a different direction

Yes, I noticed that, too. I cannot 100% prevent that, because all players see slightly different positioning due to network delay, but I got an idea.

the ball goes outside of the court while the ball gets hit normally, idk if that's intended but in FT the ball went outside less I think

It is not exactly intended. I need to check how FT handles sloppy shots in certain scenarios. I think you could hit inside of the court all the time while slicing.

pressing down + a should be a shorther lob than the one we have now

Going to check that later. Currently, bug fixes have a higher priority.

you can slice before the ball hits the ground, idk if that's intended but in FT you could only slice a ball that hit the ground once before, could be op like this

It is intended, that you can slice the ball if it did not bounce before. I never understood why this was a thing in FT as it made short shots very weak. However, I reduced the slice speed when at net as it was very powerful when hit at the front.

[Seikk]

Here are few notes about what i experienced playing Pixel Tennis & recommandations : (sorry if my english sucks btw :'D)

- Drop shot is really strong (really fast though) and sometimes connects oddly. (should drop faster when you take it high, and slower when you take it low ^^ )

- It seems that stats doesn't change the effect (power, spin, etc) of the ball atm, maybe on purpose though (i had like 40 WIL+, and had no spin on the ball not even slightly. It's like having 15WIL).

- When a point is scored, you can use specials, but you won't get your cooldown back to max. (alternative solution : just desactivate special during that time )

- on 3rd set, in 2v2 : The only one who's serving is the 2nd Player in Red Team. It should be as tie breaks => Red 1P > Blue 1P > Red 2P > Blue 2P > Red 1P > etc.

-on 3rd set, in 1v1 : The only one who's serving is the Red Player. It should be as tie breaks => Red Player > Blue Player > Red Player > Blue Player > etc.


--- Gameplay ---

- Spin/Rotation :
.../ You can't (manually) spin the ball by holding one direction then changing to another one (example: holding left while charging then switch to right before hitting the ball). And if you do it, sometimes the ball goes out of the field for some reasons.
.../ the ball should have a different rotation depending on whether it is a forehand or backhand shot. (same goes for the range / angle) (!)
.../ When you hit the ball from one side, the ball should looks like it's coming out of the field and coming back in it (like FT ) It's much more cooler

- Serve :
.../ No charging bar while serving (i guess you know it already, but i'll just write it here, just in case )
.../ Maybe add a little cooldown before the service. We can serve right after we took new positions on the field after a point.
.../ add a little cooldown while serving because we can hit the ball too quickly.

- Net :
.../ When you use special, we should be able to angle the ball more than what we actually do. (horizontally)
.../ When someone lob onto the net, you can't smash it (because of collision)
.../ When you walk diagonally toward the net, you can't move

- Charge Shots:
.../ doesn't affect the ball speed too much (probably not at all).
.../ should allow slightly more horizontal angle (scaling)

- Smash:
.../ When executing a full-charged (or scaling) smash, add slightly more knockback for the opponent (if you plan to use STA stats as knockback reducer ), otherwise slightly increase its speed
.../ Maybe add a system like FT where you could Guard Break Smash (or w/e the name was) after 2 (or 3) smashes in a row. This smash should be considered as a fully loaded smash. Let's call it "Wong Break!" ( Kidding )

- Special Shots
.../ All : Need slightly more horizontal angle (when pressing left or right), and more if close to the net
.../ Power Shot : Is okay, but maybe add more power to it if you counter "strong" shots with Power Shot (ex: Smash, Another Special) increasing knockback also
.../ Eagle Shot : Is ok
.../ Banana Shot : Is ok.
.../ Mole Shot : I guess it's okay atm (need more test)
.../ Snake Shot : Snake Shot is really. It should be slower at the end
.../ Dragon Shot : Looks good


Keep up the good work, buddy!

[Widukind]

two small things that haven't been mentioned:

-the chat isnt visible after a game, because it gets blocked by the exp gained screen

-once when starting a game, after the air camera angle of the players, I got into an endless "eagle eye perspective" of the court. if you dont know what im talking about Wong I can send you a screenshot. prolly a player left or something and it put the rest into this limbo.

PS: I like how you also implement the "weird stuff" that doesn't make sense from FT. working as intended™

[Milov]

Currently experiencing the following:

Login screen:

I would love to be able to press Tab button on keyboard in order to proceed to the password tab. Also, pressing Enter button on keyboard to complete my login request (username either password box).


While in room:

- There might be colored borders for specific team which removes the confusion(applies only on 2v2), no need for character inking while in-game since there is no cross over the line(to be discussed).

- Same applies to 1v1 in game, but no border for the room.
While being room Master you can kick yourself.

- A player kicked from a room cannot rejoin the same room (as WongKit stated "The room remembers you" <3).

^ There might be a useful solution to add a kicked player list in the right side, under the players, or a tab where you can remove the players name kicked in order to be able to rejoin (or by invite for the future invite system implementation)

- As I've tried to join for the first time in a room (double clicked it), I've bugged it and 2 sessions of my client were made in the same room, my character being on 2 slots of the room.


Gameplay:

- There are some problems regarding the ball hit and direction gain, but that is most likely a particular issue that might be solved with a better server host I guess.
Well, I was more like on debating UX

- Also, while in-game experienced "laggy" movement and the fps counter was showing framerates higher than 60 (quality settings set to maximum). Is there an option locking it to a specific fps? Does the game natively run in 60fps or higher?

- While chatting, switching from All Chat to Team Chat by tap of the LCtrl key is quite annoying for me just because I use frequently shortcuts that involves use of this specific key like Select All (Ctrl+A), Cut (Ctrl+X), Copy (Ctrl+C), Paste (Ctrl+V) and many more. While ingame chatting, I fonud myself aswell with others that have been in this situation.


To be tested:

- Game and room behavior while one player disconnects


Further implementations:

- The game that ends by disconnect in a certain period of time (45 seconds as example) does not count as win/lose (aswell to games played stats).

- Disconnection attempts by own user's initiative grants penalties such as login or game cooldown for multiple dodgers/unfairplay behavior (ex: 3min, scaling up to 5, 10, 15, 30 and so on).

- The exp gain to get rates downscaled at a certain number of win streaks with the same player/s to prevent exp farming and again, unfairplay behavior (something to apply to stats aswell).

- In the near future, add a system requirements tab stated somewhere for low and recommended specificatins.

^ A Timer would be lovely to be added while ingame.

[WongKit]

Sorry, I had no time to answer your feedback yet. I will do so as soon as I can!

Game Server is online now for 2 hours

[WongKit]

It's quote time!

@Seikk

Drop shot is really strong (really fast though) and sometimes connects oddly. (should drop faster when you take it high, and slower when you take it low ^^ )

For the current version, slice speed is reduced at net, which should differ a lot. Other than that, I don't think, they are that powerful. Players need to get used to it and detect early that a short shot was executed. They are knowingly a bit faster/stronger than in FT, but there, you could hardly score with slices on higher level matches.

t seems that stats doesn't change the effect (power, spin, etc) of the ball atm, maybe on purpose though (i had like 40 WIL+, and had no spin on the ball not even slightly. It's like having 15WIL)

I checked the effect of WIL and it is there. 40 WIL is not that much if you think about, that you can get 100+ WIL at level 50. Shots get very curvy at higher rates.

When a point is scored, you can use specials, but you won't get your cooldown back to max. (alternative solution : just desactivate special during that time :P)

That's intended as you can also increase your special bar after a team scored ;)

It should be as tie breaks

That's true. Tie-Breaks are missing right now.

You can't (manually) spin the ball by holding one direction then changing to another one (example: holding left while charging then switch to right before hitting the ball). And if you do it, sometimes the ball goes out of the field for some reasons.

You can control the spinning direction by position yourself left or right to the ball. Also, the ball only moves outside of the field if you do a sloppy shot (having a bigger distance to the ball)

the ball should have a different rotation depending on whether it is a forehand or backhand shot. (same goes for the range / angle) (!)

It already does.

When you hit the ball from one side, the ball should looks like it's coming out of the field and coming back in it :) (like FT :D) It's much more cooler :D

I actually don't get this. Can you explain this a bit more?

No charging bar while serving (i guess you know it already, but i'll just write it here, just in case :D )

I actually like the current implementation better from a design perspective as it does not require additional UI.

Maybe add a little cooldown before the service. [...] .../ add a little cooldown while serving because we can hit the ball too quickly.

Noted, thanks!

When you use special, we should be able to angle the ball more than what we actually do. (horizontally)

I will compare that with FT. However, this does not have high priority right now.

When someone lob onto the net, you can't smash it (because of collision)

Can you explain that a bit more or do you have a screenshot?

When you walk diagonally toward the net, you can't move

Noted!

Charge Shots doesn't affect the ball speed too much (probably not at all).

They do. Actually, they have even more impact than in FT. Charged shots also increase in their horizontal angle.

When executing a full-charged (or scaling) smash, add slightly more knockback for the opponent (if you plan to use STA stats as knockback reducer ), otherwise slightly increase its speed

This is a good idea! I will keep it in mind although bug fixes have higher priority right now.

Maybe add a system like FT where you could Guard Break Smash

Yes, guard break style smashes are missing. Noted. "Wong Break" sounds awful, maybe I use it ^^"

Special Shots [...]

I can confirm that snake shot is too fast right now. The other shots need still to be tested carefully.

Keep up the good work, buddy!

Thanks!

[WongKit]

@Widukind

the chat isnt visible after a game, because it gets blocked by the exp gained screen

That's true, I will fix that!

once when starting a game, after the air camera angle of the players, I got into an endless "eagle eye perspective" of the court. if you dont know what im talking about Wong I can send you a screenshot. prolly a player left or something and it put the rest into this limbo.

Yes, please send a screenshot. I currently can not think of exactly what happened.

PS: I like how you also implement the "weird stuff" that doesn't make sense from FT. working as intended™

Thanks :)


@Milov

I would love to be able to press Tab button on keyboard in order to proceed to the password tab. Also, pressing Enter button on keyboard to complete my login request (username either password box).

That's true. Using Tab and Enter for the login is intuitive and should not be missing for the game. I will add this.

There might be colored borders for specific team which removes the confusion(applies only on 2v2), no need for character inking while in-game since there is no cross over the line(to be discussed).

Yes, room team colors are currently missing. They will be added later. Player colorizing will most likely vanish as soon as Pixel Tennis utilizes proper character models.

While being room Master you can kick yourself.

Intended! :D

A player kicked from a room cannot rejoin the same room (as WongKit stated "The room remembers you" <3).

Intended. For what reason should I let a player re-enter a room if I kicked him/her earlier?

As I've tried to join for the first time in a room (double clicked it), I've bugged it and 2 sessions of my client were made in the same room, my character being on 2 slots of the room.

This should have been fixed in version 0.1.1 for last Sunday. As I did not saw any bugged room or server crash, I assume, that the fix already worked.

There are some problems regarding the ball hit and direction gain, but that is most likely a particular issue that might be solved with a better server host I guess.

Can you clarify a bit more? I know that the ball is sometimes hit a bit behind a player, but this is an issue due to network delay and can only be masked, not fixed. Do you mean this?

Also, while in-game experienced "laggy" movement and the fps counter was showing framerates higher than 60 (quality settings set to maximum). Is there an option locking it to a specific fps? Does the game natively run in 60fps or higher?

The game should take your desktop settings (most probably your monitor refresh rate) and lock the framerate according to that. So if you have a 60hz monitor, it is locked to 60fps, for 144hz to 144fps etc. Performance wise, the game should be not that demanding. It nearly runs smoothly on a 10" netbook with integrated graphics.

While chatting, switching from All Chat to Team Chat by tap of the LCtrl key is quite annoying for me just because I use frequently shortcuts that involves use of this specific key like Select All (Ctrl+A), Cut (Ctrl+X), Copy (Ctrl+C), Paste (Ctrl+V) and many more.

That's true. I try to disable chat type switching on keyboard shortcuts that include the CTRL key.

Further implementations

They all make totally sense, but I need to come back to them later as the bug fixes are more important right now.

Thank you all for your valuable feedback!

[Seikk]

Drop shot is really strong (really fast though) and sometimes connects oddly. (should drop faster when you take it high, and slower when you take it low ^^ )

For the current version, slice speed is reduced at net, which should differ a lot. Other than that, I don't think, they are that powerful. Players need to get used to it and detect early that a short shot was executed. They are knowingly a bit faster/stronger than in FT, but there, you could hardly score with slices on higher level matches.

Yes, i know. That was a note from the first play test (I just edited to prevent double posting )

When you use special, we should be able to angle the ball more than what we actually do. (horizontally)

I will compare that with FT. However, this does not have high priority right now.

Of course there is no hurry for that right now. Just keep in mind that in FT you could angle the ball way more if you caught the ball at the net (using special of course, since we're talking about specials ) Sadly i have no proof since the game is closed But, no need to hurry about it.

When someone lob onto the net, you can't smash it (because of collision)

Can you explain that a bit more or do you have a screenshot?

Hum... That happened Sunday, when i was 2v2 with/against you. Some balls went onto the net (lobbing one). I tried to smash many times, but i always failed even with a perfect position. I couldn't even hit the ball, it just passed by me.
(To check more in details, maybe i'm misunderstanding something though)

[Seikk]

Sorry for double-posting.

Here are few suggestions (UI) i post here :



As shown in the screen :
.../ Add some border (or background-color) when players are online or ingame (for exemple: green if connected, red/orange if playing).
.../ Show how many poeple are connected.
.../ If "Online" Pop-up is active, add a gray color (of course, same goes for others one)



The room master shouldn't be able to kick himself

[WongKit]

Thank you for the suggestions, Seikk! They will be added to my todo list after the remaining bugs were fixed.

The room master shouldn't be able to kick himself

It's not a bug, it's a feature!

Thanks all of you for participating in test run #1 - #4. The game could register 32 people, who played a total match time of 44 hours in 208 matches.

[WongKit]

Test run #5 will start in the next week. This time, you can play for an extended time around Easter from Friday, 10.04.2020 to Monday, 13.04.2020.

If you participated in the last run, you will not see many changes, only some bug fixes and minor improvements. If you missed the previous schedules or could not take part due to timezone differences, this is the chance to get your hands on the game.

As this event lasts 4 days and the user base is currently kinda small, I recommend to arrange matches though the Fantasy Tennis 2 Discord channel where Pixel Tennis now also has its own semi-official area.

As always, if you had the chance to play the game, please take a moment to post your honest feedback in the feedback section. Stay healthy!

Oh by the way, you will get an 1.5x experience and pixel boost during test run #5 ;)

[Tsukoyomi]

gameplay:

Lobs: using a sideways lob when youre at the net is kinda useless because it doesnt go far enough to make it a viable option, maybe because my str is too low ? (40) but i think it should go much further to play front back

slice: you can use slices even when taking the ball as volley ? i think the ball should need to bounce 1 time before you can slice the ball ?

smashes: it basicly has almost no effect at all if you smash, i think the knockback is not big enough

other than that, its pretty fine - animations would help aton but i mean you kinda get used to no animations after a time to see your reach for sliding etc.

well done mate


edit:

also in 1on1 mode you can a point every single time if you get an empowered recieve because the kncokback is so hard that you can just play sideways after and get a free point, if you hit the empowered recieve you can almost garuanteed get apoint afterwards

[MrJivoirien]

gameplay : too much out ball for nothing if you are front of the court (2v2)