Let me first say that every update is pushing this game in a good direction. However, the game still has a ways to go and these are the changes I feel are most urgent. Just my personal opinion of course.
Running Shots. They don’t exist in Tiebreak. When holding RT or LT you should perform a running hit. That is, instead of sliding and coming to a stop, you run through the ball and do one final swing. It’s a risky attack but it’s also a very common attack, much more common than all the sliding that goes on right now. The problem now is that if I chase an angled ball way off to the side, my player will always just slide and slice/lob the ball back. It’s just not realistic or tactically smart. It makes little since to chase a ball down to just lob it back when you’re able to hit a running shot.
Serve Lethality. Serves are pretty useless right now. They serve no purpose beyond starting a rally. Make them extremely lethal but also extremely risky. First serve faults should be common. I’d prefer a system where I end up faulting 25% of the time but gain the ability to ace more or get lobbed returns. As they are now, there’s just zero tactics involved in the serve.
Inertia. Interia just feels pretty bad right now. Acceleration is way too fast. And also coming to sudden stop just feels off too (running shots feedback).
Locked In Mechanic. The game needs to recognize your swing attempt better. Too often I run towards the ball and end up changing direction because I’m trying to perform a cross court hit while chasing a ball. If I’m running towards the ball and I initiate a swing, the game just needs to recognize that I am indeed trying to hit the ball and NOT trying to run away from it. I need to be locked into a swing much earlier. It’s not a special skill to know when the game will lock you into a swing. The skill should come from choosing the angle and depth, not figuring out how close I have to be before the game realizes my intentions.
Difficulty. Game is just too easy. I can play as pretty much anyone and beat any AI on the highest difficulty. It’s not really uncommon to do 6-0 against the current AI. AI needs to run more (they don’t seem to have access to the scramble mechanic). Hitting a return ace against them happens like every other return. Making serves more lethal would change this. I want to get aced and want to struggle with some servers. They also hit down the center quite often. But in general, the AI just lacks tactic.
There’s a lot minor things that need fixing, but these are what I feel would push the game from mediocre to great. And of course I understand not all changes are easy to implement but I just wanted to voice my opinions regardless.