[h1] Randomness, hidden numbers, meaningless interactions with players and press, Cumbersome planning/calendar and gimmicky mail spam [/h1]
I am writing this review as I am ending a 2nd year of coaching. Both years' results have been extremely successful (Junior: R1 both years / WTL: R200 1st year then R100 2nd year). Second junior player in the academy is progressing the same way, so no raging here, just simple facts.
Also, important note to better understand the depth of the problems listed below: my coach “ability to motivate” (pre and post match talks) and “communicate” (interviews) are both 18/20. Which is good enough for the stat to show blue instead of the standard “good” (range 13-17/20) green.
[b] Interactions with players [/b]
So you can talk to the player before the match, during the match and after the match. This is the part my coach excels at. Bottom line is: it’s both random and useless. Here’s the details:
Before the match:
A message tells you the player is stressed/confident/pumped/fearful etc. and you get to pick a line between half a dozen choices to address the situation. Obviously the goal here is to try and make the player more confident, or play along if the player is already pumped.
- Problem 1 Randomness:
80% of the time, the response will be: "X didn't seem to react." which is frustrating because it means 80% of the time you’re useless, despite an incredible 18/20 ability to motivate. In case I, the player, would turn out to be a dysfunctional human being unable to realize a stressed player needs to be reassured, I started picking random lines. It didn’t get any better or worse.
-Problem 2 Uselessness:
20% of the time, the talk would connect, yielding however a 50/50 good/bad outcome.
So on that 50/50 basis, I got to turn a "stressed" status to "fearful" (bad) and I got to get the “listened carefully” (good?) response which changed absolutely nothing.
Conclusion: is it's just a Russian roulette game: best case scenario, nothing changed.
It doesn't help that some choices like "Stop playing with your phone" or "You seem to be much more interested in that girl/boy than in the match to come" seem to refer to a backstory that just isn't there, has never been brought up once and so comes out of nowhere.
Good news is, the random outcome of this interaction is meaningless, see why in the next paragraph.
During the match:
You can talk to the player while they play. There's 7 options like motivate/criticize/You can do it! etc. These options seem to be here to try and influence the current mental status of the player divided into 4 stats: Motivation/Determination/Confidence and Emotion.
- Problem 1 hidden numbers:
How those stats affect your player's game is unknown. You probably want everything up but you don't know what the benefits are. No numbers, percentage nor anything. Does a “confident” player attacks more often? Does a “presumptuous” player try more risky moves and you want to tone it down? What about “on a cloud 9” or “devastated”? No clue.
- Problem 2 hidden numbers again:
These interactions seem to be on a shared cool down that is not displayed, so you just have to regularly bring the interaction menu up and check if there's anything you can do to calm your player down or just watch helplessly as they spiral down and lose more and more easy points. You can't strategically plan and make use of these interactions. Click them when they're available and hope they'll be up again when you'll need them. In my experience, the option is available about twice or maybe thrice per set so knowing when you can use it should be a big deal.
-Problem 3 randomness:
The outcome of the interaction is random. Notice your player’s “motivation” is “concerned”? You’ll probably want to hit the “motivate” option yeah?. Seems reasonable. Well you’ll get a random good or bad outcome (double arrows down or up) on a random stat. Yup, “motivate” can bring “emotion” down and leave “motivation” untouched. Go figure.
-Problem 4 uselessness:
Most of the time though, those interactions will yield a “no reaction” response. Keep in mind my coach stat is 18/20. So my conclusion is: don’t use these options: the outcomes are random and you don’t know what the mental stats do in the first place so you’re better off just watching the game and hope for the best.
After the match:
Same as before the match. Congratulate, joke, criticize: it will most likely result in “didn’t react” but you’ll get the occasional “listened carefully”. As to what it does, you don’t know, no feedback.
[b] Interaction with press and sponsors [/b]
Sometimes you’ll get an interview with the press. This is another part my coach excels at (18/20 in this stat as well)
- Problem 1 redundancy and irrelevance:
You’ll get the same questions asked again and again no matter how relevant they are to the situations.
“After a particularly grueling season’s start, how do you feel...” => I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’ve been rocking the charts since day 1. How about the fact that the tournament’s finals played between 2 of my players? Should make for a much more interesting subject.
- Problem 2 Uselessness
After 2 full years, I only got 1 mail back from a player pointing out they liked what I said to the press. It was very early in the first year and I suspect it was part of the tutorial or scripted. Since then, no feedback whatsoever positive or negative. As for sponsors, I never heard of them in those 2 years. Each player you recruit comes with a fixed sponsor and that’s it. No contract, no negotiation, nothing.
[b] Calendar and planning [/b]
-Problem 1 complete mess.
So there’s a tab for the WTL/MTL tournaments, a tab for the JTL tournaments and a sub tab for your player’s planning in a totally different menu. If you’re coaching a Junior woman for example, you have to go back and forth between WTL, JTL and their actual planning. Of course, switching tabs messes up the particular week you’re viewing so check week 21 in JTL, go to WTL to compare the tournaments available and you’re presented with week 42 of WTL. So go back up week 21 in WTL, see there’s a much more interesting/relevant tournament there, book it and go back to the player’s planning (be presented with week 7 now) to check for another availability to squeeze a JTL tournament sometime later. Rinse and repeat for every players (man/women/juniors M&F) in your academy and breathe out because you’re not done yet: these are only pre-registrations, so you might get a mail later saying your registration has been declined. So now you have to go through it all again. Also, depending on your ranks, there are tournaments which are mandatory, and you won’t get noticed too much in advance. It might be an ATP thing more than a TM2021 thing, but the UI makes it a chore to navigate through.
Oh, and you’ll get random wildcards for tournaments you haven’t booked. Be mindful before pressing “accept” and go through all the tabs again.
- Problem 2 hidden numbers and inconsistencies
There are 3 slots available for every day of the week. Plan and place various training sessions cards and rests cards in each slots according to your goals. You’ll get a “workload” rating for the week (too heavy workload brings a player’s physical condition down)
Try and plan 6 heavy (red cards) training sessions: you get a medium workload rating.
Try and plan 6 light (yellow cards) training sessions: you get a medium workload rating as well, go figure.
-Problem 3 not in control during tournament.
During a tournament, every single slot of every single day of the week is grayed out. Except the actual match of the day only takes one slot out of 3. The AI will assign training or rest sessions to those slots. You have no control on those.
[b] Gimmicky mail spam [/b] (too many characters, review ends here)
