Topic: Mario Tennis Aces Online Tournament Points

I have 8000 and some odd points, about 50 wins to 20 losses, and have won tournaments with Peach, Mario, Rosalina and Chain Chomp. Looking at the numbers here my W2L ratio is way too low to even consider winning it seems. Probably because I haven't played Mario Tennis since the gameboy game so this has been a learning experience.

I ended with 38714 points, don't remember the wins and losses but the win/loss percentage was around 80% (also 1 disconnect as my controller ran out of charge during a match). Not bad but I'd imagine the top 4 UK players have like 95+% win/loss so no chance of free copy.

Still a day 1 purchase though.

@Maxz Holy crap! I've played with you Maxz. You were the first person to beat me after 30 wins and I have to say - you have an amazing trick shot game! I honestly remember playing with you the most out of all of the games - probably because it was my first loss. Still - incase you remember, my name was Switcheroo and I believe that I was playing as Spike.

@SwitcherooSwitch I do remember playing with you! Both because it was a super intense match and because you've got a pretty distinctive nickname.

It's those kind of matches that make you think, "this is such a rad game when played against decent opponents", but also "aah, my precious W/L ratio is actually under threat after all that rookie crushing!". It's a pity one of us had to chip away at the other's stats, but it was an awesome match.

Ended with 60000, 13 games lost, over 250 won, around 55 tourney won, but I guess even that will be too low to place top5.

@Maxz Well I'm just really glad I got to have that conversation! I wasn' t even annoyed that I'd lost my first game because you were the first good player I played against.That match taught me a lot about trickshots etc.
GG and expect a friend request! Maybe we could even have a rematch if you get the full game

@SwitcherooSwitch I'm definitely getting it! It'll no doubt see you again on the court.

It's really cool that the Switch has got a solid 1 vs. 1 online game now (outside of ARMS). I love team games like Splatoon, but there's something also really cool about being able to challenge an individual!

I'll accept the request when I get back to my Switch.

@Maxz Good to hear!

I don't get it....how did these people get THAT good in 48 hours?! I was playing online and getting destroyed non stop. I was playing what seemed like pretty well, I could destroy the AI in rapid order. But online....it's like these people were playing for months. I never made it to the tournament finals once. Made it to semifinals only once. I just don't understand how everyone could get that good that rapidly? It took was was a really fun game and made it very annoying. I'll still buy it, single player should be worth it...but if the online plays like that, that's not very good. I finished with about 2000 points. There was some noob crushing in the first bracket, sure, but usually by the second bracket and always the third there was someone who could just managed to be fully charged for charge shots 100% of the time and I could barely chase the ball with trick shots non stop. I could never keep up!

I liked the game...but there's either something huge I'm missing (that doesn't get used in crushing AIs) or I just totally suck somehow even though I didn't think I did. Even if I did I still don't get how after 2000+ points, people with 100 points seemed to be skilled enough to trash me like they'd played for months!

I guess I have terrible hand-eye coordination Which is odd for a lifelong gamer.

@NEStalgia I mean, the core of Mario Tennis is still there under the hood, so some people have been practicing most of the mechanics and improving their general game-sense for over a decade. The new mechanics of Zone/Special Shots, Zone Speed, and Trick Shots are the only new mechanics veterans would have needed to get their heads around, and even these are all made easier if your basic game is solid; keeping opponents on the defensive makes it easier to both build the meter and also initiate Zone shots.

So yeah, for the most part I just pretended it was Mario Tennis 64 with some bells and whistles attached. Working out the parameters for trick shots was probably the biggest readjustment for me. Most of the rest built on a base game I literally have put months into.

@SwitcherooSwitch I remember a spike named Switcheroo! I can't remember if we actually played or not. Though I don't believe I lost to a spike, there was a teeth-clenching tiebreaker I barely won against a Spike that my mind wants to say might have been you? Though that was near the beginning of things on Friday...? I would have been a chain chomp named DawgP. Regardless, I finished up playing 125 total matches and had a total of 5 losses.

@NEStalgia What you're likely seeing is that Aces is basically the same as Mario Tennis games that came before, particularly Mario Power Tennis. So people who are already great in previous ones will know what they're doing here. ((Especially since old controls for shot types still work, i.e. charge with B then hit A to do a drop instead of L stick plus X.)). The big thing for us veterans was figuring out how to manage the new stuff (trick shots and the special meter). Hopefully the actual non-tournament free play online will try to do some smart matchmaking. For a tournament bracket style thing, mashing everyone together makes sense, but for free play it would be less discouraging to be more frequently matched up with people around your own performance level (obviously with some variance).

@Maxz @DawgP Ahhh, thanks, I hadn't realized that there were prior games! That makes more sense. I thought in 24-48 hours from the first time ever touching the game these people became grand masters while I was just "ok"! I mean now that I think about it I remember it coming out for WiiU and my thought was "meh more Tennis on a Wii" I played a Mario Tennis on Virtual Boy but it was basic and focused on doubles play. There were only two buttons. That makes more sense.

OTOH yuck. This is what really annoys me about online multiplayer games. Even picking up a game on day one, you're still "late to the party" versus those that have played prior entries and start with a massive disadvantages. Maybe that's why I got into Splatoon and Arms, everyone was the same skill, but can't tolerate Smash online and apparently this. It ends up feeling like you shouldn't bother because everyone else is already better. You don't get that problem with the buildup in a solo game.

How do you "keep someone on the defensive" if you're not the one with permanent full charge shots. I'm lucky if I get fully charged twice or thrice in a match. It's all partial charges. Once they're always 100% it's just me doing tricks and blanking my meter chasing after balls on ever more opposite sides of the court.

One trick I saw some doing is just constantly spamming the time slow thing before they hit to constantly throw you off balance. That alone convinced me I just want to play the simple mode in the full game.

@NEStalgia Oh no! I wrote a big advice thing but it doesn't seem to have posted. D:

I'm at work now, so I'll try again later. :/

@DawgP That's happened to me too many times! I know how that goes!

It's the thought that counts, thanks!

@NEStalgia ok, let's try some of this again.

It's hard to explain most of this over text and not in-person with actual game examples, but I'll try.

First off, tennis is a lot like chess. It's all about control and mind games. And what you do at the start will have a large impact on how the point goes.

And the start of the point is the serve. If you are serving, you want to push the ball to the far end of the court so that your opponent has a larger distance to move to get back to the other side. Your goal is to keep your opponent moving and always got to spots they are leaving open, and forcing them further out helps accomplish this. However, if your opponent is anticipating this and overcompensating and you have a fast serve (usually a power character), you can drive a hard one down the middle to mess with them and keep them on their toes.

Of you are receiving, step up to the box. This is not advisable in real life, but Mario Tennis characters are perfect. A legal serve has to hit the inside box on the opposite side of the server, so "choking up" reduces the impact angles can have and by extension how far out to the side they can push you. And your return should be in response to their serve. If they went to the far corner, hit your return to the opposite side so they have to chase it. And as the games and sets and match progress, change it up. Hit it back to where they served from if they start running right away. Hit a drop shot as a return if they stay back. Hit lobs if they rush the net because they expect you to drop shot.

There's more advice coming later, 'cause gotta work at work and stuff. >.>

@NEStalgia After the serve (assuming a point hasn't been scored in the serve or return) is the volley.

During this time, you want to always be charging your shot and making your opponent chase the ball. Hit it to where they are not. If they have been pushed to the right, hit it to the left and vice versa. If they are hanging back (or getting pushed by charges shots) drop shot it. If they are rushing the net, lob it. And for this, they might start anticipating your actions and being where they believe you're going to hit it, so change it up. Hot it right back where you got it before every now and then. And when it doubt, just hammer your shot to their backhand side (for most people, they'll be playing righty, so their backhand is your rigjt.). This isn't as important in Mario Tennis (since the characters are perfect), but reach is still reach and backhand side has less reach than forehand, so you can use that to keep pushing them.that way and then slam a heavy shot or full drop shot to the forehand side.

I have more than 40.000 Points. At first I had a normal win loss ratio, of like 25 wins to 18 losses. But then I started using Chain Chomp and Waluigi and won about 98% of my matches lol. Can people outside the UK also win something? I already pre ordered the game though ^^

Yeah I felt confident with my 65K points and a W/L of about 200 - 10 and about 60 tournament wins. That was, of course, until I read up on how other players were doing. The game wasn't too hard for me to learn as I'd played so much of Mario Tennis Open on the 3DS. I had won nearly every tournament - unlocking four characters just from winning my very first one! Then I learnt about abusing both forward/backwards trick shots that automatically follow the ball for you, filling up your meter instantly and about serving with zone shots that can quickly chip away at your rackets. I KO'd way too many people after learning that one.

@DawgP That's, tha's great advice overall....the second part of your first post is all stuff I was actually doing, though I never had full charges (only rarely on a star point do I get long enough to do full charges.) But the actual tennis basics, charges aside, I seemed ok on. What you say about serving though....it didn't seem like there was any control at all over the serve. How do you serve effectively? It seems like there's only "rightward, leftward, or center" and you don't have control over placment, and for serves it seems like 0 control...you just hit it at the top (or in the case of all the lousy 1-bar laggers, toss the ball...no button response...toss the ball...no button response. )

For the tennis basics, that's the one place I was scoring points....I'm not as fast as some but knowing where to TRY to put the ball I'm doing well on, and finding the openings or likely openings. Where the good players get me is they seem to move the ball more toward the edges than I seem to, move it faster than I seem to....and I'm assuming that means more charging, but I don't know how they're getting charges in since every time I hold the button as fast as possible there's barely enough time for a partial charge. (And some are just better at thinking faster than me, and that will never change, but that's different than the ones that just kept me chasing and chasing non-stop. I had several total shutout matches against me...those sucked )

I'm thinking my core problem is the charging maybe. I get maybe 2-3 full charge shots per match. My opponent gets like 20 But I don't know how to get more charge.

@NEStalgia So where does the special.meter come in? I think I found a good answer Sunday night; I started doing certain things with the special meter and started dominating hard.

So always be charging. That's gonna build your special meter. And keep your opponent moving. If they're moving they're not charging. And don't be discouraged if you opponent keeps using time-slow trick shots. It uses special meter to get some special meter, so they're basically stagnating.

And charging your meter is all good, but what do you do with it? First of all DO NOT use it to chase regular shots. Only slow time if your trick shot does it for you. Yes, it's a stagnant transaction, but so long as you're not doing it every hit and resend controlling the field, it's fine. The only exception is to slow time so you can get the block timing against zone or special shots on crucial points. For points that don't matter, just let them have the shot.

If you're receiving, use the special attack as soon as you've got it, unless you are in a one-sided game and are sure you'll be serving right away. Using your special.shot to counter a special shot puts you worse off than the opponent (this is directly contrary to Mario Power Tennis); instead of making a special shot of your own, it's just a dinky block shot and it leaves you exposed to follow up. Either slow time to get the block timing, or let them have the shot if it's not an important point.

If you're serving, however, and have a decent amount of meter, use the zone shot on your serve. Force them to use their meter to slow for the timing or (probably) take some racket damage if they don't want you to have the Ace point. If you can get to a scenario where you can zone shot, they can't retaliate with a special, they have one racket health left AND it's a point that'll win you a game, you're almost guaranteed the game point.

If you're in a situation where your meter is green, they really don't have any, and a star opens up right below you and it's not a fast shot (lob or drop where you have some time), go ahead and zone shot.

Also, don't bother aiming the zone or special shots. The longer you aim, the more specialeyer you use, and the more you'll need to replenish. Your opponent is either going to use their special meter to slow it down and try to make the timing for the block, risk/take the racket damage, or let you have the point. Positioning is very unimportant for those.

At least, that's what really worked fore at the end there. That racket pressure put me in can't lose scenarios against people who had the point/game lead on me or were otherwise showing more court prowess than me.