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My view on VP4

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:30 am
by Hanterp
After playing VP4 a while, it is time to write down my thoughts on the game.
These thoughts are all about snooker, as I mainly snooker and almost no pool.
My strength is about "just above par", to say it in golf-terms. My highest break in normal mode is 36 and score regular around 20 breaks. Then you have a picture of my "strength" ;-)

Ball physics.

The best thing about the game is the great ball-physics. I played some other snooker-games, like WSC-Real 09 and before that Jimmy White Snooker. None of those have such great ball physics as VP4 has. The game reacts very sensitive on how you steer the ball.
For instance, in VP3 I was never able to do the standard break-off like in a real life-game. You needed another type of effect than in the real game was needed. In VP4 that looks much better.
The balls move very smoothly and the behavior of the balls after collision is perfect. That is a big difference with WSC 09 where the white looses way too much pace after contact.
In fact, there is not much to complain about the technical part; It's just perfect.

Pockets

Pockets! Yes we talked more about it. I think most people agree that they are too tight. Even tighter than real championship tables.
There is nothing more to say about it really. Steve would look into it, if I remember it correctly.

AI.

The part where the game can improve is the AI. When you play against a computer-opponent you never know what happens next.
In one situation it misses the easiest shots and the next moment it pot balls which would be for humans almost impossible: Normally a very low pecentage of succeeding.
I would describe the AI as erratic.
There is one type of shot where the AI scores very high and that is when the object-ball and the white are very close to each other.
I have a theory about the way the AI is programmed and that would explain why the AI scores so high with this shot:
Maybe I am wrong, but I guess there is the ideal spot to hit and if the AI should miss, it randomly hits the ball off this spot. For long distance pots a small deviation of the ideal spot is enough to miss. When the balls are very close to each other a small deviation is not enough to miss.
In short: I would love to see the AI plays more "human-like" but I understand this is hard to programm.

Overall I love the game and it is very addicted. I can't wait to meet others online with VP4 =D>

Re: My view on VP4

Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:08 am
by Hanterp
Sofar 25 people read this post but I am curious to read what you people think of my conclusions. After all it is a discussion forum :-)

Re: My view on VP4

Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 2:29 pm
by Fluke[FIN]
Otherwise the game is great but something which disturbs me is how the cueball spin "kicks in".

Here is an extreme-example of it: Long pot on tournament snooker table, slight angle to avoid the cueball scratch, less than medium pace, shot played stun. Cue hits the white -> white starts to slide on the table -> the longer the white moves the more it starts to roll instead of sliding -> when the white hits the red the white is not sliding anymore, only rolling. After the contact cueball continues travelling but what happens next after the bounce off from the cushion is something which is useally seen only shots with a lot of top spin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjbTesWqVU8

In short I think the ball spins "kicks in" too effectively.

The problem is not: you can do a massive draw back shots from very far distance that are impossible on a real table.
The problem is: the way how the spin "kicks in" is there not only when using a huge amount of shot pace and spin but also when doing very typical / slow pace shots like that video shows.

Re: My view on VP4

Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 3:02 pm
by Poolminator
fluke is right
top spin applies way too much, even when you give only the slightest top.
Cue ball just dont act the same as in real pool

Re: My view on VP4

Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 8:05 pm
by zwylle
My take on this is: Just because I can't do it on a real table doesn't mean it's impossible.

Re: My view on VP4

Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 12:54 am
by Fluke[FIN]
zwylle wrote:My take on this is: Just because I can't do it on a real table doesn't mean it's impossible.
I think You're refering to extreme spin shots there? I agree on that but it's not the point what I meant there. Take a look at the video, there's nothing "Just because I can't do that on a real table" -like in that shot. Just a very typical roll shot and hope for some bounce off from the cushion. The top spin on the white reduces the speed of the white after the bounce and even forces the white to change the direction back towards the corner pocket. That doesn't happen on real tables with a slow roll shot like that.

Re: My view on VP4

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 9:36 am
by sigsky
I too am surprised that there hasn't been more conversation on this topic. Maybe folks are just waiting for online play. I agree completely with the comments of Hunterp and Fluke. My pot success ration is about 35%. I'm bad but not that bad. I've almost given up trying to pot balls along the cushions although the AI players don't have any problems, sometimes even at sharp angles. On near straight shots near the corners there seems to be no way to get the cue ball out to the center of the table without using extreme draw. I've even had the cue ball spin into the corner pocket off the cushion when using top english. I don't believe I've ever seen that in a real game.

When playing an AI player, I often get the sense that the outcome has been predetermined and I'm just pressing buttons like when I continually am left with only 1 possible red that results in going in off, or all of a sudden I can't miss on the colors.

Anyway, I'm addicted.

Re: My view on VP4

Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 8:20 am
by Albinario
Fluke, I've noticed this a lot too. It's hard to use top spin for position when going straight into a rail, cause it's still there after the bounce. Dunno if the cloth grips too slowly, if the rail doesnt take off enough spin, or if there's simply too much top spin put on the ball.. or a combination of these.

Re: My view on VP4

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 5:26 am
by Fluke[FIN]
I think its a problem with bottom spin too: whenever I do a drag shot the cueball slows down a bit too much. The spin problems occurs on both pool and snooker but to me its a bit more severe on sooker table.

One test on getting the skid/friction right would be doing a lot ot draw shots with some angle: Notice how the cueball first travels sideways after the contact and then starts to draw back. Its travelling a curve shaped path. Start first with a very slight angle and a very gentle draw shot, then add some power to the shot, allways use exactly the same ball positions (angle and distance). Then add slighly more angle etc. If the curve is too round (in relation on much angle and shot power was used) the table is too slippery and if the curve is too sharp theres too much of friction between the ball and the table -> table needs tuning. When the curve looks/feels natural the table friction /ball spin grap should be ok.

Re: My view on VP4

Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 5:11 pm
by Albinario
I have noticed that bottom spin wears off a lot faster on the cloth in vp4 compared to vp3; I constantly underhit kill shots in vp4. I can't say whether this is unrealistic or not, could be i'm just used to not having to hit them so hard from vp3.

This can't be related to the top spin problem though, since too much cloth friction would decrease the time of spin on the ball regardless of the type of spin, which in turn means that, compared to reality, there should be too little spin left on a top spin shot after a bounce, rather than too much. Therefore, the top spin problem probably has to do with the rails.

Re: My view on VP4

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 10:28 am
by vpeer
The issue with the ball stopping on the shot is because the rail friction was too low, that has been corrected and will be in the next update. Not to say that the ball can't stop or slow down a lot on this type of shot, but the update will do this less.

Re: My view on VP4

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 11:05 am
by Fluke[FIN]
vpeer wrote:The issue with the ball stopping on the shot is because the rail friction was too low, that has been corrected and will be in the next update. Not to say that the ball can't stop or slow down a lot on this type of shot, but the update will do this less.
Great =D>

Re: My view on VP4

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 8:46 am
by ScratchShark
I also noticed that engilsh didn't "take" off the rail as much as in VP3, which would caused by the lower friction. Can't wait for the next update.