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As an experienced pool player, here is what I recommend.
Bronze medal.
Average run of winning player should be 5-6.
Silver
Average run of winner should be 5-7
Gold
Winning player can run out from break 1 in 3 times. That's about what you see in professional play because they shoot safety instead of impossible odds shots like your AI makes 8 out of ten times.
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So there is good and bad to this game. Good, love the ability to really tune in your shots, the ball physics seem half way decent. Now for the bad, at the higher levels, the ai seems to have been born the worlds most gifted billards player. Done nearly a dozen games where it's sank 4+ balls in one shot, bouncing all multiple balls. Like a lot of people stated, it definitely feels that if the ai breaks on the high levels there is a good chance it'll win. Watched the ai get stuck on one game where it couldn't decide to sink stripes or solids, so nearly every shot was 2-3 balls a shot, both stripe and solid until it cleared everything and then sank the 8 ball. Not a single chance to play. The ai is definitely brutal.
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What the hell? If you go over a certain amount (9 billion) it starts making you LOSE, even though you WIN. ??? My guess is that the score field can't hold more than 10 digits. That sucks.
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Found this great game, played it, then lost it (since I played many that day) then found it again! *phew* Bliss! -- I'd like to suggest that 1. After a break (and many balls are potted), there be some sort of indicator what balls have been potted so far. That would help. 2. I have accidentally potted an opponent's ball, because i wasn't sure if it was stripe or solid. Yes, I could wait until it highlights. One time I potted the black because I thought I had potted all mine. Nope. I illegally potted the black (yes, I should have read "player is striking at... because if its the black, it says 8 ball." (my mistake.) Also... Slight bug report... One time after I 'skratched', the AI got 3 goes!?! (I think it was without potting) Is it "continuing 2 shots"? Anyway, thanks for a great game... IF ONLY we had those GUIDES in real pool, I'd be SET. Aslo, great to call it "HUSTLER", because sometimes the AI just "cleans up"!
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it would be nice - if I could buy something with the money my charcter earns. Like better shoes or trophies or tricks or an own pool center maby a team or so?
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I think this game is a bit boring because it's possible to look so far ahead.. ofcourse this is better for players who don't play these games well.. but if you aim a shot at 100% power you can see the course the ball is going to make and it's very easy to shoot a ball in a pocket.. I think it would be a very good addition to turn this mode off.. Like playing Hard Mode.. so you can't see the course of the ball.. You could add bonus money for playing in hard mode, or balls pocketed in Hard Mode.. I think me and many others would enjoy this game a lot more because it simply requires more skill to master the physics and controls.. 4/5 stars because the engines of the game are really well put together.
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So, is there a reason why, no matter where i play this game, the ball gets stuck to where I can't shoot? I can aim, I can adjust power, but I can't make it shoot. I'm in the last game of a tournament, I can't refresh now!!!
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I'm surprised that this doesn't have better rating. there are some minor bugs but the overall interface and gameplay is excellent imo. 5/5 from me!
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Found a bug, on first tournament (Jason Potter) I got all solids in then the 8 ball, then it was the other players turn, they hit a few balls in, then on my turn (still said I was aiming at 8 ball) there were two stripes on the board. I hit one and got a foul for hitting the wrong ball. When I got the last stripe in the opponents goal changed to 8 ball, but there were no balls.
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I think I fond two more bugs.
Silver Tournament:
Papa Claude scratched on break. He then reracked and broke again.
Then I potted the 8-ball on break against Ranjeet, and _he_ played the following rerack. Shouldn't that be Me again?
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As I said AI can be poor at cue placement, but at higher levels this does not matter because they keep potting impossible balls.
Defensive shots are a waste of time!
As in real pool rotation games, you should neutralize the advantage of breaking. At higher levels, in a single game, who breaks wins.
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I wouldn't say that lower level AI is too difficult.
As in all pool simulation I played, the AI is quite good at potting balls but very poor at cue positioning and planning ahead.
I like the club-fake MMOPPG setting you added to on your already good pool games. Only thing I'd like is customizable mouse sensitivity, though that can be worked around by using arrows keys.
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One star opponent. Shoots perfect game against me. This happens 3 times in a row. You cannot say that the low star enemies are poor.
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If my opponent is stripes, then I have to be solids. I pocket a solid without touching any stripes and I lose my turn? Ok.
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Two bugs:
1) Like chmaos said, suddenly the "aiming at" dissapears and no matter if I hit solid or stripe the opponent get's the next turn
2) The cue ball runs out of bounds of the table and is nowhere left seen on the screen..
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Unless I misunderstood, I thought sinking the 8 ball on break shot was supposed to be a win? Or is that if you ONLY sink the 8 ball? because then I lost legitimately.
It depends on where you play and which rules you are using. The rules I used should force a re-rack if the 8 ball is potted on the break. But you should never lose for doing it - if that happened, it's a bug and I'll look into it. Impressive break, though - I didn't actually think it was possible tbh.
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I love how smooth the game is. The most cerebral simulated game of pool I've played yet :) Great accomplishment - 5/5
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I'd rpefer that like in all othr pool games, I pull from behind the ball rather than in front of the ball. It is counterintuitive.
There's a good reason for why I didn't do that. If you pull from the ball, then the mouse is always very close to the ball. When you are aiming, the change in angle gets more jumpy the closer the mouse is to the cue ball. It's like trying to turn the hand of a clock - it's a lot more accurate if you move the hand at its point, rather than close to its pivot (at the middle of the clock) - see what I mean?
No they don't. If you keep on losing, the computer will match you against easier opponents. The weakest opponent is really quite poor. Maybe you should play a couple of practice games first.
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How come the computer can move the ball before the break but i cannot? Placing the ball in a different position is almost required to get a good break.
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If you're playing a decent (~2.5) AI, you are pretty much guaranteed to lose if you miss a single shot, and are very likely to lose if you break and don't pot a ball. I've played 3 games and the AI has not once missed a shot; only game I won was when the AI broke. I can't imagine what the hard AIs are like...
You need money to enter the tournaments, and you need to win the tournaments to achieve certain trophies. There is also a trophy for gaining $1 million. :)
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The AI feels like it's a bit too good for its rating. On my second game, I played one with a rating of roughly 2.5, and had the table cleared of all but two solids, when I had to give the table up because I didn't have a shot available. So I placed his first shot where I thought it was least usable, and he proceeded to clear it on me. Not a single missed shot, not even a piss shot. He played flawlessly. And it cost me 1/3 of my wallet. If this wasn't an issue, I happily would have rated this five stars, because up to that experience it all felt really well put together. But this issue is quite glaring, and is earning it a mere three stars from me. I've also run into multiple, though rare, cases where a certain ball ceases to have physics, and other balls simply roll over them.
All in all, the game could be quite nice, but it will require some patching to be up to par with what a pool player would expect.
Thanks for your feedback. It sounds like I might have made the AI a bit on the hard side - it's a tricky thing to get right for everybody. As happens in real pool though, if you clear most of your balls first before your opponent gets a turn, it actually makes the table a lot easier for them. I will look into the physics issue. <update> multiple bugs fixed. :)
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Sorry for the double upload - a spot of confusion between me (the developer) and the sponsor about who should upload the game. One of them will hopefully disappear soon. :)