I've never "studied" "paddle dynamics" in these games, and when implementing pong, always just reflected, which doesn't provide good game play, but pong is always a "I'm trying out a different framework" type exercise.
Pong using where it hits to affect the angle never totally made sense to me. I assume the explanation is "the paddle is drawn as a rectangle, but is actually parabolic." Additionally, I've always wondered why I've never seen a pong where the paddles have acceleration to some maximum velocity, and if the paddle is not stationary, you get lateral spin, causing non-linear ball paths on the return hit.
Pong using where it hits to affect the angle never totally made sense to me. I assume the explanation is "the paddle is drawn as a rectangle, but is actually parabolic." Additionally, I've always wondered why I've never seen a pong where the paddles have acceleration to some maximum velocity, and if the paddle is not stationary, you get lateral spin, causing non-linear ball paths on the return hit.