Ashes Cricket General Discussion

[Rhone]

I meat the visual aids in the game. The aerial marker (colour coded red, yellow, blue green) and/or pitch marker.

Do you ever edge when batting?

 

[wasteyouryouth]

Just aerial marker. I don't use the pitch marker.

I'd suggest giving it a go the other way. I realised that with the aerial marker my brain is just trained to recognise colour and play accordingly. I don't look for the ball just the colour. So it becomes too easy to play.

Since I have played with just the pitch marker I have to judge the length on my own so I'm more error prone. I'll often get it wrong, in those grey areas. Equally I'm finding that I will often be able to play more appropriate to the pitch. Been having a game on a hard pitch and good length can sometimes be cut off the back foot whereas if I had it telling me it was 'green' for good length I'd just play off the front foot.

75% of my dismissals are edges, either to keeper (too often, would be prefer them to go to slips a bit more) or inside edges on to the stumps. Generally I'll edge a lot more, I get bowled and lbw - lbw in the game, batting or bowling, hardly ever seems to happen though. It could just be my ability and I definitely think the shots I choose to play bring more edges (I love a square drive) but it's definitely opened up more dismissals for me.

I'd sooner have the pitch marker not be so accurate, perhaps displaying a wider area, because it does mean the judgment of length is down to you but picking the line can still be too easy. Only other thing I use is the ball trail.

 

[Deleted member 185125]

Tried without any academy downloads or any changes to settings. Match Difficulty Veteran and bowling at hard. Pitch Condition Grassy, hard, pristine and Overcast weather.
Below is the video of Starc's 6 for 22 but still ended in losing the match trying to defend 150 off 20 overs.

 

[Rhone]

I'd suggest giving it a go the other way. I realised that with the aerial marker my brain is just trained to recognise colour and play accordingly. I don't look for the ball just the colour. So it becomes too easy to play.

Since I have played with just the pitch marker I have to judge the length on my own so I'm more error prone. I'll often get it wrong, in those grey areas. Equally I'm finding that I will often be able to play more appropriate to the pitch. Been having a game on a hard pitch and good length can sometimes be cut off the back foot whereas if I had it telling me it was 'green' for good length I'd just play off the front foot.

75% of my dismissals are edges, either to keeper (too often, would be prefer them to go to slips a bit more) or inside edges on to the stumps. Generally I'll edge a lot more, I get bowled and lbw - lbw in the game, batting or bowling, hardly ever seems to happen though. It could just be my ability and I definitely think the shots I choose to play bring more edges (I love a square drive) but it's definitely opened up more dismissals for me.

I'd sooner have the pitch marker not be so accurate, perhaps displaying a wider area, because it does mean the judgment of length is down to you but picking the line can still be too easy. Only other thing I use is the ball trail.

I'll give it a go buddy. Just wish i could download your teams!

 

[wasteyouryouth]

I'll give it a go buddy. Just wish i could download your teams!

Is there something wrong with the academy? I've not had problems on PS4 or PC downloading.

 

[Rhone]

Is there something wrong with the academy? I've not had problems on PS4 or PC downloading.

Yes....some people can't download teams. It just goes to the 'waiting' screen. I downloaded some...but now it won't work. I think its a bug relating to peoples profiles rather than the academy being down. Some people can download with no problems. I haven't been able too for weeks. Tried deleting all saved data on my PS4 and starting again. Didn't help.

 

[wasteyouryouth]

Yes....some people can't download teams. It just goes to the 'waiting' screen. I downloaded some...but now it won't work. I think its a bug relating to peoples profiles rather than the academy being down. Some people can download with no problems. I haven't been able too for weeks. Tried deleting all saved data on my PS4 and starting again. Didn't help.

I knew some people were having problems, didn't realise they were long term issues.

 

[cricket_online]

I don't know why I need to look at it from a different perspective when that perspective is explicitly one that hasn't played a build i have played and that was vastly superior.

Even now, it's still better than a rehash of dbc17 because it has retained the possibility of all dismissals.

AI fields are also not identical to dbc17 and nor are the issues with them.

So no I don't need to look at it from that perspective, nor will I.

I will look at it from the perspective that there is/was a fine game here, a leap forward from dbc17. The post release support has not been what any of us expected or hoped for and has taken the game backwards rather than improving the few issues that remained.

I disagree with based on my playing experience with Ashes Cricket. Here's what I see and experience when I play Ashes cricket compared to DBC 17...

1. AI Fields - Default AI Fields are almost broken and not realistic in Ashes Cricket. Quite often AI puts in fields with no Fine Leg or anyone deep behind square on the leg side leading to cheap runs. AI Fields still have deep fielders in the same area of the field, i.e. AI puts Deep Extra Extra Cover and Deep Cover as the only two fielders out. Or it puts a redundant deep fielder, i.e. Deep Extra Cover behind Extra Cover. If the AI bowls on the stumps or strays on leg so often, Fine Leg should be an automatic in every field but not so here. And as for sweepers on the boundary, AI chooses them on a whim with no relevance to your scoring areas.

In shorter formats the issue is even more pronounced with fields which defy imagination. You have a weird ring field with 0 outfield fielders and that somehow is placed for pacers and spinners alike after the PP is over. You continue seeing fields with barely 3 fielders outside the circle when PP overs are over. And in odis you get to see fields with only 2 or 3 fielders out when the final PP with 5 fielders out is in play. In DBC 17 the final patch (Patch 4) at least had a temporary fix where AI only selected fields with max fielders outside the circle in shorter formats. No so in Ashes Cricket. And we still have the same issue of AI randomly change fields almost every ball for no rhyme or reason. So yes the AI fields do have major and similar issues with them.

2. Batting - As has already been mentioned batting has become arcadey with not much difference across difficulty levels. This was not the case in DBC 17 where you could get a more difficult batting experience and in DBC 14 it was truly an achievement to score a 100 on 'Legend'. Other than mo-cap and new animations, the actual gameplay related to batting has gone down significantly. Plus now you can't choose to defend/leave on front or back foot as in DBC 17. This makes it defending/leaving against short pitched deliveries a moot point. I had a dismissal where I pushed back on LS (back foot) and pressed X (leave button) against a bouncer and instead of ducking or weaving away my batsman played a weird defensive leave on the front foot and in line of the delivery! The ball hit the glove/bat handle and my batsman was dismissed. These are the kind of things which make you go "Hang on! This thing was working fine the last iteration or in DBC 14 so why did they change it?"

3. Stats and Career Mode - I'm sure it's safe to state that career mode in a cricket game, or in any sports game for that matter, hinges on stats. In DBC 17 the stats were broken and were never fixed despite claims of being fixed in Patch 4. The patch notes said so but the stats were still broken. Welcome to Ashes Cricket and stats are an issue again! You have unbeaten milestones not recorded and incorrect bowling stats (Best Bowling figures). And the stats issues are not just specific to career mode. The 'USer Statistics' are utterly borked. If you resume a Test only the stats since the resume are tracked while batting. I'm still in the same boat as DBC 17 where I'm waiting for stats to be fixed before I can play career mode.

4. Random Bugs - You still have weird random bugs like batsmen not dismissed after edging, or ball passing through the bat quite frequently, or weird stumping issue, or batsmen somehow turning around with the quickness of oil tankers when you cancel the run, or the match conditions (still day in day-night matches when it's clearly night time, pitches not showing deterioration etc.). These are all major gameplay related issues and have remained and in fact have been added on top of DBC 17.

5. System stability and crashes - And you still get random crashes and the blue screen with 'CE' error code on PS4 which has always been persistent since DBC 17 days. I've played multiple games on PS4 over the last 4 years and other than DBC 17, and now Ashes Cricket I've experienced a crash only once (happened once with Madden NFL 17). But in DBC 17 and Ashes Cricket it's not uncommon to experience game/system crashes.

So yes I wouldn't state Ashes Cricket is better than a "rehash of DBC 17". As far as gameplay (especially Batting which is my favorite discipline) is concerned it clearly is not based on my experience.

 

[wasteyouryouth]

I disagree with based on my playing experience with Ashes Cricket. Here's what I see and experience when I play Ashes cricket compared to DBC 17...

1. AI Fields - Default AI Fields are almost broken and not realistic in Ashes Cricket. Quite often AI puts in fields with no Fine Leg or anyone deep behind square on the leg side leading to cheap runs. AI Fields still have deep fielders in the same area of the field, i.e. AI puts Deep Extra Extra Cover and Deep Cover as the only two fielders out. Or it puts a redundant deep fielder, i.e. Deep Extra Cover behind Extra Cover. If the AI bowls on the stumps or strays on leg so often, Fine Leg should be an automatic in every field but not so here. And as for sweepers on the boundary, AI chooses them on a whim with no relevance to your scoring areas.

In shorter formats the issue is even more pronounced with fields which defy imagination. You have a weird ring field with 0 outfield fielders and that somehow is placed for pacers and spinners alike after the PP is over. You continue seeing fields with barely 3 fielders outside the circle when PP overs are over. And in odis you get to see fields with only 2 or 3 fielders out when the final PP with 5 fielders out is in play. In DBC 17 the final patch (Patch 4) at least had a temporary fix where AI only selected fields with max fielders outside the circle in shorter formats. No so in Ashes Cricket. And we still have the same issue of AI randomly change fields almost every ball for no rhyme or reason. So yes the AI fields do have major and similar issues with them.

2. Batting - As has already been mentioned batting has become arcadey with not much difference across difficulty levels. This was not the case in DBC 17 where you could get a more difficult batting experience and in DBC 14 it was truly an achievement to score a 100 on 'Legend'. Other than mo-cap and new animations, the actual gameplay related to batting has gone down significantly. Plus now you can't choose to defend/leave on front or back foot as in DBC 17. This makes it defending/leaving against short pitched deliveries a moot point. I had a dismissal where I pushed back on LS (back foot) and pressed X (leave button) against a bouncer and instead of ducking or weaving away my batsman played a weird defensive leave on the front foot and in line of the delivery! The ball hit the glove/bat handle and my batsman was dismissed. These are the kind of things which make you go "Hang on! This thing was working fine the last iteration or in DBC 14 so why did they change it?"

3. Stats and Career Mode - I'm sure it's safe to state that career mode in a cricket game, or in any sports game for that matter, hinges on stats. In DBC 17 the stats were broken and were never fixed despite claims of being fixed in Patch 4. The patch notes said so but the stats were still broken. Welcome to Ashes Cricket and stats are an issue again! You have unbeaten milestones not recorded and incorrect bowling stats (Best Bowling figures). And the stats issues are not just specific to career mode. The 'USer Statistics' are utterly borked. If you resume a Test only the stats since the resume are tracked while batting. I'm still in the same boat as DBC 17 where I'm waiting for stats to be fixed before I can play career mode.

4. Random Bugs - You still have weird random bugs like batsmen not dismissed after edging, or ball passing through the bat quite frequently, or weird stumping issue, or batsmen somehow turning around with the quickness of oil tankers when you cancel the run, or the match conditions (still day in day-night matches when it's clearly night time, pitches not showing deterioration etc.). These are all major gameplay related issues and have remained and in fact have been added on top of DBC 17.

5. System stability and crashes - And you still get random crashes and the blue screen with 'CE' error code on PS4 which has always been persistent since DBC 17 days. I've played multiple games on PS4 over the last 4 years and other than DBC 17, and now Ashes Cricket I've experienced a crash only once (happened once with Madden NFL 17). But in DBC 17 and Ashes Cricket it's not uncommon to experience game/system crashes.

So yes I wouldn't state Ashes Cricket is better than a "rehash of DBC 17". As far as gameplay (especially Batting which is my favorite discipline) is concerned it clearly is not based on my experience.

From what I remember the ring field has the tactic set to prevent boundaries, so it will be used when the AI is trying to prevent boundaries. It is a small error but one that cannot be edited as the default fields are locked. I don't think the field settings are as bad as this stage on DBC 17, it is a shame that they same issues crept back in for this game. The problem I see is that the AI selects the fields that are available to it based on the tactic it is trying to employ and the match situation (if there's a powerplay). I don't believe it can tweak fields - moving one player, so it will always be limited to what is available. If fields are available for a tactic or incorrectly set then they will show up. If you are scoring consistently through a gap the AI can't plug the gap like we can so I think that may also account for the regular field changes. I don't know if it's the same but on AC but on DBC 17 the AI would use custom fields that I had created in addition to the default ones.

I would disagree that batting has gone down significantly. I think the AI bowling is not as testing.

Random bugs are what happens in games. Find me one that had no bugs on release or after two months.

I had a lot of issues on PC with DBC 17. My PC was new and passed stress tests and hard ware test but it would still crash, only with DBC 17, not with GTA5 or Doom. Eventually I had to solve it by adjusting the power settings because for some reason the game caused my PC to shut down. Had some crashes with this game but from my memory it was when looking at replays while streaming/recording on OBS. The stability issues could be because BA are not as able, due to the size of their company, to as rigorously test for such issues.

 

[sonimrajk]

Tried without any academy downloads or any changes to settings. Match Difficulty Veteran and bowling at hard. Pitch Condition Grassy, hard, pristine and Overcast weather.
Below is the video of Starc's 6 for 22 but still ended in losing the match trying to defend 150 off 20 overs.

Good to see the edges. So as assumed academy downloads are causing the issue?
Also did you see edges with human batting?
If yes then i will also go back and reinstall the game without any academy downloads.

 

[wasteyouryouth]

Good to see the edges. So as assumed academy downloads are causing the issue?
Also did you see edges with human batting?
If yes then i will also go back and reinstall the game without any academy downloads.

Not if my game is anything to go by. I get plenty of edges and my game has tonnes of logos.

 

[cricket_online]

From what I remember the ring field has the tactic set to prevent boundaries, so it will be used when the AI is trying to prevent boundaries. It is a small error but one that cannot be edited as the default fields are locked. I don't think the field settings are as bad as this stage on DBC 17, it is a shame that they same issues crept back in for this game. The problem I see is that the AI selects the fields that are available to it based on the tactic it is trying to employ and the match situation (if there's a powerplay). I don't believe it can tweak fields - moving one player, so it will always be limited to what is available. If fields are available for a tactic or incorrectly set then they will show up. If you are scoring consistently through a gap the AI can't plug the gap like we can so I think that may also account for the regular field changes. I don't know if it's the same but on AC but on DBC 17 the AI would use custom fields that I had created in addition to the default ones.

I would disagree that batting has gone down significantly. I think the AI bowling is not as testing.

Random bugs are what happens in games. Find me one that had no bugs on release or after two months.

I had a lot of issues on PC with DBC 17. My PC was new and passed stress tests and hard ware test but it would still crash, only with DBC 17, not with GTA5 or Doom. Eventually I had to solve it by adjusting the power settings because for some reason the game caused my PC to shut down. Had some crashes with this game but from my memory it was when looking at replays while streaming/recording on OBS. The stability issues could be because BA are not as able, due to the size of their company, to as rigorously test for such issues.

Again I disagree that batting hasn't regressed. To me it has gone down the "arcade" road. I was never able to hammer the bowling and pile on cheap runs during DBC 14 days the way I can in Ashes Cricket. As for AI fields I again disagree that the fields are decent. It's not just the ring field but various AI fields which don't make sense. I've rarely seen fields without anyone deep behind square on the leg side (say Fine Leg) but AI puts such fields often.

And as for bugs are concerned, I don't mind cosmetic or small bugs at all. E.g., I don't care whether fielders catch the ball facing the other way or fielding animations etc. I'm talking major gameplay bugs, i.e. batsmen edging and continuing on, system crashes, stats issues that have carried on from DBC 17.

 

[wasteyouryouth]

Again I disagree that batting hasn't regressed. To me it has gone down the "arcade" road. I was never able to hammer the bowling and pile on cheap runs during DBC 14 days the way I can in Ashes Cricket. As for AI fields I again disagree that the fields are decent. It's not just the ring field but various AI fields which don't make sense. I've rarely seen fields without anyone deep behind square on the leg side (say Fine Leg) but AI puts such fields often.

And as for bugs are concerned, I don't mind cosmetic or small bugs at all. E.g., I don't care whether fielders catch the ball facing the other way or fielding animations etc. I'm talking major gameplay bugs, i.e. batsmen edging and continuing on, system crashes, stats issues that have carried on from DBC 17.

I didn't say the AI fields were decent. I said I don't think they are as bad as they were at this stage of DBC 17. I think the individual fields are often flawed and clearly some have tactic settings that need to be changed. More fields would help, the AI being able to move single fielders, as would fields specific for right/left handed batsmen.

I love stats just as much as the next person and it's unfortunate that issues are present (I've not seen any), but I don't consider stats issues to be a major gameplay bug, maybe if we were talking about Excel, but, if anything, they are cosmetic bugs. Batsmen edging and carrying on is really annoying and I hope it gets fixed in the next patch. It's not ruined any match for me on the two or three occasions it has happened.

 

[Punk_Sk8r]

Not sure if this is a bug but sometimes me and the AI when bowling get edges which go a foot to the left or right of the keeper/slips and they make no effort to dive for it?

 

[Deleted member 185125]

Good to see the edges. So as assumed academy downloads are causing the issue?
Also did you see edges with human batting?
If yes then i will also go back and reinstall the game without any academy downloads.

I always had egdes even with the academy downloads.
In the two T20 played, had only one aggressive prod shot, had two 6 wickets hauls, Moin Ali scored 50 in both the matches. Too early still to confirm any definite impact.
I would try few matches without any patches installed. I haven't tried batting to tell the difference.