Ashes Cricket General Discussion

[wasteyouryouth]

Played another ODI today, this time bowling as both teams on PRO/hard bowling difficulty, Dusty/Soft/Pristine pitch. Note that I'm playing with 2005 rules: Only 1 ball, 5 men allowed outside when not in a powerplay, PPs are first 10 overs then two 5 over PPs when the fielding team chooses (although I can't quite get this to work right and currently it's first 15 overs is a PP then one PP whenever you choose). The powerplays proved to be the key, when I was bowling as India I thought might be able to restrict them to around 280 but I left the PP until the end and got pasted in the last 5 overs to allow them >300. When bowling as Australia I used it in the middle overs and India lost 4 wickets during the 5 over spell which blew through their middle-order and basically put them out of the game. Despite a good partnership between Kaif and Pathan they couldn't get close to the RRR again.

I'm not sure what difficulty you're playing on @wasteyouryouth but Pro seems perfect for me for ODIs at least. I definitely wouldn't bother playing above Veteran, the AI was atrociously bad on Legendary in DBC17.

Bonus Zaheer cleaning up Clarke with some beautiful inswing:

Haha, I've been playing a custom format too recently - 1992 world cup - 15 overs PP, then five men out, two new balls.

I'd had similar results though on current ODI format.

I'll give it a go on Pro, I use fully auto fielding anyway, I'm not sure what differences there are besides the timing windows for catches. On DBC 17 I never noticed anything different between difficulties beyond that either.

Cracking dismissal too.

 

[Spoobir]

Haha, I've been playing a custom format too recently - 1992 world cup - 15 overs PP, then five men out, two new balls.

I'd had similar results though on current ODI format.

I'll give it a go on Pro, I use fully auto fielding anyway, I'm not sure what differences there are besides the timing windows for catches. On DBC 17 I never noticed anything different between difficulties beyond that either.

Cracking dismissal too.

The AI are making much better scores on Pro for me in Ashes than they ever did on Veteran in DBC17. They pace their innings a lot better as well, Hussey's knock was absolutely brilliant.

 

[Gamer Pradosh]

The AI are making much better scores on Pro for me in Ashes than they ever did on Veteran in DBC17. They pace their innings a lot better as well, Hussey's knock was absolutely brilliant.

Type of shots played was good or you could see that front foot prod animation more?

 

[cricket_online]

Lately this seems like Big Ant's recipe with all their titles.

1. Identify niche sport with no video game (or none for a long time).
2. Throw together and rush out a mediocre unfinished game for full price, because enough fans of the sport desperate for a game will buy anything.
3. Deliver occasional patches to make small progress, with almost zero communication
4. Move on to the next iteration, scan a few faces, pick up a couple of licenses, and usually reset the progress made by the last iteration's patches.
5. Go to no.2

Steam reviews of DBC17, RLL4 and Ashes all see the same sorts of comments often made about them - buggy, unfinished, needs patching etc... AO Tennis is just disastrous as well.

Big Ant seriously need to sort themselves out, or another developer get involved in cricket games for me to have any interest in them.

Sadly I can't disagree with what you've stated. Since DBC 14 this seems to be the approach they've taken but I'm hoping Ashes Cricket and AO Tennis don't go the DBC 17 way.

 

[Spoobir]

Type of shots played was good or you could see that front foot prod animation more?

Yes you still see that one quite a bit unfortunately. Honestly they mostly play it down to third-man and it probably wouldn't look so bad if they smoothed up the animation and opened the face of the bat more. The ones when they somehow manage to dig out a yorker for a boundary are awful though.

 

[wasteyouryouth]

Has anyone who has been playing around with skills or mentalities of bowlers, or just in general using the defaults or those they've downloaded, been looking at pitch maps to see what differences occur?

 

[Gamer Pradosh]

Yes you still see that one quite a bit unfortunately. Honestly they mostly play it down to third-man and it probably wouldn't look so bad if they smoothed up the animation and opened the face of the bat more. The ones when they somehow manage to dig out a yorker for a boundary are awful though.

Yeah that animation could use a bit more of bat flow animation and towards third man when ball is wider then its completely fine, but they do dig out many shots which shouldnt be played that way ever....

On other note wides and one for the over for height is messed up in the game...Everything AI "ducks" to is one for the over..Like see this image below for eg..Its no where close to the height of batsman..

 

[Wealey]

Iv definitely found the AI get bowled a lot skill

 

[wasteyouryouth]

@Spoobir Tried it on Pro. Didn't notice much difference from legend. I still lost silly wickets and Australia still lost 4 wickets in the powerplay. I guess this could be because of the two new balls, in general the top order seem especially vulnerable no matter what format. I'm sure one has scored runs against me, but I don't recall a big score from a top three batsman. Might give it a go on modern ODI regulations and see how it goes.

The one big thing I noticed was that the wickets I took, the majority anyway, felt earned. Whereas on legend when they pop up silly dismissals. There was lots of playing and missing and quite a few edges. Maybe on Pro you're able to get them out properly whereas Legend just ends up with them giving their wickets away. Although, I'm sure someone has experienced something different.

Two lbws with yorkers. Boon tried to cut a high and wide one and nicked to keeper. Border knicked off a cover drive to first slip. Jones cut a wide one straight to gully. Steve Waugh got an inside edge off a spinner to leg slip. Mark Waugh got out from that ugly pull shot to a fuller ball to square leg. Taylor was victim of a stupid run out, not a comical one unfortunately, pushed into the circle, set off and then turned round and was out like Pandya the other day. Healy nicked off to keeper from a backfoot defensive shot and McDermott got an inside edge off a backfoot drive to the keeper.

Spoiler: Scorecard

 

[Spoobir]

@Spoobir Tried it on Pro. Didn't notice much difference from legend. I still lost silly wickets and Australia still lost 4 wickets in the powerplay. I guess this could be because of the two new balls, in general the top order seem especially vulnerable no matter what format. I'm sure one has scored runs against me, but I don't recall a big score from a top three batsman. Might give it a go on modern ODI regulations and see how it goes.

The one big thing I noticed was that the wickets I took, the majority anyway, felt earned. Whereas on legend when they pop up silly dismissals. There was lots of playing and missing and quite a few edges. Maybe on Pro you're able to get them out properly whereas Legend just ends up with them giving their wickets away. Although, I'm sure someone has experienced something different.

Two lbws with yorkers. Boon tried to cut a high and wide one and nicked to keeper. Border knicked off a cover drive to first slip. Jones cut a wide one straight to gully. Steve Waugh got an inside edge off a spinner to leg slip. Mark Waugh got out from that ugly pull shot to a fuller ball to square leg. Taylor was victim of a stupid run out, not a comical one unfortunately, pushed into the circle, set off and then turned round and was out like Pandya the other day. Healy nicked off to keeper from a backfoot defensive shot and McDermott got an inside edge off a backfoot drive to the keeper.

Spoiler: Scorecard

What was the wicket/conditions?

 

[wasteyouryouth]

What was the wicket/conditions?

The pitch was definitely green, possibly worn and crumbly.

 

[Spoobir]

The pitch was definitely green, possibly worn and crumbly.

Hmm maybe try something a little more batsman friendly as well?

 

[wasteyouryouth]

Hmm maybe try something a little more batsman friendly as well?

To be honest I just have it set to random at the moment. And it's produced enough roads so it's nice to get a little something in my favour.

 

[Langeveldt]

Batsman confidence and most likely pitch conditions need to be looked at imo. I often find the final two innings of a test is a worse experience when bowling with AI getting out in more dodgy ways. Also in career mode when most of the game is being simulated the 3rd and 4th innings are very often the highest scoring.

Also some notes on my fast bowler career mode (I am playing test matches in career not crappy club games or whatever):

The AI batsmen's confidence doesn't seem to go up when the game is being simulated (at least if the colour bars are to be believed) and as such I find they bat much more sensibly, almost zero slogs usually at around 2.5rpo when I'm keeping it tight and almost 100% wickets are genuine edges/bowled/lbw. Another reason for this could be that when the game is being simulated my AI teammates are usually getting smashed around for around 5 an over, so the AI is already meeting its "target" and doesn't feel the need to hit out and push the rate up.

The "target" is one of the worst things about BA's approach to cricket. It makes everything contrived and flow terribly (and cricket is never played at the same run rate all the time). You surely only need a target run rate when you are setting an ODI score (or in the latter half of chasing one?) - My heart sinks every time my conservative batsman slaps an effortless 6 off the last ball of an over because he hasn't reached the team "target"

 

[wasteyouryouth]

The "target" is one of the worst things about BA's approach to cricket. It makes everything contrived and flow terribly (and cricket is never played at the same run rate all the time). You surely only need a target run rate when you are setting an ODI score (or in the latter half of chasing one?) - My heart sinks every time my conservative batsman slaps an effortless 6 off the last ball of an over because he hasn't reached the team "target"

I find the AI has no problem going at 7 per over in the powerplay but consistently lose wickets. I'm sure I've bowled them out in every ODI I've played. If there is a target, surely it needs to work like Duckworth Lewis - e.g. be revised if wickets are lost to present an attempt at stabilising. In addition it should be reevaluated at regular intervals and tweaked up or down. At the moment it feels very forumalaic.

I was thinking about this last night and I believe something that would be help is a team mentality. Not just a setting you assign a team but linked to the captain's mentality that allows for variations to the approach of constructing an innings. Brute/Aggressive could just go gung ho from the outset, conservative teams might try and preserve wickets before a big push in the back end of an innings. Even if they all had the same 'target score' at least having them trying to reach it differently could add a little spice to matches.