I really hate pointing out the bleeding obvious, I really do.. something about it deeply disturbs me and gives me very little motivation to post on this forum ever again.. but I will just this last time in the hope it doesn’t fall on deaf ears.. anyways I will simply counter your argument (healthy debate) with “I think the review scores for each game, speak for themselves”.
On metacritic:
DBC: 76 (from 4)
DBC17: 83 (from 4)
Ashes: 73 (from 7)
Now, let's just ignore that nobody should take metacritic at face value, nor should you look at a sample of less than 20 reviews as particularly meaningful, but that doesn't make for great reading for your argument. At least we have some alternatives to discuss:
On opencritic:
DBC: 78 / 63% (6 reviews)
DBC17: 74 / 36% (10 reviews)
Ashes: 76 / 43% (10 reviews)
Note, opencritic use both a meta score and a "recommended %". Regardless, if you're saying "the review scores speak for themselves", I'd counter that with: they're muffled, but actually point to DBC being better than Ashes, and arguably the best received of the series.
But onto more pressing issues.. the kind that is bleedingly obvious, I fired up AC for the first time in a little while (about 12 months to be truthful), started the game up unpatched while it loaded and was forced to play with classic controls (left stick right stick) and the coloured circle length indicator.. Anyway I got through about an hour of playtime at the Gabba (batting) and finished at 5/100, and my first impressions were how seemingly random and scripted my dismissals seemed to be... bar the exception of David Warner’s snick to second slip to a half volley outside off early in his innings..
Anyways after this little play test my patch was loaded and I was prompted to install, I obliged and was very soon restarting the game up to be greeted by the “select batting and bowling controls menu” a choice between “standard” “classic” or “custom”, I surely choose standard as it was what I was used to before I lent the game to my younger brother some 12 months ago.. anyways a few clicks of the my trusty old red PS4 remote and I was immediately back out in the middle of the Gabba (batting)..
Immediately my focus was on the field radar on the top right corner of my tv screen where there was a very intuitive description of what each button on the face of my PS4 remote was for, square for “precision” x for “attacking” circle for “aggressive” and triangle for “defensive”, I quickly summarised a foolproof batting tactic for each batter of getting through the early stages of there innings with defensive and precision shots (square and triangle only) before expanding to more attacking and aggressive shots (x and circle) later on, anyways this plan was nearing fruition when I noticed Stuart broad was giving me quite a few juicy half volleys outside off which I wasn’t fully capitalising on using x (attacking) so I decided to that I had earned the right to use my tactically reserved special boundary hitting circle button (aggressive) anyways in comes old Stuart broad with that same retarded “I’m about to bowl a half volley outside off , use your circle button this time face” and so I duly obliged only for my very own digital play version of Davey Warner to literally Lollipop a catch to regulation cover much to my bewilderment.. and I thought long and hard, took a deep breath, and stopped breathing for 33 whole seconds and continued to be confused to why the circle button (aggressive) had been so easily lollipopped to cover without even the slightest hint of aggression that I had tactically anticipated, anyways as it turns out the circle button (aggressive) is the loft button not the aggressive ground shot I was anticipating and that’s very frustrating 1) because there is obviously a button combination that would of executed the “aggressive ground shot” I was expecting, and 2) because even if there is another bottom combination I’m not familiar with just yet, it would of felt a lot more intuitive if it was indeed the circle button.
That's lovely.
Anyways back to
@Alberts argument that each game has been worse or buggier than dbc 14. Can you explain how a game like dbc 14 without a length indicator slider or any intuitive feedback to explain a dismissal? or can you explain why it seemed nicking was completely random and/or scripted? Or why it seemed any wicket you got while bowling or batting seemed completely scripted and/or random? Do you remember superfielders? Do you remember any of the animations? Do you remember being able to play backfoot drive to a full ball? Or a front foot shot to a short ball?
If you don’t remember any of these and/or they don’t seem like big things to you.. then I’m diagnosing you with a bad case of nostalgia! because Ashes cricket and dbc 17 remedied all these things straight out of the box, without patches! yeah they may have had a few rough edges here and there but were fixed with patches! And they were certainly better games over there predecessors visually and tactically.
I'm not sure where you got "worse" from, my point is that they're buggier, which has been the case.
DBC though did have some favourable points, notably length was more controlled by quality of control, meaning you didn't get things like DBC17's weird "quantised bowling" thing.
If we were to go through all the issues across the three games so far though, they all have some glaring ones. That's not really the point I'm trying to make though. On the whole, I'd say the direction of the game itself has been a positive, it's just not had proper QA testing in the past, that's my concern. Trying to deflect that by saying "but do you remember this issue" (without referencing any of the current issues in Ashes) is quite frankly silly.
Hell, if Ashes was completely fixed by this point, I'd have no issues. But there remain persistent issues that were never dealt with, even when reported.
Each game has improved and I have no doubt they will refine and add to this upcoming ashes game so that it’s better than the last one (which is actually pretty tweaking good) hence the review scores.
Edited by Dutch: it's not a crime to at least try and make it readable!
Again, I have zero doubts that the new game will be a solid game. I'm just concerned that they're putting out all the telltale signs of it again lacking QA work, and being a bit of a mess again, then us needing to yet again wait 6 months to a year for it to be competent, but still buggy. That'll likely be the final state for this, and it'll remain like that until Pavillion Cricket 21 or whatever rebranding they pull for the next game, is released. The cycle will begin again.
I hope I'm wrong, but BigAnt aren't doing themselves favours in this department. If we were seeing the game right now, at the very least we'd know they weren't in a mad rush to ship
something. You look at series like PES or FIFA, and they have things that they can demo around early June for August/September releases. They put out demos 2 weeks to a month in advance for players to see if they like it. That last month is QA work, not a mad rush for a game to appear.