Mr Snrub
International Coach
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2006
Everyone has differing priorities for sure. For myself, the number one thing I want is the gameplay to be great. This breaks down into two areas. One gets discussed a lot and rightly so, the other doesn't so much.
1 - The mechanics of the game need to be well implemented across all four major aspects, batting, bowling, fielding and AI. Currently, most of the work in previous iterations of Big Ant games has gone into batting and bowling and they've been trying to get that all to play out right. I hope these have improved as they have been gradually throughout.
The fielding however has suffered laboured, pathetic throw-backs since DBC '14. Say what you will, free singles where there should be none has gone WELL past time to be fixed. It's was beginning to be annoying with DBC '17, now it's something that if in Cricket 19, Big Ant should be embarrassed of. It makes a fundamental difference to outcomes (if you can steal 15-16 runs in a T20, with slow lobs from the close infield, then that massively affects immersion). Also, taking a catch should be some kind of timing and/or under-hand/overhand mechanism for users who want to field on semi-auto etc. Currently fielding is something you watch and go "hmm, what will happen here". Is this a video game or a game of cricket we're watching? Finally custom fields have several steps to go through to be actioned, which could be simplified.
As for AI, it sounds like Big Ant have worked on that some more and hopefully we get the right kind of realistic feel to posting scores and chasing, but without scripting.
2 - Player attributes. This is the part few people discuss. It is the archilles heel of the series so far. By a huge margin, most teams the excellent player creators out there make have wonderful likenesses, terrific uniforms and gear. Well done to them. If the teams aren't skilled as well as they're designed to look, they play terribly and mis-match not just at a team level, but on individual player level, batsman to bowler, batsman to fielder etc. There are world class players with skills like 32 for shots that they're excellent at in real life or 41 for catching (what international players are that bad, not many I'm sure).
This problem can affect the game's balancing and is a hard one for Big Ant to fix as these are user created teams. I think they found a way around that in DBC'14 by limiting the effect of the attributes and created a more even feel in all teams by doing this, but it felt less realistic. Some sides or individuals are stronger and weaker in certain ways and that's not accurately reflected at all. I'm not 100% sure of an answer to this issue, but it's a relevant one and one that I don't blame Big Ant for in any way.
At the end of the day, we'd all like Cricket '19 to be a great game and a big hit, but it'd be great to have some idea of what Big Ant have looked at as it's weak areas and what it's been working on under the hood. I suppose they won't tell us, as they'd like to see from players reactions what is working and what isn't, without us zeroing in on specific features they might mention and putting them under the microscope.
Anyhow, just wanted to discuss some things other than trailers, demos and release info for a moment.
1 - The mechanics of the game need to be well implemented across all four major aspects, batting, bowling, fielding and AI. Currently, most of the work in previous iterations of Big Ant games has gone into batting and bowling and they've been trying to get that all to play out right. I hope these have improved as they have been gradually throughout.
The fielding however has suffered laboured, pathetic throw-backs since DBC '14. Say what you will, free singles where there should be none has gone WELL past time to be fixed. It's was beginning to be annoying with DBC '17, now it's something that if in Cricket 19, Big Ant should be embarrassed of. It makes a fundamental difference to outcomes (if you can steal 15-16 runs in a T20, with slow lobs from the close infield, then that massively affects immersion). Also, taking a catch should be some kind of timing and/or under-hand/overhand mechanism for users who want to field on semi-auto etc. Currently fielding is something you watch and go "hmm, what will happen here". Is this a video game or a game of cricket we're watching? Finally custom fields have several steps to go through to be actioned, which could be simplified.
As for AI, it sounds like Big Ant have worked on that some more and hopefully we get the right kind of realistic feel to posting scores and chasing, but without scripting.
2 - Player attributes. This is the part few people discuss. It is the archilles heel of the series so far. By a huge margin, most teams the excellent player creators out there make have wonderful likenesses, terrific uniforms and gear. Well done to them. If the teams aren't skilled as well as they're designed to look, they play terribly and mis-match not just at a team level, but on individual player level, batsman to bowler, batsman to fielder etc. There are world class players with skills like 32 for shots that they're excellent at in real life or 41 for catching (what international players are that bad, not many I'm sure).
This problem can affect the game's balancing and is a hard one for Big Ant to fix as these are user created teams. I think they found a way around that in DBC'14 by limiting the effect of the attributes and created a more even feel in all teams by doing this, but it felt less realistic. Some sides or individuals are stronger and weaker in certain ways and that's not accurately reflected at all. I'm not 100% sure of an answer to this issue, but it's a relevant one and one that I don't blame Big Ant for in any way.
At the end of the day, we'd all like Cricket '19 to be a great game and a big hit, but it'd be great to have some idea of what Big Ant have looked at as it's weak areas and what it's been working on under the hood. I suppose they won't tell us, as they'd like to see from players reactions what is working and what isn't, without us zeroing in on specific features they might mention and putting them under the microscope.
Anyhow, just wanted to discuss some things other than trailers, demos and release info for a moment.
