Wavelberry
International Cricketer
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2013
- Location
- Glasgow
Aye that's the biggest disconnect in the game if you ask me.
Cricket 24 - General Discussion
- Thread starter asprin
- Start date
Aye that's the biggest disconnect in the game if you ask me.
Haha got my hopes up!
T.J.Hooker II
Club Captain
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2022
Think of cricket as a strategic game where the bowler makes a bid and the batsman responds. Let's say there are 6 bids the bowler can make, and 6 potential responses the batsman can make.
If, as a user batsman, you play vs an AI bowler making bids at random, you're still going to get a lot of bids that seem strategically reasonable.
As a user bowling at an AI batsman though, if the AI responds to your bids by just picking a response at random, most of the time it's not going to seem like a good strategic response and the illusion that the AI batsman is knowingly responding is not achieved.
That's a really key difference. Even with no strategic element at all a bowler's delivery selection can still seem strategic just by chance, but that doesn't really hold true for a batsman's shot selection.
wasteyouryouth
Verified
This is one reason it can be easy to find exploits. If you're struggling you try something out of the box, because there's no strategic gameplay mechanism, then find that it works too well. I remember Ashes Cricket (I think), I figured out you could bowl the AI out every match for less than 100 by bowling cutters and adjusting the seam angle. Then there was the bat pad smash and Cricket 22 it's just bring on a spinner, stick a short leg in and wait.
When I say 'strategic gameplay mechanism' I'm thinking of something like Civilisation; where you will have specific military units that are stronger vs other categories of units. For example, you are encouraged, but don't have to, pit anti-cavalry against cavalry because they have advantages against them in combat. There's many similar cricketing strategies you could implement here to expand the bowling gameplay. I doubt it would necessarily impact the casual player but would enhance things for the more meticulous players who want something more in depth.
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T.J.Hooker II
Club Captain
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2022
The big disadvantage of a cricket game vs other sorts of strategic games is that the end product has to be something that is not only strategically functional, but via strats that are close enough to real life strats that it feels like a real game of cricket.
To my knowledge there's never been a cricket videogame that didn't have some exploit or other for dismissing the batting side cheaply. I'm always just hoping for the best but I'm not really that optimistic about the chances of a batting AI that creates the illusion of AI batting intelligence as well as the bowling AI can. It's a tough assignment.
To my knowledge there's never been a cricket videogame that didn't have some exploit or other for dismissing the batting side cheaply. I'm always just hoping for the best but I'm not really that optimistic about the chances of a batting AI that creates the illusion of AI batting intelligence as well as the bowling AI can. It's a tough assignment.
CharlieCooke_
School Cricketer
- Joined
- May 2, 2023
Amazing to think that me posting the wrong date on an Instagram story is more advertising than big ant has done so far
Bevab
Staff Member
This resonates with what I said a few pages ago about players optimising the fun out of a game whenever possible with exploits or the meta gameplay mechanics, especially in online play. Even in single player it feels limited gameplay wise if you’re not allowed to do things that teams do in real life because they’re slightly on the exploit side in the game. As @wasteyouryouth says if you see the AI get five boundaries conveniently via edges through the few gaps in the slips or the field you have due to the game deciding to do so at the expense of it appearing unrealistic it’s hard to not try to do something quirky to look for wickets.
Bevab
Staff Member
I think they’re cooked regardless due to the release window. With BG3 over performing expectations, Starfield on track to break records and some heavy hitters launching around October time like the sequels to Cities Skylines and Spiderman they’ll have to rely on passionate cricket fans either holding out on other releases or having extra to get their game too.
T.J.Hooker II
Club Captain
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2022
Personally I just don't bowl much in cricket videogames. There's never been AI batsman that's sufficiently realistic for me to have any fun bowling at it.
wasteyouryouth
Verified
My vague memory of some of the work I used to do, I'm inclined to think about inputs, outputs and outcomes in the process of what happens in a delivery (although I'm probably using them poorly here). If you consider the 'input' to be the ball bowled (type, line length etc), the output to be the response to the ball (shot, no shot etc) and outcome to be the run, wicket etc.
With user batting we have much more control of the outcome, a large amount of control on the batting output and some control (if you are inclined to edit sliders or players) of the bowler's input. When it comes to the batting it's still very dependent on what the user chooses to do. We can choose to role play as Alastair Cook or Virender Sehwag*, we can play the same with every player or tailor it depending on the batter (e.g. we might play differently between a 1-7 and a 8-11). There's a reasonable amount of 'performative gameplay' that could be expected (unless the game is perfect) and it's ultimately up to the individual how much and if that enhances or worsens the experience. There's definitely areas where the game could be improved of course.
With user bowling, when the AI has to react to what we are bowling, from my own experience, from what I've watched and read; the outputs (AI shot selection) and outcomes (the end result) is where it feels like things go wrong. If the AI blocks five and then edges or lobs a boundary because that's the required outcome it can feel particularly unsatisfactory. I agree with @T.J.Hooker II though that it's a tough assignment to resolve those issues. Equally, I think people will often, inadvertently create tactics or use strategies that the AI just can't respond effectively too. Perhaps that's an area where design and testing that has been too focused on recreating 'real' cricket and less on doing random shit that someone sat on their sofa might try.
I'm actually reminded of Usman Khawaja getting out in the first test at Edgbaston. Stokes had set that umbrella field and the only likely ways Khawaja could get out was bowled, LBW or driving to one of the close fielders and he did just that. If we set a field like that in Cricket and had that result, I'd imagine some people would give themselves a pat on the back for great thinking and some would think 'why is the AI so stupid to get out like that?' The problem is there's no real indicator to know which is correct, (unless you start doing the same over and over and it looks like an AI issue).
*While this level of freedom could be seen as a positive, I still would find it more engaging to tailor my gameplay style to the player I'm controlling, rather than use any player for my preferred style. That's what my career player would be for. I still think that could be more engaging and I've probably gone on about my many thoughts on that before so I won't bother now.
jabbathehut
County Cricketer
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2017
The thing with bowling is you never quite know if it was something you did or that the game decided a wicket should fall then.My main bug bear and it has been since the first game is that you can continually score in the same areas and it won't put a fielder there to stop it.To say well i shouldn't play that shot doesn't really cut it.It really shouldn't be that difficult to have in the game.
T.J.Hooker II
Club Captain
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2022
The first game had the opposite problem until later patches - the dynamic field system just put fielders out on the fence wherever you hits fours, and by the time you're 25 not out in a FC game you've got fielders out everywhere and you can hit 100 at better than a run a ball running 1s and 2s with no boundaries.
Or sometimes you'd get a game of "move the gap" when you alternate hitting fours to two different locations and the AI swapped the fielder from one to the other.
That's why that system got cut right down. Turns out a basic ring field just did a better all round job of balancing stopping runs with taking wickets.
Bevab
Staff Member
I’ve had the AI put fielders where I score boundaries if I keep doing that fairly consistently. It doesn’t do it immediately on the next ball like in DBC14 but if I move across and play that leg glance swipe for a boundary I see the AI rectifying it eventually. I assume the big issue is that it sometimes takes too long to set a field to counter it where as on other occasions it does so fairly quickly but I’m not sure how you’d get to making it better.
T.J.Hooker II
Club Captain
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2022
There are a load of confounding factors.
One of the oldest issues is fielders instantly knowing where the interception point is and running to it at full whack as soon as the ball hits the bat, without even watching the ball. The result was that back in earlier DBC14 bilds you'd have fielders running around to take catches absolutely miles away from their actual position. No human fielder could have worked out where they needed to be so quickly and they couldn't have run at full speed because a real fielder would need to watch the ball over their shoulder and so forth.
That was adressed it later iterations to an extent but there are still niggles and afaik the underlying fielding code needs an upgrade from C22 to allow for more realistic handling of reaction times and time to calculate interception points and whathaveyou.
Close fielders have always tended to get in the way of shots, enabling them to function as run saving fielders when they shouldn't.
All these sorts of issues add up to making it really difficult to set adventurous or sophisticated fields.
One of the oldest issues is fielders instantly knowing where the interception point is and running to it at full whack as soon as the ball hits the bat, without even watching the ball. The result was that back in earlier DBC14 bilds you'd have fielders running around to take catches absolutely miles away from their actual position. No human fielder could have worked out where they needed to be so quickly and they couldn't have run at full speed because a real fielder would need to watch the ball over their shoulder and so forth.
That was adressed it later iterations to an extent but there are still niggles and afaik the underlying fielding code needs an upgrade from C22 to allow for more realistic handling of reaction times and time to calculate interception points and whathaveyou.
Close fielders have always tended to get in the way of shots, enabling them to function as run saving fielders when they shouldn't.
All these sorts of issues add up to making it really difficult to set adventurous or sophisticated fields.
