USACricNerd
Club Cricketer
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2016
- Location
- Washington, DC, USA
- Profile Flag
- West Indies
- Online Cricket Games Owned
-
- Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS3
- Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS4
A few notes to begin with:
So I'm an American cricket fan - born and raised in the USA, 31 years old, grew up on basketball, baseball, American football and ice hockey. I started following cricket with the 2014 World T20 and I've been cricket-mad ever since. My preference is for the red-ball game but I love the international limited-overs competitions.
I also LOVE sports video games and simulations. I've played more hours on games like Madden and MLB The Show and such than probably anyone I know, and so when I found DBC14 I got hooked very easily. I've enjoyed the gameplay for quite some time, but I generally am a bowling guy so the lack of nicks and edges was frustrating. Still tremendously enjoyable.
My real passion in sports video games is the simulation aspect. Franchise modes, Career Modes, and the ability to immerse yourself in the experience is what I'm after, and that's the area where DBC14 fell short for me. The idea that I could play in a West Indies side for 20 years with what would be a 60-year-old Chanderpaul was more than a little silly for me, though I appreciate the difficulty of making this work. I got my fix on the Franchise/Career aspect from the Cricket Captain games, which to my mind do an incredible job of providing the kind of depth that you want. I also have a ton of experience with the sim modes in the other sports games that I've loved so much.
I think that Big Ant have taken on an unbelievable mountain of a task in the new DBC17 Career Mode - it's a dream come true for someone like me. To begin in a club side with a group of cricketers on the same level and have to work my way up from the club side to the state side to the international team....incredible! And additionally, to hear that the sides would be dynamic and that new players would be generated to come join you on your journey up the ladder, replacing players in bad form or injured or retired....needless to say, I was extremely excited about the prospect.
So now I have the game in hand, picking it up online through the PSN store. I think the unique thing about the Big Ant group is that I actually feel like I'm on the development team. We say things in here and they hear us! They don't always do what we ask, but they shouldn't. And they're going to get it right. Of course the game has issues - the task is enormous and the demand is equal to the task. But I was enthusiastic about putting up my money to support the endeavor, and I still am. It's an investment. This game will be incredible when it is finished, and I get to have a front row seat while the game is being developed!
So, on to Career Mode. I've gotten through one full season of T20s with my club team (US Virgin Islands in Leeward Islands for West Indies) and here is my impression of Career Mode so far:
- Earning Skill Points: Right now my player is getting paid a match fee of 3000 SP after each contest. Doesn't matter how my player does, or how the team does; I get the same exact opportunity to improve my ratings. I get additional XP for results or for completing the tasks that are given to me (hit 10 fours, score 350 runs, etc) but those don't help my career player at all. This seems a little incongruous. I get that the idea is that with experience, you get more skill points, and you level up, and hopefully you play better; but in every other career mode style game, your performance has a direct impact on your ability to level up your player. This is a much more satisfying dynamic for the career-mode enthusiast. I should be able to add more SP if my guy gets a hundred or a five-fer.
- Selection Feedback: One of the most fun parts of DBC14 for me was being able to check on the "Selection Status" screen after I posted a great all-round game for my state side and see if I'd ticked up from "long way off" to "fair way off" or from "very close" to "expecting selection". I don't really see anything like that in DBC17. We have the screen where you can view your team's players, and I see those arrows that point in one direction or another, but it's kind of unclear exactly what that means.
- "Dynamic" Sides: Perhaps what I was most excited about was the idea that sides would change around you as a player - players (including you) would be promoted, relegated, dropped, and so forth based on form, age, and injury, and new players would spawn to replace the old. I haven't seen any of that in the first season at club level. As an middle-order all-rounder, I was selected for every single club match at #6, with the exact same lineup around me for every match. I was sincerely hoping to see some changes going into my second season, but sure enough, it was the exact same team shaping up for the first game of year two, with me stuck in there at #6. There are players in my side who deserve to have gotten a look at state level, too - reasonably highly rated guys with solid performances. Oddly enough, the guy who has the highest overall rating on my club side has spent every match toiling as the 12th man. This is an area that needs to be addressed for the complete experience.
- Ratings for other players: Similarly, the only player whose ratings changed at all during that first season were mine. Do other players not improve or decline in their abilities? How do they get selected for promotion or relegation? There are other 18-year-olds....are they doomed to their current ratings forever?
- Duplicate players: I know this has been mentioned elsewhere, but I love to check in on the sides that I'm gunning for and I think it's super-cool that we get to see how everyone else is doing through the statistics and standings pages. But I checked in on a West Indies/England test going on in the same universe and sure enough, I saw two Jason Holders, two Stuart Broads, two Alastair Cooks, and so forth. It seems to me that this shouldn't happen in a game where players are linked. Did I do something wrong when I downloaded the best teams one-by-one from the Academy?
I'm sure there will be more notes as I get deeper into Career Mode, but this is an opening piece. I have the utmost faith that the issues that we, the community, have noted will get solved - I'm choosing to view myself as something of an unpaid game tester for Big Ant
Forward together!
So I'm an American cricket fan - born and raised in the USA, 31 years old, grew up on basketball, baseball, American football and ice hockey. I started following cricket with the 2014 World T20 and I've been cricket-mad ever since. My preference is for the red-ball game but I love the international limited-overs competitions.
I also LOVE sports video games and simulations. I've played more hours on games like Madden and MLB The Show and such than probably anyone I know, and so when I found DBC14 I got hooked very easily. I've enjoyed the gameplay for quite some time, but I generally am a bowling guy so the lack of nicks and edges was frustrating. Still tremendously enjoyable.
My real passion in sports video games is the simulation aspect. Franchise modes, Career Modes, and the ability to immerse yourself in the experience is what I'm after, and that's the area where DBC14 fell short for me. The idea that I could play in a West Indies side for 20 years with what would be a 60-year-old Chanderpaul was more than a little silly for me, though I appreciate the difficulty of making this work. I got my fix on the Franchise/Career aspect from the Cricket Captain games, which to my mind do an incredible job of providing the kind of depth that you want. I also have a ton of experience with the sim modes in the other sports games that I've loved so much.
I think that Big Ant have taken on an unbelievable mountain of a task in the new DBC17 Career Mode - it's a dream come true for someone like me. To begin in a club side with a group of cricketers on the same level and have to work my way up from the club side to the state side to the international team....incredible! And additionally, to hear that the sides would be dynamic and that new players would be generated to come join you on your journey up the ladder, replacing players in bad form or injured or retired....needless to say, I was extremely excited about the prospect.
So now I have the game in hand, picking it up online through the PSN store. I think the unique thing about the Big Ant group is that I actually feel like I'm on the development team. We say things in here and they hear us! They don't always do what we ask, but they shouldn't. And they're going to get it right. Of course the game has issues - the task is enormous and the demand is equal to the task. But I was enthusiastic about putting up my money to support the endeavor, and I still am. It's an investment. This game will be incredible when it is finished, and I get to have a front row seat while the game is being developed!
So, on to Career Mode. I've gotten through one full season of T20s with my club team (US Virgin Islands in Leeward Islands for West Indies) and here is my impression of Career Mode so far:
- Earning Skill Points: Right now my player is getting paid a match fee of 3000 SP after each contest. Doesn't matter how my player does, or how the team does; I get the same exact opportunity to improve my ratings. I get additional XP for results or for completing the tasks that are given to me (hit 10 fours, score 350 runs, etc) but those don't help my career player at all. This seems a little incongruous. I get that the idea is that with experience, you get more skill points, and you level up, and hopefully you play better; but in every other career mode style game, your performance has a direct impact on your ability to level up your player. This is a much more satisfying dynamic for the career-mode enthusiast. I should be able to add more SP if my guy gets a hundred or a five-fer.
- Selection Feedback: One of the most fun parts of DBC14 for me was being able to check on the "Selection Status" screen after I posted a great all-round game for my state side and see if I'd ticked up from "long way off" to "fair way off" or from "very close" to "expecting selection". I don't really see anything like that in DBC17. We have the screen where you can view your team's players, and I see those arrows that point in one direction or another, but it's kind of unclear exactly what that means.
- "Dynamic" Sides: Perhaps what I was most excited about was the idea that sides would change around you as a player - players (including you) would be promoted, relegated, dropped, and so forth based on form, age, and injury, and new players would spawn to replace the old. I haven't seen any of that in the first season at club level. As an middle-order all-rounder, I was selected for every single club match at #6, with the exact same lineup around me for every match. I was sincerely hoping to see some changes going into my second season, but sure enough, it was the exact same team shaping up for the first game of year two, with me stuck in there at #6. There are players in my side who deserve to have gotten a look at state level, too - reasonably highly rated guys with solid performances. Oddly enough, the guy who has the highest overall rating on my club side has spent every match toiling as the 12th man. This is an area that needs to be addressed for the complete experience.
- Ratings for other players: Similarly, the only player whose ratings changed at all during that first season were mine. Do other players not improve or decline in their abilities? How do they get selected for promotion or relegation? There are other 18-year-olds....are they doomed to their current ratings forever?
- Duplicate players: I know this has been mentioned elsewhere, but I love to check in on the sides that I'm gunning for and I think it's super-cool that we get to see how everyone else is doing through the statistics and standings pages. But I checked in on a West Indies/England test going on in the same universe and sure enough, I saw two Jason Holders, two Stuart Broads, two Alastair Cooks, and so forth. It seems to me that this shouldn't happen in a game where players are linked. Did I do something wrong when I downloaded the best teams one-by-one from the Academy?
I'm sure there will be more notes as I get deeper into Career Mode, but this is an opening piece. I have the utmost faith that the issues that we, the community, have noted will get solved - I'm choosing to view myself as something of an unpaid game tester for Big Ant
Forward together!
