Don Bradman 17 review - Buyers beware!!

[Royce]

For some delightful sweet chin music and to bring bat pad into play just whack pitch bounce up to 95. Hostile fast bowling at its best.

Had a bit of a play with the multipliers for bounce, with 100 pitch bounce, 100 ball bounce and a hard pitch, was able to get the ball to around head height, I must conclude however that the L1 and R1 length modifiers appear to do nothing whatsoever...

Any also that without the modifiers, its stomach height at best...

 

[kasabian21]

The taller the bowler the better the bounce. Same as in DBC14.

 

[Master Khan]

Well so far i love this game.
Its better then DBC14 and i only had like 1 crash after playing for a day during stadium creation.
I love the fact that you can pretty customise everything in this game like players, stadiums, kits, logo, bats etc.
Hope cricket academy 'get best' become available soon because I dont wanna start career without it.

The only thing i don't like about this game is the camera angles, hope they fix it because broadcast view is just too far from the ball..its more of a aerial view.
Also stats tracking in career mode would be nice too.

 

[blockerdave]

So I tried to play again, heres a summary of my experience:

- Game crashed 2 times trying to load a game after changing batting order before the game...
- While bowling, computer fielders dropped 9 catches in less than 8 overs, straight at them, easy catches, no reflex game thingy, just drops
- I literally cannot set a field... everytime I change the field, it changes to something else... I've tried preset fields, fields that I made in outside of the match, fields I made during the match, The fields will not stay the same!!! As in, immediately after i go out of the menu having selected a field, I look around and that field is no longer in use... not using R2 to look around OR in the field settings menu...
- AI batters only scoring in particular zones, not surprisingly these coincide with the areas that we as players are forced to hit the ball in... they do not score anywhere else...

Im really trying to find a silver lining here people, but really, major issues with batting, catching, field settings, bowling, the academy (cant download best teams), ...

Aren't you playing with the patch yet?

 

[Royce]

Aren't you playing with the patch yet?

Of course I'm playing with the patch, I confirmed this 5 posts ago on this thread... and in other posts somewhere on here...

 

[blockerdave]

Of course I'm playing with the patch, I confirmed this 5 posts ago on this thread... and in other posts somewhere on here...

Saw that after I posted, sorry.

 

[FollowOn]

Well so far i love this game.
Its better then DBC14 and i only had like 1 crash after playing for a day during stadium creation.
I love the fact that you can pretty customise everything in this game like players, stadiums, kits, logo, bats etc.
Hope cricket academy 'get best' become available soon because I dont wanna start career without it.

The only thing i don't like about this game is the camera angles, hope they fix it because broadcast view is just too far from the ball..its more of a aerial view.
Also stats tracking in career mode would be nice too.

Are you serious??? There is no stats tracking in career mode for all players? Wat the I am solely buying this game for career mode with ai vs ai gameplay , not much in to actual playing apart from few matches every seasin in career mode and online games

 

[BigAntStudios]

The facts are that the game has passed QA at both Sony and MS, if they had the experiences reported in this thread then the game would not have been able to go into their production facilities. Obviously our QA has not had the experiences reported either.

We are doing all we can to work out why a minority of purchasers are having issues, the main variables being the patch (some users have not installed it, and once installed their issues have gone), and the complexity of the Academy downloaded teams (which we have found an issue related to censored teams/stadia).[DOUBLEPOST=1481979792][/DOUBLEPOST]To the above, there are stats. Please be rational and reasonable.

 

[FollowOn]

The facts are that the game has passed QA at both Sony and MS, if they had the experiences reported in this thread then the game would not have been able to go into their production facilities. Obviously our QA has not had the experiences reported either.

We are doing all we can to work out why a minority of purchasers are having issues, the main variables being the patch (some users have not installed it, and once installed their issues have gone), and the complexity of the Academy downloaded teams (which we have found an issue related to censored teams/stadia).[DOUBLEPOST=1481979792][/DOUBLEPOST]To the above, there are stats. Please be rational and reasonable.

For all players involved in career mode right? Count my purchase then

 

[Gunslinger]

Only played for a couple of hours but enjoying the game so far. Other than one crash while editing, not really experiencing any of the frustration reported in post #1 of this thread.

 

[varunschuey]

The facts are that the game has passed QA at both Sony and MS, if they had the experiences reported in this thread then the game would not have been able to go into their production facilities. Obviously our QA has not had the experiences reported either.

We are doing all we can to work out why a minority of purchasers are having issues, the main variables being the patch (some users have not installed it, and once installed their issues have gone), and the complexity of the Academy downloaded teams (which we have found an issue related to censored teams/stadia).[DOUBLEPOST=1481979792][/DOUBLEPOST]To the above, there are stats. Please be rational and reasonable.

@BigAntStudios @HBK619 @mikeymerren These issues have been reported by several users and myself (and we all have the patch), and most of the issues described by Royce are true for all users (except for fan boys and people with herd mentality).

Anyway, if you claim that QA by Sony and MS and by yourself was worthwhile.........how do you explain the massive, glaring issues listed below......it would be much appreciated if you even acknowledge these issues exist and let us know what and when you intend to do in order to fix it.

Cover Drive
How could anyone at Bigant not notice that one cannot play a Cover Drive (which was apparent to me within 10 minutes)? Even if this was missed by the developers.......haven't they done QA for even one day, If the people doing QA had any clue...they would definitely not pass a game where 50% of the offside field is inaccessible. Furthermore, the fact that attempting a cover drive triggers an animation where the batsman exposes his stump and attempts a nothing shot is game breaking and off putting.

Leg Glance

The leg glance ends up at mid wicket in front of square and rarely goes to backward square leg...let alone fine leg. There is no back foot leg glance animation either which is one of the bread and butter shots. Leg glance issues again render a large chunk of the onside inaccessible.

Stroke Variation
If you consider one side of the field (lets say offside)....it spans 180 degrees....but there are only 4 or 5 animations covering the entire spectrum....the much proclaimed analog batting controls should be capable of ensuring placement for every 10 degrees at least.....which means that there should be 18 possible variants of offside ground stroke play depending on my analog stick position but sadly it is only 4 or 5.

The same holds true on the leg side as well.....DBC 14 was slightly better in this regard (although not completely analog as proclaimed) and offered 7 or 8 variants. A sequel should have seen improvement in this core aspect, let alone suffer in this area as is evident now.

Career Stats

You claim in the above post that stats exist for career player. Please post a screenshot of the same (not the fleeting display when the player walks into bat or bowl).

@BigAntStudios @mikeymerren Having Women Players, Helicopter shots, Dilscoops, Stadium Creators etc are just bells and whistles....and in my opinion irrelevant if you cannot get the simplest, fundamental aspects right, especially those that already existed in the previous version.

 

[varunschuey]

The facts are that the game has passed QA at both Sony and MS, if they had the experiences reported in this thread then the game would not have been able to go into their production facilities. Obviously our QA has not had the experiences reported either.

DBC 14 with all the glaring issues (pre-patch) passed Sony and MS certification as wel.....there is not much to be said about the rigour and focus of their QA. There are a host of games with incredibly broken play that pass console certification.

 

[AliKhan215]

T

I really had high hopes for this game, i really did... however, as it currently stands, im taking it back tomorrow and getting my money back - it is an absolute trainwreck... I'm sorry, but I paid $100 for this game, I expect a finished product, not a buggy early access game...

Heres a few problems that I've noticed with the game:

- During my first 3 hours of play, it crashed 6 times

- When I downloaded new teams from the academy, most of the names for both the teams and their players showed up as "censored", rendering them unusable, this also caused umpires to become censored, although I didnt download any

- Unless theres some weird setting im missing, the ball can only be hit in 5 specific directions, with about a 10 degree tolerance either side... Every ball i hit goes exactly in one of these 5 directions, no matter where I push the sticks, and refuses to go anywhere else... There are literally 45 degree gaps in the field in which it is impossible to hit the ball, cover drive anyone?

- The game lags horribly during the bowlers runup, on all cameras, 2 players or 1... this is ridiculous!!!

- Diving, everyone dives, ball coming at your chest, DIVE! Ball flying back to the wicket keeper, dont sidestep and catch the ball like a normal person... DIVE DIVE DIVE!!! This also renders runouts completely impossible 90% of the time, and can be taken advantage of when batting by running for 1 extra run every single time the ball goes into the outfield...

- Cricket shots!! What on gods green earth is with the weird cut shot out to deep point??? Never ever ever has any cricketer ever performed this monstrosity out here in reality...

- It is possible to score a single off pace bowling every time the ball is hit, hit it straight to mid on - single, block - single... it is far too easy to score a run a ball or more without even trying!!

- Lots of problems with batting cameras, I played for about an hour pissed off at how far away the batting close camera was, only to realise it was batting far, but bugged and displaying the wrong option in the menu...

- Also, the batting far camera is completely unusable, as the ball is often bowled well below the sight screen and is extremely difficult to see!!

- On same batting far camera angle, playing in career mode, a red ball was used while the umpire sported a happy red shirt - derrrrrr, also the ball is extremely difficult to see in all circumstances, and I want to go on record saying this, silly green rings around the ball telling us exactly where its going is not a fix for this!!!

- The button for sprinting while running between wickets doesnt seem to have any effect...

- All cameras are absolutely god-awful and spaz out all over the place when running between wickets...

- The new field setting system is an absolute joke, why on gods green earth would I want to select a field without actually seeing what it is before choosing it???

- Similarly, why cant I change the preset fields that come with the game, or the preset field tactics??? You have made it very easy to select a bunch of useless fields that I will never use, and in doing so made it take longer for me to select a field that I actually want.... and as I cant remove field tactics from the preset field, I cant use this system to pick my own fields quickly...

- I had a catch dropped at mid-on while I was batting, it bounced about 15 meters out of the fielders hands toward another fielder at mid-off, I ran 4 runs, both fielders commiserated a dropped catch...

- It is entirely likely that every reverse sweep you miss will result in a stumping, with your back foot behind the line...

- The inverted control option for the bowling doesnt work correctly...

- When attempting to throw a ball in from the outfield, the throwing meter is most often interrupted by the game skipping to the next ball to be bowled...

- The crowd and stadiums look awful!!! Probably on the same level as DBC 14, except that was several years ago...

- Why do club tournaments only consist of 8 teams???? Similarly, why is it up to me to pick them?

- Cant properly turn the red circle surrounding the ball when its in the field

- Club bowlers will bowl 2 feet down the leg side, often!!

- You also cant queue more than 1 run at a time it seems, occasionally it works for 2, but never 3..

- Running between the wickets - where on earth did these animations come from, this is SERIOUSLY sub par!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Running between wickets is also buggy as hell, and often 1 runner is left 3/4 of a pitch behind the other as they overran...

- Also, while all the modification sliders are great, why not just make the game as realistic as possible in the first place? Why must I trial and error for hours on end to get the ball to react as it would IRL, when thats what im paying you people to do for me?

- Also, when turning the pace of the ball up on the modifiers, it causes the close batting camera to change to the far batting camera about .2 of a second before hitting the ball... faaaaaaaail...

Seriously, this is unacceptable for a $30 game, let alone $100!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Shame on you people for releasing such an expensive pile of refuse!!

To sum up this happy review, I leave you with the parting words of my wife, who now refuses to play this game with me, because its crap...

"Its like they fixed everything from DBC 14 but broke everything else"

Understand your frustration. Other than that I have written tons of points of the online experience which is a bit worse. Hope to see a patch very soon otherwise i might lose interest as well :/

 

[The_Pharoah]

The facts are that the game has passed QA at both Sony and MS, if they had the experiences reported in this thread then the game would not have been able to go into their production facilities. Obviously our QA has not had the experiences reported either.

We are doing all we can to work out why a minority of purchasers are having issues, the main variables being the patch (some users have not installed it, and once installed their issues have gone), and the complexity of the Academy downloaded teams (which we have found an issue related to censored teams/stadia).[DOUBLEPOST=1481979792][/DOUBLEPOST]To the above, there are stats. Please be rational and reasonable.

Mate, if you had shipped me a copy of this to test, i would've given you a full list of issues just purely with gameplay ie. I would've done a PROPER QA. I'm not fazed by new UI, diff colours, etc etc - all I want is a game that replicates what I can see/do IRL. You can't get that in DB17. Looks like you guys didn't also pick up on the comments coming out of the betas either. Whoever internally in BA that did your 'QA' really needs to be fired. Same thing happened with DB14. You see, with cricket, there are loooong periods of doing the same thing over and over and in doing so, you tend to pick up stuff very quickly...stuff like:

- the little side step that bowlers take before their run. Eh? Why? Who decided to implement that? You ever see guys do that IRL? Some coder must've spent hours implementing that silly sidestep instead of implementing a cover drive
- how fielders throw at the stumps and tend to hit with unerring accuracy. IRL they return the ball to the keeper unless its an attempted runout. This is the same issue from DB14 - really thought you guys might've fixed it in the last 3 years
- RH bowlers constantly bowling around the wicket. C'mon man....really?
- hows about simming to your turn to bat, and seeing a spinner on the other end..uh oh, is he LH or RH, wrist or finger? Don't know. And there's basically no way to find out.

I'm not going to list everything here.

I'm sure most of us could forgive issues with UI, etc (eg. why do I select 'batting/bowling difficulty when its already set' then have to hit 'A' again?)...but cricket is about gameplay. Thats the ONE thing you don't mess with or screw up. I think you guys might've dropped the ball on this one (pun intended). Very disappointing.

 

[tangledbrave]

Not able to play cover drive and missing promised 360° batting is unacceptable. Saying this went through QA is bullshit.

Imagine RPG game released with bug where couple of weapons will not function. Pathetic.