Don Bradman Cricket 14 - first impressions thread

[timma]

^^ So from what your saying it wouldn't be a good idea to start a career as a Wicketkeeper/Batsmen as I wouldn't be given much work to do?

 

[Alberts]

^^ So from what your saying it wouldn't be a good idea to start a career as a Wicketkeeper/Batsmen as I wouldn't be given much work to do?

I haven't watched the AI bowling to AI much before. They certainly get edges from me when I'm batting.

 

[kizla12]

Ps career mode makes Dbc #1 for me.

 

[abhi_jacko]

The AI batting on pro seems absolutely baffling. 85 overs bowled against them in my last match, not a single edge, not a knick, not a catch or even a chance at one.
..

Did I mention that they don't seem to edge or knick the ball to the keeper or slips.

My experience has been completely different on PRO Tried it for the first time yesterday.

Bowled 76 overs to the AI (3 day game). AI is 301/9 and has been very gritty. And mind you I am pretty poor at bowling and end up serving lose deliveries every now and they get hit for boundaries, but a lot of the boundaries are ground shots.

And my 9 wickets have been very varied. 3 LBWs, 2 edges to keeper (off Murali Karthik) and the rest catches or runouts. So definitely a rewarding experience, although I went with only 4 bowlers and paying the price as all of them are fatigued.

Also noticed that getting the right field is extremely important if you don't want to be smacked. Which brings me to the point that I wish the field setting map was flatter and not slanted :P Would be easier on the eyes IMO

PS: The above was on Casual mode !

 

[rizwanahmaduk]

Hi guys

just a quick question, are there super overs in the game? Also whats a countback, i noticed a team won via countback when playing a tournament?

Great game, playing on PRO level

 

[Biggs]

The AI batting on pro seems absolutely baffling. Did I mention that they don't seem to edge or knick the ball to the keeper or slips.

I spent about 20 overs in the field yesterday as it was a really close test match and I wanted to "be in the field" if we got it across the line (we didn't). But it was a really close match... A match where the AI was edging quite a bit of stuff and one where I saw a huge thick outside edge through to the keeper.

I'm almost into year four of career mode and I've seen the AI edge it to keeper plenty, what's causing the perception that this isn't happening is the amount of caught, c&b's and run outs the AI is getting credited because of the sons of Krypton in the field.

I was just watching and fielding the ball and the AI batsman found it just as hard to clear the field as we do. There's a reason why they hit up and over the field, because they simply cannot hit it through the field.

The biggest issues from just watching the sim play out and doing a bit of fielding is:

- Bowler fielding everything off his own delivery
- in close fielders moving unnaturally towards the ball and therefore cutting off singles in the infield
- Mid On/Mid off being seemingly impossible to beat

When batting I've edge it plenty but on PRO the AI doesn't seem to always have a slip in early on, but they will to AI batsman. So there's just a few little weird aberrations going on now and then for me, which means if you're doing things slightly different you'll be getting different results due to the dynamic AI.

Early on we had heard people complaining about the bowling line and length being "too leg side" but that's not been the case for me at all, it's always of a good length at the stumps. Leg side just happens to be the THE SAFEST place to hit the ball, because of the super power fielders are plentiful on the offside, especially early on with a close-in fielder almost always greeting you when you walk out to bat. The ONLY way to get rid of that close in guy is to hit it over his head, which with the current field ability setting is way too dangerous in Career mode.

Therefore, based on my extensive play time and watching the AI do its thing as an observer, once again a lot of things tail back to the fielding needing to be tweaked considerably to get a fairer balance out there for human and AI simulations.

...and for what it's worth AI field settings are a bit all over the show which isn't a huge deal since if you're a bowler you can reset a suitable field, but it is a bit weird in the 15th over of a T20 match to be greeted by four slips to begin your innings, as has happened to me a couple of times now.

So in closing, while I respectfully disagree there's not enough edges in the game, because I'm seeing plenty, I would say once the fielding is massaged into something a little more realistic and fair, you'll get a lot more...

 

[balkeet]

@Biggs, do share more experiences of how ai reacts in different match situations, like if its put into bat on green wicket 1st session, day 1 does it try to play out the session at run rate of around 2 and not punishing every bad ball?

 

[zombieian]

@Biggs Does the bowler field balls that are not hit straight back him too?
Most of what I have seen is due to the batsman playing the ball straight back at him.

 

[Biggs]

I don't spend a lot of time "just fielding" since I'm spending time crafting the next Tindoolka in career mode, bit the match simulations scoreboard wise all look fairly legit to me and when I've stopped the Sim to see an AI player get a hundred or whatever, 80% of what I see is pretty normal reactions to the match situation and anything else can be tracked back to the fielding, especially run outs and catches.

When there's been a collapse and I'm in early, since I'm batting at 5 the AI batsman at the other end is almost always not many off a LOT of balls and seemingly acts accordingly to the match situation in that scenario...

EDIT:

The bowler fields everything in his radius of movement, everything. Often he'll get to it before mid on/mid off because he will just stop completely his follow-through and turn 90 degrees and field the ball. I would disable the bowler from anything but catching for at least 2 seconds after delivery since that's a normal reaction time for humans to be able to physically change from one direction to another when you're moving that fast. The bowler currently has the same abilities as a stationary fielder, eg he dives sideways to field anything pushed down the ground right after delivery.

 

[AngryPixel]

I just noticed another great attention to detail in career mode. My team was 7 down in a 4 day game with my career player batting on 200. So when the tail ender comes on strike, AI was keeping field up fro first 5 balls of over and pushing it back on the last ball to give the tailender easy single. That is pretty much how captains behave in real life.

----------

Played a random Online match and my opponent had a horror against spin.

So basically i could have bowled him out for 0 if i had not bowled those wides.

 

[balkeet]

I just noticed another great attention to detail in career mode. My team was 7 down in a 4 day game with my career player batting on 200. So when the tail ender comes on strike, AI was keeping field up fro first 5 balls of over and pushing it back on the last ball to give the tailender easy single. That is pretty much how captains behave in real life.

awesome, so good to hear! do share more such ai reactions as you spend more time with game.

 

[AngryPixel]

If you pull out of run up 4 or 5 times, Crowd would start booing you

 

[melucas]

Great game. There are a few issues but that happens with all games. Both batting and bowling are hard to master. Batting requires patience and bowling requires concentration which I like.
The things I am enjoying the most that other cricket games don't have. I can bat without a helmet and I can add a little colour to the shirts in a test game. These are just good fun things to be able to do.
I like how you don't know where a delivery is going to land until the bowler has almost bowled the ball and in the harder modes when bowling you have no assistance in helping where the run in and bowling action is required. You have to concentrate and do it all yourself.
The things that are lacking other than a few bugs or annoyances that I can put up with. When on tour you always play at the same ground. A 5 test tour in Australia should take in all the grounds as they are all in the game. Not sure if you can play around with this in the editor as I am yet to work that out.
The other thing is bowling stamina. I bowled Bollinger for 2 overs at a reasonable pace then I could not get him to bowl a delivery over 115klm. I am presently playing around with some of the stamina settings to see if this changes but as of now I am still experiencing a lack of pace.
All in all though this game is by far the best cricket game I have ever played and I have played most over the last 20 odd years. Good job guys.

 

[Alberts]

My experience has been completely different on PRO Tried it for the first time yesterday.

Bowled 76 overs to the AI (3 day game). AI is 301/9 and has been very gritty. And mind you I am pretty poor at bowling and end up serving lose deliveries every now and they get hit for boundaries, but a lot of the boundaries are ground shots.

And my 9 wickets have been very varied. 3 LBWs, 2 edges to keeper (off Murali Karthik) and the rest catches or runouts. So definitely a rewarding experience, although I went with only 4 bowlers and paying the price as all of them are fatigued.

Also noticed that getting the right field is extremely important if you don't want to be smacked. Which brings me to the point that I wish the field setting map was flatter and not slanted :P Would be easier on the eyes IMO

PS: The above was on Casual mode !

Normally I'm disappointed if the AI gets over 80 bowling on pro, they just don't seem to edge it, no matter what they try and do. Bowling outswingers on the line of off stump trying to force them to play normally just ends up with them trying to hit over long on and either succeeding or being bowled, which for just wanting to bowl them out is fine, but surely they should edge something.

There are plenty of edges when I bat, and it seems the AI is quite happy to get edges from itself. Maybe there's something about the way I'm bowling, but around the wicket, fast outswingers with the drive on offer they shouldn't be only middling or missing the ball.

This all said the game is absolutely fantastic, but there are a few odd things.

From what I can tell the issue here stems from the way that the AI goes about building a total. Under pressure (racking up 3-4 maidens in a row) they'll generally start to play these over the top shots which generally ends in an LBW or bowled (as they tend to either middle or miss), or occasionally they pick out a fielder. They also get a bit too keen for runouts, although it would probably be fine if the fielders weren't so ridiculously overpowered. It seems though that being able to middle these shots or miss them is the stem of the issue I'm having. There just doesn't seem to be much in between for the AI, which is in stark contrast to what I get when I'm batting.

 

[aabretz]

So if I gave you these for viewing the field would that work?

Are nice now i can be able to see the hidden fielders that don't show until its to late lol