So turns out the difficulty level ramps up a bit the minute you get your first contract, huh? Playing in the UK T20 league for, um.... I dunno, some team. The one where our logo is cool orange dragon. I picked my team because; Logo.
Anywho, turns out I'm getting a gazillion* edges every match now and having to almost exaggerate my footwork in conjunction with the shots I'm playing. Which is fine, before in Pro/Career Mode I was getting away with just shoving the trigger forward but now it's forcing me to push it towards the angle of the delivery and then execute the corresponding shot. Certainly easier said than done, especially against pace bowlers. fish that noise at anything over 130kmph, it's physically IMPOSSIBLE to do with the short reaction time. Guesswork, mostly.
I'm finding the tolerances for these two things pretty haphazard at this higher difficulty, although I'm guessing with time it'll get easier... but I'm definitely getting out edged-caught-keeper 1:3 now, where previously it was 1:8 so I guess that's kinda cool, little frustrating that the game is kinda forcing me into a corner to rethink the way I've learned how to play, but the upshot is I'm not getting caught out by Mid On or Mid Off anymore, as when I do the exaggerated movements, the ball-off-the-bat tends to be a bit more precise in picking the gap.
All that being said, the ball speed off the bat now is more of glaring issue at the higher difficulty level, I'm not sure where everyone else is in the career but @
blockerdave and I seem to be on the same page regarding the ball-speed, but has anyone else found this to be sluggish the further up the career ladder you get? It's definitely much slower now for me and a number of times I've thought I'd really connected (Sound and Visually the game lets me know I've done the right thing) only for the ball to seemingly take an age to go anywhere or simply loop up in the air off-screen, which gives the impression it's gone a mile until the fielder leaps to his left/right and takes a catch...
It's happened maybe, three times since my new contract?
So it's definitely more noticable now the difficulty has notched up a bit.
All that being said, I've been able to execute power-shots a lot better, and scored a brilliant 28 off about 8 deliveries in the final two overs of a T20 match to set up a pretty decent 162, only to lose the game because our bowlers suck... so I might choose a different county side next time, but there's definitely,
finally some nice rewards happening now I'm into year 6 of my career. So that's nice... albeit, batting still tends to be a bit of a crapshoot in the field, it's at least nice to be able to get some reward and payoff finally.
Be interested to know if going back to the Australian domestic season the difficulty level drops back down again for the domestic stuff or stays about the same? Certainly gotta re-learn how to bat again so I wonder if the exaggerated footwork will have an impact on that?
Cool stuff at work, either way.
*Statistical numerical fact