Don Bradman Cricket 14 General Discussion

[MattW]

Speaking of Footy, I recently picked up AFL Live - the 'sequel' coming out finally pushed prices down to a point where my interest in how Big Ant's games are overcame my general disinterest in football - though my general proximity to football makes me have a good idea of the game - something I don't have through occasionally watching league.

Anyway, I've had it for a few days and it certainly helps me get a feel for a lot of what Ross has said about Cricket - for me at least it wasn't pick up and play. I got absolutely smashed by the AI on 'Rookie' difficulty (scorecard) - but after a few days, reading those screens on how to play the game and a bit of time in the training mode, I was able to thrash Collingwood, which is a sign of a good game.

I'm currently going through a season mode on Amateur - not every game is a thrashing like that - I've even lost a few times, and others I've had to try hard for a comeback. Basically, if I lose focus or stuff up a few plays, then the AI can get itself back in the game very easily.

As I'm going along, more aspects of the game are improving for me - initially I could only really get set shots over the field - doing okay at bounces and hoping for a clear shot away - or from the AI kicking a behind and then playing it up the field. It took me a while to get used to the set shots on goal - and I'm still only just getting better at kicking goals on the run - but when you get it right it's great. I can't think of a moment in a cricket game where I've really got the sense that everything came together at the right time and it paid off - I've had a bunch of those moments in a few days with AFL Live.

I can't just grab the ball, press a button and get a goal - even on the lowest difficulty. Perhaps with time I'd be able to do that consistently - but then I've still got 4 more difficulty levels to go. I've read a lot of people saying they can thrash the AI by hundreds of points on Legend - but I'd certainly get my money's worth on the game long before I got to that point.

It's not without faults - the AI errors are comical at some points - I hope that the way DBC14 dumbs itself down for lower difficulty levels isn't the unbelievably bad errors that seem to be part of it for AFL Live - once I kicked out of bounds on the full from a shot on goal - the AI got the ball and kicked it across the goals to be out on the full on the other side!

The game also managed to totally crash my Xbox on a loading screen - I didn't lose anything, but it totally locked up.

The commentary is just awful - while some of the lines are really funny, it was already repetitive during my first match, and is often just plain wrong, or the reverse, speculating on something that's already happened. I'd be interested in what the hours of commentary figure is for AFL Live vs DB14 - I know it feels worse in AFL because the commentary is constant, but it's a real negative.

The biggest complaint I have is the cut scenes - they can't be skipped - something I need to keep telling myself when the AI's just kicked a point and I'm kicking out after the umpire's signal - I constantly just am mashing the A button and end up kicking it straight forward to the other team.

I'm sure that a football fanatic would have a gameplay related complaint - I'm coming at this as someone who isn't a huge fan of the sport and played ignoring all of the strategy options, but for me, it is challenging, rewarding and fun, with awfully limited menu music, inconsistent AI and bad commentary.

If Don Bradman Cricket is partially the result of following up feedback from what was their first AFL game and can keep up with a lot of the promise that AFL Live showed me - it will be a great game. The matches I've played have had all the ups and downs that you'd want from a game - swearing at the TV and fist pumping in the space of a few minutes - I can't wait to have that kind of experience with cricket.

Chris Gayle.

 

[Biggs]

Commentary is always going to be the weakest link in any sports title, there's just not the space on the disk to contain enough material to make it fresh each time. But that aside, I followed your little play session on your twitter and other than being as interested in AFL as a kick in the balls from a mute donkey, there's definitely plenty to take away comparison-wise to DBC14 I think... you've nailed the key aspect of gameplay, which sounds challenging without being too frustrating. ...intuitive would be my only question, did the AI perform things in an intuitive manner, knowing nothing about the sport as I do, did it make sensible decisions more often than not?

 

[MattW]

intuitive would be my only question, did the AI perform things in an intuitive manner, knowing nothing about the sport as I do, did it make sensible decisions more often than not?

I think because it generally is smart, the dumbness of the mistakes stands out more. I think basically, when I make a mistake, the AI seems to pounce on it, and the ball can be in the goals up the other end in 30 seconds; but the AI also makes a lot of mistakes in its own play that can let you back into the game.

At this point, because I'm not good enough at it to play on the harder settings, I don't know how much of that goes away.

 

[Biggs]

At this point, because I'm not good enough at it to play on the harder settings, I don't know how much of that goes away.

Be interesting to check back in say, 3 or 4 weeks from now and see how you've progressed. My biggest complaint I've also had with the Ashes/IC titles is there's really little difference between Easy/Medium/Hard settings, other than timing the ball (when batting) being marginally more difficult and the ball "goes less for six" when it comes to the AI. There's no difference in field settings or how the AI reacts to your decision to take a powerplay in a weird place, etc. Thats what is going to make or break any game is the field settings and how the game reacts to both your defensive and offense moves with its field.

 

[intisar.hasnain]

Commentary is always going to be the weakest link in any sports title, there's just not the space on the disk to contain enough material to make it fresh each time.

Yeah.. But for that, Have you played the Deadpool game? It has maybe infinite funny lines of insane speech by the hero and sometimes the AI.. With just maybe 6.4 gb of it, and with good graphics and enviorment, I was wondering whether they had special compression systems for the sound files.
With the commentary getting boring issue I had this idea of maybe recording 3/4 or maybe 5 different ways of saying the same thing.. maybe that's what they already did.. But that reduces the coding and implementation difficulties, so that the AI can just mix match the lines randomly to make it always sound new.. This way, Commentary might also comes as patches where the dev teams might just code in several alternatives to the previous lines, so the AI just has more choices, therefore more combinations...
importantly: Commentary Patches.. and Chris Gayle..

 

[BigAntStudios]

AFL Live comments<snip>

Glad you've given it a go

AFL Live is an engine that is now four years old and two games ago so we've come a long way since then.

I'll focus on the negatives and talk of what we have done on DBC14.

The AI in DBC14 does have moments on the easiest AI where it will just get bowled on an easy ball or lollipop it up in the air for an easy catch. One thing that wont happen is the AI will not cheat as the difficulty goes higher - this is true on AFL Live too. Anything the AI can do a human player can too.

The crash on your Xbox is weird, never heard of that during load - luckily there is no "save" during that so there is no chance of a write that could do any damage. I would like to say 100% that this is not in DBC14 but then I never heard of it happening in AFL Live so I will search to see if this has been reported anywhere else.

The commentary on AFL Live is awful. We inherited it from Wicked Witch who were doing the Wii version and we had no control over the recording. There is far more in-play commentary with AFL so there is a lot more to it than with Cricket. We have recorded a lot more commentary for DBC14 than was recorded for ALF Live but I would put up my hand and admit that commentary is also not where DBC14 shines, it has taken a back seat compared to the rest of the game.

From what I remember, all of the cut scenes can be skipped in DBC14.

We have in past, and also currently, work with AFL clubs and provide them real game analysis that coaches use on game day, obviously we know the real game intricately. Football fanatics may have complaints about the gameplay but I am pretty OK with the game being a reasonable representation of the sport. I have to bite my tongue sitting in the outer at the footy let alone reading comments about what players "should be doing"... so there will be critics

I believe that DBC14 will have you "swearing at the TV and fist pumping in the space of a few minutes" - I can tell you that it is no lie or exaggeration that MikeM is doing this on a daily basis and has been for quite a while, especially loudly when he has headphones on!

 

[intisar.hasnain]

I believe that DBC14 will have you "swearing at the TV and fist pumping in the space of a few minutes" - I can tell you that it is no lie or exaggeration that MikeM is doing this on a daily basis and has been for quite a while, especially loudly when he has headphones on!

Oh, how I drool ....

*slurrrrrp... eh... a mop anyone?

 

[Chief]

Commentary might also comes as patches where the dev teams might just code in several alternatives to the previous lines, so the AI just has more choices, therefore more combinations...
importantly: Commentary Patches.. and Chris Gayle..

Trouble with commentary is that it quickly becomes a LOT of data, and it's much more efficient to have it on the disc. To have commentary (well, to be honest, assets in general) in patches just makes the patch too big, so assets are very rarely added.
It's more likely in a DLC, but again it quickly makes the update very big.

Ideally all your commentary is on the disc at launch.

 

[BigAntStudios]

Commentary is always going to be the weakest link in any sports title, there's just not the space on the disk to contain enough material to make it fresh each time. But that aside, I followed your little play session on your twitter and other than being as interested in AFL as a kick in the balls from a mute donkey, there's definitely plenty to take away comparison-wise to DBC14 I think... you've nailed the key aspect of gameplay, which sounds challenging without being too frustrating. ...intuitive would be my only question, did the AI perform things in an intuitive manner, knowing nothing about the sport as I do, did it make sensible decisions more often than not?

I posted my answer to MattW before reading yours.

The thing I am most proud of on AFL Live is the AI. It's a very difficult sport to get right as there is no offside rule, 36 players on the field at the same time, you can take your opponent out of the contest and must also manage injury/fatigue interchanges (substitutions) in real time. I believe the AI in AFL Live plays very intuitively to a "bigger picture" and for an entire game plan and not simply play-by-play.

Indeed I would say that our games have more time and energy spent on AI than anything else, it's what I've done off-and-on for more than 20 years in "real sport" so it is always likely to be a major focus of anything we do here at Big Ant.

 

[Gamer Pradosh]

Ross : Will the major announcements start from 20th Sept??

 

[MattW]

My biggest complaint I've also had with the Ashes/IC titles is there's really little difference between Easy/Medium/Hard settings, other than timing the ball (when batting) being marginally more difficult and the ball "goes less for six" when it comes to the AI

Indeed. I know my reaction times suck - which means any game that relies on short timing windows to create difficulty I'm bad at.

I can't bat on Hard in IC2010 - especially from the Action Cam - I simply cannot time the ball well enough on the harder levels to hit big shots - but the game doesn't respond to playing a slower game, I can't just rack up singles or it starts bowling yorkers at me. AFL Live on the other hand even though I was playing on easy, it both let me into the game, but also could take it away from me if I made bad tactical decisions, rather than not perfectly timing everything.

Don't be ashamed to not play on the 'Bradman' difficulty first up in DBC14 would be my guess from this.

The AI in DBC14 does have moments on the easiest AI where it will just get bowled on an easy ball or lollipop it up in the air for an easy catch.

I suppose the cricket equivalents would be the AI constantly bowling no-balls and the fielders throwing the ball towards the boundary instead of to the stumps. As long as that doesn't happen I'm okay with it - again with the point that my bad reflexes aren't an indication I want the computer to be stupid, just forgiving.

I believe that DBC14 will have you "swearing at the TV and fist pumping in the space of a few minutes" - I can tell you that it is no lie or exaggeration that MikeM is doing this on a daily basis and has been for quite a while, especially loudly when he has headphones on!

If he's still doing that this far along in development, that's great to hear.

 

[blockerdave]

Thanks Matt. The AFL comparison is very interesting, as long as we bear in mind the points Ross makes about the engine "moving on".

I've been considering doing something similar with RLL but between being busy at work and getting ready to move house I haven't touched my xbox in a couple of weeks so it's hard to justify.

I think the comments from Ross about AI being the main focus is very encouraging. when I get good enough at DBC to be playing on hard I really want to feel I need to be thinking about what's going on whether batting or bowling and not just pressing the button quicker.

 

[mattk]

I think to fully appreciate AFL Live you have to be a fan of footy.

This will probably translate into Cricket too

 

[MattW]

Thanks Matt. The AFL comparison is very interesting, as long as we bear in mind the points Ross makes about the engine "moving on".

Yeah, I decided against commenting much on the graphics for that reason - I've seen enough of DB14 to know they've leaped forward.

AFL Live certainly doesn't seem like a first attempt, which gives me a lot of hope that we're not going to be sitting here after 'early September' ends and talking about how DB14 is just a sack of potential that goes unmet because it's a 'good first attempt'.

 

[JasXI]

A smarter AI is what is really required. In the 'Time the ball game' it doesn't matter whether I bat against McGrath or Laxman. All I need to do is 'time the ball'. When I play at Hard against Laxman, it should feel the same as Easy against McGrath