Don Bradman Cricket 17 First Impressions Thread

[Deleted member 46200]

So many crashes and no stat tracking in career and tournaments I'm thinking this is it. Please bring back the stats BA why did you take this out Cricket is about stats (averages and everything).

 

[Wavelberry]

Okay. Have just completed my first bowling innings on rookie coz I like to start easy and these are my impressions. This is a First Class match

Good things:

• Some excellent edged dismissals. It felt less like I was just waiting for the player to spoon it to an outfielder like they're Rahul on 199 and more like I was trying to bowl them out properly unlike in DBC14.
• Had an excellent spinner's dismissal when somebody gave me the charge when I'd sent it in a bit bouncier. Ball ballooned off the bat and pad to my keeper (although why he had zoomed round when short leg was there is anybody's guess) and it was a proper human mistake from the batsman to prevent the spinner getting on top. Liked it.
• Spinning is a real art and takes a while to get used to it especially when used to DBC14's one but it seems more legitimately dangerous rather than the easy sweep trap you could set up in the last game.
• Liked that in the big partnership (well 68) between the batsman one came out swinging early to take advantage of my young bowlers and one sat and defended better. It didn't feel like a 'flick the switch' scenario though as Cowdrey played some decent shots to decent balls at times as well
• Fields STAY SET TO BATSMEN even if you change a bowler. YAY!

Thing I am yet unsure of/need improvement

• Struggled around with the fielding/bowling change screen. Would love that bowling change screen to just be a button rather than three especially as I like to look at those bowler stats before I do. This might well be me though. I also miss the insta move your field around button from DBC14. Keeping that would've been excellent
• Feels like it is easiesh to game certain dismissals due everyone's aversion to hitting through the covers. It's like someone who really hated James Vince's batting last summer decided to just remove the shot completely. This makes it easy to set fields as you can near enough ignore anything from cover to point.
• Too many cut shots and late dabs to full balls. I imagine this is a side effect of the lack of cover drives.
• Batsmen seem to only hit in specific areas and again I think is linked to the above. Between point and third man, midwicket, in the v down the ground, between square and fine leg. Nothing went really fine, a few went into the covers (these tended to be toe-enders and there was one flowing over the top shot) and there was nothing fine on either end.
• Also miss the old R3 of pushing in and seeing instantly a batsman's main weakness/strengths and the bowlers stamina and confidence. Am I missing a button as it seems the only way to judge your bowler's stamina is to go into the bowling change screen.
• Playing a first class match and the game started at 10:30 and I bowled 38 overs before lunch which was past 1pm

Overall the experience was not too bad at all for a first go.

214ao. The Blake/Cowdrey partnership was the best one and was genuine starting to vex me before Zaidi got that cool dismissal I mentioned. Porter got two bowleds. The first was one of those terrible cutshot played ons which the batsman should not have been playing while the second was a bona fide and genuine off-cutter which totally flumoxed Ball and castled him. LBWs seem like a tough ask.

I started extremely expensively but got some good early wickets Porter and was able to choke them with Ravi which is good. Kept all my pace bowlers below 4 though and would've kept my spinners below 4 I think if I'd bowled more with them. Game on anyways. Batting next.

So, on from this previous post I have now just finished my first batting innings and here we go again...

Good Things:

• Some of the shots look really beautiful especially the ones down the ground and some of the late cuts
• Edges feel fairer between the teams. I didn't nick off today and think that it would never happen to the AI. In DBC14 I felt that edges just happened because they decided "20 goto edge" and that we went to 20 much more as a human batsman than the AI batsman. In this game I got some very well made edges and here I chased wide ones, struggled against Tredwell (not being able to play a spinner, I must be English) and the edges felt earned for both sides. This is a big plus.
• Played a genuine late back foot reaction shot and got a brilliant edge to gully. Annoyed for James Foster and me but very pleased to see the physics acting like this.

Things I'm not sure about/need improving

• No need to mention shot areas but I am gonna mention shot areas. I attempted to play as around the ground as I could and absolutely nothing went between cover and point. At all. Too many times a shot that should have been played through the covers was played as that stupid crouching cut shot. We know this though and I've no doubt it's high priority.
• Added to the covers there was a difficulty to play fine of square. Also the sweep shot seemed like an inst-wicket generator. Can't say whether that was the pitch or my shite Essex batsman or it's a bit too wicket-generaty but I just had to put it away like the late cut of the spinner in early DBC14.
• A couple of display things coming now. I would love to have seen an over count but there wasn't one displayed. There was a lot of other info but no over count for my innings.
• When the batsman plays his shot and the timing window appears it currently obscures the striking batsman and continues to display the non-striker and this seems very counter-intuitive. I play a shot and run three and I can't see my score again until the timing window disappears but I can see that the non-striker is on 10 all the time. Could this be swapped so it is the non-striker's name who is replaced by the timing bars?
• AI fielding changes seem better when attacking a certain bowler but the field from a spin bowler keeps sticking for the first ball of a pacer (as was the case in DBC14) and the bowler is changing angles far too many times in a First Class match. A lot of right-arm around to right-handers which seems off.
• Commentary once said I was 32-32-1 and has sometimes said I've not scored a run in the over when I had.

So I batted and got the blocking trophy first as I knew I would. Had a great partnership between Lawrence and Browne before a ridiculous collapse to Ravichandran Tredwell. Boom Boom Zaidi and Fozzy rebuilt before a quick loss of wickets at the end. I could've batted better especially with Wheater and Ten-Doeschate but the pressure was on and I liked this.

Tredwell obviously was their pick as I played him much like Ben Duckett in Vizag but Griffiths apart all bowlers posed interesting challenges. Disappointingly again that they only used the four bowlers. Coles is an all-rounder and absolutely would've been given a bowl by his captain in real life. This is an issue from DBC14 as well.

The game is pretty evenly poised then. Wouldn't mind watching this one...

Oh, one for the bug column. James Foster is able to accelerate like a dream and a legend but I'm not sure a strike-rate of 50000+ is even possible...

 

[Bettsi]

Started a Test Aus v Ban (me)

Bowling on easy but ai difficulty on veteran. Bowled them out for 301 in 79 overs. Absolutely brilliant first impression of test bowling on this game. Some great dismissals including a bat pad from the off spinner and a bouncer from my quicky clipping the bat on the way thru to keeper as batsman tried to lean away and leave. Fantastic stuff. I know this game has serious issues elsewhere but can honestly say that was the best 4 hours I've had on a games console.

 

[Fantazm]

those low-res logos though...

 

[cricket_online]

Oh, one for the bug column. James Foster is able to accelerate like a dream and a legend but I'm not sure a strike-rate of 50000+ is even possible...

Nice write up! Could Foster's SR be due to the data that has been input by someone in the academy? Maybe somebody messed up feeding the right info and surely Big Ant can't do much about it.

 

[Wavelberry]

Nice write up! Could Foster's SR be due to the data that has been input by someone in the academy? Maybe somebody messed up feeding the right info and surely Big Ant can't do much about it.

Possibly. Everybody else's SR is right though and it was right when he came out to bat originally. This screenie was taken after a session interval so that's why I'm calling it as a bug

 

[Langeveldt]

So, on from this previous post I have now just finished my first batting innings and here we go again...

Good Things:

• Some of the shots look really beautiful especially the ones down the ground and some of the late cuts
• Edges feel fairer between the teams. I didn't nick off today and think that it would never happen to the AI. In DBC14 I felt that edges just happened because they decided "20 goto edge" and that we went to 20 much more as a human batsman than the AI batsman. In this game I got some very well made edges and here I chased wide ones, struggled against Tredwell (not being able to play a spinner, I must be English) and the edges felt earned for both sides. This is a big plus.
• Played a genuine late back foot reaction shot and got a brilliant edge to gully. Annoyed for James Foster and me but very pleased to see the physics acting like this.

Things I'm not sure about/need improving

• No need to mention shot areas but I am gonna mention shot areas. I attempted to play as around the ground as I could and absolutely nothing went between cover and point. At all. Too many times a shot that should have been played through the covers was played as that stupid crouching cut shot. We know this though and I've no doubt it's high priority.
• Added to the covers there was a difficulty to play fine of square. Also the sweep shot seemed like an inst-wicket generator. Can't say whether that was the pitch or my shite Essex batsman or it's a bit too wicket-generaty but I just had to put it away like the late cut of the spinner in early DBC14.
• A couple of display things coming now. I would love to have seen an over count but there wasn't one displayed. There was a lot of other info but no over count for my innings.
• When the batsman plays his shot and the timing window appears it currently obscures the striking batsman and continues to display the non-striker and this seems very counter-intuitive. I play a shot and run three and I can't see my score again until the timing window disappears but I can see that the non-striker is on 10 all the time. Could this be swapped so it is the non-striker's name who is replaced by the timing bars?
• AI fielding changes seem better when attacking a certain bowler but the field from a spin bowler keeps sticking for the first ball of a pacer (as was the case in DBC14) and the bowler is changing angles far too many times in a First Class match. A lot of right-arm around to right-handers which seems off.
• Commentary once said I was 32-32-1 and has sometimes said I've not scored a run in the over when I had.

So I batted and got the blocking trophy first as I knew I would. Had a great partnership between Lawrence and Browne before a ridiculous collapse to Ravichandran Tredwell. Boom Boom Zaidi and Fozzy rebuilt before a quick loss of wickets at the end. I could've batted better especially with Wheater and Ten-Doeschate but the pressure was on and I liked this.

Tredwell obviously was their pick as I played him much like Ben Duckett in Vizag but Griffiths apart all bowlers posed interesting challenges. Disappointingly again that they only used the four bowlers. Coles is an all-rounder and absolutely would've been given a bowl by his captain in real life. This is an issue from DBC14 as well.

The game is pretty evenly poised then. Wouldn't mind watching this one...

Oh, one for the bug column. James Foster is able to accelerate like a dream and a legend but I'm not sure a strike-rate of 50000+ is even possible...

Nice, I am going to have a look at batting, as the AI batting is totally shot. Do you get frame rate issues as the bowler is running in? And have you lost any wickets when playing a defensive shot?

 

[Royce]

The conversation on here is quite hilarious, I said to my wife that it often seems like a bunch of teenagers venting without really understanding the complexity of creating a game of this type. It then dawned on me that many of the people here probably are teenagers or maybe people in their early 20s, it's only a handful of us who are old farts!

Complexity doesn't matter, they decided to attempt it, its up to them to come up with a quality product!!!

Also, way to come onto the forums and begin by insulting the other forum users... cos THAT doesn't seem like something that "teenagers or people in their early 20s" might do.....

The issue with the comments is a complete lack of balance and frankly they are incredibly rude when you consider the attitude of BA towards their customers. They engage you, they listen to you, they actually improve the game over time - there is not a single developer out there who does this to the same extent!!!

The attitude of BA towards their customers "Lets release this buggy s**tfest of a game for christmas so we can make as much money as possible, what's that Jim from Q&A, its not ready yet... nah, well just release anyway!!

And, as I always love to say, they wouldn't have to provide such great post sales support if they released a decent game in the first place...

I haven't got the game yet and I'm sure there are issues with it, but there were issues with DBC14 and they were addressed. It was still easily the best cricket game ever made at first release!!!!! My gut feel without having played it is that you need to adjust the sliders and other options to get the game exactly where you want it to be so that you can be challenged and still enjoy it. As you improve you'll probably adjust the game so that it remains challenging and also enjoyable. You probably need to get to grips with all of the options and this takes time. I'm not saying there aren't actual issues with the gameplay, but knowing BA they will improve them, so just give them time.

I love that it has become my responsibility as a customer to literally change the physics of the game world to make it something like real cricket...

Also, if you haven't played the game, why are you telling me what I need to do to enjoy it... you do not know this!!

Also, remember that the people developing these games are actual people, who have put a huge amount of time, effort and love into developing the game. They want it to be a success, they want you all to enjoy it and they will work hard to improve it. These comments might be water off a ducks back for them, but imagine if your work was analysed and thrashed to the same extent. You'd all be taking yourself off to the bathroom for a good blub I reckon!!

When they get paid to do this, I stop caring!! If my work was analysed and thrashed to this extent, I would be annoyed at myself for releasing a thing of poor quality/wouldn't have released a thing of such poor quality in the first place!!

 

[Wavelberry]

Nice, I am going to have a look at batting, as the AI batting is totally shot. Do you get frame rate issues as the bowler is running in? And have you lost any wickets when playing a defensive shot?

It got framey throughout but from other places I've read I think it's to do with the custom stadiums. This one being played at Chelsmford means it's a custom stadium and I have had stutter in both innings.

The James Foster wicket was a defensive shot but I was so late on it I'm not surprised it flew to gully. Was good to see though as I don't think that would've happened in DBC14

 

[Langeveldt]

It got framey throughout but from other places I've read I think it's to do with the custom stadiums. This one being played at Chelsmford means it's a custom stadium and I have had stutter in both innings.

The James Foster wicket was a defensive shot but I was so late on it I'm not surprised it flew to gully. Was good to see though as I don't think that would've happened in DBC14

No and that was something which I was hoping had been fixed. Just because you go defensive doesnt mean you can't be out.

 

[cricket_online]

Nice, I am going to have a look at batting, as the AI batting is totally shot. Do you get frame rate issues as the bowler is running in? And have you lost any wickets when playing a defensive shot?

Yup, occasionally. And when it happens it's extremely difficult to time the ball and often results in a dismissal.

 

[Biggs]

Try muting the commentary, I know in DBC14 that made the game a whole lot better sound wise...

I would go so far as saying mute the commentary and listen to the award winning™ audio from the New Zealand ground announcer

 

[Rohit Basu]

I thought that I would start a first impressions thread as more and more people will be getting the game today and tomorrow.

I have been playing the game since last night and I am delighted that it is an improvement over DBC14 which is a game that I was still playing up to a few weeks ago.

I generally just play offline so the issues with online are not a problem for me.

I have not had access to the academy releases in the PC so first up I went straight to the tutorials for bowling and batting. I love the new bowling mechanics and the changes that have been made make for a more intuitive experience which is what I really wanted to see.

Gameplay is what makes or breaks a game and for me DBC17 gets the balance right. I played a test match England (me) v India. I won the toss and decided to bat. It was a dusty wicked so it was very pleasing to see India take that into account and open the bowling with Ashwin!!! As I am still getting used to the new batting mechanics I managed to struggle to 260 all out. If was great to see the field also changing to counteract my scoring zones which forced me to alter how I was playing.

India started their innings and once I got hang of the new balling mechanics I found that I could really restrict their scoring and bowl tactically which was something that would never have happened in the previous game. I also noticed that Virat was much more aggressive than the other batsmen and tried to dominate my bowlers this was good to see as it adds realism. In the end I got India out for 433 which they scored off 103 overs. I am now going to play the second innings.

There are of course things that could be improved. Sometimes the game has glitched with batsman being in weird positions half way up the pitch, I have had one complete crash whilst playing the game. There does not seem to be an ingame save button so you have to exit out of the match to save it. I wanted to save regularly after my crash. It is disappointing to see replays have not been improved and the same erros from previous version remain whereby sometimes replay starts when bowl has already left bat so does not show the actual shot. All of these issues are generally cosmetic.

Is it a perfect game? Of course not but for me it is biggish improvement on the previous version and that is all I can ask. Given that bigant is a relatively small developer and that makes what they achieved even more remarkable. DBC17 is a fantastic game with deep gameplay and one that will be improved over the next few months. Well done to all that were involved in making it.

Please excuse and spelling/grammar errors as I have typed this on my tablet!

A total back step from dbc 14 the batting was better in dbc 14 so manny shots are missing in dbc 17

 

[30 miles west]

Long time reader, first time poster. I've found many improvements and a few frustrating things that I hope will be fixed. I booted up and was prompted to download the best of all of the teams created but I still haven't been able to, I get an error about the Academy sharing service being unavailable. I've had to do it individually and some players have "CENSORED" on their name (For example B.McCENSORED for the Brisbane Heat). I've had a few crashes as well.

Either way once I got into a game I found improvements. Bowling is much improved and the fielding is easy to pick up as well. I jumped into a 10 over game against England and it went to a super over, it was a blast. Batting was tough and as per the last game, if you go in swinging you will be punished. The way it should be. Most of all it was good fun. Then I went onto a 50 over match. I don't think in any other cricket game I've ever played I would have the patience to bowl out a full 50 overs, but the AI played well and realistically and batted to the conditions.

I really like that you can set separate difficulties for batting and bowling and the customisation within the game is really good. Graphics aren't the greatest and there are a few bugs that need fixing, but the core gameplay is really good if you ask me. Back to the game.

 

[angad]

I was refraining myself from writing here since I had just played the game once for an hour and thus didn't have the basis to form an opinion yet, however it so sad to see the way people are making stupid comments on this forum, almost demanding stuff like they own the franchise or something!! Lets get it clear, the only one who has the 'right' to do that is Ross! He can very well decide today that he has had enough and would not focus on this game...and poof...there goes the best cricket game we have had in 'ages'!

I really miss the days when the forums were filled with reasonable people (though we did have a few idiots back then too...but they were very few), passionate about getting the best cricket game out there and always respecting the talent, vision and support displayed by BigAntStudios!

Anyways, just wanted to say....trust BigAntStudios in hearing the feedback and making all the corrections that are required and can be patched with reasonable efforts. They have displayed their zeal to support the community time and again and I can guarantee it to you that they will continue to do so. Yes the game has some issues, however it's totally understandable....every game has issues on release!!! The best thing about this game is the team behind it, as its 100% guaranteed that all these big issues would be patched by BigAnt very soon!

And tbh, from whatever playtime I had with this game, it's an amazing game and the gameplay seemed top notch! The issues mentioned are infrequent enough to ensure that 99% of the time you are having fun with this game!

Please update the game with the latest patch, play it for a good amount of time before judging it, and be respectful in your feedback as if there is on thing that BigAnt totally deserve is our respect!