Got my game yesterday and played a good 7-8 hours so far. I have not played DBC 14 before, so this is my first experience of the BigAnt game. With all the discussions going on in this forum, I started the game tentatively expecting a crash sooner or later. I have quickly downloaded the International teams following a YouTube video and played couple of 5 over games with them, but didn't have any crash either. Played out all the tutorials and felt comfortable with the controls. I also did an hour of Batting Practice with different cameras to find that sweet spot of mine. I felt comfortable with the bowling mechanics pretty quickly, but not with batting (yet), after all the practice. I read people dislike the fielding cameras etc, but that didn't bother me much.
As I didn't see me progressing much with my batting with 5 over matches, I started my career as a 19 year old Batting All-rounder opening for a local club in my city. Game difficulty as Pro and after starting up the game, batting and bowling difficulty as Easiest. I could bowl well straight away, but batting was a night mare. I could drive through the V for what ever length, but couldn't play to the other areas of the ground at all. I have played out the whole season and my player went to 40 on batting, I think now.. I have managed to score couple of 50s, but they were not enjoyable. For spinners, I simply came out of the crease and hit straight for sixes when mid-on and mid-off were up, otherwise just drive and through the V. For pace bowlers, I premeditate if I see the ball shot and pull other wise, just drive all other lengths. When ever I try my best to spread my scoring areas, I end up getting caught or bogged down without runs. I hope, this was because of my player stats not up the mark yet.
I knew I need more time to be able to judge the game, but my initial hands on left me wanting more from batting perspective. On an other note, why am I not able to see my Career Players stats anywhere as I knew that the game is tracking them and displays them when my player is walking out to bat. I think being able to view my player's upto date records is a must when playing a career mode and it must be easy for the developers to put in a new box in the career mode window saying 'Records' or 'Stats' or something. Cricket is a number crunching game and that would help. Just a suggestion to the developers, if this could be patched in future..
Overall, a pretty good game, not sure why most of the people are frustrated with it. I enjoyed it and with some suggestions about batting by the veterans here, I might end up playing this game most part of this year. Good Bye PES 2017, Welcome DBC 17..