Editor for Cricket Captain 2018 (Release)

[Prashanth S Kharche]

@Prashanth S Kharche I spent the whole of yesterday working on squad selections and transferring players between teams. I now have a slightly better understanding of how this works, but it is extremely complicated.

I was looking at how players are transferred during the start-of-season contract-signing stage. I know you are more interested in squad selection, but this was just a first step.

I might have a breakthrough today, or it could take months. It is hard work, so I will take breaks to add easy features to the editor, while I work on this much bigger problem.

Great @weetabixharry. I was playing the game with Marnus Labuschagne skill at 6/1500+, but was still unable to get him picked for a single game for Australia! Strange indeed. Also, the AI regeneration of new players (unknown guys) is kicking off too soon in the game; for instance by 2021, most Test-playing nation teams have at least 3-4 regenerated new players while ignoring already established First Class players with astounding skills.

 

[Bored Guy]

I haven't bought CC19 yet, but when I do, it should be very easy to update most of the editor (with the exception of the two "Global Settings", which use code injection and are a little trickier to reproduce).

I can see that CC19 introduces a new "SLW" (slow left-arm wrist-spinner) bowler type, so I'll have to add that. But otherwise the editor should be largely the same.

Hi,

Great work on the editor. really appreciate your efforts. I downloaded the demo version from steam, updated it to 18.091. But this editor fails to load saying it will only work on version 18.09. Same thing is happening with the smaller editor where you gave an option to edit finances and coaching. Not able to open any editors. Thanks

 

[weetabixharry]

@TemPSaad I have added batting and bowling potential to the editor. Please download and try the latest version (2018.09-06).

I also fixed the display of abilities (and potential abilities), which have been slightly wrong for years. (They were too small by a factor of approximately 256). However, the editor still also displays the old values to help people (like me) who are familiar with the old system.

To give some guidance, I have included some real players in the editor to "Quick set" abilities (which you can then adjust). For batting, you can quick-set the following ability levels:

Player | Batting Ability | Old Value | Description
Don Bradman | 1041529 | 4068 | All-time greatest batsman
Virat Kohli | 463565 | 1810 | Modern great batsman
Gordon Greenidge | 393242 | 1536 | Top class Test batsman
Andrew Flintoff | 302344| 1181 | Useful with a bat
Vernon Philander | 221957 | 867 | Bowling all-rounder
Shane Warne | 158822 | 620 | Bowler
Phil Tufnell | 79677 | 311 | Useless with a bat

For bowling, you can quick-set the following ability levels:

Player | Bowling Ability | Old Value | Description
Joel Garner | 117948 | 460 | All-time great bowler
Richie Benaud | 178991 | 699 | Top quality bowler
Imran Khan | 211620 | 826 | Very good bowling all-rounder
Sourav Ganguly | 274412 | 1071 | Useful occasional bowler
Geoff Boycott | 310838 | 1214 | Occasional bowler
Quinton de Kock | 385831| 1507 | Doesn't bowl (wicket keeper)
Adam Gilchrist | 448485| 1751| Doesn't bowl (wicket keeper)

 

[weetabixharry]

@Bored Guy I don't think the editor will work with the demo. However, the full game only costs a few quid now, so I reckon it's a great investment during lockdown.

 

[weetabixharry]

I was playing the game with Marnus Labuschagne skill at 6/1500+, but was still unable to get him picked for a single game for Australia!

@Prashanth S Kharche I have now added potential ability to the editor (see my previous post describing the changes). Possibly, the AI looks at potential ability, so hopefully this could fix your problem. It might also explain why regen players are being selected so much.

 

[Prashanth S Kharche]

Thanks @weetabixharry It does help. Although it's close to impossible to figure out how the developers have set some really crazy skill levels for unknown cricketers. Also, there's an aberration in the AI, as shown to you below. It necessarily picks some random player at No. 8 in every match. In this match, the opener Devon Smith from WI bats at 8! Nothing like selecting the XI for the opponent before every match! That will be most realistic.

 

[weetabixharry]

it's close to impossible to figure out how the developers have set some really crazy skill levels for unknown cricketers.

I don't know for sure, but there could be other skill attributes that we haven't found yet. For sure, changing the "Batting Ability" and "Bowling Ability" attributes has a big impact on performance. But there could be other attributes that we don't know about yet. Therefore, I would not rely on these numbers alone to evaluate a player's skill.

Maybe it is possible for a player to have a high "ability" attribute, but still perform poorly over the duration of their career. Maybe "ability" is more like "talent" and we haven't found the "work ethic" attribute yet. A player with high talent but very poor work ethic may not be such a good player overall. We don't really have any idea what the developers have done because all attributes are hidden (unlike, for example, Football Manager, which provides a lot of visible attributes).

The developers of Cricket Captain have always said they think it makes the game better to keep all attributes hidden. I'm not sure I agree with that, but unfortunately it is probably their only option (for several reasons). One big reason is that they would be absolutely swamped with complaints that Virat Kohli has lower ability than Don Bradman, or "my favourite player" has lower ability than "some other player". It would create a lot of bother for very little reward.

 

[Prashanth S Kharche]

@weetabixharry I can understand the rationale behind their thinking. But unfortunately the game has a limited shelf life (which is also probably what they want). So every year, they just tweak the database and sell a new game. Which is probably OK for 15 bucks!

My thinking was that if they release an editor and charge a recurring fee of 15 bucks every year, more people may opt for it.

 

[TemPSaad]

@TemPSaad Yes, I think this is possible. Currently, I am not happy with how the editor displays batting and bowling ability. The "batting level" and "bowling level" don't really make sense to me and I haven't updated this since 2008. Therefore, my plan was to fix this and then also add potential abilities to the editor. However, if you want it now, then I could add potential abilities today, then maybe tidy up the display later.

To be honest, I don't fully understand how the game represents ability and potential ability. From what I have read from the game developers over the years, there should be a "standard potential" for each of batting and bowling (and maybe one or more for fielding). A player's peak ability can exceed these potentials using training (and, to a lesser extent, if he is in good form).

There are separate ability attributes for batting, bowling and fielding. I'm not sure if there are separate attributes for ground fielding and catching. I have spent many, many hours trying to find the fielding attributes, but this is still work in progress.

Batting aggression and off-side/leg-side preference are visible in the game, so were easy to add to the editor. However, bowling aggression is hidden in the game, so is more difficult to be sure about. This will also be added to the editor when I am more confident it is correct.

That's great that you have already found the potential abilities, it would be great if you can add a random potential attribute(hidden from user) to the player potential attribute if a user press a random button , it will give a whole new level to the game as the user will never know which player will turn out to be a great in later years or become a crappier one because the potential ability is hidden and randomized.

 

[TemPSaad]

For instance if you select Babar Azam and load him to the editor and assign him a random potential he may turn out to be great in later years or just become an inferior player , it will add replayability to the game like in each game every player will turn out to be different in later years.

 

[weetabixharry]

My thinking was that if they release an editor and charge a recurring fee of 15 bucks every year, more people may opt for it.

Yeah, that's actually not a bad idea. Recurring fees can be unpopular, but I think consumers are starting to accept that they are necessary to support future development. Obviously I'm very biased, but I would honestly pay double the game cost (every year) just for an editor. Unfortunately, many thousands of people would have to buy the editor to cover the development cost (and there just aren't enough people buying the game).

The problem is that the CC developers themselves don't use an editor to create the players. (I think this is quite unusual. For example, the old Championship Manager games were shipped with the editor that the developers actually used to create the game database). In Cricket Captain, the players are generated automatically by an algorithm that analyzes a huge database of real-world playing statistics. So they just don't have an editor to sell us - they would have to create one from scratch, which they don't have the budget to do.

It's frustrating, but people have been asking for many years and so far nothing has changed...

 

[weetabixharry]

That's great that you have already found the potential abilities, it would be great if you can add a random potential attribute(hidden from user) to the player potential attribute if a user press a random button , it will give a whole new level to the game as the user will never know which player will turn out to be a great in later years or become a crappier one because the potential ability is hidden and randomized.

I've already added it to the editor (and fixed the display). Please see my second reply to you, above.

Randomization is not currently available, but I actually quite like this idea. I will probably add this soon.

Right now, the editor is designed to give you as much visibility and control as possible. Therefore, if you want to randomize the value, then you would currently have to enter a random value yourself. If you really don't want to know what the value is, then I think you can be creative and find a way to do that. For example, you can google "random number between 1000 and 1500" and this will automatically generate a random number. If you're careful, you can cover the number and copy-paste it into the editor.

 

[TemPSaad]

I've already added it to the editor (and fixed the display). Please see my second reply to you, above.

Randomization is not currently available, but I actually quite like this idea. I will probably add this soon.

Right now, the editor is designed to give you as much visibility and control as possible. Therefore, if you want to randomize the value, then you would currently have to enter a random value yourself. If you really don't want to know what the value is, then I think you can be creative and find a way to do that. For example, you can google "random number between 1000 and 1500" and this will automatically generate a random number. If you're careful, you can cover the number and copy-paste it into the editor.

Well I don't think we can copy paste the number without actually seeing it , it will be a great addition if you can manage it though. 1000x thanks already for what you have achieved so far.

 

[TemPSaad]

Also it would be great if you can create a scout version as well which list all the players in the game and then assign random potential button for batting and bowling attributes , it will change the gameplay dramatically as know one will know how their players will end up in future years , will add 10x replay ability for new game/saves.[DOUBLEPOST=1589325948][/DOUBLEPOST]It would be great if Virat end up a mediocre player in one game and ATG in another. WoW I am drooling over the though already.

 

[weetabixharry]

Also it would be great if you can create a scout version as well which list all the players in the game

I have a very basic Scout working, but I need to fix a lot of problems before I can upload it. In the past, the Scout has been "read-only" (so you can't change any players in the game). However, I was already planning to update this so basic attributes can be edited in the Scout. I was also thinking that double-clicking the player in the Scout should open the full Editor for that player.

I also quite like this idea of randomizing every player in the game. I will also add an option to reset all players' statistics to zero. (For me, it would be too weird if a very weak player had a Test batting average of 50+, so I would prefer to reset to zero).

Another fun idea would be to move all the players to random clubs. So maybe some teams would have 20 batsmen and only one bowler. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do this yet, but I am working on it.