Enhancing AI Fields and Field sets - Possible options

[cricket_online]

Creating this thread as IMO poor selection of fields & field sets by AI is holding the game back by quite an extent. After the latest patch (v1.11 in North America and v1.12 elsewhere), Cricket 19 has improved but is not able to reach its potential owing to the field selection.

I played a few ODIs after the latest patch and even though the game was improved, the AI field settings between overs 10-40 left a lot to be desired. The run rate for the most part remained around 8 and I batted beyond the 40 over mark just once out of 5-6 matches. Reason for the same was that AI selected fields with 3 fielders on the boundary for the most part, especially for the pacers. When you can hit boundaries easily and run rate is never really a concern, it takes immersion and fun out of the limited overs format (odis in this case).

Fields for spinners were better but the fields for pacers need a lot of improvement. Compounding the matter was that some of the fields AI used had no sweeper on the cover boundary (Deep Cover or Deep Cover Point). I looked at the fields in the Field Designer and the field which the AI used most often was "PACE LO BAL 13" with Deep 3rd man, Deep Fine Leg and Deep Square Leg as the boundary riders and a huge gap between Cover and Backward Point for hitting boundaries through the off side.

I don't think it's practical to expect Big Ant to revamp the fields and field settings in the current iteration but there are a couple of options which can be explored:-

1. Allow AI to only set fields with max outfielders, i.e. 4 fielders out from overs 10-40 in odis with 5 fielders on the boundary in T20s (overs 6-20) and from overs 41-50 in odis. Also, the fields should have at least one outfielder on the Cover boundary (Deep Cover, Deep Cover Point or Deep Extra Cover) as that's generally what you see in actual matches too.

2. Allow users to uncheck the "Allow AI to use the field" option in the Field Designer (in Cricket Academy). That way users can select the fields to be used by AI for various situations (1-10, 11-40, 41-50 etc.) and limit the AI to a handful of realistic fields rather than have AI select from bunch of fields where majority of them are poor and unrealistic.

Maybe @Dutch , @WealeyH , @MattW or other beta testers can run these options by Big Ant as these tweaks to AI field sets can raise the game to another level and make this a very solid game.

 

[wasteyouryouth]

Creating this thread as IMO poor selection of fields & field sets by AI is holding the game back by quite an extent. After the latest patch (v1.11 in North America and v1.12 elsewhere), Cricket 19 has improved but is not able to reach its potential owing to the field selection.

I played a few ODIs after the latest patch and even though the game was improved, the AI field settings between overs 10-40 left a lot to be desired. The run rate for the most part remained around 8 and I batted beyond the 40 over mark just once out of 5-6 matches. Reason for the same was that AI selected fields with 3 fielders on the boundary for the most part, especially for the pacers. When you can hit boundaries easily and run rate is never really a concern, it takes immersion and fun out of the limited overs format (odis in this case).

Fields for spinners were better but the fields for pacers need a lot of improvement. Compounding the matter was that some of the fields AI used had no sweeper on the cover boundary (Deep Cover or Deep Cover Point). I looked at the fields in the Field Designer and the field which the AI used most often was "PACE LO BAL 13" with Deep 3rd man, Deep Fine Leg and Deep Square Leg as the boundary riders and a huge gap between Cover and Backward Point for hitting boundaries through the off side.

I don't think it's practical to expect Big Ant to revamp the fields and field settings in the current iteration but there are a couple of options which can be explored:-

1. Allow AI to only set fields with max outfielders, i.e. 4 fielders out from overs 10-40 in odis with 5 fielders on the boundary in T20s (overs 6-20) and from overs 41-50 in odis. Also, the fields should have at least one outfielder on the Cover boundary (Deep Cover, Deep Cover Point or Deep Extra Cover) as that's generally what you see in actual matches too.

2. Allow users to uncheck the "Allow AI to use the field" option in the Field Designer (in Cricket Academy). That way users can select the fields to be used by AI for various situations (1-10, 11-40, 41-50 etc.) and limit the AI to a handful of realistic fields rather than have AI select from bunch of fields where majority of them are poor and unrealistic.

Maybe @Dutch , @WealeyH , @MattW or other beta testers can run these options by Big Ant as these tweaks to AI field sets can raise the game to another level and make this a very solid game.

Why did you only bat beyond the 40-over mark once out of five or six matches?

 

[blockerdave]

Creating this thread as IMO poor selection of fields & field sets by AI is holding the game back by quite an extent. After the latest patch (v1.11 in North America and v1.12 elsewhere), Cricket 19 has improved but is not able to reach its potential owing to the field selection.

I played a few ODIs after the latest patch and even though the game was improved, the AI field settings between overs 10-40 left a lot to be desired. The run rate for the most part remained around 8 and I batted beyond the 40 over mark just once out of 5-6 matches. Reason for the same was that AI selected fields with 3 fielders on the boundary for the most part, especially for the pacers. When you can hit boundaries easily and run rate is never really a concern, it takes immersion and fun out of the limited overs format (odis in this case).

Fields for spinners were better but the fields for pacers need a lot of improvement. Compounding the matter was that some of the fields AI used had no sweeper on the cover boundary (Deep Cover or Deep Cover Point). I looked at the fields in the Field Designer and the field which the AI used most often was "PACE LO BAL 13" with Deep 3rd man, Deep Fine Leg and Deep Square Leg as the boundary riders and a huge gap between Cover and Backward Point for hitting boundaries through the off side.

I don't think it's practical to expect Big Ant to revamp the fields and field settings in the current iteration but there are a couple of options which can be explored:-

1. Allow AI to only set fields with max outfielders, i.e. 4 fielders out from overs 10-40 in odis with 5 fielders on the boundary in T20s (overs 6-20) and from overs 41-50 in odis. Also, the fields should have at least one outfielder on the Cover boundary (Deep Cover, Deep Cover Point or Deep Extra Cover) as that's generally what you see in actual matches too.

2. Allow users to uncheck the "Allow AI to use the field" option in the Field Designer (in Cricket Academy). That way users can select the fields to be used by AI for various situations (1-10, 11-40, 41-50 etc.) and limit the AI to a handful of realistic fields rather than have AI select from bunch of fields where majority of them are poor and unrealistic.

Maybe @Dutch , @WealeyH , @MattW or other beta testers can run these options by Big Ant as these tweaks to AI field sets can raise the game to another level and make this a very solid game.

In prior games, if you created your own custom fields and gave them the right tags, the AI would use them. Might be worth trying here?

 

[cricket_online]

Why did you only bat beyond the 40-over mark once out of five or six matches?

As I was able to get to the target before 40th most of the times owing to the poor fields. I wanted to bump up the difficulty level but that took out the fun from batting as I artificially made batting more difficult to adjust for the AI field sets.

 

[cricket_online]

In prior games, if you created your own custom fields and gave them the right tags, the AI would use them. Might be worth trying here?

Tried doing so, but the problem is that you can't remove the tags for the OOB fields so you can't force the AI not to pick other fields. If there was an option to force AI to select a field from only a set you nominate, things would be simpler. There's a check box for "Allow AI to select the field" but somehow we can't uncheck the box for the pre-built ones.