long post warning:
if you've read any of my posts, you'll know I've been highly critical of the bowling to Ai experience in DBC, and more broadly of the general lack of effect of pitch/weather, and lack of seam/spin.
whilst i'm not ready to retract all of that, a few of us have been doing some experiments with amended skills for batsmen and bowlers and getting some interesting results. a big hat tip to
@cooks1st100 who is the originator of the experiment, and also
@wealey88 and
@richowebbo who have been doing a lot of playtesting on this too. we think we're getting somewhere and so have decided to "go public" and see if by getting some more people playing similarly we can get more of a sample and move towards a better experience for us all.
the basic principle is - reduce the skills. it seems that the current state of the game is that the players become too good too soon in terms of how skills set in the academy translate into gameplay. the batsmen quickly become too good, and the bowlers almost swing the ball too much (we've all seen our bowlers hooping it round corners but don't get any edges.)
for clarity, whenever I mention an "increment" below, it means one full segment of the skills bar in cricket academy.
each of us have a slightly different set-up, but similar principles. i'm going to share mine below and the other guys can share theirs too, but also you should really please be aware that you may need to make some changes to get a better experience - I think it's not a case of one stats fits all.
I have the following set up for batsmen:
top 5 are set up:
front foot/back foot 10 increments
straight: 5 increments
everything else 6 though each of the top 5 might have one stat an increment higher or lower
number 6
ff/bf 9
straight: 4
everything else 5
number 7
ff/bf 8
straight: 4
everything else 5
number 8:
ff/bf 6.5
straight: 3.5
everything else 4
9/10/11:
ff/bf 4.5
straight: 3
everything else 4 or 3.5
I also set every batsman to precise or conservative, and set anticipation attribute to low.
fast/fast-medium/medium bowlers: max (or close to) seam, and either outswing 10 and inswing 6 or vice versa for openers, or 9 and 5.5 for 1st/2nd change. slower ball and cutters 7 or 8 for all of them.
off spinner 9 for arm ball, 15 for offie, 1 for doosra, 3 for drift, 6 for flight, 8 for top spinner
leg spinner 9 for arm ball, 15 for leggie, 12 for googly, 5 for drift, 5 for flight, 8 for top spinner
playing on pro, in test-matches, I have been getting: much more "realistic" play and misses; timing variation from the AI including bat sounds I never heard before (an end to middle or miss); more edges (still mostly to keeper, but some good variation) - realistic edges too from defensive prods and drives; more realistic bowleds (not just playing miles inside the line, top-edging a cut into the stumps or bowled off legs but being beaten for movement); and more realistic LBWs (
NOT the knee in front cutting a straight one but rapping the pads off an in-swinger).
the AI were playing much more sensibly (less aerial, less late cuts to Yorkers or holing out to deep mid-on). they still post competitive scores.
similarly, batting is still good, well balanced and challenging. i'm currently in day 3 of a test match, in innings 3 the AI is 64-1 off 20 overs, after the first innings went AI 341/10 off 99.3; I went 309/10 off 88.5 - a proper competitive, balanced, realistic test match.
a couple of caveats: pitch conditions seem to matter more than we thought, a hard pristine pitch and you can expect much less edges/mistiming/play and misses from the AI; weather seems to matter a lot - even on a grassy pitch, expect the edges to dry up when the clouds disappear; when bowling, timing is crucial, you need to be hitting the equivalent of the green areas on the bowling assistance to get best results; good length bowling seems to get better results than short or full.
so, there you have it. a bit of advice that I and the other guys have been trying out and getting good results with - please give it a go and let us know your experience, maybe we can get a bit more consensus. we've all been trying it on tests, so guys who play more t20/50 over matches would be good to get on board too and see how they play.