Making bowling more enjoyable, seeing weather/pitch effects etc. - invitation to playtest

[Wealey]

Just fired up DBC for the first time in quite a while as been very busy. Bowling as England to New Zealand with lineups from last test put on these settings (ish)...

Well I think I set NZ a little high, and I'm rusty and they have shot to 85-0 off 23 overs. Anderson & Stokes going to all parts, Wood & Broad doing a bit better.

No hint of an edge except a couple of cuts over the slips for 4, few play and misses, several shots that looked/sounded mistimed, one close lbw shout...

Tough going.

I fired up did same teams.

Each batsmen had 5 increments each.

NZ were 234-5

2 Edges 2 bowled and a stumping.

A stumping!!!!
They seemed to be charging the spinner loads? Had 3 Third umpire reviews for stumpings!

Odd?

 

[blockerdave]

I fired up did same teams.

Each batsmen had 5 increments each.

NZ were 234-5

2 Edges 2 bowled and a stumping.

A stumping!!!!
They seemed to be charging the spinner loads? Had 3 Third umpire reviews for stumpings!

Odd?

Not sure if you changed the batsmen type? When I did WI I set them all conservative or precise, but didn't do that for NZ & saw a marked difference in how aggressive they were, I guess they have aggressive/brute batters?

 

[Wealey]

Not sure if you changed the batsmen type? When I did WI I set them all conservative or precise, but didn't do that for NZ & saw a marked difference in how aggressive they were, I guess they have aggressive/brute batters?

All are concise or conservative. But were using their feet loads. But not smashing it.

Run Rate was 3.46

Was a cracking two sessions to be honest. Its do close!!

 

[blockerdave]

Had a brilliant bowling innings last night. Bowling as England Rebels 1982 to South Africa Colts with these settings, a 2 day match (i am re-enacting the whole tour, and this was the warm up game) and dismissed them for 160 in 55.4 overs. Not sure what the conditions were as i didn't check, but going by the looks of things it was hard pitch, light cracks, grass, little cloud.

Had 3 caught behinds, in addition one bottom edged-cut didn't carry, and two edges went very square wide of gully. Had an actual "good" caught at mid-off: their opening batsman had hit several shots wide of mid-off, timed really well, then one that you could see and hear was mistimed ballooned up and was caught at mid-off, first time i've ever celebrated a mid-off catch

in addition had 4 bowleds, 3-of which were really good including one from left-arm over that swung back through the gate, and one right arm over that straightened and clipped the top of the off-stump bail. the remaining bowled was a top-edged cut into the stumps.

bounce was quite extravagant throughout, had several LBW-shouts turned down - had no DRS but i manually called up the hawkeye and they were hit dead in front but ball bouncing over - sometimes just, sometimes by miles.

also didn't have tail-ender stupidity. the tail did hit out more, but that was believable for the match situation as they were 100-odd for 7,8,9... but they didn't stick around for too long, and both of my "out field" catches were tail enders hitting out.

 

[blockerdave]

something magical happened thanks to these settings - not just a slip catch, but a diving slip catch

 

[blockerdave]

also this LBW from a left arm over coming back into the right handed batsman:

 

[tandy45]

I've recently returned back to DBC and I'm currently in the process of changing all international teams based on the stats provided by Dave and Wealey and trying to find a middle ground between them. My questions are, say if I set all teams to having equal stats as shown in the first post, wouldn't this theoretically make all teams equal and we would see similar scores on exact match day conditions or would scores be based on certain bowling/batting factors? Also with the lower ranked teams - I.e Zimbabwe and Bangladesh wouldn't it be worth changing the stat's to better reflect those teams? such as losing an increment or two for respect batsmen/bowlers?. Finally how would changing the difficulty level change the game play, I'm guessing it'd only affect the timings of the ai/player?

 

[Langeveldt]

I've recently returned back to DBC and I'm currently in the process of changing all international teams based on the stats provided by Dave and Wealey and trying to find a middle ground between them. My questions are, say if I set all teams to having equal stats as shown in the first post, wouldn't this theoretically make all teams equal and we would see similar scores on exact match day conditions or would scores be based on certain bowling/batting factors? Also with the lower ranked teams - I.e Zimbabwe and Bangladesh wouldn't it be worth changing the stat's to better reflect those teams? such as losing an increment or two for respect batsmen/bowlers?. Finally how would changing the difficulty level change the game play, I'm guessing it'd only affect the timings of the ai/player?

I guess subtle changes up and down based on the 'default' values found in this thread? I would happily test them if you gave me a link to them. I think Pro mode is the best middle ground of presenting a challenge and getting a realistic number of edges.. Obviously this needs to be done intelligently, not sure if you watch a lot of cricket but a strong Bangladesh player would be about equal or better than a weaker Kiwi player for example

 

[cooks1st100]

@tandy45

The first thing I would say is don't go changing a load of teams as yet as it will be a lot of time wasted and the people on here who have been testing the attributes are not necessarily using what has been posted in the first page, but they are a reasonable guideline.

I would recommend changing just two teams, one to play with and one to play against and play a few matches between these teams. This way if you make any changes you should be able to pick upon any differences in gameplay as a result far easier.

Definitely reduced swing and drift. I recommend Out: 5/6, In: 1/2 and drift:zero. Low I know but you will see the positives when you play with these settings. You can still make bowlers individual by setting them slightly differently. These are only guidelines after all.

To make better/lesser batsmen I would recommend altering the FF/BF and anticipation attributes. So higher for good batsman and reduce for lesser batsmen. These attributes appear to be linked to how easy or hard the AI are to get get out.

If you like how the AI bats but are finding them too easy or difficult to get out, rather than altering the batting attributes increase or decrease bowling attributes to suit, but leave swing and drift.

This should give you a decent template to begin with, just post up any issues or questions and we will be glad to help.

As far as changing the difficulty levels, obviously the AI improve when it is increased. The main issue is practically no edges with longer formats on levels veteran and above. This does not appear to be an issue with one day or T20's.

Please be aware that these changes do not as yet have any effect in career mode.

 

[Langeveldt]

Another point, apparently we are getting patches soon? I'm not holding my breath but if they make changes to the AI this could all be a waste of time.

 

[cooks1st100]

I cant see that they will be making significant changes to attributes and skills plus this is why I recommend not changing a load of teams.

 

[grkrama]

This would be important in both cases as if BA are looking to set things right with AI the work done here would contribute a lot to them understanding the kind of balance people are expecting as often BA have a tendency to go to extremities before hitting the sweet spot, this should save a bit of time on that. .

 

[blockerdave]

@tandy45 I'd echo @cooks1st100 and say not to change too many teams in one go - get a handle on a set up that works for you with a few teams first.

You can get variation between teams and players by varying the skills and especially using the seemingly less crucial skills (flat bat, on- off sides fir batsmen, slower ball, cutters for seam bowlers, turn for spinners) to push up overall helmet ratings to get good/ bad players and teams.

I just completed a two day game as part of a tour using this sort of set up and it was probably the most fun I've had with DBC.[DOUBLEPOST=1433082454][/DOUBLEPOST]I hope patch 3 will address AI deficiencies in field setting and situational batting; but I don't think the skill overpowering will be addressed particularly - I guess that's bedded into the match engine & would be a huge change.

 

[tandy45]

No problems guys, just trying to find a sweet spot that works, currently editing England, Sri Lanka and I'm thinking maybe Kenya to get a median for lower ranked teams, the one thing I am finding in my first few play through's are how abundant the AI attempts to play through mid off, I'm not entirely too sure if that's down to my own attempts at bowling a consistent line and length or if it's something else that I haven't twigged onto. The only bonus I have seen with the drives through mid off is the amount of play/misses occurring, I've had a few edges dropped so that's something I may have to have a look at.

The other thing to note that when I'm batting I'm still finding the run rate to be quite high, I'm not sure if this is down to a lowering of the fielders setting's or if this is a knock on effect of lowering the bowling stat's? My only solution I can think of is setting AI fields manually?

 

[cooks1st100]

I have a solution for the tail-enders. Just play against New Zealand and voila, realistic gameplay!