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

[tandy45]

To be fair, that's how a tail-ender should be in my eyes none of this acting like a top order batsman malarkey, just swipe at the ball and try to score as many as possible in as little amount of balls.

 

[blockerdave]

Talk about the innings that had (almost) everything:

4 LBWs
4 caught behinds
1 Clean bowled (remaining wicket caught in the deep)
Tail cleaned up quickly.
A catch behind off a no-ball.
Chance put down in the slips.
Either a catch not given by the umpire or a bump ball (definite edge, given not out, replay inconclusive whether bump ball or not, no reviews in the game mode)
A LEG BYE!!!
A 50 partnership, and an individual 50.
Single bowler nabbing the first 5 wickets of the innings and ending up with an 8-fer.

These settings are really getting there - may be AI getting dismissed a little too cheaply, though I was playing a weaker team. Have a stronger opponent coming up in the tour so that will tell me a lot more.

This was all on a soft, crumbling, uneven pitch with grass. Not sure about the weather conditions although seemed pretty sunny.

 

[Dutch]

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

You MUST bowl as England though for it to work

 

[cooks1st100]

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.

Try setting the straight attribute higher than offside/onside and flat. The other factor is whether or not you reduced the swing as I recommended.

[QUOTE="tandy45, post: 2952945, member: 132781"
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?[/QUOTE]

I'm guessing that you have reduced the batting stats for your team, so try setting your batsmen's strength to minimum (50%).

AI fields cannot be manually set I'm afraid but hopefully they will be improved on in the next patch.

 

[tandy45]

I'm going to set straight bat as 5/6 for the top order with offside/onside an increment lower I think and see how that works, I've tried with out/in swing at 3/2 respectively. That's the only fault I'm having with the game, is how easy it is to punch through the AI gap's other than that stat's suggested above have revitalised the game. I think I messed up my current England squad so I'm re downloading and setting all attributes to 10 increments and working back from there. Is there anyway to change the attributes via the line up section of the Academy or is it only via the Roster? just annoying having to scroll up/down for each player. Cheers for the help guys.

 

[blockerdave]

I'm going to set straight bat as 5/6 for the top order with offside/onside an increment lower I think and see how that works, I've tried with out/in swing at 3/2 respectively. That's the only fault I'm having with the game, is how easy it is to punch through the AI gap's other than that stat's suggested above have revitalised the game. I think I messed up my current England squad so I'm re downloading and setting all attributes to 10 increments and working back from there. Is there anyway to change the attributes via the line up section of the Academy or is it only via the Roster? just annoying having to scroll up/down for each player. Cheers for the help guys.

no you can't do it from the lineups, unfortunately.

 

[tandy45]

Ah well, would have made life easier. Quick query having flicked through the thread briefly what are the ideal settings for attributes, leaving as is or lower Anticipation/Run speed and strength? For instance would lowering those 3 to the minimum possible have an adverse effect at all?

 

[cooks1st100]

Ah well, would have made life easier. Quick query having flicked through the thread briefly what are the ideal settings for attributes, leaving as is or lower Anticipation/Run speed and strength? For instance would lowering those 3 to the minimum possible have an adverse effect at all?

I would reduce all three of those attributes to the minimum setting (50%). I have just discovered the joy of having the strength set at minimum for all batsman types. It's the way forward.

No adverse effect on fielding, and AI batting improved a great deal as a result. They still score boundaries when the ball is middled.

Definitely give it a go and play a few games like this then if you want you can up the strength for a player or two but I wouldn't increase it by too many increments.

Personally I'm going to keep the strength set to minimum for the majority of players with only the odd player such as Gayle having a slight increase.

 

[blockerdave]

A few hawkeyes that illustrate the value of the reduced swing stats...

This is an out swinger that took an outside edge caught behind off a defensive prod:

An in swinger bowled from wide on the crease that took an LBW

And an outswinger bowled from narrow on the stumps that took an LBW

On all of these, if you had the exaggerated swing that you get from higher swing stats, then you probably wouldn't have got the wickets.

This experiment isn't about making the batsmen worse to dismiss them cheaply, but rather toning down the overpowering of all skills to get a better experience. if you've been sceptical of the approach, or if you're still not convinced, hopefully these will give you a better idea of where we're coming from.

If you want a full experience playing vs AI, this is really the way to go.

 

[tandy45]

Having spent a good half hour setting up both England and Australia with reduced stat's as per the thread using Dave's batting attributes as a template, as well as 6/3 or 5/2 for the respective swing bowling stat's I'm currently content with the settings. Set up a 3 match test series as a baseline and currently toiling against the Aussie's. I'd been put into bat and reached 106/4 in 32 overs. Batting has once again become a game of patience, I'm finding the gaps in the field however I'm also finding 2nd slip just as regularly. Simulated the rest of the inning's and England posted 212 all out in 61 overs. Looks like Stokes raced through the gears. Onto bowling and I'm toiling away with the Australians at 90/2 after 33 overs. Interesting to note that the AI are having a similar struggle with the ball but instead of looking to score they are content in blocking most balls. Dismissal's are so far; an edge to 3rd slip, an in swinging LBW that caught Warner by surprise and a catch at mid on. Interesting to note that as the session wore on the swing became less evident, started out causing huge problems and now it's turned into a batters pitch. Hoping the overcast evening session will help reverse that trend. Overall game play has improved tenfold and I'll look at making each batsman individual after the three test's conclude.

 

[ohyeahtotally]

Im working on this as well. Im using england and australia cg and reworking the attributes but with a slight twist...im trying to still get a realistic/individual feel to the players not just a flat/blanket/same across the board uniform player position reduction as per BD. So im using sabremetrics and a linear weighted matrix to do this PLUS my own eye test.
So far australia have won the toss and are bowling but already with these reduced attributes the players play and seem more realistic. I will explain in detail but basically ive reduced a lot of attributes to average and then scaled/weighted accordingly from there. Same with the skills, except im using 10/11 (50%) for ff/bf as the benchmark for world class. So for instance, someone like micheal clarke is up around 10 for ffbf, while someone like jimmy anderson is close 2(ish, from memory). The other skills are weighted differently and for those, around 7.5 - 8.5 would indicate a player as average in that skill. Ive weighted the skills that way because i believe they have less effect on what we're trying to achieve then ffbf does. Hence they are scaled differently from ffbf.
Please bear in mind that skills and attributes are seperate and im treating them as such. By that i mean, you'll notice that attributes and more tangible/physically based and are thus easier the asses and scale. Which is good for us!! Lol.
For attributes (NOT TALKING SKILLS HERE...only because you can reduce a skill to 0 even though the basic physics are the same but just for example im using attributes for this point)
If you reduce them all to their minimum they can go ie (50% or 11 full notches) then that represents AVERAGE. Your average player proficieny in that attribute. Its then easy to work from that perspective. However when i weight these attributes i do not use 22 notches as max. Max for attributes or to put it another way...a player who excels in that attribute will max at around 16/17. Eg, chris gayles strength attribute is 16/17, while someone like joe root is closer to the min (11/11.5) for example.
I stress thought that the 16/17 does not apply to ffbf ratings. Ffbf ratings max at 10/11 and very few players get near it. Please do not confuse the way i weight ffbf from EVERY OTHER SKILL AND ATTRIBUTE. Ffbf are a completely different entity.

I know this is a long post but thanks for reading and i'll keep you updated as time allows.
I will also mention that all players skills and attributes have been adjusted for all players...not just batsmen. So anyone wondering if id skittle teams out with now overpowered bowlers...thats not the case because as aforementioned, every player has been reworked.

We are on the right path with this and since i believe the physics big ant have created in the game are sound, then the only problem is overpowered/overinflated player skills and attributes. Once you reduce and normalise them, you'll see a big difference in how the game plays.

 

[ohyeahtotally]

Having spent a good half hour setting up both England and Australia with reduced stat's as per the thread using Dave's batting attributes as a template, as well as 6/3 or 5/2 for the respective swing bowling stat's I'm currently content with the settings. Set up a 3 match test series as a baseline and currently toiling against the Aussie's. I'd been put into bat and reached 106/4 in 32 overs. Batting has once again become a game of patience, I'm finding the gaps in the field however I'm also finding 2nd slip just as regularly. Simulated the rest of the inning's and England posted 212 all out in 61 overs. Looks like Stokes raced through the gears. Onto bowling and I'm toiling away with the Australians at 90/2 after 33 overs. Interesting to note that the AI are having a similar struggle with the ball but instead of looking to score they are content in blocking most balls. Dismissal's are so far; an edge to 3rd slip, an in swinging LBW that caught Warner by surprise and a catch at mid on. Interesting to note that as the session wore on the swing became less evident, started out causing huge problems and now it's turned into a batters pitch. Hoping the overcast evening session will help reverse that trend. Overall game play has improved tenfold and I'll look at making each batsman individual after the three test's conclude.

If someone had the time it'd be good to find a player that you get to edge out at a realistic rate, then look at the bowler you're getting him to edge with and then extrapilate the skills and attributes from there. Using both as a realistic baseline.
Man i wish i didnt have a job!!

 

[Wealey]

Taller bowlers so far have proven to provide me with the most edges. Could be coinsidence but has definitely been thr case

 

[Gamer Pradosh]

Taller bowlers so far have proven to provide me with the most edges. Could be coinsidence but has definitely been thr case

Taller bowlers extra bounce even at fuller lengths hence those edges...Hence realistic gameplay....

 

[blockerdave]

Taller bowlers so far have proven to provide me with the most edges. Could be coinsidence but has definitely been thr case

Shortest seamer in my team took an 8-fer the other day: 4 LBW 4 edges.