My thoughts for the future iteration for BA cricketing series

[jaffar100]

Also bring back the skill rewards system as per DBC14.

In DBC17 and Ashes cricket even though you play or don’t play career player is rewarded with points to upgrade the skills.

Where as in DBC14 you had to play good times shots to get rewarded with points . DBC 14 also had skills points accumulated while doing net practice in career mode, this made nets training also interesting.

Tagging BigAntStudios staff to bring my suggestions to their visibility and attention, hoping that they might like atleast few of them.

@MattW @HBK619

Thank You Big Ant !

 

[passwordistaco]

I've been harping on about a scenario creator for a while now. Would be sick, also would be cool if they had some pre-made scenarios like what SW99 had.

 

[Gamer Pradosh]

It's great to see good thoughts being shared but I would like people to come up with a way they would want to see it in game..Like for the above what are the options you want in scenario creator, what would make it a worthy feature in terms of execution and stuff.. Just imagine and put it in words..

 

[tarangmht]

I have the following suggestions.

Bowling :-


1. Pace skill bar should have range of min and max where you are able to select a specific range from the entire range available for a bowler as per his real life bowling speeds both for seam and spin bowlers. so you can have a total range of 60 - 160km/hr and then select say min : 114 and max 147 km/hr for fast bowler or a range of 78 - 97 km/hr for spinner. This will help us have different bowlers bowl at different speeds even if they are from the same sub category like fast medium or fast.

2. Not all bowlers can swing it both ways or spin it both ways so every delivery type available in the game should have its own skill bar where you can accordingly decide which balls that particular bowler can bowl well or not bowl at all. Eg: A bowler who can only bowl Outswingers to right handers when selects to bowl Inswingers should have minimal to no movement if skill bar is accordingly rated.

3. Bounce should be determined mainly by the height and pace of the bowler.

4. Accuracy should be determined by a combination of stamina left and the skill rating for that particular delivery type. So when a bowler has high rating for outswingers his accuracy will not be affected or less affected for it than for a delivery where he has low rating when stamina is low.

5. Stamina should start having an effect once it drops below 80-85%. Pace range should decrease as stamina decreases. currently when a fast bowler gets tired his pace reduces but this happens even when he bowls a slower one resulting into an even slower ball which i feel benefits the bowler more than punishing him. So instead of the current set up we can reduce the range from both ends. for eg: if his range when stamina at 100 is 115 - 145 then his range when stamina is at 50 could be 125 - 130.


Batting

We can have the following skill bars which would help customize the player closer to his real life attributes

1. Timing : Simply put higher skill will result into a bigger timing window meaning the ideal timing window will be larger for a higher rated player than for a lower rated one on the timing skill bar.

2. Placement : Higher placement more likely to find gaps in the field.

3. Consistency : Higher rated players start with higher confidence. less prone to edging when playing defensive to normal shots early on say for the first 10 - 20 balls.

4. Power: Higher rating results into ball traveling faster and further after hitting the bat.

Weakness/Strenght : Multiple shot types can be added or can be left blank. for Eg : Weekness could be Pull shot and Strength Could be Drive, Glance (should get stats boost like +5 or -5 when playing that particular shot)

5. Stamina: should have effect on running speeds and when reduces below 25 should start to affecting the timing of the batsman.

 

[Rackemup27]

I have some thoughts on immersion some of which have already been mentioned.

1. Captain's orders would be great both as a batsman and bowler. As a batsman in career mode the captain prior to your innings could say 'hold the strike' "rotate" "score quick" "play for time" etc. As a bowler "wickets at all costs" "line and length nuisance bowling"
Also batting weaknesses and strengths are updated according to form. So as a bowler you can do 'homework' on a batsman's current weakness. It could say for instance that Virat Kohli has recently been dismissed 6 times from full of a length outswingers on 5th stump or Alaister Cook has been coming across his stumps bringing lbw into play but these should fluctuate as batsmen work on their faults through their career.
As a captain you should be able to impose the above orders on your team based on their personalities.

2. Conditions. When travelling abroad there should be a distinct change in pitch and atmospheric conditions that have dramatic effects on your abilities. Like India travelling to England and England travelling to Australia should be a genuine and palpable challenge.

Pitch and weather conditions should be available prior to selecting your line up. Say you get a long range weather forecast for the upcoming fixture and a historic pitch report to pick a provisional squad. Then on the day just before the toss after having viewed the pitch you pick your starting 11.

3. Atmospherics . Should be a noticeable difference in crowd numbers for county games , T20s and internationals to give you that real buzz when you step upto international level. Maybe adding music etc between overs and after dismissals as in the real world.

Just a few immersion points. I have more that I may post at a later date. Nice one.

 

[Master Bates]

So many people with great ideas but the problem is can BA take All these ideas and implement it in their next game?

 

[T.J.Hooker]

can BA take All these ideas and implement it in their next game?

No. There are more ideas than they can possibly have resources to implement.

Coming up with the ideas is easy. Implementing / testing them is hard. Picking which ideas to try to implement is key.

 

[Gamer Pradosh]

So many people with great ideas but the problem is can BA take All these ideas and implement it in their next game?

Yeah like TJ said which ideas to pick up is key..The thing you can see is that there's a common base in the ideas given..That can be taken up and the extent they can go with it can be decided with discussion..

 

[T.J.Hooker]

The "captains orders" idea is an idea that's come up for previous iterations but I hope it might actually be possible in some sort of way eventually.

There are so many feature decisions to make with something like that, though. Just really quickly :

As a batsman in career mode the captain prior to your innings could say 'hold the strike' "rotate" "score quick" "play for time" etc.

Maybe captain's orders for batting can change at the end of each over, or when a wicket falls? You don't want the game to change too much without the opportunity to change orders.

The other thing is that most players prob work out batting tactics much more with batting partners than the captain. Strike allocation, which bowlers to target, whether to try and increase run rate or look for quick singles. All that is quite specific, ball by ball stuff.

As a bowler "wickets at all costs" "line and length nuisance bowling"

Ok, so how does the game test whether or not the player is i) trying to obey the orders ii) succeeding ? The player has to be able to interact with the instructions somehow - it would be a bit weird if you could totally ignore your captain's orders without consequences, wouldn't it?

So, for instance, let's say you bowl a rank short ball and get neatly pulled for four. Captain tells you to pitch up. If you persist in dropping short you piss your captain off, and if you piss him off enough you get taken off. I guess you'd actually have a range of orders at any one time - "pitch up" "around off stick" "4 an over or less". Hit those targets and please your skipper, miss them too often and lose his confidence.

I suspect the bottom line is that underlying AI tactics systems need to be really true to life for this to work convincingly. AI batsmen need to have realistic strengths and weaknesses that are clearly evident in the gameplay so that there are a range of proper cricket tactics that work against them.

That's the thing with a lot of requested features - they require core gameplay stuff to be in place first, so the process just defaults back to that.

 

[Gamer Pradosh]

Ok, so how does the game test whether or not the player is i) trying to obey the orders ii) succeeding ? The player has to be able to interact with the instructions somehow - it would be a bit weird if you could totally ignore your captain's orders without consequences, wouldn't it?

So, for instance, let's say you bowl a rank short ball and get neatly pulled for four. Captain tells you to pitch up. If you persist in dropping short you piss your captain off, and if you piss him off enough you get taken off. I guess you'd actually have a range of orders at any one time - "pitch up" "around off stick" "4 an over or less". Hit those targets and please your skipper, miss them too often and lose his confidence.

I suspect the bottom line is that underlying AI tactics systems need to be really true to life for this to work convincingly. AI batsmen need to have realistic strengths and weaknesses that are clearly evident in the gameplay so that there are a range of proper cricket tactics that work against them.

That's the thing with a lot of requested features - they require core gameplay stuff to be in place first, so the process just defaults back to that.

By keeping the small objectives simple.. New spell for bowler say of 5-6 overs.. Captain objective would just be "Control the runs" "Take a wicket" etc.. In case of batsman "Slog it out" "Hold the crease till X no of overs" etc..

And the partnership approach is within the guys in the middle.. "Retain strike" "Go defensive" " Rotate Strike" "See the bowler off" etc..

Yeah I agree on core gameplay to be in place : But when do you expect that to happen..Repeated issues are there which are engine related..I mean I personally wanted them to go simple in a version to make it a strong base for future versions but they never see the best of their game as there's always a stop which is expected.. Ashes has good things which make the game go towards right directions but there are again things which dont make it go forward or say this is it atleast for one department of the game..

 

[Rackemup27]

The "captains orders" idea is an idea that's come up for previous iterations but I hope it might actually be possible in some sort of way eventually.

There are so many feature decisions to make with something like that, though. Just really quickly :



Maybe captain's orders for batting can change at the end of each over, or when a wicket falls? You don't want the game to change too much without the opportunity to change orders.

The other thing is that most players prob work out batting tactics much more with batting partners than the captain. Strike allocation, which bowlers to target, whether to try and increase run rate or look for quick singles. All that is quite specific, ball by ball stuff.



Ok, so how does the game test whether or not the player is i) trying to obey the orders ii) succeeding ? The player has to be able to interact with the instructions somehow - it would be a bit weird if you could totally ignore your captain's orders without consequences, wouldn't it?

So, for instance, let's say you bowl a rank short ball and get neatly pulled for four. Captain tells you to pitch up. If you persist in dropping short you piss your captain off, and if you piss him off enough you get taken off. I guess you'd actually have a range of orders at any one time - "pitch up" "around off stick" "4 an over or less". Hit those targets and please your skipper, miss them too often and lose his confidence.

I suspect the bottom line is that underlying AI tactics systems need to be really true to life for this to work convincingly. AI batsmen need to have realistic strengths and weaknesses that are clearly evident in the gameplay so that there are a range of proper cricket tactics that work against them.

That's the thing with a lot of requested features - they require core gameplay stuff to be in place first, so the process just defaults back to that.

Yea absolutely. They couldn't simply be cosmetic. They would have to feature as part of the integral batting/bowling mechanics. I'm not sure how difficult it is to implement but yea if you're bowling rank half trackers and getting smashed all around the park then the skips confidence in you would drop this getting taken off or even dropped for an upcoming test. Going even deeper : if your stats as a bowler or batsman are consistently poor on drier flatter decks then that could affect your selection for travelling matches in a horse's for courses sense. But perhaps that would depend on captain and selector 'personality traits '

Going a bit heavy into that though. Probably be a real headache to implement .

 

[Deleted member 185125]

So for user created scenario mode, maybe something with the below options might be a good start.

Scenario Name- User given name
Match Type-Test/ODi/T20
Match Name- user given name eg World Cup Final
Teams - A vs B (A will be the playable team)
Venue, pitch and weather condition- From available options in game.
Scenario type- Batting / Bowling (will be batting or bowling in the last innings based on selection)
Overs Remaing-
Runs Required-
Wickets Remaining-
Apply to - Player /Team ( player - would apply to just one player, like a career mode gameplay eg Team-like a casual mode gameplay eg 50 runs required off 8 overs 3 wickets remaining, Player mode will let you play as only one player and Team as a complete Team)
Auto Generate Scores- Yes /No ( Yes -system will automatically generate the scores till overs specified based on above scenario value. No-User can manually enter each and every values till the scenario start)

Once created, one can play it themselves or this can be then uploaded to the Academy. Other players can then search by Scenario Name or other filter values and download them.

The settings suggested is mainly based on last innings of a match.

 

[T.J.Hooker]

Yeah I agree on core gameplay to be in place : But when do you expect that to happen..

Well it should be in place already for really straightforward stuff like "take a wicket" or "keep run rate below 5" - and I think my suggestions about "pitch up" or "off stick line" or whatever should be doable.

Stuff where your captain or partner gives you instructions about targeting a particular bowler, or opting for quick singles, or suggests the correct run rate to aim for or whatever, that's clearly going to need new core ai to work. For your captain to set two men on the hook and tell you to try and bounce a batsman out requires new core gameplay stuff.

 

[wasteyouryouth]

Well it should be in place already for really straightforward stuff like "take a wicket" or "keep run rate below 5" - and I think my suggestions about "pitch up" or "off stick line" or whatever should be doable.

Stuff where your captain or partner gives you instructions about targeting a particular bowler, or opting for quick singles, or suggests the correct run rate to aim for or whatever, that's clearly going to need new core ai to work. For your captain to set two men on the hook and tell you to try and bounce a batsman out requires new core gameplay stuff.

I think new introductions need to start small. My suggestion for a team mode I was purposefully trying to think of ways of avoiding things that would make it too complex, like retirements and new players.

With captain's instructions I think if they were given at the start of your batting innings (or start of a new session), start of a bowling spell would be sensible. At least if as a start point. You'd need stuff that could be measured fairly objectively such as run rates or economy rates, if you were to have a penalty/reward system tapped on to. In my opinion without penalty/rewards for following/ignoring instructions it would seem like window dressing. Long term you'd want to see your actions have consequences and an impact in the actual match. If you take on the big hitting you are asked to by the captain your partner rotates the strike, if you don't, then they begin swinging and as a consequence wickets might fall.

 

[T.J.Hooker]

In my opinion without penalty/rewards for following/ignoring instructions it would seem like window dressing.

Exactly. The problem is that with penalties in place for ignoring him, you'd better be sure the skipper doesn't order anything that doesn't make sense, or that undermines gameplay, or that restricts players unduly in their pursuit of a personal playing style, or whatever undesirable outcome.

If it stays at very generic "take a wicket" "prevent runs" sort of level then the risk of really poor instructions is prob manageable, but the strategic possibilities multiply so quickly that I don't know how viable anything more complex might be. I just don't know how much strategy ai we can reasonably expect them to cram in.