Here`s my "review" a play by play report of my first Online Pro20 match.
Me and Francois had our First Dabble at an Online Pro20 Last Night .
Me on a Stock Standard out of the box Sri Lanka , Francois on a downloaded SA side without any Logos on the Clothes .
I hosted the match , and on the first screen where the camera pans on the stadium , my first DBC17 crash
Game saved automatically , and after sending my report to Bigant via PS4 , I re-sent the Invite and off we went again , never to crash for the full length of the Match
I batted first , we played on Pro Difficulty , as my previous couple of Matches vs the AI on Custom I could not Time the ball well on Veteran .
I found Pro much easier and game progressed well .
Glitches in my Innings :
- Tried to play an Aggressive Ground Shot , missed it against the Spinner , and had the same weird stumping as in DBC14 where the batsman`s foot is sort of on the line but he doesnt know it and I cannot do anything about it.
- I missed a ball on leg Stump off the Spinner , it looked and sounded as if it clipped my pad , but on the replay we saw the weird animation of the ball hitting the pad properly , and then deflecting and then getting "sucked" back into the wickets , same as early DBC14 glitch .
- Hit a 4 once , and the Scorecard for the Over at the bottom of the page showed an 8
Observations from my Batting perspective :
- I could hit leg glances behind square on fuller balls , not super fine but defnitly behind square .
- Cover Drive region not able to be hit via Cover Drive , only by way of the Ugly Shot mentioned below.
- Square drive does not exist , and is replaced by an awfull looking Chris Martin cut sort of a shot
- 3rd man guide goes more in the gully region , and not as fine as in 14 . - Beware , dont play this shot vs. Spinners , as Superman with the Gloves WILL catch you out no matter what.
- "Green" balls that I wanted to Leg glance , ends up in a funny looking Hook shot well in front of Square . Not pretty at all .
- Mind you , I could not Hook anything to square or behind , all of them ends sort of in the Midwicket region .
- Running between the wickets , looks funny when the batsman sort of dead stop and wait for the "possible" second run call . Just looks weird , why not have them follow through with bat stretched out and glide over the line . Sometimes I did see that happen , not sure why though . The running would also every now and again get out of "sync" , where the one batter would almost be at his crease and his mate has just taken off for his final run .
- Shots never felt hit powerfully , although reaching the boundary , maybe its the sort of dullish sound that accompanies some of your hits .
- Can someone please tell the Spinners to let a few balls get past them , they completely block the straight drive option a la DBC14 fast bowlers.
I managed to get 155/9 in my 20 Overs , so all in all probably not bad...
Change of Innings
Glitches in his Innings :
- He twice had instances where he hit the ball to a fielder and set off for a singles , only for him to end up running 3 runs and I sit with the ball in hand at the bowlers end after fielding the return throw with no means to break the stumps stop the running .
- He once had his batsman facing the Square Leg umpire in his Batting Stance , I ran in and Bowled (sneaky me) , and he promptly managed to block the ball from that stance .
- Quinton De Cencored was having a blast and holding the Innings together , when finally I bounced him out with a miss-timed hook shot to short Midwicket , only for me not being able to appeal after the Umpire didnt want to give him out after the catch was taken . Play went on as if nothing weird just happened .
Observations from my Bowling and Fielding perspective :
- I still need to figure the new Bowling Mechanics out , as I could not get any revs on the ball , different to 14 in a big way .
- The setting of your Field via the Direction Up , and then setting a field is a clunky , time wasting exercise , as you need to do this for every batsman and Bowler combination that is encountered . And if you want to fiddle with you Pre-set field a bit , and take too long , you get "locked" out of your Field placement menu for the rest of the over ??? Really a pissing me off exercise in setting fields. Bring back the 1 x Field for all or something similiar .
- Direct hits from the Fielders were impossible to be had , can someone please explain the new Green bar on top of the Fielders, as nothing is mentioned in the Tutorials , or book . I kept stopping and releasing the ball on the little Blue Marker hoping that was the magic bullet but to no avail .
- Following on to my failure to execute direct hits , my opponent basically played a "tip and run" game , and I could not stop it , as my Keeper and Bowler is in No rush whatsoever to take the Bails off a la DBC14 .
- It felt like my Fielders were running their arses off sometimes , but never getting to the ball . SLOW
- Fielders every now and again would just ignore a ball and let another poor bugger run his arse off to come and fetch it. I played on Semi Assisted Fielding
- Sluggish responses from fielders all around meant that singles were inevitable , and many 3 and 5 runs were possible in the outfield.
He ended up chasing my score down via a couple of beautifully hit straight drives , which he said was the Aggressive Ground Stroke Variation .
This game has much potential , and I think with Two to Three Serious Patches to mostly sort the Glitches and Batting out , it could turn out to be a decent game .
But Batting wise , its going to struggle to surpass DBC14 ....
One can see that
@MattW was on the QA , but surely only had a hand in the Bowling division . The Batting Department lacks polish and proper Shots/Animations to make it worthwile .
Like a couple of other Posters have mentioned , why break something that was working so beautifully ??
Thanks
@BigAntStudios for the quick responses to the big Crash issues , here`s hoping that the follow up patches (2-3) make this a worthwhile successor to the greatest cricket game ever made.