Cricket Academy: Normalising Skills and Attributes of created players

[Frostyvegi]

I did a bit of testing (already reported back in another thread, forgot to come here), and it really does seem that setting the fielding stats to minimum really does bring about a 'normal' playing experience. Not a single catch was made when I was playing straight down the bowlers throat or aiminig for the short mid on and off's. One ball even landed within 1 meter of where the fielder was standing, he stepped towards it so the ball landed at his feet, but he didn't even try to dive (anticipation skill I think would control that one). There were a lot of dropped balls too. I really think it comes down to what the attributes are of the players that people have downloaded or created with whatever method they've used that is causing some people to experience superman like players compared to others.

Early days yet, but I'd go on to say, to give your career a bit of reality in how the games play out, use a rating of 70 as the absolute max for fielding like attributes, 60 for your average and 50 for your butterfinger players. Consider all the listed attributes that would contribute to fielding (including the speed type attributes).

I'd also consider an increase of all batter skills by about 20% on what people have set, which would hopefully see bowling performances decrease whenever games are not being simulated (not only are players finding it hard to bat, but they see their AI team collapse whenever they are playing).

I'm also thinking about seeing how changing the aerobic attribute may affect the fatigue of bowling, maybe another short term solution is upping that stat to allow bowlers to last longer, maybe us 70% as a minimum guage for your unfit state bowler.

 

[arjwiz]

I also reskilled a couple of hundred players over the past few days.

I ran a 9 team 4 day home & away league, using teams from the PC Ranji Trophy Tournament. The results are here. Basically, the players who should be at the top of the batting and bowling charts are actually at the top, and the worse players at the bottom. So I consider the result a success.

I ran that test twice on the made up Ranji teams and once on a 14-team World Cup.

 

[Acid Burn]

I sincerely hope that we get to a point real soon , where the GET BEST teams are in fact 100 % correct in the Attributes department .

It defnitly makes a huge difference , as I had many an online game against poor guys that has a dodgy downloaded team going . I end up happily driving everything past the 3 Asgardians in front of me. Its like they magically transformed to the living dead.

I`m not complaining , just stating that it is defnitly not balanced for online competitive tournaments currently.

 

[Offie]

I sincerely hope that we get to a point real soon , where the GET BEST teams are in fact 100 % correct in the Attributes department .

It defnitly makes a huge difference , as I had many an online game against poor guys that has a dodgy downloaded team going . I end up happily driving everything past the 3 Asgardians in front of me. Its like they magically transformed to the living dead.

I`m not complaining , just stating that it is defnitly not balanced for online competitive tournaments currently.

You'll never get "100% correct" as the skills are subjective rather than objective. Football Manager has had 20 years or more using the same basic criteria and they still have arguments every year, despite a far more formal "normalisation" process.

As long as we get to a stage where the stats are broadly in line, that's all we can hope for.

 

[arjwiz]

Yes 100% is not a measurable state as mentioned above. But the closer the better. Get best is useless if the community rating doesn't occur properly.

 

[kushari]

Yes 100% is not a measurable state as mentioned above. But the closer the better. Get best is useless if the community rating doesn't occur properly.

@arjwiz I would like to download all the teams whose skill are re edited by you. Can you please upload them on server? Have you edited the skill for Ranji Teams too?

 

[arjwiz]

@arjwiz I would like to download all the teams whose skill are re edited by you. Can you please upload them on server? Have you edited the skill for Ranji Teams too?

Not the actual Ranji teams, just our PC online league's fantasy Ranji teams (and all the test playing nations and ATB teams). I will upload them in a few days or weeks when I've played with them more and am confident that they are more accurately representative.

 

[arjwiz]

@Ishaan k I can only play a few overs now

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Are you downloading something? The game is lagging a lot.

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Can you see anything? My screen has gone black but I can hear some faint crowd noise in the background.

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PS button is working, but I can;t see anything. I just noticed that you sent a message.

 

[kushari]

@Ishaan k I can only play a few overs now

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Are you downloading something? The game is lagging a lot.

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Can you see anything? My screen has gone black but I can hear some faint crowd noise in the background.

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PS button is working, but I can;t see anything. I just noticed that you sent a message.

Whats going on bro, dont tell me it all started again..

 

[whiteninness]

I expressed surprise when Big Ant announced this system at how they were going to get consistency between different creators.
Having worked on the AC13 roster (with far fewer players and only 5 or 6 of us doing player skills) it was a big job to achieve consistency there so I didn't see how DB14 could get it right.
That said I honestly can't say it's affected my game play experience at all at this point and if I found something jarring I've got the option to fix it myself.

And also whilst the OP is talking about balance, the example he presents is not so much a balance issue but a plain error.

 

[arjwiz]

Whats going on bro, dont tell me it all started again..

It did. Black screen of death. Sorry I posted all of that in the wrong thread.

And also whilst the OP is talking about balance, the example he presents is not so much a balance issue but a plain error.

Call it what you want. This is not an isolated error, it is quite common across downloaded teams. These errors lead to balance issues.

 

[whiteninness]

It did. Black screen of death. Sorry I posted all of that in the wrong thread.



Call it what you want. This is not an isolated error, it is quite common across downloaded teams. These errors lead to balance issues.

I'll have a look into this when I get home as I only just received the game.

Perhaps there is still a linking problem which is just coming to the surface. A workaround could be to copy just the looks and not the attributes.

 

[arjwiz]

I'll have a look into this when I get home as I only just received the game.

Perhaps there is still a linking problem which is just coming to the surface. A workaround could be to copy just the looks and not the attributes.

It's not a linking problem. It's just that different creators have used different benchmarks to skill players, whereas some creators have skilled incorrectly (for example, batsmen as bowlers) or not at all (the best-rated Ganguly and Tendulkar have zero skills).

That workaround you suggested might work for players who have disc counterparts, but unfortunately for me I copied everything including skills and attributes, and realised too late that the original on-disc players might have correct skills.

 

[whiteninness]

It's not a linking problem. It's just that different creators have used different benchmarks to skill players, whereas some creators have skilled incorrectly (for example, batsmen as bowlers) or not at all (the best-rated Ganguly and Tendulkar have zero skills).

That workaround you suggested might work for players who have disc counterparts, but unfortunately for me I copied everything including skills and attributes, and realised too late that the original on-disc players might have correct skills.

Can't you undo it and start again?

I think I'll be starting by playing a lot of individual matches, so I'll just link teams one by one and make sure they are accurate.

Cricket Academy is undoubtedly one of the most ambitious things ever attempted in sport games, and breaks a lot of ground. The community-driven nature will undoubtedly create some teething problems though, and there is no way BA could forsee all of these issues.

It 100% beats having to hack the code just to get the basic ability to edit players. I remember trawling through the cricket2002.exe file with a hex editor just to change player names.

 

[arjwiz]

Can't you undo it and start again?

I can reset Academy. However, there are two concerns - (a) I am not certain if the default players are pre-skilled or randomised, and I am certain that there are several downloaded players who do not have on-disk counterparts, and (b) more specifically to my case, I had already begun tweaking players and did not want to lose those tweaks and adjustments.