Patch #2 Must Fixes

[madman981]

Ross states this was fixed in first patch but I am seeing it regularly still also?

Im not sure if anyone else has noticed, but the wicket keeper smashes the wickets only when you have canceled a run!!

whenever the O button is pressed for a cancel run, no matter how long you have been in the crease for, the player will break the stumps

yet

if you take a run, make it easy and dont press and cancel a second run, then they wont break the stumps

I think its fine, the AI clearly thinks you are not sure if you want to run or not so they break the stumps just incase, which i think is fine

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Good point, but here's my counter point; how much fun is it long term? Part of the challenge of batting is surmounting the unpredictable field, which isn't fun. I've played the exact same shot to the exact same delivery back to back and through either a minute change in the movement of the sticks or bad luck, I've been caught at square leg. One was a beautiful flick off my legs that raced past the fielder and the other was taken millimetres off the ground in a diving catch... I can accept that "fun" of that happening every now and then, but it's 1:2 ratio is still too far in the frustrating column, now 6 years into career mode.

I understand you have to play shots according to field sets and play for the gaps, but even minute changes in the field incur massive penalties for the career batsman, which is simply unfair at best, not fun at worst. Once you achieve a basic level of skill to get consistent 20s and 30s with the bat (especially in T20s where the batting is the most forgiving) you're still at defcon 5 in the field avoiding hitting directly over the bowlers head because he WILL get you caught and bowled.

The AI sets an ENTIRELY offside field, including a fielder directly behind the bowler as he runs in (??) which happens every game I play now, so you're forced into dragging deliveries from the off stump and pulling them onto the onside, where you're either out LBW, nick it to keeper/slips or pushing it for a single to a deep square leg.

I can easily get to 20-30 now off around 15-20 balls in a t20 if I'm batting first and there's no run rate to chase. The minute your team is batting second and staring down the barrel of 9 an over in the 8th or 9th over, which as a number 5 batsman in career mode happens more than it doesn't, it's impossible to lift the runrate without taking on these same ridiculous field sets and the AI's Norse god abilities in the field, especially the bowlers ability to field everything off his own bowling.

Straight drives should not get fielded by the bowler. At all. Just shouldn't happen, it's so infrequent in real cricket because of the reflex time they have, yet it's stopped 90% of the time I drive a ball down the ground... Should I miraculously get it past the bowler and mid on/off dive to stop it which, again, shouldn't really happen as frequently as it does.

Couple that with the sluggish pace of the ball off the bat in the air and you get little niggly frustrations happening every match that make the game not a lot of fun in career mode because the RISK is not worth the reward because you want your player to start to succeed more than he fails, something incredibly difficult to achieve even 6 years into career mode because of, again, the fielding AI.

If I was to do career mode again, if be a batter/bowler because being a pure number 5 that bowls a little spin I average 8.5 with the ball, have taken at least two wickets every time I'm called on to throw the arm over with a little spin, but batting is simply not as easy and my wickets are mostly all diving catches caught by mid on or square leg, so even the AI can't beat itself!

Since I'm putting all my effort into making the T20 sides as that seems to be the most forgiving format currently, I'm getting somewhere in career mode, but I'm doing it by quitting matches before the game can autosave the run-out glitch or impossible catch glitch. It means I have to start each match all over again but I'm fine with beating the game like that to finally see progress with my career player, because I want to have fun with this game again. The arcade mode just isn't the challenge for me to beat, career mode is that challenge but it's not much of a fun challenge, certainly trying to get milestones as a pure batsman don't occur at the comfortable fun vs. realistic balance we are looking for here.

Look, bit of a rant/whine and bowling is where it's at for career mode, for sure. But as far into career mode as my batsman is the time investment vs the reward just isn't as quick as maybe it should be in a cricket game.

Key word being: Game.

It surprises me your struggling so much biggs

what difficulty are you playing on?

do you ever hit through square leg? when they set an off side field, you should hit it leg side, and vice versa, you know you shouldnt make 100 every innings right?

i just dont seem to be having the same issues as others, i go out cheaply, but usually its my fault

i know the capabilities of the fielders so i just dont hit it in the air near em

isnt it your fault that your hitting through the air with a bunch of fielders around??

i just dont get it, its hard, but its not earth shattering hard anymore, not how your describing it....

your menat too get better, not make the game easier.....

 

[The_Pharoah]

Agree with a lot of what @Biggs is saying ie.
- runouts
- smashing a ball for six which the bowler jumps up (midstride) and takes one-handed
- having to predetermine my shot against pace bowlers because I just can't get enough time to judge the ball, etc

Its no point going through all the points again which I've raised previously. Would be great if the BA guys could let us know what (if any) changes they plan to make with batting/bowling to make batting easier. That way we can stop complaining about the current issues and can look forward to the next patch.

I've said it before, the game has to cater for all types...those who love a lot of difficulty...and those who WANT to smash a century each time they go to bat - why? because they paid $90 to do so. The last thing you'd want to do is to create a niche game that only hard core players want to play (don't think you make $$ like that...I could be wrong but thats my $0.02 worth).

 

[gamer22]

@BigAntStudios / @HBK619 / @mikeymerren may want to pay attention to this, because I believe @Ross said previously you have to be careful in terms of allowing anything to be "gamed" in terms of online stats...

well i have noticed a simple exploit in career mode... if you score well in a specific area, or keep getting out caught/run-out by a fielder in a particular area, you can just create a pre-set field with gaps wherever you want, and the AI will use it.

The AI, regardless of the bowler, format or situation in the game will always use the same field when I start my innings. I had a suspicion it was one of my fields (that i created in CA), so to test I edited that field and took out mid on, extra cover, and long off and put them at short-leg and in the slips - two areas I have never ever been dismissed, then tested it out for a few games in career and sure enough every game i start facing that field, and can drive away to my heart's content... takes them quite a while to switch the field by which time i have generally got a "start"... (i'm aware this is a "cheat", so i'm not going to continue doing it i was just checking out if my suspicion was correct.)

quite an exploit for anyone wanting to get their batting average up...

If someone is going so much out of the way to score the runs then he/she shouldn't have bought the game in the first place.

 

[Shrimper]

I think I might be on amateur but I'm on 261/6 with WI against Australia in a test match after 20 overs. Field doesn't seem to change a lot.

 

[Jadel]

Im not sure if anyone else has noticed, but the wicket keeper smashes the wickets only when you have canceled a run!!

whenever the O button is pressed for a cancel run, no matter how long you have been in the crease for, the player will break the stumps

They might do that but they also break the stumps for no reason at all.

The one you are describing isnt too bad I guess but its still a bit silly, the random acts of violence against the stumps are super annoying still.

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If someone is going so much out of the way to score the runs then he/she shouldn't have bought the game in the first place.

What has one got to do with the other?

 

[Biggs]

do you ever hit through square leg? when they set an off side field, you should hit it leg side, and vice versa, you know you shouldnt make 100 every innings right?

Your condescension aside, yes I pick the gaps and try to hit them where possible. The whole concept of cricket is picking the gaps, the problem becomes the fielders abilities patrol areas that are vastly wider than in reality. Furthermore, the ability to hit THROUGH the field in a real cricket game happens vastly more regularly than it does, certainly, in career mode. I've played very little of the arcade versions of the game because I'm finding career mode more fulfilling.

i know the capabilities of the fielders so i just dont hit it in the air near em

That's not the solution though. You SHOULD be able to hit the ball, in the air, over or beside the bowler as he follows through. It's that simple. You should be able to do it. I shouldn't have to avoid hitting ariel shots down the ground to avoid the bowler's ability to get me caught-and-bowled 9 times out of 10.

isnt it your fault that your hitting through the air with a bunch of fielders around??

Fault, no. Choice, yes. Define "around" because again, the fielders in the game patrol vastly larger areas than their human counterparts. Their ability to take diving catches as the ball travels away from them is an absolute certainty, when in reality physics define it as a rare event.

To finally clarify; Batting I find as reasonably fun, challenging and simple currently. Beating the AI in the field I don't find fun whatsoever, because they're just TOO good and patrol vastly larger areas than should be possible in a real-life scenario. It's not one of those things that needs to be "amped up" for a console game. You just need to look at the ease of bowling and wicket-taking in the game as proof... you can be specialist batsman that bowls a bit, and take 2 or 3 wickets a game off reasonably average deliveries in a limited overs match, all of them caught in the outfield by... the amped-up fielding abilities of the AI. It's pretty cut and dry.

Balance the AI in the field to more human/game levels and you lower the burden on those that want batting to be more fun and ease the progression in career mode and level the playing field a bit for bowlers, making it a bit harder to take wickets.

 

[sami ullah khan]

I completely agree with Biggs. The superhuman fielding compounds the batting difficulty that is already pretty hard in career mode at Pro. This game is too good to be ruined by this fielding trouble. I have tried my level best to keep the ball on ground when driving straight or flicking to leg but I am yet to find a timing window for that. It might be my incompetence but this is hardly the first game I have played. I have been gaming since I was eight years old and this being my passion, I am good at it.
I believe Bigant have earned our trust as a community and they will work their asses off to make sure the game is patched to get rid of these niggles. The upcoming patch is going to be very important. The focus should be on AI field settings and toning down the fielders' abilities. Meanwhile I will continue to enjoy the pleasure of earning every damn run I make in this game. It will torment me sometimes but I the fun far outweighs the pain in my case at least.

 

[Biggs]

It's that balance of real-world abilities vs. console gaming "fun" that just isn't adding up with the fielding AI currently. I'm not expecting to be Don Bradman every match I walk out, nor do I want the game in career mode to give me superhuman batting abilities. But 6 years into career mode I'd like to be able to hit a six more than once a game without the fear mid on is going to race to the boundary and dive to catch the ball inches from the rope.

I don't want to be Don Bradman but I'd at at the very least like to be Darren Lehman.

 

[The_Pharoah]

I've been playing this game almost non stop since I got it last thursday, up until 1am. I've been patient. My top score is now 16. Avg score is 4. Here are my top methods of getting out:

1. Caught & Bowled by pace bowler on a drive low to the ground
2. caught at Mid off by the Mid on fielder off a drive
3. caught behind off a fast ball that I chose to block (preset) that was a bouncer
4. run out at non strikers end

I'm really loving it

 

[blockerdave]

If someone is going so much out of the way to score the runs then he/she shouldn't have bought the game in the first place.

you have missed the point entirely

a) it doesn't necessarily need any going out of the way... most of my drives go exactly to extra cover, if there's an extra cover i only drive really wide balls which will go through cover rather than extra cover; i created a pre-set (before realising the issue) with a cover but no extra-cover, i noticed that suddenly in career mode i was always facing a field with cover but no extra cover... i figured they were using my field. to make sure i took out deep third man for a 3rd slip, and mid on for short-leg... sure enough that was the exact field i faced in the next career mode game. (i actually changed the pre-set back to having an extra cover because i'm a masochist.)

b) i created a "realistic" pre-set for when i'm bowling, because that's what i want, even though the 2 slips and backward point are essentially pointless, because there are no thick edges. but as i face it batting too, i have 3 fielders that are no danger to me whatsoever, but not being superheroes in the covers/on the boundaries. without any cheating whatsoever, i get an "easier" ride than someone who hasn't created any pre-sets.

c) cricket academy has the ability to create your own custom fields, by your logic anyone who wants to use that feature shouldn't have bought the game.

d) if you create a pre-set, my experience is you face that field when first coming in in every format of the game, against every opposition and bowler. i have created a pre-set applicable to first class, but not so much to limited overs. it's probably no surprise my T20 average is double my FC. This is not me cheating, it's an unintended consequence of me having used another feature of the game. @BigAntStudios has made it clear elsewhere that they have to be wary of anything that allows online leaderboards to be "gamed" and this clearly allows it, even without the someone going out of their way to cheat.

e) some people will cheat... this is a simple cheat, arguably easier than "save and exit".

f) you really missed the point entirely.

 

[moose007za]

@Biggs

One thing I have found works quite well is the practice batting mode in the game, they slow the bowling process down for a few seconds so you can pick front foot and back foot during the ball coming at you.

If they removed the pick front foot and back foot bla bla options and slowed it down for 1.5/2 seconds or so just after release it would make batting for fast bowlers all that simpler. And it will still leave the possibility of random variations once you have selected the shot ie swing/seam which you wont have time to account for leaving the possibility of edges and things depending on the quality of the bowler.

Give it a try in the practice mode and let me know what you think. As I too find it impossible to play fast bowlers without pre meditating shots as well.

 

[blockerdave]

@Biggs, you're spot on... sometimes batting in career mode really isn't fun at all when you're getting out for low score after low score, no end in sight, it's a frustrating grind. that's when i'll usually go and play a quick T10 or two in casual mode, just getting used to hitting the ball and not worrying if i'm out, i've got another guy along... usually helps me a bit.

i keep at it, and still find it fun "overall" because a)i'm still bad enough that i think 90% of my dismissals or more are entirely my fault and i can usually pinpoint what i did wrong, and b)the speed of the first patch makes me confident the other things will be addressed.

to bring this back to an element of on topicness, for me, Big Ant should take longer over the second patch but make sure the following things are patched:

1) Pace bowler stamina/speed cliff - the speed reductions and not getting back up for 2nd or 3rd spells is uber ridiculous

2) AI field settings - come on, every cricket game in history (even Ashes 13!) knew what a realistic field looked like

3) fielder abilities -
i) as you say, they cover a FAR wider area than they should... i had it illustrated yesterday, one ball i hit a drive, well timed, probably , 15 metres to the right of extra cover - not only did i not get my four but i didn't even have time for a single. very next ball, an even better timed shot 15 metres to the left of extra cover with the exact same result. That's 8 runs i've been robbed of and when I average less than 8 that's enormous.
ii) as i mentioned elsewhere, for every "metre" the fielder has to cover, there should be an appreciable reduction in their ability to catch or even stop a ball. running 50 metres and taking a diving one-handed catch should be something that happens every 100hrs of gameplay, if ever, not once every game.
iii) as you say, the bowler should not be stopping everything going near him... he should have an appreciable "follow through" and during the follow through window his ability to stop anything that doesn't actually hit him should be reduced by circa 95%
4) improve AI batting to make career bowling more of a challenge or at least add variable difficulty to allow say batting on pro bowling on veteran.

almost every other issue, including people moaning about the difficulty of batting will be improved by fixing these four issues. every thing else is cosmetic, or misunderstanding the cause of the issue. i appreciate these may not be easy fixes, but i would honestly rather the next patch come in 5 or 6 months and fix these than be rushed out before the PC release and be more "cosmetic". i would lose a lot of enthusiasm for the game and big ant in general if a patch was released that didn't fix these fundamentals.

as i say, i appreciate that some or all of these are probably not easy fixes, and i am hugely sympathetic to the issue of trying to fix one issue but that resulting in big changes that causes a lot of issues in other areas. that's why i say let the patch wait, get it right. we don't need another patch in a month that just stops the keeper knocking down the stumps or gives us a nicer scorecard.

 

[Orangzeb]

TBH I don't really care about career mode ... just saying but so far enjoying the game and waiting for patch # 2

 

[blockerdave]

TBH I don't really care about career mode ... just saying but so far enjoying the game and waiting for patch # 2

none of the four things i mentioned above are specific to career mode...

 

[sami ullah khan]

I don't know how will I able to enjoy a T 20 in a casual game when AI has placed four slips and gully in 16th over.