PC version 1.20.1 released

[MattW]

I really want to keep getting feedback on the new patch update - just to keep bugging people for that.

what about giving us control over weather? we think the conditions affect the edges but we're not even able to test it properly because (uniquely for a cricket game) we're not given the ability to control the conditions we want to play under: the weather system is broken - chance of rain means "99.94% of the time it's sunny" (going up to 100% on PS4 by all accounts). allowing us to choose overcast, rainy etc. isn't impacting the AI. it's a strange omission and an even stranger thing not to engage on.

It's another one of those things that's not that simple thanks to the initial design decision. The implementation was for weather conditions based on a big database of days of weather conditions, based on real world data - and then the game pulls in at random from those to decide what the weather for the day is going to be, with the 'no chance of rain' toggle just being to just override the forecast of rain.

As such, my understanding is that to increase the chance of rain, you'd need to bump up the rain values over hundreds of days over the different ground location types, or somehow find a subset of days where it rains more than others for the game to pull the weather conditions from, or bump up the base multiplier on how often 'likely' rain turns into rain. You can substitute 'rain' with the other weather conditions like wind, cloudification, etc.

Obviously the positive of the rain system is that it isn't just totally random, which would probably manifest itself as the game raining on you just as you had a chance to go for a win in a test match, and then leaving you with a draw - because you have bad luck like that. Random always has a way of feeling like cheating, and no one need utter the words 'scripted randomness'.

One tip I'd probably give from a quick glance at the data, try moving your match types to be played in the dead of night, there seemed to be more weather variation in the early/late hours of the day than during the middle of the day. But that spreadsheet is literally massive, so I might have a misleading sample in what I saw of it.

As with a lot of things - the feedback is heard, there's lots of things that haven't turned out right that need to be done differently in the next game, but the problem becomes not having the resources to forever be working on DBC14.

So anyway, you were about to tell me your thoughts on those new lofted sweeps...

 

[MattW]

similarly, the skills - there's a large element of "have your cake and eat it" from BA on that: on the one hand they list the customisation and community-created content from the academy as a feature, on the other hand they've never issued any meaningful guidance on how different skills & attributes should affect gameplay making it difficult for the community creators the game wants to rely on to make accurate teams that are also enjoyable/realistic to play with. there's a large discussion thread, and a specific match thread about how we think reduced skills might help - Big Ant haven't engaged with either. It remains a big gap.

I'm not able to give what would be an 'engaging' answer on this one - the people who would know are on other projects and it's not something I've had space to discuss, or to do/get others to do the work on giving a truly meaningful answer.

I'd rather not give an incomplete picture and send people down the wrong path, when experiments in those threads are in many cases being fruitful.

 

[blockerdave]

So anyway, you were about to tell me your thoughts on those new lofted sweeps...

The 7 balls I lasted vs Biggs earlier are all I've batted on 1.20 or 1.20.1

 

[blockerdave]

I really want to keep getting feedback on the new patch update - just to keep bugging people for that.


It's another one of those things that's not that simple thanks to the initial design decision. The implementation was for weather conditions based on a big database of days of weather conditions, based on real world data - and then the game pulls in at random from those to decide what the weather for the day is going to be, with the 'no chance of rain' toggle just being to just override the forecast of rain.

As such, my understanding is that to increase the chance of rain, you'd need to bump up the rain values over hundreds of days over the different ground location types, or somehow find a subset of days where it rains more than others for the game to pull the weather conditions from, or bump up the base multiplier on how often 'likely' rain turns into rain. You can substitute 'rain' with the other weather conditions like wind, cloudification, etc.

Obviously the positive of the rain system is that it isn't just totally random, which would probably manifest itself as the game raining on you just as you had a chance to go for a win in a test match, and then leaving you with a draw - because you have bad luck like that. Random always has a way of feeling like cheating, and no one need utter the words 'scripted randomness'.

One tip I'd probably give from a quick glance at the data, try moving your match types to be played in the dead of night, there seemed to be more weather variation in the early/late hours of the day than during the middle of the day. But that spreadsheet is literally massive, so I might have a misleading sample in what I saw of it.

As with a lot of things - the feedback is heard, there's lots of things that haven't turned out right that need to be done differently in the next game, but the problem becomes not having the resources to forever be working on DBC14.

So anyway, you were about to tell me your thoughts on those new lofted sweeps...

Which is all well and good, if a little over engineered, but doesn't explain why the game let's me force it to be "fine" but not "cloudy"

 

[MattW]

*shakes fist* @Biggs

 

[MattW]

but doesn't explain why the game let's me force it to be "fine" but not "cloudy"

If you put an option that said 'cloudy', people would expect it to increase the chance of rain, which wouldn't be the flow on effect in the design of the weather system. The 'always fine' is essentially turning off the system, thus fairly easy to implement and behaves consistent with what you would expect.

 

[cricket_online]

I really want to keep getting feedback on the new patch update - just to keep bugging people for that.


It's another one of those things that's not that simple thanks to the initial design decision. The implementation was for weather conditions based on a big database of days of weather conditions, based on real world data - and then the game pulls in at random from those to decide what the weather for the day is going to be, with the 'no chance of rain' toggle just being to just override the forecast of rain.

As such, my understanding is that to increase the chance of rain, you'd need to bump up the rain values over hundreds of days over the different ground location types, or somehow find a subset of days where it rains more than others for the game to pull the weather conditions from, or bump up the base multiplier on how often 'likely' rain turns into rain. You can substitute 'rain' with the other weather conditions like wind, cloudification, etc.

Obviously the positive of the rain system is that it isn't just totally random, which would probably manifest itself as the game raining on you just as you had a chance to go for a win in a test match, and then leaving you with a draw - because you have bad luck like that. Random always has a way of feeling like cheating, and no one need utter the words 'scripted randomness'.

One tip I'd probably give from a quick glance at the data, try moving your match types to be played in the dead of night, there seemed to be more weather variation in the early/late hours of the day than during the middle of the day. But that spreadsheet is literally massive, so I might have a misleading sample in what I saw of it.

As with a lot of things - the feedback is heard, there's lots of things that haven't turned out right that need to be done differently in the next game, but the problem becomes not having the resources to forever be working on DBC14.

So anyway, you were about to tell me your thoughts on those new lofted sweeps...

That's a pretty neat system in place for weather and stuff but maybe Big Ant can explore the possibility of introducing a mechanism to override it so folks can select their preferred weather and pitch conditions. And it may not even be that complex...

At the time of selecting conditions add another option which asks users whether they want to go for "Real World" conditions or "Manual" conditions. If the user opts for "Real world", go with what you do right now - data bank of hundreds of days of weather collected for the day. But if the user opts for "Manual", let them select the weather conditions without looking at the weather bank data. Essentially it's a 'if-else' clause when you select the conditions and this approach wouldn't force you to change the weather data bank coz you will only go there if the user has opted for "Real World" weather option.

 

[blockerdave]

If you put an option that said 'cloudy', people would expect it to increase the chance of rain, which wouldn't be the flow on effect in the design of the weather system. The 'always fine' is essentially turning off the system, thus fairly easy to implement and behaves consistent with what you would expect.

So call it cloudy - rain random.

That's a reason to choose a better name, not a reason not to give the option.

 

[cooks1st100]

To add my thoughts in regards to the weather. I don't have too much of a problem in regards to the amount of cloudy days, certain ones have more, obviously England and I found that the Indian one generally has a cloudy/overcast first session. My advice is you want cloudy days is to play at the Lancashire ground as that always seems to have plenty of cloudy/overcast days for me. I also think that the amount of rain is about right and I'm sure that you get more rain in competition mode than you do in casual games where I can't remember it raining at all.

The duration of the rain could do with a bit of tweaking though, it seems to rain only once in a day and generally it will be for only about 20 minutes or so. On a couple of occasions I have lost a couple of hours due to rain but I have yet to see a full days play lost to it.

A do agree with Dave that we could do with an option to choose whether it is cloudy/overcast/fine, maybe just in casual mode for instance. However what I find more annoying is being stuck with the same ground for every match in competition mode, which as well as having the same aesthetics, generally also seems to result in very similar conditions and pitch for the majority of those matches.

Sorry I didn't want to post on something not patch related, but you two started it!

The other thing I forgot to mention is you can always go into the stadium part of the academy and select "English summer" for any of the grounds.

 

[MattW]

And it may not even be that complex...

It likely isn't simple enough to be within the timeframe remaining for work on the patch.

That's a reason to choose a better name, not a reason not to give the option.

I still think anyone would see 'cloudy' and expect that 'random' rain would be more likely than the normal option - which still leaves you with the same situation.

Cloudy also is on a scale - it's not off or on, so there would still need to be a system to determine that, which would need to be reliable with save files and online. The current system can share/save weather data by simply recording the weather day used and the time of day, or just save the weather as being turned off (fine).

 

[cooks1st100]

It likely isn't simple enough to be within the timeframe remaining for work on the patch.


I still think anyone would see 'cloudy' and expect that 'random' rain would be more likely than the normal option - which still leaves you with the same situation.

Cloudy also is on a scale - it's not off or on, so there would still need to be a system to determine that, which would need to be reliable with save files and online. The current system can share/save weather data by simply recording the weather day used and the time of day, or just save the weather as being turned off (fine).

Also it doesn't rain on cloudy days, just the overcast ones.

 

[blockerdave]

Cloudy also is on a scale - it's not off or on, so there would still need to be a system to determine that, which would need to be reliable with save files and online. The current system can share/save weather data by simply recording the weather day used and the time of day, or just save the weather as being turned off (fine).

Would not an implementation of that be then: allow me to choose cloudy, and pick a weather day from the sheet that is cloudy with a higher probability of rain (presumably that exists somewhere) so you have the weather day to share for save files/online etc.

I'll leave it there as I'm not really wanting to have a go at you and appreciate there are additional complexities... however I have thought of a zinger and I really don't want to waste it, so here goes:

I still think anyone would see 'cloudy' and expect that 'random' rain would be more likely than the normal option - which still leaves you with the same situation.

people think that bowling a nice off-stump line would get edges vs AI but Big Ant didn't care about that...

... here all week.

 

[MattW]

Would not an implementation of that be then: allow me to choose cloudy, and pick a weather day from the sheet that is cloudy with a higher probability of rain (presumably that exists somewhere) so you have the weather day to share for save files/online etc.

That's essentially what I said initially,

As such, my understanding is that to increase the chance of rain, you'd need to bump up the rain values over hundreds of days over the different ground location types, or somehow find a subset of days where it rains more than others for the game to pull the weather conditions from, or bump up the base multiplier on how often 'likely' rain turns into rain. You can substitute 'rain' with the other weather conditions like wind, cloudification, etc.

Given the size of the spreadsheet - that's probably not an easy task. Perhaps do-able though, I'll try and find out.

I don't think directly picking the weather day would be feasible though.

 

[cricket_online]

That's essentially what I said initially,


Given the size of the spreadsheet - that's probably not an easy task. Perhaps do-able though, I'll try and find out.

I don't think directly picking the weather day would be feasible though.

Again, an easier option to pick 4 or 5 days that best represent what people generally think of those days. Thus folks don't have to look or select from hundreds of days in a spreadsheet. The day is already pre-selected when the user selects the option of 'Cloudy' or 'Overcast'. In case the user selects 'Random' then go to the spreadsheet and weather data bank to look for the appropriate day or maybe select a random one from the spreadsheet.

 

[Gamer Pradosh]

@MattW :Just played a practice match to try out the beta shots:

-Slog sweep, really effective...Just some shots and most of them went for a boundary on 1 bounce, sixes definitely possible on the right ball...
-Best was the "Dab" shots on half pressed defensive shots, really good very effective...Played some and the ball stopped just near the 30 yard circle ,awesome addition..