Russia 122 for 2 at Lunch

[cooks1st100]

The other way to go would be to have a little cheat-sheet about how each stat/attribute works in the game, so we "kinda" know what we're doing?

You're right it is tough, but the fact that this was omitted made things really difficult from our side. I only found out what consistency influenced a couple of months ago, which took me almost 3 months of tweaking with the attributes rather than actually playing the game. It shouldn't even be a "cheat-sheet" as such, it should just be in the manual.

Dunno how you achieve both getting players with stats made on the basis of experiencing the impact of the changes in game while still having everything in place at launch.

It's a tall order, it will require a lot of testing beforehand, which I feel was lacking for DBC14. I would scrap the helmet rating for a start, and rate the players something like this for example: This would be for batsmen. Batting average in brackets.

Terrible (<5)
Poor (5-10)
Below Average(10-20)
Average(20-30)
Above Average(30-35)
Good(35-40)
Excellent(40-45)
Outstanding(45-50)
Legendary(>50)

Out of the box the attributes for offside, onside, straight etc could all be equal. So for example a legendary batsman would have 100% for all. Then the player can be fine tuned to give strengths and weakness to suit. But that side of things should be done by us. What MUST happen though, is that the changes we make affecting all game modes, so we don't have the same problem with career mode as this time around.

 

[blockerdave]

I'd say there was a problem with the dual goals of the academy - obviously Big Ant wanted plenty of teams available early on, but the earliest teams and players either didn't have any stats or were missing some of the things unlocked later. The worst case are all the get best county teams that play at Melbourne stadium.

Dunno how you achieve both getting players with stats made on the basis of experiencing the impact of the changes in game while still having everything in place at launch.

Big Ant need to be a little smarter from a data perspective than they were for DBC.

If the plan will again to be release an academy/fan hub in increments, unlocking additional extras here and there as you reveal new titbits, then some thought needs to be given initially as to what the absolute minimum is to create a functional (i.e. game functional) player or team and make sure that's unlocked from day 1.

i can't stress highly enough that DBC got it the wrong way round determining level from skill. it may be that "cricket next" has a raft of new/changed skill settings that you aren't prepared to share from day 1 - well then, if you release the "academy next" with that stuff hidden/locked, as with DBC you'll have plenty of players/teams that may look good, but aren't actually set up for play.

the creator should determine a level (e.g. associate, journeyman, associate star, international, international star, legend) and some base strengths/weaknesses and the game should be able to randomise skills within those constraints. you can then hide any or all of the individual skill settings until you want to unlock them, but providing the level and strengths are unlocked as soon as we can create players then the game still has enough information to make sure you have a fully playable team. this has the additional advantage that instead of us as players groping around in the dark trying to come up with settings to give an outcome, we are choosing an outcome and the game is flicking the settings appropriately for that. if this isn't what you're doing for cricket next, you're doing it wrong.

secondly, in terms of being smarter, surely you should be able to apply post-live data fixes? i.e. say you don't want to reveal the stadiums in the game until at or close to launch, well at least if from the first day the "cricket next fanhub" lets us create teams, we should be able to set their affiliated nation, or weather season. the game can then set that team's home ground from the list of available stadiums for that nation/season, and the setting can be smart so if the team's level is international it would pick the bigger/test grounds, if the team's level is domestic then it should be able to pick from smaller grounds, and if you have a number of stadium licenses a smart fix that looked at the team's name could do a reasonable job of getting the right teams in the right stadiums without giving the user any information before you want to.

same with equipment, it surely cannot be beyond the wit of big ant, if again releasing the player creator before opening up kits, to add a post-hoc data fix to randomise the equipment for the players so that we don't keep seeing players with the same kit over and over? and if the game is going to have multi-era equipment again (please) let us assign an era to the player, and again you can smartly assign appropriate equipment.

 

[MattW]

Some good points there, particularly on leveraging eras in that way.

fanhub

I can assure people it will be an Academy and not a fanhub .

 

[blockerdave]

You're right it is tough, but the fact that this was omitted made things really difficult from our side. I only found out what consistency influenced a couple of months ago, which took me almost 3 months of tweaking with the attributes rather than actually playing the game. It shouldn't even be a "cheat-sheet" as such, it should just be in the manual.



It's a tall order, it will require a lot of testing beforehand, which I feel was lacking for DBC14. I would scrap the helmet rating for a start, and rate the players something like this for example: This would be for batsmen. Batting average in brackets.

Terrible (<5)
Poor (5-10)
Below Average(10-20)
Average(20-30)
Above Average(30-35)
Good(35-40)
Excellent(40-45)
Outstanding(45-50)
Legendary(>50)

Out of the box the attributes for offside, onside, straight etc could all be equal. So for example a legendary batsman would have 100% for all. Then the player can be fine tuned to give strengths and weakness to suit. But that side of things should be done by us. What MUST happen though, is that the changes we make affecting all game modes, so we don't have the same problem with career mode as this time around.

i don't want to have the same fight again as i had with @cricket_online , but seriously, trying to use averages is nonsensical. i see what you're going for, but the method is wrong.

how do you weight different formats, how do you weight a player who averages 70 but has only played 5 tests vs a player who averages 40 from 100 tests? how do you weight a player with a first class average of 49 from 16 intercontinental cup matches against a player who has a first class average of 35 from 10 years as a domestic player? how do you weight a Stuart Law, with a FC average of 50 but no test average because he has one not-out innings because of the era he played in? how do you weight someone like Mark Ramprakash with a 26 run differential between his FC and Test averages? for T20 is a player with an ave of 27 at a strike rate of 140 better or worse than a guy with an average of 30 at 114?

And what do the "below average, above average, good" etc. mean? what's the baseline - domestic cricket, test cricket, test cricket in the 1980s, test cricket today?

for my part i'd really like to see an explosion in the number of available skills, strengths and weaknesses, roles and levels.

as mentioned above, i'd have levels more along the lines of associate, journeyman, associate star, international, international star, legend; there should be different skills for formats, vs new old ball for batters and with new/old ball for bowlers, vs swing, vs spin, separate conventional and reverse swing for bowlers etc. "tailender" would be a distinct role from "lower order batsman" which is also distinct from "bowling all rounder".

each batsman would have a number of strengths/weakness - vs moving ball generally, back foot vs spin, front foot vs swing, driving, cutting whatever...

hereby, an opening batsman with a level of "associate", and a bowling all rounder with a level of "international star" might both be expected, if facing bowling attacks of "international" standard players over a period of time, to come out with an average between 20-25; but you'd expect the opener to generally have a better technique, represented by doing better if facing a new ball and swing, whereas the all-rounder can flog an old ball around if there's no reverse swing but when the new ball is taken he might struggle. because of the differing roles and strengths/weaknesses, if both players faced bowling attacks of "associate" standard players over a period of time, you might expect both player's averages to increase, but i'd argue you'd expect the associate opener's average to increase more, because of his strength vs the new ball.

saying "they both average 25 and are considered average players" doesn't allow for any nuance whatsoever.

most of the skills/factors etc. here would be known even before the game starts, and certainly before a delivery, so the increased processing overhead is minimal and therefore should be achievable.

 

[Gamer Pradosh]

@blockerdave I now understand the concept you are trying to suggest, but how would you back it up visually meaning will the batting animations with a slight difference in technique wise between a legend star and associate type of batsman??

 

[Biggs]

That could be as easy as locking off certain shots/animations until you reached a certain level in career. Basically treating shots like "Slog-Sweep" as an unlockable. You then have "tiers" of batsman...

Teamwise for assoicate or grade cricket you simply create a "n00b" player type, like already exists and lock off a bunch of shots so only the most basic are accessible.

Something like:

n00b
Grade
Semi-Pro
Pro
International
Tendoolkar

Rinse, Wash, Repeat for bowlers.

 

[blockerdave]

@blockerdave I now understand the concept you are trying to suggest, but how would you back it up visually meaning will the batting animations with a slight difference in technique wise between a legend star and associate type of batsman??

well certainly additional animations would be a good thing; but the main issue is with timing windows, speed/movement generation, accuracy, and various dismissals probability so that it feels properly different playing with and against the different types and levels of players.[DOUBLEPOST=1444122512][/DOUBLEPOST]

...that could be as easy as locking off certain shots/animations until you reached a certain level in career. Basically treating shots like "Slog-Sweep" as an unlockable. You then have "tiers" of batsman...

...and/or you simply create a "n00b" player type, like already exists and lock off a bunch of shots so only the most basic are accessible.

100%, not every batsman should have every shot in their locker, same for bowlers and deliveries.

 

[Biggs]

It's as easy as refining those player types that already exist so that they have a little more variation both in shots available and skill level.

A "Defensive" batsman, shouldn't have access to play slog sweeps, or advance down the wicket... that sort of thing.

 

[cooks1st100]

The averages were just added for the sake of this suggestion to be honest Dave to give an idea of what average, good, etc. would be, although that's how I personally set players up and adjust to a level I feel suits their real life abilities. For me it gives a reasonable baseline to work from and I've always use their first class average.

I like your idea a lot though, I do however have reservations about adding weaknesses, just because in the past weaknesses = exploits. It would need to be configured in a way, so that a batsman who's weakness was for arguments sake, a yorker, doesn't get out by a yorker every single innings.

To add to your's I'd like to see batting traits added, such as "leaves anything outside off", "goes into his shell if not scoring", "looks to attack spin", as well as what I've mentioned before as to being able to select what shots a batsman can or can't play.

 

[Gamer Pradosh]

well certainly additional animations would be a good thing; but the main issue is with timing windows, speed/movement generation, accuracy, and various dismissals probability so that it feels properly different playing with and against the different types and levels of players.

Thats right , it would be great if they come up with using bat angles, so that might be useful to differentiate between Amla type of batsman with a player like Rayudu who is unsure of his technique...Visual backing up of the suggestion becomes critical....Even the dismissals should make sense to their skills and the nature of batsman..

 

[blockerdave]

I like your idea a lot though, I do however have reservations about adding weaknesses, just because in the past weaknesses = exploits. It would need to be configured in a way, so that a batsman who's weakness was for arguments sake, a yorker, doesn't get out by a yorker every single innings.

Well, this is where there has to be some sense in the relative skills and relative probabilities - fact is if the batsman is poor against yorkers, and the bowler is a Malinga/Waqar type, you would expect them to get out to "good" yorkers more often than not - the key is how that relates to the other strengths and weaknesses - vs pace, vs swing/reverse swing, etc. and is just giving you a probability.

if they're facing a yorker from a bowler with a lesser yorker skill, or even a waqar but the user input is poor, or it's a medium pacer etc. then obviously the probability of dismissal has to be lower.

weakness would only = exploit if the implementation was poor.

 

[MattW]

I suppose you would implement a yorker weakness as poor ability to jam the bat down. So the faster the ball, the more likely it will knock the stumps over, and if the bat does get in the way, a stronger chance to edge it doing so by being off centre.

 

[blockerdave]

I suppose you would implement a yorker weakness as poor ability to jam the bat down. So the faster the ball, the more likely it will knock the stumps over, and if the bat does get in the way, a stronger chance to edge it doing so by being off centre.

Should also take into account ability vs swing, and the ball's movement. It's not usually a straight Yorker that does for batsmen, after all.

 

[blockerdave]

Also not sure about the edge probability being higher? Certainly in terms of producing catching opportunities because the low trajectory of the ball means no carry. Generally they get low on the bat or bottom edged into the ground and don't travel far

 

[MattW]

Also not sure about the edge probability being higher? Certainly in terms of producing catching opportunities because the low trajectory of the ball means no carry. Generally they get low on the bat or bottom edged into the ground and don't travel far

I suppose more edging as in it cliping the edge of the bat and hitting the stumps, more than edges going up for a catch - so basically even if the timing was right, the placement of the attempt to block would be worse.