ME: "I think for now, I don't have any pressing plans for v3 of this spreadsheet except to correct any slider values/modified values that end up being way out."
BIG ANT:
ME:
Fingers crossed that they just got it spot on first time (HA!), but if not, V2 will be short lived and V3 will be out into the universe with the necessary adjustment.
Should know either way over the weekend I think, that's when I'm likely to be on next.
I'll not lie, I was looking forward to playing a bit, but that is a worthwhile change IMO.
Are there any sliders that alter how the AI sets up fields? I've found the batting sliders combined with re-skilling makes the experience really fun, but i still find it way too easy to get 4s on glances and leg side shots. Would be great if the AI put someone out there instead of letting me get 4 each time. Is this possible to improve?
You’ve got to create your own custom fields with people in those areas, and allow the AI to use them. It’s the only way.
There’s no logic to move a player in a specific area, the logic is to pick a specific field set that matches the criteria of match type, bowler type and aggression… there may be some logic that favours fields with fielders in certain areas too, but if the field doesn’t exist they can’t use it
After so much excel work that I thought my head was going to explode, V2 is here. Still, I taught myself three or four things that I didn't know before so every day's a school day and all that
Change Log
Details of what has changed from V1 to V2, with some explanation and examples.
England
Pace bowling swing 62 to 58
Pace bowling revs from 10 to 5
Spin bowling revs from 22 to 15
Pitch bounce from 35 to 50
Tuned swing down a touch, and further reduced spin and pace revs on the grass. Pitch bounce has gone up to counter the reduction from the recent patch.
An over from Jimmy in Manchester looks something like this:
View attachment 261783
I still think is a bit too much for an English pitch straight out of the gate on day 1, but considering it needs to spin the same amount for all 5 days, I'll allow a bit more spin straight away against less spin later.
Australia
Spin bowling revs from 20 to 30
Pitch friction from 65 to 60
Pitch bounce from 35 to 40
A little bit more spin to counter the hard surface, a little less friction to encourage the slips and keeper a bit more, and a small notch to overall bounce.
Here's Jimmy at the GABBA:
View attachment 261784
A few that clear the stumps through natural variance, more are at the bails, and there's after touch to consider, plus different actions from other bowlers that get more bounce (Broad, for example).
If we could get that kind of bounce for spinners on all pitches I'd be much happier. Again, turn wise, there's a bit, not lots.
Asia
Spin bowling revs from 30 to 26
Pitch friction from 65 to 60
Pitch bounce from 35 to 40
A minor tweak to the base amount of spin since a dusty pitch offers the most by default. Like other places, pitch friction has been reduced slightly and bounce has been bumped slightly.
Pace bowling swing from 58 to 55
Pace bowling revs from 14 to 8
Spin bowling revs from 25 to 20
Pitch friction from 40 to 35
Pitch bounce from 35 to 40
Plenty of tinkering in South Africa to generally aid bowlers but counteract the assistance from grass on the surface.
Jimmy: View attachment 261788
Flirting with the bails for the most part without any after touch.
Out of interest, I wanted to make sure Stuart Broad wouldn't clear the stumps with every delivery on these new settings so I did an over with him trying to hit the top of off stump using after touch:
View attachment 261790
The variance of one delivery has meant it's dropped shorter and bounced higher, but the rest are spot on height wise. Lovely stuff.
NZ
Pace bowling swing from 60 to 55
Pace bowling revs from 14 to 7
Spin bowling revs from 22 to 15
Pitch bounce from 40 to 42
Another pitch with grass that needed a bit of a tone down, but for some reason the NZ pitch only needed a bit more bounce, a minimal amount. There could be a case to turn this one up to 45 or 50 for bounce, but I'd prefer a top third of the stump type pitch bounce than an Australia/SA bail clipper.
Jimmy: View attachment 261791
Moeen: View attachment 261792
I like this one the least. That is just so low. Half way up the stumps for a spinner isn't good, and NZ is a hard pitch!
West Indies
Pace bowling swing from 55 to 45
Pace bowling revs from 26 to 20
Spin bowling revs from 30 to 20
Not a lot to change, just the general tweaks to turn down revs and swing.
Catching slow down speed - spin from 80 to 70
Catching slowdown speed - pace from 75 to 65
Catching radius from 12 to 16
Catching skill influence from 80 to 90
I felt with the mini-game, catching was still too automatic. I don't think I've dropped a catch on Cricket 22 unless I've meant to do it. As such, I've made all sliders harder, and also increased the influence of catching skill.
Added functionality
I have added some extra stuff to this spreadsheet for those that want it. For anyone not interested, you can still just read off the "slider value" number.
Home and Away sliders
Home advantage is test cricket has been suggested to be as big as 15%-17%. That's pretty huge, from a statistical perspective.
As such, V2 of the spreadsheet has a home and away column. Rather than using the base slider number, you can input the home or away number depending on if you are the home or away team. This will make the game slightly easier if you're hosting, and slightly harder if you're the tourists.
This covers everything from how often the AI will lose wickets, bowling difficulty, edges, run rate and so on. There's been a small plus or minus to about 85% of the sliders, from memory.
Of course, some people might not be interested in this, so just use the slider value column instead if you want a neutral game without a bias either way.
Slider modifiers
A second drop down box has been added, called "Modifier". I figured this would come in handy for anyone playing series in the same country and wanting some kind of difference in pitch game to game.
The list of available modifiers is as follows:
Batter friendly
Seam friendly
Spin friendly
Increased swing
Exaggerated spin
Dead pitch
By default, this drop down should be set to "none" and the extra columns blacked out to make v2 spreadsheet less "busy".
If one of the modifiers is selected, these boxes will instead be populated by numbers, including an additional home and away modified slider.
Note - These new modifiers haven't been tested. It could be the cumulative effect of a modifier, plus home and away alterations on top makes for a slider number that isn't optimal. The only way to test this is to use them, but just putting that here as a warning.
Don't forget
Some slider values are probably wrong. In fact, they could well be wrong in multiple places
That's the point of publishing them, and having a version history attached.
Feedback, say what happened, good or bad, and we'll keep refining.
User ability is a thing
These sliders are not just plug and play.
If 100% of people just copy them down from the spreadsheet and put them straight into the game, 90% are probably going to be disappointed. The settings needs to be tailored to your own ability, how you like test cricket to be played, how you like the AI to play, there's loads of variables. It's not a one size fits all kind of deal.
The spreadsheet is a guide, a starting point. No doubt with some trial and error of your own, you'll find something even better for you.
The spreadsheet itself
The functionality has remained the same as V1. All you need to do is download, open the sheet in excel (some other programmes like Open Office haven't worked so well, so you may need some trial and error), then click the dropdown boxes at the top of the one sheet available.
All formula are hidden and can't be accidentally edited. It should be pretty hard to break! The sheet is designed so that the drop down boxes are the only thing that can be edited.
I think for now, I don't have any pressing plans for v3 of this spreadsheet except to correct any slider values/modified values that end up being way out. I kinda want to get started with some in depth playing, and creating content, a narrative story, all that kind of thing. I'm not going anywhere though, and this thread will still be here for questions, feedback and so on.
Tricky one to answer for certain, but it could be that you can't have both.
Edges, particularly fine edges, are largely thought to be related to pitch friction. The lower the friction, the more likely the ball is the catch the bat fine. That's what some people have experienced anyway.
Raising pitch friction has been suggested to lead to less edges, but more bowled or LBW dismissals instead.
A better solution might be a lower pitch friction number for edges, but then reskilling AI players to lower their judgement. In theory, that should bring LBW into play more at least as they fail to pick the line of a delivery.
Or, a much wider collection of slider changes could be done, such as increasing AI wicket chance, lowing AI striker timing, increasing ok and poor input edge probability, stuff like that. That's more complicated, though.
ME: "I think for now, I don't have any pressing plans for v3 of this spreadsheet except to correct any slider values/modified values that end up being way out."
Fingers crossed that they just got it spot on first time (HA!), but if not, V2 will be short lived and V3 will be out into the universe with the necessary adjustment.
Should know either way over the weekend I think, that's when I'm likely to be on next.
I'll not lie, I was looking forward to playing a bit, but that is a worthwhile change IMO.
I managed to get 45 minutes free so wanted to jump on now just to have a look in case anyone wanted to play or start a game this weekend etc. Follow me on the journey, it was a fun one, with some highs and some lows. But I think we all knew that was coming anyway haha!
If you're not arsed about the journey, and just want to know what I found, go to the bottom of the page.
So, I started with England, base v2 sliders.
Here's our usual testing subject, Mr Ali:
Oof! Look at him, attacking the bails! This is very exciting. A genuine, noticeable change to the amount of bounce for a spinner. Grassy, medium pitch remember. I can't lie, the patch notes said "increased spin bounce on grassy pitches" and that is exactly what they've done.
I'm a happy man. But, it would be remiss of me not to test Jimmy as well, since I've got it loaded up and all that. The patch notes specifically mention spin, right? But still, let's give him a quick blast. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, it did say "spin bounce", after all:
So what the patch notes should have said is "bounce". Not "spin bounce". It's all bounce on a grassy pitch.
They are not the same thing.
At this point, I went to make a brew. I needed to walk away, have my little moment and come back.
Right, let's go back a step. Pitch bounce 50 was v2. In v1 it was 35, so let's try that:
Not bad. And an improvement over what we had pre-patch without a doubt.
At this point, I'll happily take it. I need the win. Don't take this away from me.....
Why you gotta do me dirty like that? I'm not in Australia, that's too damn high.
So, let's keep going. 35 clearly isn't the magic number. I'll start with Jimmy now, since pace appears to be the issue.
Again, I'll take it. All of them would be hitting, there's nothing flying over the top. 28, let's do this.
We've brought pace back under control. What are we left with?
It's.....alright. Again, I can live with it.
But, to clear up any doubt, let's see if there is more "spin bounce."
Blue is pre-patch, taken when I released the change log for v2.
Red is today, after the latest patch.
Yes, that is more bounce. Is it much bounce? No. Is it going to be what people were wanting? Again, probably not.
Don't get me wrong, I try and push sliders out completely aware of the fact that it's a fluid process. The game changes, it's not going to be a one and done thing. It is what it is.
At this point, I went round a few more parts of the world for my own curiosity, though I was more apprehensive. Now we're going to move into the British TV game show segment of the post.
South Africa spin with v2 sliders. Here's what you could have won!
Ooooooo! Only you can't, because then Jimmy goes flying over the stumps again.
Fortunately, v1 South Africa bounce of 35 is more reasonable for Jimmy, enough for me to be comfortable with anyway. This is the spin you'll get:
So yeah, that's fine. But here's the thing.
Same deal as before, Blue is pre-patch when I pushed out the change log, and red is right now:
Firstly, I'll apologise that these were bowled from different ends so are nauseatingly blurry, but still, the point is there. The bounce is the same.
Grassy/Dry pitch, so was it just "Grassy" that got changed? I don't know, but I'd say no, because using the v2 sliders this pitch has more bounce for spin and seam than it did a few days ago when v2 was published. I've had to tone the pitch bounce down by 5 to get the same result as I did when it was set to 40.
What I can tell you is that Australia looked good. Pace was where I wanted it to be above the stumps and spin was around the bails. That was the last thing I looked at and was actually a positive to my afternoon's work.
I will look into this properly this weekend and come back with something. I'm not looking forward to it, but what ya gonna do? In for a penny, in for a pound and all that.
So, for you skippers out there who came from the top of the page and missed my ranting, I suggest the following:
Continue using the v2 spreadsheet post patch BUT just alter pitch bounce to:
England (Grassy Medium) - 28
Australia (Dry, Hard) - 42 No change needed here
Asia (Dusty, Medium) - 40 Not tested this one, but I assume it can stay the same since there's no grass.
South Africa (Grassy/Dry, Hard) - 35
New Zealand (Grassy, Hard) - 35 Hopefully this is back to 35, though it was a bit of an odd ball when I was testing v2. 40 or 42 may still be ok.
West Indies (Grassy/Dusty, Hard) - 35
I'll hopefully have some more concrete numbers in a few day's time.
Its so frustrating when they claim "changed spin bounce on grassy pitch" when what it clearly means is "changed bounce on some pitches, probably not others, and not just for spin either, in fact, could be almost anything but we wont tell you fully", leaves us in a limbo!
Its so frustrating when they claim "changed spin bounce on grassy pitch" when what it clearly means is "changed bounce on some pitches, probably not others, and not just for spin either, in fact, could be almost anything but we wont tell you fully", leaves us in a limbo!
Aye. And don't get me wrong, I appear like I'm being negative when all I've done is look at one change from the patch in isolation. But it does affect how the game plays. We've discussed the need to bring the stumps into deliveries for the AI, so something like this needs to be factored in.
I'm sure there's plenty of good elsewhere in the patch, but this one just needed a bit more work, or a bit more explanation.
100% - if you know everything will bounce over you can effectively leave any length ball or play attacking shots with impunity knowing anything hitting the pads will be going over the top and you wont be out - as the user we need that risk associated to playing the shots.
I dont know if anyone else has found the ball coming onto the bat a lot quicker since new patch? Using the original V1 sliders from here for English grassy getting good battle , ball hitting stumps a fair bit , had to turn down pace max speed as was like a rocket at 90 slider level , but really challenging, I also have turned pitch length marker to same colour for all deliveries when batting which has really made game much more difficult , lots of interesting dismissals too ….
I managed to get 45 minutes free so wanted to jump on now just to have a look in case anyone wanted to play or start a game this weekend etc. Follow me on the journey, it was a fun one, with some highs and some lows. But I think we all knew that was coming anyway haha!
If you're not arsed about the journey, and just want to know what I found, go to the bottom of the page.
So, I started with England, base v2 sliders.
Here's our usual testing subject, Mr Ali:
View attachment 261982
Oof! Look at him, attacking the bails! This is very exciting. A genuine, noticeable change to the amount of bounce for a spinner. Grassy, medium pitch remember. I can't lie, the patch notes said "increased spin bounce on grassy pitches" and that is exactly what they've done.
I'm a happy man. But, it would be remiss of me not to test Jimmy as well, since I've got it loaded up and all that. The patch notes specifically mention spin, right? But still, let's give him a quick blast. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, it did say "spin bounce", after all:
View attachment 261984
So what the patch notes should have said is "bounce". Not "spin bounce". It's all bounce on a grassy pitch.
They are not the same thing.
At this point, I went to make a brew. I needed to walk away, have my little moment and come back.
Right, let's go back a step. Pitch bounce 50 was v2. In v1 it was 35, so let's try that:
View attachment 261985
Not bad. And an improvement over what we had pre-patch without a doubt.
At this point, I'll happily take it. I need the win. Don't take this away from me.....
View attachment 261986
Why you gotta do me dirty like that? I'm not in Australia, that's too damn high.
So, let's keep going. 35 clearly isn't the magic number. I'll start with Jimmy now, since pace appears to be the issue.
View attachment 261987
Again, I'll take it. All of them would be hitting, there's nothing flying over the top. 28, let's do this.
We've brought pace back under control. What are we left with?
But, to clear up any doubt, let's see if there is more "spin bounce."
Blue is pre-patch, taken when I released the change log for v2.
Red is today, after the latest patch.
View attachment 261990
Yes, that is more bounce. Is it much bounce? No. Is it going to be what people were wanting? Again, probably not.
Don't get me wrong, I try and push sliders out completely aware of the fact that it's a fluid process. The game changes, it's not going to be a one and done thing. It is what it is.
At this point, I went round a few more parts of the world for my own curiosity, though I was more apprehensive. Now we're going to move into the British TV game show segment of the post.
South Africa spin with v2 sliders. Here's what you could have won!
View attachment 261991
Ooooooo! Only you can't, because then Jimmy goes flying over the stumps again.
Fortunately, v1 South Africa bounce of 35 is more reasonable for Jimmy, enough for me to be comfortable with anyway. This is the spin you'll get:
Same deal as before, Blue is pre-patch when I pushed out the change log, and red is right now:
View attachment 261993
Firstly, I'll apologise that these were bowled from different ends so are nauseatingly blurry, but still, the point is there. The bounce is the same.
Grassy/Dry pitch, so was it just "Grassy" that got changed? I don't know, but I'd say no, because using the v2 sliders this pitch has more bounce for spin and seam than it did a few days ago when v2 was published. I've had to tone the pitch bounce down by 5 to get the same result as I did when it was set to 40.
What I can tell you is that Australia looked good. Pace was where I wanted it to be above the stumps and spin was around the bails. That was the last thing I looked at and was actually a positive to my afternoon's work.
I will look into this properly this weekend and come back with something. I'm not looking forward to it, but what ya gonna do? In for a penny, in for a pound and all that.
So, for you skippers out there who came from the top of the page and missed my ranting, I suggest the following:
Continue using the v2 spreadsheet post patch BUT just alter pitch bounce to:
England (Grassy Medium) - 28
Australia (Dry, Hard) - 42 No change needed here
Asia (Dusty, Medium) - 40 Not tested this one, but I assume it can stay the same since there's no grass.
South Africa (Grassy/Dry, Hard) - 35
New Zealand (Grassy, Hard) - 35 Hopefully this is back to 35, though it was a bit of an odd ball when I was testing v2. 40 or 42 may still be ok.
West Indies (Grassy/Dusty, Hard) - 35
I'll hopefully have some more concrete numbers in a few day's time.
Playing a test against India with reskilled team and rumples sliders in South Africa.
Also using the seam friendly modifier. I have India 23/4 in 11 overs.
Damn feels nice. Really feels like a steamers paradise. 1 caught by the WK. 2 by slips. And 1 bowled.
Let's see if I can get them before 36
Also thing to notice here is that South Africa is already a bowlers friendly wicket according to sliders. And with the seam friendly modifier it has turned into a nightmare for the batsmen.
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