Team Career Mode

[blockerdave]

Different sports. All have more of a transfer/player trading system than cricket. None have a system where a domestic side producing a good player then loses the availability of that player if he's selected for internationals.

Other sports have a revenue structure directly tied to success. In cricket it's not, it's about having an international ground to stage the big sell out occasions.

Let's take an example using my home town. In football if I manage Gloucester City the path upward is simple: success in the league brings prize money, promotions bring TV money, bigger attendances, more sponsorship. That means more money to develop players... Developing a star player I can sell to bring in funds, reinvest etc. Unless or until I sell that player, he is available to play. I have a genuine, clear path to improve.

In cricket, managing Gloucestershire I have one division at best to rise up with negligible increase in revenue. I'm not a test ground or even one that gets regular ODIs or T20s (have staged them very occasionally). So where's my revenue increase to grow?

If I unearth/develop a star player the likelihood is a)he goes to a bigger county for more money but I get no transfer fee at best I get his contract value, b)he gets an England contract and doesn't play for me anymore or c)both of those things.

It doesn't work for cricket.

 

[Biggs]

FIFA
PES
Madden
EA's NHL
2K's NBA
MLB: the Show
Rugby Challenge

All of those sports have "Franchise" and "Player Trading" as central parts of the sport. Most of those examples you're giving have decades-long established international franchises with player caps and in the case of FIFA you're talking even longer. Cricket does not have any of those things, outside of the IPL - which as I said earlier, what would you want represented? The player auction? Again, you play as part of a team already in the current game, eventually ended up as Captain of various sides. I do not see the relevance to managing a team, outside of being able to change squad members, which again, should really be in this version anyway and I've already said (multiple times now) that makes absolute sense. I'm yet to see anyone give any compelling examples of what parts of cricket would be represented in an expanded "Team Career" mode... Like, literally what would you put in it, start as the social media guy and work your way up to bowling coach?

Outside of being able to switch out the squads across a regular career with current players and getting rid of retired (or in the case of my current career, the dead player...) I literally don't see any benefit in what the OP suggested.

 

[blockerdave]

I'm yet to see anyone give any compelling examples of what parts of cricket would be represented in an expanded "Team Career" mode...

literally the only way i would see a "team career mode" being in anyway compelling, or worth of addition, would be like this (a better implementation of what @Markkkkk suggested):

international only.
8 years only - or whatever the duration of Future Tours Program or whatever is supposed to be.
all management aspects except match team selection are removed: there would be AI handling of retirement, regen and squad selection - you get given a "squad" and can pick an xi game by game and play as the whole xi.
you are given targets (say 5) from which you choose 3 and your progress is measured against that.

so - england/aus might target to be holding the ashes at the end of the cycle; other targets might to be no1 in the world in a particular (or all) formats, win a global tournament or specific showpiece series (india v pakistan) etc.

that is the only way i can see anything like a "team career" having any sort of internal logic.

it would basically be piecing together the existing tours, throwing in tournaments and putting together some sort of ranking/targeting etc.

 

[Biggs]

Yeah, maybe it's a "challenge" feature or something, you have to get your [insert format] team into the number one ranking spot or something? Could easily be implemented into the single-player career and just an additional achievement. When that "end of year" progress message pops up, it's got your stats and your team stats and goals met, or something. I dunno...

 

[blockerdave]

Yeah, maybe it's a "challenge" feature or something, you have to get your [insert format] team into the number one ranking spot or something? Could easily be implemented into the single-player career and just an additional achievement. When that "end of year" progress message pops up, it's got your stats and your team stats and goals met, or something. I dunno...

i'd say it should be part of the single player career mode for sure, also individual acheivement targets like new high score, particular spot in world rankings etc. to add more meaning to the individual career.

but additionally it's the only way a team career can work. management is ridiculous.

 

[Biggs]

As I said, there's no "finances" you have to manage in cricket for signings for anything outside of the IPL. So unless you're running a local club and have budget for only two stumps...



...like that, I think the concept of 'Managing' a team is a waste of time, but if theres a demand for additional stats and achievements built into a single-player career that would make more sense, as you say World Rankings and the like.

The only other way I could possibly see "Management" working is a pure fantasy team creation, keeping track of ticket sales and upgrading your home stadium and booking tours. Just typing that makes it sound like SIMCITY or some sort of iPhone App expansion.

 

[blockerdave]

The only other way I could possibly see "Management" working is a pure fantasy team creation, keeping track of ticket sales and upgrading your home stadium and booking tours. Just typing that makes it sound like SIMCITY or some sort of iPhone App expansion. completely shit.

fixed.

 

[cooks1st100]

All it needs is the ability to set up leagues as you wish (different divisions with relegation/promotion, play offs etc.) or international seasons with the option at the end of each season to play another year/season. In between each season the ability to edit teams for domestic leagues would be useful so that you are not always stuck with the same team. at the end of the day managing a cricket team consists of who's playing and what order they will bat. There really is no need for a management career mode, I would much rather the player career mode was expanded so that you started off playing club cricket before moving up to county 2nd XI/first grade. Some nice little grounds wouldn't go amiss either.

 

[IceAgeComing]

An IPL/BBL management mode with an accurate auction would be fun; although I'm a stickler for management games and have spent hours on the latest OOTP game (I said I'd do a story/screenshot LP-style thing here but I've been distracted). It'd be a bit of a variation on the fantasy draft thing you get in other games, and I play those quite a bit in Madden and MLB The Show.

The fact is that the main cricket management games have to bend reality in order to make things actually interesting to play - my Queensland team in the latest ICC game has Shahid Afridi in it because he was available as an overseas player and I'm sure that when I went ahead to check out the few Indian Ranji Trophy stuff I could have had Liam Plunkett on my team as the worst-rated team in the game (Services, I think?); and I've had Mitchell Starc on my Sussex side in Cricket Coach because Magoffin retired and Sussex are required to have an Australian seam bowler in their side - that's not something that would ever happen in reality, but having lots of overseas players available makes things a lot more interesting. A management mode that was 100% realistic would be awful - you wouldn't have big transfers because players typically stick with one county for all of their careers: and then you'd develop a player and make them very good, but then the national team would take them from you and you'd never get them back until they were either broken or very old. A management mode could be cool, but you'd couldn't make it 100% realistic because if you did, it would be boring.

There are things that the career mode really needs that may also benefit a management mode: re-gens, dynamic lineups, perhaps even accurate style IPL/BBL auctions where you could theoretically miss random years because you haven't been signed. Not to mention the things that I can't believe they ignored in this version, like not having World Cups, or the fact that apparently you have a very short rotation of international tours so you only go to a few places and play against a few teams...

 

[Biggs]

Not to mention the things that I can't believe they ignored in this version, like not having World Cups, or the fact that apparently you have a very short rotation of international tours so you only go to a few places and play against a few teams...

This guy gets it... This is vastly more important stuff. Including Global World Cup tournaments and even a Test World Ranking would be more relevant. Dynamic lineups, as you say, makes total sense and should really have been in this version too. I'd also prefer the ability to switch counties/domestic teams throughout a career as a solo player and as has been mentioned starting at a local-club or even college-grade level and working your way up, unlocking stuff along the way. All of which, isn't a cricket management game.

 

[Snowy]

I'm of the opinion that they need to consolidate and flesh out the current offering, and then look towards expansion into other modes.

I think there are enough areas for improvement in the current career offering that if dealt with properly, would inject enough new life into the mode to stave off the need a team career mode for a while yet.