tutsipoppy2
International Coach
Kindda mistyped it, so it changed the meaning of what I intended to write. Have corrected it.
I've had a quick go with your patch (by no means an extensive playtest) and have the following comments.
The patch succeeds in making it more difficult to bat. It is slightly more difficult to pierce the infiled because the shot aiming is less precise. It encourages the player to refrain from cover driving everything (a problem in the game rather than the patch; in real life you shouldn't be able to cover drive a ball of 'good' length, whereas you can in the game) because as the shot is less accurate it suddenly matters if it goes in the air. However, if you time the shot well it will still invariably break through (I assume this is because a 'perfectly' timed shot goes in the direction of the centre of the wedge - if this is correct it is a game thing rather than a patch thing). Unfortunately, poor AI field setting choices still allow unrealistically high run rates to be achieved.
The greater variation in AI bowling is welcome although it creates some issues. The very large cursor makes bouncers in particular very difficult to judge - it is not always obvious until the last minute, when it is too late to place the shot (playing with a keyboard). While this is not entirely a bad thing (it prevents short balls being the run feasts they used to be) I think it would be more satisfactory to make hooks and cuts harder by reducing the timing window and making mistimed shots go in the air more than by simply tricking the player - although I've no idea if there is any way of doing this on a shot by shot basis, as would be required.
Overall, a good effort, and the harder batting is certainly welcome. I'd wait for the patch before looking to improve it further.