Ashes Cricket General Discussion

[Punk_Sk8r]

Last night I played an ODI on default settings, as all my matches are, and there were plenty of edges. Although, it didn't last long because I bowled Australia out for 58 thanks to Malcolm Marshall and Curtly Ambrose.

Edges are simple and have two factors: the human and the game.

Bowling: Humans either don't bowl enough good (not timing, just delivery taking balls) deliveries to get edges, they don't experiment or vary their deliveries. They bowl like it's real life not a video game. Or the AI are set too high with skills, get better contact, timing and shot selection resulting in fewer edges. Or like @CazCat you need to get them rattled, early on helps. Malcolm Marshall bowling short pitched swinging leg cutters into your ribs also seems to do the trick.

Batting: Humans might not play shots that, currently, bring a lot of edges. Humans are too good at batting because, they are simply too good, or use too many batting markers, I think the game is painfully easy with the Batting Aerial Marker. If humans bat in the same way for every player in a team then the results are likely to be the same - e.g. since I put away my beloved square drive in test matches for almost every player, strangely, almost every player edges the ball a lot less. Also AI settings might be completely off in terms of bowling deliveries that will produce more edges - by variation, line, length etc.

To address the bowling statement I have to disagree completely, I bowl the exact same delivery time and time again and in some matches it's edges galore for me and in others nothing. I don't think the game is advanced enough that varying deliveries actually has any impact as I said I bowl the same ball outside off out-swinging and some games I get edges no problem and others just doesn't happen. Also I don't think it matters about pitch either because I've had edges whilst bowling on all conditions, just some matches it doesn't happen for me. I noticed in ODI's I get edges a lot and in Tests nothing.

EDIT: For bowling I also have the timing windows set to 100 so I always bowl a perfect ball and still no effect

Also to address humans batting and edging the ball, I play with the wealey sliders with the pitch marker set to 50 so I pretty much have all day to decide what shot I'm going to play and I nick the ball a hell of a lot to the point where I'm afraid to play drives early on in my innings and even later on. Balls that are a good length outside off I have to leave.

I think overall there's something dodgy happening system to system or maybe depending on what logos you have or what I'm not sure. People have even said Ashes Series tests have had different result to casual so I don't know what it is but I do believe it's not to do with people not playing the game correctly, it's something in the design/flaws.

5 above default but set it to 70 but no difference

Thanks to those who responded. I am only Xbox User in this small sample though cricket online has exactly same experience as me but is on PS4 so real head scratcher ..?

How come you don't play on PC? I have my pace minimum set to 70 and pace maximum set to 80, maybe that could be it as it alters the way you have to time the ball to some extent.

 

[zimrahil]

How come you don't play on PC? I have my pace minimum set to 70 and pace maximum set to 80, maybe that could be it as it alters the way you have to time the ball to some extent.

Prefer the big screen experience. Bowling speed has nothing to do with it otherwise playing medium pacers and spinners would be waste of time?
I am completely dumbfounded tbh....

 

[Punk_Sk8r]

Prefer the big screen experience. Bowling speed has nothing to do with it otherwise playing medium pacers and spinners would be waste of time?
I am completely dumbfounded tbh....

Could be, but I did for sure notice a difference in how I time the ball when bowling the the pace set up. I even set it to 100 once and with that you have to almost play your shot before the bowlers even release the ball because if you wait for it to pitch it will be too late to hit, very strange.

But yes on the whole it's odd what is going on and quite frankly a pain the arse, I'm still surprised people get no edges when batting and why my experience is opposite...

 

[zimrahil]

Could be, but I did for sure notice a difference in how I time the ball when bowling the the pace set up. I even set it to 100 once and with that you have to almost play your shot before the bowlers even release the ball because if you wait for it to pitch it will be too late to hit, very strange.

But yes on the whole it's odd what is going on and quite frankly a pain the arse, I'm still surprised people get no edges when batting and why my experience is opposite...

Oh yeah for sure increase in pace affects timing but my experiences demonstrate timing has little to do with edging. I play drives with late, early, ok timing etc and no sign of an edge

However I am boring even myself by rattling the same drum over and over, perhaps it’s time to get Fifa out again....

 

[wasteyouryouth]

How exactly is aerial marker a "button prompt" and pitch marker isn't? Pitch marker is showing you the exact spot where the ball will be pitched. How is it any different from length marker where at least you still need to gauge the line and don't know the exact spot the ball will land on the pitch? They tackle the same problem, i.e. how to provide information to users so they can play a shot appropriately. I find pitch marker worse coz you already know the exact spot the ball will land and there's no gauging of line.

I said they were both button prompts...

The difference being that the pitch marker doesn't come with a colour coding that basically tells you which button (or movement you should make) you have to make that decision yourself.

To address the bowling statement I have to disagree completely, I bowl the exact same delivery time and time again and in some matches it's edges galore for me and in others nothing. I don't think the game is advanced enough that varying deliveries actually has any impact as I said I bowl the same ball outside off out-swinging and some games I get edges no problem and others just doesn't happen. Also I don't think it matters about pitch either because I've had edges whilst bowling on all conditions, just some matches it doesn't happen for me. I noticed in ODI's I get edges a lot and in Tests nothing.

EDIT: For bowling I also have the timing windows set to 100 so I always bowl a perfect ball and still no effect

Also to address humans batting and edging the ball, I play with the wealey sliders with the pitch marker set to 50 so I pretty much have all day to decide what shot I'm going to play and I nick the ball a hell of a lot to the point where I'm afraid to play drives early on in my innings and even later on. Balls that are a good length outside off I have to leave.

I think overall there's something dodgy happening system to system or maybe depending on what logos you have or what I'm not sure. People have even said Ashes Series tests have had different result to casual so I don't know what it is but I do believe it's not to do with people not playing the game correctly, it's something in the design/flaws.



How come you don't play on PC? I have my pace minimum set to 70 and pace maximum set to 80, maybe that could be it as it alters the way you have to time the ball to some extent.

I don't buy that you bowl the exact same delivery for the simple fact you'd have to do everything exactly the same. But sometimes edges happen sometimes they don't, I have experienced that in the game. Because of how I bowl, I don't pay much attention to the timing windows, I still get plenty of wickets without perfect deliveries.

More edges in ODI probably comes down to confidence building vs scoring runs. I've noticed recently that AI batsmen that aren't set to Aggressive seem to be bat completely erratically in ODI. I bowled Australia out for 58 pretty much within the powerplay (15 over powerplay, new ball at two ends) just a constant stream of terrible shots.

It's possible unintended variations across systems exist - but I'd expect that's due to the systems not the game. I really think this logo theory is complete nonsense. No one seems to have defined the cause and effect that the logos have, other than some airy fairy notion that 'the game is not playing how I want or expect... it must be the logos.' I jokingly said about two weeks ago that I played a match with Sally set as the announcer and I had a lot of edges, I haven't changed it since and I'm still getting edges so logically Sally is the solution.

I didn't play drives at first cause I was worried about edges but I find that the only time I ever edge it is playing across the line or square driving. Any drive in the V doesn't seem produce edges unless I'm trying to work it to the onside.

 

[Alberts]

I must say, I'm getting quite disappointed in Big Ant at this point. It's all well and good a game having a few rough edges on release, and the game itself has a solid core to it, but we're now nearly at Australia day and:

1. Pitch wear (footmarks, etc.) still just doesn't happen.
2. Pitch cracks, which appear to operate separately to wear oddly, come and go ball to ball at times.
3. Fielding is still very unresponsive; in couch multiplayer games 90% of the time we're just laughing about how you can run on pretty much anything. If the diving minigame comes up to stop the ball it's a free run.
4. Leaves are still a large step backwards from previous games.

These are just the problems that are immediately obvious for me, and I've not been playing much in the last few months.

Given that it seems that Big Ant's other project, AO Tennis, is at best very mediocre, and at worst a rushed release... I can kind of get what has happened, but I can't help but feel they've bitten off more than they can chew. Would love a roadmap from the developers on what they still intend to fix and roughly when, not to the day, but rough time periods, e.g. pitch etc. errors to be fixed in a patch around the start of Autumn, etc. At this point BigAnt have slid with this release from "buy their games immediately" to, "wait and see", and I really don't like that.

 

[cricket_online]

Oh yeah for sure increase in pace affects timing but my experiences demonstrate timing has little to do with edging. I play drives with late, early, ok timing etc and no sign of an edge

However I am boring even myself by rattling the same drum over and over, perhaps it’s time to get Fifa out again....

If you are into golf, try Everybody's Golf

 

[Punk_Sk8r]

@wasteyouryouth I do bowl the same delivery, by that I mean good length, outside off stump, out-swinger. Of course now and again I'll bowl one to the pads or a bit wide due to human error but that delivery is literally what I bowl all the time and some matches I get a ton of edges and some not. It could be in ODI's they play shots form the go so I get more edges but then it doesn't explain how some people get edges in tests consistently, heck even I've had some innings randomly where the AI edged it all over the place but the same match I've also bowled at them for 150 overs...

The logo thing I don't know what it is, I just read there was some bug in DBC17 to do with this that might have carried over but I don't know the details at all or what it even means so I can't really comment on it. As for batting I have no complaints I get edges from pretty much all shots from leg glances, pulls, straight drives, cuts, cover drives...you name it I've edged it It's just the bowling side in Tests for me is the problem for some reason or another. I guess the only way to find out is to play more.

Also how do you duck bouncers? I saw the AI duck a bouncer only once but the animation is there...

 

[wasteyouryouth]

@wasteyouryouth I do bowl the same delivery, by that I mean good length, outside off stump, out-swinger. Of course now and again I'll bowl one to the pads or a bit wide due to human error but that delivery is literally what I bowl all the time and some matches I get a ton of edges and some not. It could be in ODI's they play shots form the go so I get more edges but then it doesn't explain how some people get edges in tests consistently, heck even I've had some innings randomly where the AI edged it all over the place but the same match I've also bowled at them for 150 overs...

The logo thing I don't know what it is, I just read there was some bug in DBC17 to do with this that might have carried over but I don't know the details at all or what it even means so I can't really comment on it. As for batting I have no complaints I get edges from pretty much all shots from leg glances, pulls, straight drives, cuts, cover drives...you name it I've edged it It's just the bowling side in Tests for me is the problem for some reason or another. I guess the only way to find out is to play more.

Also how do you duck bouncers? I saw the AI duck a bouncer only once but the animation is there...

I meant unless you're a robot you will have at least minor differences in how you execute the delivery. But even then, thank goodness that even attempting to bowl the same line and length doesn't bring about automatic wickets every game because of AI failings.

Which teams are you playing as/against?

 

[Spoobir]

Batsman confidence and most likely pitch conditions need to be looked at imo. I often find the final two innings of a test is a worse experience when bowling with AI getting out in more dodgy ways. Also in career mode when most of the game is being simulated the 3rd and 4th innings are very often the highest scoring.

Also some notes on my fast bowler career mode (I am playing test matches in career not crappy club games or whatever):

The AI batsmen's confidence doesn't seem to go up when the game is being simulated (at least if the colour bars are to be believed) and as such I find they bat much more sensibly, almost zero slogs usually at around 2.5rpo when I'm keeping it tight and almost 100% wickets are genuine edges/bowled/lbw. Another reason for this could be that when the game is being simulated my AI teammates are usually getting smashed around for around 5 an over, so the AI is already meeting its "target" and doesn't feel the need to hit out and push the rate up.

 

[kulch]

The science in cricket does not exist in AC. Pitch conditions, wind, weather, time of day, isn't reflected at all. I've played night tests @ 2pm. Wtf is that. When it rains the outfield should be slower the bounce should be less. All these things were taken for granted by us because they existed in previous cricket games going back to Shane Warne cricket. Now they are gone. I can't help but feel it's 1 step forward and 2 steps back. We have the massive academy and sand box stuff but we lost the fundamentals of the science and that's a design choice... A poor one

 

[Hester]

The science in cricket does not exist in AC. Pitch conditions, wind, weather, time of day, isn't reflected at all. I've played night tests @ 2pm. Wtf is that. When it rains the outfield should be slower the bounce should be less. All these things were taken for granted by us because they existed in previous cricket games going back to Shane Warne cricket. Now they are gone. I can't help but feel it's 1 step forward and 2 steps back. We have the massive academy and sand box stuff but we lost the fundamentals of the science and that's a design choice... A poor one

Good points well made. They even thought it would be a great idea to make the balls practically impossible to see without using aerial marker or ball trail. An absolute genius design decision.

 

[Dean johnes]

Big ant please release next patch focus on edges to make all the thread members happy.
U can add option in game modyfiers in ur next patch
Edge 100 %
Edge 75%
Edge 50%
Edge 25%
Edges no edges0%
And let everyone be happy and satisfied.
Hahaha

 

[CaptainOZ]

The science in cricket does not exist in AC. Pitch conditions, wind, weather, time of day, isn't reflected at all. I've played night tests @ 2pm. Wtf is that. When it rains the outfield should be slower the bounce should be less. All these things were taken for granted by us because they existed in previous cricket games going back to Shane Warne cricket. Now they are gone. I can't help but feel it's 1 step forward and 2 steps back. We have the massive academy and sand box stuff but we lost the fundamentals of the science and that's a design choice... A poor one

I think that you and I are a collection of several people on here that really understand this. The science behind the game of cricket and how it should be conveyed. Many of the others seems to able to 'live with', or just don't feel, the aspects of this Ashes game that make our stomachs turn. And by sucking up to BigAnt they're doing more harm than good.

I sum up, in this equation, the current situation:

BigAnt's mediocrity + lack of competing cricket developers + customer desperation = BigAnt selling poor games at full price and getting away with enough money from those sales to keep pumping out substandard titles.

Another sports game developer - even if it's EA - needs to enter the arena. Now!

 

[wasteyouryouth]

I just took what I think might be my first lbw. It's only been two months.