Editor for Cricket Captain 2020 (Release)

[Bevab]

scroll down a bit on the first page of this thread to see the values of some players that Harry put up to give you a better idea of what to rate players.

The issue is that you would know the baseline for the six players posted but unfortunately that is not enough at the moment to accurately rate someone though. For instance, Rahane in CC19 was extremely underrated to me (granted he wasn't in the best of form, but he was almost never picked by the AI and barely performed when I did). Now I could try and rate him roughly a hundred points below Kohli and check how he performs ingame again and keep fine tuning it until it works out for me. Or else, I could compare him to someone else who I feel performs at a level he should arguably be performing and rate him at that level by checking the other player's rating. All of this is of course just a teeny glimpse of what is possible with an unlocked editor in the future.

On another note, it saddens me to see the vehement opposition to the very idea of an editor on the official forums. I get that these are fans who will support the developer generally but to do so at this level is just counter productive. Sometimes you need constructive feedback and that is something I feel is lacking over there. Some of their worries like cheating online could easily be prevented by just locking the database and having just one official version of it that checks for any tampering. That would also allow for the editor to be used in normal mode as I feel easy is just too little of a challenge. Some of the other criticisms like players deliberately signing young stars or proven performers and taking them online is so bizarre as it is a lot easier to just quick sim games as one of the weaker teams and see who ranks highly in the near future or watch/ask a youtuber who does a series.

@weetabixharry Would it be possible to select the opposition squad for say, a national team? One of the main complaints from me is the AI randomly dropping their star players for no reason from series to series and even the World Cup and this could solve a big issue. Selecting the opposition team XI sounds quite good already, hopefully no more openers down at five with that feature in!

 

[weetabixharry]

The issue is that you would know the baseline for the six players posted but unfortunately that is not enough at the moment to accurately rate someone though.

I think it's important to note that ability (and potential ability) are just one small aspect of how a player will perform. I don't know exactly how Cricket Captain is structured, but I do know that out of the thousands of bytes used to represent each player, I only understand a very small fraction. Ability and potential ability account for about 0.2% of this data. Therefore, I suspect there's more to it than we appreciate. For example, football management games (like Football Manager) have dozens of attributes attached to each player. Many of them are visible, some are invisible (including ability and potential).

Increasing ability will always make the player better (across the board) and decreasing will make them worse. But I don't believe that carefully fine-tuning abilities makes much sense, because abilities don't tell you the full picture. For example, if you have a legendary Test bowler with a lethal strike rate, who swings the red ball like a boomerang in overcast conditions, but leaks runs horrendously in white ball formats, then he might have the same bowling "ability" as a white-ball specialist who is a highly economical death bowler. In some scenarios, one will be great and the other useless, in other scenarios vice versa. It's not really meaningful to say they have the same ability - they're clearly different.

If you jack up Vinnie Jones' ability, it doesn't make him Lionel Messi. It makes him Vinnie Jones on steroids. My point is that I think my editor is an inadequate tool for what a lot of people want to do (and I don't see any chance of improving this aspect any time soon). My personal preference is to just roll with it and imagine some alternate future where players didn't quite turn out how I expected. However, I understand this is a big irritation for some people, so roughly tweaking ability is better than nothing.

On another note, it saddens me to see the vehement opposition to the very idea of an editor on the official forums.

It's a difficult balancing act. Personally, I wouldn't even play the game without an editor. Clearly, plenty of people feel just as strongly in the opposite direction (and have made sure they let me know). I find those forums a bit chaotic - some constructive ideas mixed in with aimless, furious ranting.

Some of their worries like cheating online could easily be prevented

Yeah, there are ways they could improve this. It's basically impossible to completely eliminate cheating, but they could certainly add very simple mechanisms to help me to eliminate cheating via my editor. (So, for example, I could support Normal mode).

@weetabixharry Would it be possible to select the opposition squad for say, a national team? One of the main complaints from me is the AI randomly dropping their star players for no reason from series to series and even the World Cup and this could solve a big issue. Selecting the opposition team XI sounds quite good already, hopefully no more openers down at five with that feature in!

Yes, that's the plan. Several other people have made the same comment about international selections. For various reasons, it's easier to start with domestic teams, but I'm confident it will work for internationals too.

It's quite a big task to add this to the editor, so it's unlikely to be ready for several more days.

 

[Bevab]

@weetabixharry That was a fascinating read. Wanted to make a longer post and your response has given me the chance to do it.

The comparison with Football Manager is something that I wanted to do too. While that game is built around the player being able to see player attributes and plan their sides, you could still do a no attribute run with the help of skins that replace them with boxes (I remember a few people doing it too) due to the presence of a large number of stats that are recorded meticulously. If I wanted to sign a winger, I could simply look up who has the most number of dribbles per game along with the distance covered primarily and further look at other stats (shots on target, cross completion) to refine who I want to sign. Further, I could have my scout or analyst watch the player and prepare a report plus highlights package for me. And finally, I could go and watch a game that my target is playing to witness how he does. It wouldn't be the most optimal option but the resources are there to enable such a playing style without much hassle.

In contrast, Cricket Captain struggles to meaningfully talk about the player. You have his aggression style, bowling, foot and side preferences (a lot of which are wrong honestly) and.. that is it? Does my player preferring pace bowling strongly mean that he is poor versus spin? Or does it simply mean that he is very good versus spin but can absolutely destroy pacers on his day? Imagine having the stats for how the player fares versus pace or spin, how he does on certain pitches (you do have the player record versus a country but that isn't specific enough to matter much) and what are the things that he struggles with. The only way right now is to manually note all of this meticulously which is very tedious. I remember Nigel also saying once that there actually aren't any specific numbers to present visually as attributes and most of it is just raw data. I like the interesting way in which you're asked to judge from watching a player play and his stats to decide if he is good but the tools at your disposal to accomplish this is very limited at the moment. A lot could be done to improve the game's presentation of the raw data to help make more meaningful choices alongside the implementation of a primitive scouting system.

Which brings me back to your explanation of the total ability. Football Manager has this in the form of 'current ability' which just means that your attribute spread should not exceed this total. This doesn't necessarily mean that players with higher CA are better, I've had players with low CA who were average league players in term of the scale perform incredibly well due to how their particular attribute was spread about and the tactics. A similar mechanic might already exist in Cricket Captain but yet again without the proper tools to access it (doesn't necessarily have to be an editor, the previously mentioned scouting system or a more detailed preferences screen with strengths and weaknesses) most of the times we are left to shoehorning the more aggressive players down in the middle order normally as that is how it usually is supposed to be.

I think the developers should collaborate with you to help regarding most of the hidden mechanics (fielding to me seems like a prime culprit for example) and if possible incorporate the editor as an official tool instead of being short-sighted. Right now the game is a decent simulation of cricket. With the power of a fully functional editor that is officially supported, the game could be so much more and work as a sandbox (imagine entire cricket leagues being run with Cricket Captain season after season) like other games (FM, OOTP Baseball) do in their respective fields. Sadly, we are instead stuck with a game that remains limited and lacking for a modern day release.

 

[weetabixharry]

In contrast, Cricket Captain struggles to meaningfully talk about the player.

I've seen quite a lot of people sharing this view (including me). A related discussion that I see appear from time to time is about the lack of feedback we get from the coaching system in Cricket Captain. I don't think anyone really has much of a clue how the training sessions should be used, or what impact the different types of training have. I'm pretty sure I've read every word Chris Child has written on the topic, and I'm still baffled by it. I remember (many years ago) training my star batsman for his entire career with aggressive batting training and he only went from Very Defensive to Defensive. Years later, I read a post by Chris Child saying that a batsman's aggression can only be changed by a maximum of 1 level up or down. I think this is documented somewhere in the help now, but it wasn't then.

The only thing I will say in defence of this lack of feedback is that it does keep the game direct and uncomplicated, allowing you to focus on playing your next cricket match. For me, Football Manager has gone too far with the detail and I find myself wading through hours of tedious "interactions" with media, agents, coaches, scouts, over-sensitive players, the board of directors, etc. and it takes forever to just play a few matches. Having said that, I think Cricket Captain could probably benefit from a few small tweaks that could give you just enough feedback without intruding on the gameplay.

This doesn't necessarily mean that players with higher CA are better, I've had players with low CA who were average league players in term of the scale perform incredibly well due to how their particular attribute was spread about and the tactics. A similar mechanic might already exist in Cricket Captain

I think almost nothing has been revealed about how this works in Cricket Captain. I remember reading something vague that Chris Child wrote about each player having "standard ability" attributes, which can be influenced by training and (to a lesser extent) the player's form. But apart from that, I've never seen anything. I suspect it could be quite different from Football Manager because the two games are created very differently. (Football Manager has a huge budget and they have teams of scouts across the world evaluating players' skills. Cricket Captain doesn't have anywhere near the same budget, so they have to be a bit more clever and generate as much as they can from data and statistics).

if possible incorporate the editor as an official tool

This ultimately comes down to budget. Cricket management games are a very small niche and they have to be very selective about what they can realistically get done each year with the money they generate from sales. I would love to see what kind of cricket management game could be made with the kind of cash Football Manager has, but I don't think we're going to see it any time soon.

 

[weetabixharry]

For anyone interested in editing your opponent's batting order, please try the attached pre-release of this feature. For me, this seems to work fine for domestic and international games.

This is a very simple version that just lets you move players up and down the batting order. Soon, it will allow you to select players not initially selected by the AI (and it will be integrated into the main editor).

I haven't had any problems, but please back up your savegame just in case.

Instructions:

1. In Cricket Captain, proceed to the match ("Play Match"), awaiting the coin toss.
2. In the Selection Editor, click "Load Opposition Team".
3. Click on a player's name and use the up and down arrows to change the batting order.
4. In Cricket Captain, do something to update the screen (e.g. change from "Batting" to "Bowling" figures). You should see the batting order update.
5. Do the coin toss and play the match as usual.

 

[Prashanth S Kharche]

For anyone interested in editing your opponent's batting order, please try the attached pre-release of this feature. For me, this seems to work fine for domestic and international games.

This is a very simple version that just lets you move players up and down the batting order. Soon, it will allow you to select players not initially selected by the AI (and it will be integrated into the main editor).

I haven't had any problems, but please back up your savegame just in case.

Instructions:

1. In Cricket Captain, proceed to the match ("Play Match"), awaiting the coin toss.
2. In the Selection Editor, click "Load Opposition Team".
3. Click on a player's name and use the up and down arrows to change the batting order.
4. In Cricket Captain, do something to update the screen (e.g. change from "Batting" to "Bowling" figures). You should see the batting order update.
5. Do the coin toss and play the match as usual.

View attachment 234340View attachment 234341

The tool works flawlessly! It's strange how a simple tool like this enhances the game. Great work @weetabixharry

 

[Rafat23]

It says the editor only works with 2020.07 version but I downloaded the recent version of your editor

 

[weetabixharry]

It says the editor only works with 2020.07 version but I downloaded the recent version of your editor

That screenshot is of the Scout, not the Editor. You can download the latest version of the Scout in the Cricket Captain 2020 Scout thread.

 

[Rafat23]

That screenshot is of the Scout, not the Editor. You can download the latest version of the Scout in the Cricket Captain 2020 Scout thread.

I know it's the screenshot of the scout, I downloaded both editor and scout. Neither works. Same message appears on both occasion. But I have downloaded the recent version of both editor and scout (version : 2020.08-01)

 

[weetabixharry]

I know it's the screenshot of the scout, I downloaded both editor and scout. Neither works. Same message appears on both occasion. But I have downloaded the recent version of both editor and scout (version : 2020.08-01)

Thanks for pointing this out. The pop-up window is incorrect. It should say:

This tool is only compatible with Cricket Captain v2020.08.

Therefore, if you are using Cricket Captain 20.08, then please ignore the first line of the error message.

I will fix this typo in the next release.

 

[Rafat23]

Thanks for pointing this out. The pop-up window is incorrect. It should say:


Therefore, if you are using Cricket Captain 20.08, then please ignore the first line of the error message.

I will fix this typo in the next release.

Yes, I'm using latest version of cricket captain. So what do you think could be the reason that editor couldn't load my save game? (Forget about loading my save game, I couldn't even open the editor thanks to this error message)

P.S. : I was using CC20.08 and the save game was on easy mode, CC was already running with the save loaded . I don’t understand what it means by fully loaded game, but I played few matches on that save and the savegame was loaded in the game before I tried to open the editor)

 

[weetabixharry]

I have slightly improved the Selection Editor, so you can now select any player in the opponent's squad. I also added little icons to show the type of each player (batsman, bowler, etc) in the team.

To swap a squad player into the team:

1. Click a player in the team (on the left)
2. Click a player in the squad (on the right),
3. Click the <--> button to swap them.

Please Note: I'm not sure if the AI's choice of captain and wicket keeper could get messed up by this. The opening bowlers seem to get selected sensibly even if I swap batsmen into their original positions. It should be possible to confirm the wicket keeper is chosen sensibly by watching highlights on a stumping or caught behind (I just haven't had time to do this yet). I have no idea how to check who the captain is.

 

[weetabixharry]

Yes, I'm using latest version of cricket captain. So what do you think could be the reason that editor couldn't load my save game? (Forget about loading my save game, I couldn't even open the editor thanks to this error message)

P.S. : I was using CC20.08 and the save game was on easy mode, CC was already running with the save loaded . I don’t understand what it means by fully loaded game, but I played few matches on that save and the savegame was loaded in the game before I tried to open the editor)

Since it seems to be working okay for everyone else, my first guess would be a mistake on your side. Double-check that you follow the "Quick Tips" in the first post of this thread. Double-check that you're definitely running Cricket Captain 20.08, not any other version (or the demo).

If that doesn't work, then follow the instructions at this link (but ignore anything that says "2019" - it works the same for 2020):
https://www.planetcricket.org/forum...cket-captain-2019-editor.114683/#post-3402230

 

[Prashanth S Kharche]

I have slightly improved the Selection Editor, so you can now select any player in the opponent's squad. I also added little icons to show the type of each player (batsman, bowler, etc) in the team.

To swap a squad player into the team:

1. Click a player in the team (on the left)
2. Click a player in the squad (on the right),
3. Click the <--> button to swap them.

Please Note: I'm not sure if the AI's choice of captain and wicket keeper could get messed up by this. The opening bowlers seem to get selected sensibly even if I swap batsmen into their original positions. It should be possible to confirm the wicket keeper is chosen sensibly by watching highlights on a stumping or caught behind (I just haven't had time to do this yet). I have no idea how to check who the captain is.

View attachment 234383

Awesome! Can't wait to see try this out now. Just a small suggestion. Why not have those small icons on the right hand side for the players in the available squad also? Maybe easier to choose a like for like replacement?

 

[weetabixharry]

Awesome! Can't wait to see try this out now. Just a small suggestion. Why not have those small icons on the right hand side for the players in the available squad also? Maybe easier to choose a like for like replacement?

That's the plan, eventually. It's easier on the left because there's always exactly 11 players in the team. On the right, there can be different numbers of players in the squad (often more than 11, so there will be a scrollbar). I haven't figured out a way of making that work yet.