Cricket Captain 2014

[Deleted member 9102]

I agree about player attributes. That is one of the things I love about ICC, that you have to judge players based on your own criteria, with the stats being a guide but not always painting the full picture... Does that veteran batsman have another solid season left? That's a call/gamble you have to take, not a simple decision based on numerical attributes.

 

[used2bcool]

My problem with ICC's lack of player attributes is two-fold:

i. It's just not realistic. The modern captain/manager has a bevy of scouts/analysts at his call who would be able to provide information about player attributes. Leaving them out is unrealistic because any captain playing at any serious level of cricket has access to that information, or at least some representation of the player's ability, not his performance. Selection at FC and International level is not a guessing game or an instinct-driven direction (if you're not India).

ii. It takes away from the subtlety of the game of cricket. From what I remember, ICC's player ratings are internally one number per skill, which is essentially a base ability rating. But a player's ability to do certain things well in his skill set is not captured anywhere. For example, ICC captures that a player is a good spin bowler, but it tells you nothing about what he does well: does he have great accuracy? Does he have a mystery ball? Can he turn the ball a mile? These are the different aspects of being a good spinner, but ICC chooses to bundle it all into one number.

Football Manager provides a long list of player attributes, and the interplay of those numbers with the game situation and the effect the numbers have on what unfolds on matchday is a major part of the beauty of that franchise.

 

[Deleted member 9102]

That's the opposite for me - Football Manager has gotten a bit stale and I haven't played it for years precisely because it has all those easily viewable player attributes. Once you play for a while you learn what sort of thing the match engine favours and which attributes are the most valuable for each position.

This just makes the transfer system a simple case of finding players with 15+ in those areas and even with very basic tactics you can propel your team to glory with ease. I would probably rather there were no attributes and you had to judge players based on actually looking at stuff like pass completion rates, distances covered, goals scored, shot on target % etc. with the scouting system there to find out general strengths/weaknesses and plenty of feedback on performances in training. It basically already has the scout/coach reports thing in there anyway but it's pointless when you can just look at a definitive number on a 1-20 scale.

It would make you, for example, consider gambling on that striker who has been banging in the goals for fun in a lower quality league... Do they have the quality to step up? There must be something about them if they can find the back of the net so often, but they may not be able to adapt to tougher opposition and could be a complete flop, or they could be an absolute bargain and take the league by storm. This is something that you see quite often in real life, yet in FM it's impossible because you'd just take one look at their attributes and if 'Finishing' were 10-12 you'd just go "Uh... Nope!" and leave it at that.

Even if ICC is rather simplistic in the way it applies its attributes behind the scenes, as an overall experience it gives the illusion of much more depth by the way it affects your mentality towards your selection of players.

 

[_Sam_]

Although I agree a few more specific attributes wouldn't go amiss, I agree with madman here. Selection in real life will be based on form and stats, so why should we get any more information than that? Teams don't just look and go batting ability 80, batting ability 90, we'll take the second one please.

 

[Deleted member 9102]

Last time I played ICC (years ago) I remember that you could see characteristics such as front/back foot preference, off/leg side preference and aggression which I think is actually enough information really. That together with their strike rate and average gives quite a good picture of what to expect from them, although you can be mistaken which I think is a good thing.

Perhaps these sort of general characteristics could be visible for bowlers too to show things like short/full preference, aggression, mystery deliveries, swing proficiency etc. but absolutely not on a definitive numerical scale.

One of my favourite things to do in ICC is to play as England and select my side. I take ages going through all of the candidates stats with a fine-tooth comb, both for a player's whole career as well as just in the previous season. Eventually I come to a conclusion and pick my squad, and then during the series the players can either cement their places or cause me to question their inclusion based on the impression their performances give me.

In FM I've managed the national side and had to pick the squad for tournaments, and the most successful method is to simply go to player search and when looking for a striker sort the list of players by 'Finishing', then look through the first few results until one of them has solid physical attributes and is decent in other areas, particularly 'Composure', 'Off the Ball' and 'First Touch' and that's it. Same goes for every other position, just different attributes. This has much less depth and immersion than my selections in ICC.

 

[Deleted member 9102]

Due to be released at 8pm BST tonight according to Steam.

 

[_Sam_]

Just in case anyone (Ok, everyone probably did) missed it, just to top off the brilliant organisation of this series the game released about 15 mins ago. You'll have to buy through steam though as the website purchasing area has crashed (hmmm, where do I recognise that from?).

 

[Kiko_97]

Managed to get through the website. £15.99 on there for this week. £17.99 on steam

 

[Cymro]

Enjoying the game so far, couple of player issues they got to resolve but I do like the new layout.

 

[Deleted member 9102]

I couldn't resist the temptation and bought it - a bit disappointed that there are no classic Ashes series this year and everything else just seems like typical ICC, but that's what I expected and I'm sure I'll get plenty of fun out of it having not played ICC for years.

 

[someone]

Played a bit of the new game, disappointed with the interface. The colors complexion isn't good and some of the fonts/images are too small like the text commentary is small. On the editing part, the unofficial application to edit fixtures is still working fine. And I hope an application to edit player's abilities will be released very soon here.

Thinking about the game, it's have to say it $23 wasted. It's just a new skin and db update. Like in football manager game, users can make their own skin and update db freely & easily. If cricket captain offers similar customization, nobody would buy this game. Thus, no wonder they don't make any editing tools.

 

[Kiko_97]

If I could bowl i'd enjoy it a lot more, i'm sure i'll enjoy the hell out of it, especially knowing there's updates to be made

 

[Markkkkk]

Well 3 hours later and Im yet to have the game...

 

[used2bcool]

They used to make a trial version available in the past, but I don't see any options for that this year. Unfortunately that means that I won't get to play it this year, as I feel this game is undeserving of my $26. But there's always next year.

 

[Alberts]

The game seems pretty good. Probably could use some polish here and there, and I wish there were an obvious way to mod the game, as I'd be all over that.

What I really think this series needs though is some serious support, as most of the "added" features over the years have been seemingly just squad updates, some cosmetic changes and such. The new skin at least works properly for modern resolutions though.

I really wish they'd take the time to have one big crack at it, rebuild the game from scratch and see what they could do with it, but sadly it seems that whilst there is a niche market for this kind of game, the bravery to try and make a true Cricket "Football Manager" isn't there, which is understandable.

Considering that cricket fans are stat nuts though, a well done modern game could really take the market by storm done right.

This all said, with the game as it is, it certainly fills the niche, and there's nothing so jarring as to make you think "was this really made for this year" as with previous versions, at least aesthetically. The 3D highlights can look a bit silly, particularly the fielding, but even DBC 14 can't get that right, and there it can actually be game changing, here it's just a mock up of what the game engine said happened.

If want a Cricket Sim like this, I'd recommend picking it up, because it certainly does the job.