Simple Feature Requests

[FineLegatron]

The general consensus in previous versions is that the specialist coaching makes no difference. I know that players can't always "take" to coaching, as in you can throw balls at a batsman all day and they're still rubbish, but for it to happen regularly on a large sample means that there is something not quite right. Especially as in three years time their space will be taken by a regen coming in full skill.

So how about a change where you keep the nets for form - but get rid of the coaching. Instead, you use this money to invest in a batting/bowling/fielding coach. You don't need names or anything, just like the budget screen is now except where it says "youth, coaching, physio" it reads "youth coach, batting coach, bowling coach, fielding coach, physio". The amount of money you put in dictates the net sessions, like it does now, but the amount of investment in a certain area raises the standard of the whole team's batting/bowling/fielding as they all benefit from that coaching investment throughout the year. Thoughts? I have no idea how hard that'll be to implement coding wise and it still has the problem of super regens, but may be a better way of handling coaching.

[LankyLanc]

I'd prefer that the simplicity of the game remained.
Don't want to see it become like Football Manager.

I still would keep the coaching allowances to the start/end of each season and possibly get rid of the monthly specialist coaching.
Instead of attendance you could have memberships which would be based off the previous years performance.
I find allocating the coaching a bit of a drag all the time. Or even the possibility to automate this.

I also think user made central contracts in International mode.
I don't like how the squads are basically picked at random in international each season for each game type.
You should be able to pick a core squad of say 25 players for the year but have the ability to play uncontracted players just like in real life.

[ZH8]

Chris Child Sureshot

• Different hand for different skills for newgens. Also make sure subcontinental nations produce enough newgen spin bowlers of various types, I dont see many SLA newgens in Bangladesh which is unrealistic.
• Separate colours for 4 and 6 in wagon wheels.
• Shot names and delivery names in commentary texts.
• Scoop shots in T20 (without adding animation obviously).
• Tour matches against "A" team and also "A" teams from various countries touring eachother once or twice a year, "A" teams mostly selecting top domestic performers and promising youngsters that are close to get internatinal calls.
• Domestic T20 competitions should not get clashed with hosting nation's international schedule, so local players who represent international sides are 100% available, for example if in a certain season Bangladesh has internatinal schedule in decembre-january they should arrange BPL after or before the international schedule.
• Home teams must get some advantage over touring teams, maybe with 10% boost in skills, similarly touring team might get 10% disadvantage. The boost/disadvantage might be only 5% if Asian teams are touring Asian teams.

I dunno if these features are simple or complex, so consider adding the ones that you think are possible to implement with ease and the rest you might think for the next iteration.

[Lynx54321]

Modern day cricket seems to see more and more 'specialist' players emerging. I'm talking the players who are average first class cricketers but top end t20 players. The game seems to struggle to capture this at the moment from what I've gathered in the database threads.

I wonder if additional traits could be included alongside the batting preferences. I'm thinking a 'white ball specialist' or 't20 specialist' so you might see:

Average aggression
Strong spin preference
T20 specialist

In coding terms the t20 specialist could perhaps give that player a 10% or 20% uplift to batting or bowling ability when in t20s. This would allow Sureshot to rate these players lower meaning they perform to a lower standard in first class games but better in t20s.

[bhagwati]

I'd prefer that the simplicity of the game remained.
Don't want to see it become like Football Manager.

Yes, I love that there is no clutter in this game & all the time is spent playing actual matches unlike FM.

[weetabixharry]

I'd prefer that the simplicity of the game remained.
Don't want to see it become like Football Manager.

I agree with this. I'm not saying that all of those ideas are bad, but I would hate for Cricket Captain to become as over-complicated as Football Manager. All the interactions with the media, board of directors, players, coaches, physios, scouts, agents, etc are a huge chore. It takes hours to wade through all that nonsense and just play a few games.

I do quite like the idea of having a Career Summary screen (showing my win/loss/draw numbers etc). That would be very non-intrusive.

[GrahamB]

Hi All,

I've been a ICC player since International Cricket Captain 2005 (and the Ashes Edition) so long time player, first time poster.

Below are some things I would like to see added to the game which I think are achievable.

- Improved records (Fastest 50's, 100's, Most 4's, Most 6's, for both teams and individuals, season by season stats)
- In Simple/In-Depth Ladder Option (Runs for, Runs Against, Wickets For, Wickets Against, Avg Scoring Rate)
- Cricket Captain Career Summary: YEAR, TEAM, FORMAT, WINS, LOSSES, DRAWS, POSITION (Both overall and season by season)
- Re design the finances and make the budget more important (Investing in coaches, assistants, physio, crowd attendance into $ and sponsorship) I think the current 10-50K speciality training is getting stale.
Possibly have Liabilities: Head Coach, Fielding, Bowling, Batting, Physio, Groundsman, Player Salaries, Overseas
Profits: ECB Contribution, Attendance, Sponsorship, Shop

- Have a groundsman budget (the more you pay the groundsman the more consistent your are to the wickets requested for home games)
- Ability to sign overseas players throughout the season and loan players for $
- Finances in International cricket modes too.

These are just a starting point but I have lots of ideas of how we can improve an already great game,

I'd prefer that the simplicity of the game remained.
Don't want to see it become like Football Manager.

[Lynx54321]

Training is the single biggest improvement I’d love to see in the game - hadn’t even considered winter coaching, but that’s an unbelievably good idea!

i would also like more options for coaching such as being able to get more than 10 coaches (tried to do a youth only save for fun last year and it’s almost impossible), double stacking coaches & a mixed technique coach (user selectable % bat/% bowl) so I could train all rounders, ‘batsmen who bowl’ and ‘bowlers who bat’ better

would really really love to see some indication as to how good my youth player is, even if it’s as simple as a screen where my head coach giving me his view of what rough potential or current ability all my <25 players have (poor/ave/good/excellent/world class) - doesn’t even have to be completely accurate, just something to try and go off

Agree with all this. Development of players into second XI/fringe players then first choice XI players and then ultimately pushing for international recognition over multiple seasons should be a key component of a game like this but it's not really possible at the moment.

Generated players should be bang average at best only unlocking their potential over multiple seasons of coaching rather than generating at international quality.

Perhaps Chris could shed some light on whether the game's player development coding would even allow this with greater coaching options coded or whether it needs rebuilt from the ground up and isn't a small feature request. Chris Child

Actually as an additional feature suggestion an option to cut down on player generation would be nice, perhaps limiting it to 1 player per season for the first 2 or 3 seasons.

I hate that two seasons into the game most county sides contain multiple generated players whilst all the real life England under 19 squad get released or at best are rubbish.

[Lojoda]

How about being able to play as an English team in the English summer and an Australian team in the uk winter?

[LankyLanc]

Hi All,

I've been a ICC player since International Cricket Captain 2005 (and the Ashes Edition) so long time player, first time poster.

Below are some things I would like to see added to the game which I think are achievable.

- Improved records (Fastest 50's, 100's, Most 4's, Most 6's, for both teams and individuals, season by season stats)
- In Simple/In-Depth Ladder Option (Runs for, Runs Against, Wickets For, Wickets Against, Avg Scoring Rate)
- Cricket Captain Career Summary: YEAR, TEAM, FORMAT, WINS, LOSSES, DRAWS, POSITION (Both overall and season by season)
- Re design the finances and make the budget more important (Investing in coaches, assistants, physio, crowd attendance into $ and sponsorship) I think the current 10-50K speciality training is getting stale.
Possibly have Liabilities: Head Coach, Fielding, Bowling, Batting, Physio, Groundsman, Player Salaries, Overseas
Profits: ECB Contribution, Attendance, Sponsorship, Shop

- Have a groundsman budget (the more you pay the groundsman the more consistent your are to the wickets requested for home games)
- Ability to sign overseas players throughout the season and loan players for $
- Finances in International cricket modes too.

These are just a starting point but I have lots of ideas of how we can improve an already great game,

[benj_2904]

Training is the single biggest improvement I’d love to see in the game - hadn’t even considered winter coaching, but that’s an unbelievably good idea!

i would also like more options for coaching such as being able to get more than 10 coaches (tried to do a youth only save for fun last year and it’s almost impossible), double stacking coaches & a mixed technique coach (user selectable % bat/% bowl) so I could train all rounders, ‘batsmen who bowl’ and ‘bowlers who bat’ better

would really really love to see some indication as to how good my youth player is, even if it’s as simple as a screen where my head coach giving me his view of what rough potential or current ability all my <25 players have (poor/ave/good/excellent/world class) - doesn’t even have to be completely accurate, just something to try and go off

[weetabixharry]

I've gone through some in my playthrough here https://youtu.be/QBJpqqspyLQ
- Runs to win/balls remaining on highlight screen (top right maybe?)
- Current batsmen and score (top left?)
- RPO required in the hundred (with the RTW/Ball remaining.
- The hundred. A repeat over button to the right of Play Over when bowling, so you can use the same bowler twice. It's quite cumbersome to go to the bowler select menu.
- The hundred (possible T20 and One Day) If you hover over the current bowler, it shows their average. For short games, bowling economy would be handy as well.

I like these ideas, particularly the first two.

Another thing you mentioned in your video is that changing the main team name doesn't update abbreviated versions (e.g. "NTM" and "Nottnghm"). I'd also like to see that.

[FineLegatron]

Good suggestions I think.

Another one, that I've banged on about for a while - ability to save World XI squads for easy recall. Also, more players from associate nations represented? One Malaysian/a few PNG players is frustrating as it isn't enough to fulfill a whole side. Aside from PNG and Malaysia, last T20 Qualifier saw Jersey perform well, so I think 15/16 players from there deserve to be included? As well as bringing back Nigeria and Saudi Arabia (Germany, Italy and Denmark too, if I'm being selfish).

This next bit is on regens and transfers

Is there any way of capping the ability and/or amount of regens? In a Kent save this year, Hampshire (our second championship game of the season) had a regen opening the batting. It's frustrating to see real life players pushed out by fictional ones. Also, an option to disable transfers for the first year? Again, it is frustrating to have all the realism in the world if sides are just going to load up on out of contract players.

[Ausathon]

I absolutely love the winter training option. Say you've got a young gun regen opener but he is a spin specialist, you can train his fast bowling ability so he is better equipped to deal with the new ball over the off season.

[Lynx54321]

Hey Chris Child great to hear your impressed by the idea. Your the main stakeholder for this thread so your buy in is essential.

Couple more small ideas:

1. I like the messages you get when a player on technique coaching has made an improvement. It could be interesting to add messages for players who are hitting improved form from practice coaching or second XI play.

Perhaps once a player hits the form improvement threshold a message that says 'Tom Lammonby is batting/bowling well in the nets' (borrowed from another post). This is a nice touch but also useful as you can move that coaching slot to someone else (something I frequently forget to do).

With second XI performance you'd have to code a threshold of a certain number of runs or wickets over the last 3 innings to generate a 'Tom Lammonby has been playing well for the second XI' message, a small touch perhaps but just that bit more engaging than looking at form alone.

2. Another coaching related suggestion. In game i still feel it's hard to develop youth players into county regulars. An example would be Ben Charlesworth at Gloucester who is an England under 19 player and great prospect. Perhaps the addition of the ability to stack multiple coaching slots on one player, perhaps under 21s for arguments sake could be assigned two technique coaching slots for more intense coaching (at the expense of fitness potentially).