Cricket Captain 2015 release date, feature list and trailer

[Alrounder80]

Left handers now bowl closer to the stumps over the wicket (to the right of the wicket), so they have more chance of pitching in line with the stumps for lbw decisions.

Ah, that's good to hear. Seems like my steam review where I say "There are many more little improvements for the better that you will find out as you play the game" is proving to be correct

[Donners]

Enhanced Coaching: new fielding and wicket keeping coaching system.

Are fielding and wicketkeeping skills visible in any way in the game (eg. in the player's profile)?

Also, does this mean that 2014 will not be receiving any further patches?

[GrahamB]

Are fielding and wicketkeeping skills visible in any way in the game (eg. in the player's profile)?

I usually go by the catches per match stat for keepers.

[dkadeekal]

Suggestions/Features for International Cricket Captain

I've been an ardent follower/player of Cricket Captain all the way from 2000 and has pretty much played all the revisions. To be frank we haven't seen any leaps and bound improvement in new features for the game. I've been working on this Game design document for Cricket Captain and I had tried contacting someone from Childish Games for quite some time to make them take a look at it. Please share your feedback and thoughts on these. Below are some of the excerpts from the document itself:

As the Ultimate cricket manager you get to coach/captain the various clubs and countries of the Full members of ICC and also among the Associate Members. Your role as the manager is to take the team to absolute glory. As a manager you’re entitled to control player transfers and Contracts, mentoring, public relations, strategies,training needs, team budget and talent scouting. An additional challenge will be handling your personal life along with these.

At the start of the game you get to customize your character traits and former experience. A player can select up to 2 character traits and 1 experience history. Once locked this cannot be changed during the game play.


Character Traits
Short Tempered -> +10 Player performance, -10 PR skills.
Dirty Hands -> +10 team morale, -10 Strategist
Tech savvy -> +10 strategist, -10 player performance
Media Mogul -> +10 PR skills, -10 team morale


Experience History
Masters in Sports Psychology from a reputed college.
+10 Team Morale, -10 Strategist
Been part of the National playing 11 for the past 10 years.
+10 Player performance, -10 Team morale
State Captain for past 5 years. Moved on to Team management voluntarily.
+10 PR skills, -10 Player performance
Past National Captain who won the world cup twice.
+10 Strategist, -10 PR skills


Associate member teams can get a chance to take part in regional tournaments in Full time member countries considering the manager pitches for it. Manager would need to invite Board members from the targeted full member country to attend at least 5 matches. Depending upon the performance of the team,the Board members might decide for or against the appeal to take part in the regional tournaments of Full time Member.

Mentoring:
Throughout the game several challenges will be thrown at the manager by the players. As the manager you’d need to take a stand and advice the player. Below is a list of challenges that the players will throw at the manager at various phases of the game.



Lack of form causing lack of confidence.
Ego clash with a fellow player.
Weakness in a particular area of the game.
Mistreatment by seniors

etc..

Public Relations:
Public relations depict the media interaction the manager has to give with regards to announcements he has to make and to respond to comments from players, ex-players, commentators, Public. Again the manager will be provided with choices which in turn will affect his public image and also his standing with the team.
Scenarios where Manager would require to exercise his public relations skill are listed below:
Announcement of the team.
Public outcry regarding why a particular player has been left out.
Allegations against a player.
Reacting to comments from commentators/media about a particular player/team.



And so on..the document is quite exhaustive and still under progress. I had started work on it 2 years back and then had put in in the back-burner as there wasn't much motivation.

[DaveK93]

I've been an ardent follower/player of Cricket Captain all the way from 2000 and has pretty much played all the revisions. To be frank we haven't seen any leaps and bound improvement in new features for the game. I've been working on this Game design document for Cricket Captain and I had tried contacting someone from Childish Games for quite some time to make them take a look at it. Please share your feedback and thoughts on these. Below are some of the excerpts from the document itself:

"Demands"

You seem to forget, budget-wise I would imagine the game is nowhere games like Football Manager, where I note a fair few similarities. I play FM probably too much, and to be honest, I really enjoy the simplicity and uncomplicated-ish nature of this game. It's a nice change of pace.

A lot of the demands that I tend to see are often unreasonable. There is also a lot that aren't necessary. For example, the media stuff you mentioned. We don't really need that in CC, it would make no difference to us playing the game.

I would much rather see an accurate match engine, than being able to talk to a journalist, or calling myself "tech-savvy". I play the game for the matches, not because I desire to have arguments with my players, I have enough of that on FM.

It's also worth bearing in mind that the last couple of years have seen pretty hefty overhauls, which will have taken time. Last year, we had the move to steam, a complete overhaul of the menus, and in-game graphics. This year, we've had a dramatic change to the highlights package, we've had a new league system put in, and once again, we have a solid, stable cricket game in which I'll be able to sink many hours into.

Compare that to the other "cricket game" on the market, Cricket Coach. Quite frankly, it is an abomination of a game. Fine, you get an editor, and you get associate nations. The novelty wears off very quickly. That's if the game hasn't crashed after 5 minutes of game play. The match engine is shoddy and not accurate either. Quite frankly, I'd rather spend my money on a brick wall to smash my face into than play that game.

There are always improvements and changes you can make to games, including Cricket Captain. But I'd rather see changes that would affect gameplay, or add new things in, rather than changes that would maybe give you 5 minutes of media interaction.

I have more points, I'll edit this post should I feel motivated to carry on.

[GrahamB]

I've been an ardent follower/player of Cricket Captain all the way from 2000 and has pretty much played all the revisions. To be frank we haven't seen any leaps and bound improvement in new features for the game. I've been working on this Game design document for Cricket Captain and I had tried contacting someone from Childish Games for quite some time to make them take a look at it. Please share your feedback and thoughts on these. Below are some of the excerpts from the document itself:

I'm happy with the game as it is.
I don't want it to become as detailed and complicated as Football Manager, etc.
I agree with what DaveK93 had to say.

[dkadeekal]

As a Cricket Manager these are things that you have to handle on a Day to day basis and that's what I wanted to bring in. I agree this makes the game a bit more complex but don't you think it adds more depth? Its not just the media feature..that's just a small part of it. To have your character traits affect the team as in real life is something which gives the game more real life touch.
And what about Mentoring? And also the struggles as an Associates manager to get your team recognized by the big boys.I believe these will add more depth to the game design rather than making it a similar game everytime. All the changes that you've mentioned are all cosmetic "a complete overhaul of the menus, and in-game graphics. This year, we've had a dramatic change to the highlights package,". ...where is a new feature in the last 5-10 years in the game?

Let me also bring in some excerpts from the in game Strategy feature:

Strategies:

Strategies refer to the in-game changes that can be made while a match is underway. This can be field placement, bowler change, setting aggressiveness, sledging options.Proper field placements and making a bowler bowl to that field mostly determines the aftermath of a match as does choosing the correct batting order and when to decide to accelerate the scoring and when to dig down. When a bowler is set to aggressive the field placements become aggressive automatically and fielders start throwing themselves at the ball more. On a down side this aggressiveness might back fire and end in leaking more runs. The manager need to study the opposition batsmen and their preferences before setting fields and choosing bowlers against them. sledging is something which can be done while batting and bowling. while bowling if you feel the batsman is low on confidence and not middling the ball as such sledging helps in unnerving him further. sledging can have +ve or -ve effect depending upon the batsman on whom sledging was done. If the batsman is high on confidence the effect of sledging is nullified and might result in the player being pulled up by the umpire. Excessive sledging might lead to warnings and subsequently ban from 1-2 matches. Hence the manager needs to be careful as to when to use this weapon.


Thoughts?

[DaveK93]

As a Cricket Manager these are things that you have to handle on a Day to day basis and that's what I wanted to bring in. I agree this makes the game a bit more complex but don't you think it adds more depth? Its not just the media feature..that's just a small part of it. To have your character traits affect the team as in real life is something which gives the game more real life touch.
And what about Mentoring? And also the struggles as an Associates manager to get your team recognized by the big boys.I believe these will add more depth to the game design rather than making it a similar game everytime. All the changes that you've mentioned are all cosmetic "a complete overhaul of the menus, and in-game graphics. This year, we've had a dramatic change to the highlights package,". ...where is a new feature in the last 5-10 years in the game?

Let me also bring in some excerpts from the in game Strategy feature:

Strategies:

Strategies refer to the in-game changes that can be made while a match is underway. This can be field placement, bowler change, setting aggressiveness, sledging options.Proper field placements and making a bowler bowl to that field mostly determines the aftermath of a match as does choosing the correct batting order and when to decide to accelerate the scoring and when to dig down. When a bowler is set to aggressive the field placements become aggressive automatically and fielders start throwing themselves at the ball more. On a down side this aggressiveness might back fire and end in leaking more runs. The manager need to study the opposition batsmen and their preferences before setting fields and choosing bowlers against them. sledging is something which can be done while batting and bowling. while bowling if you feel the batsman is low on confidence and not middling the ball as such sledging helps in unnerving him further. sledging can have +ve or -ve effect depending upon the batsman on whom sledging was done. If the batsman is high on confidence the effect of sledging is nullified and might result in the player being pulled up by the umpire. Excessive sledging might lead to warnings and subsequently ban from 1-2 matches. Hence the manager needs to be careful as to when to use this weapon.


Thoughts?

Firstly I note where you cut my quote to make a comment about new features, you conveniently cut the bit about a new feature i.e Indian Domestic leagues.

The game doesn't need sledging. Why would you need to tell your players to swear at the opposition, the notion is just ridiculous.

To sum up, the changes you have suggested across both posts would turn the game into an arcade game. This is a simulation, not arcade. If these changes were to be implemented, I can't imagine for one minute I would enjoy the game as I do now. You may as well introduce multiballs and power ups, they are as about as logical as some notions you suggest.

I'll finish by noting a subtle difference. The game is Cricket Captain, not Cricket Manager. In terms of dealing with a captains responsibilities, the game is fairly spot on. Granted, contracts are something different, but that is a necessary evil. Turning it into a manager game would overcomplicate the system, and practically make it unplayable. Seasons would take much longer, and would start to get tedious. As it stands, if I want to do a season, it takes very little time to do so.

[dkadeekal]

I still don't get how adding a Indian Domestic League can be called a new Feature..In Fifa if they add the Korean League would that be considered a new feature? That is more content not a new feature. Swearing is not part of the game? wow...even when i mentioned how the feature can backfire you tend to look at the feature as an obnoxious/ridiculous one rather than how it might add character to the game. I'm sure along with Contracts you'll have to say what a player need to train is also not a Captains responsibility..I agree this brings in more of Manager features and not Captaincy features.Anyways i get the point that this makes the game more cumbersome and we all want the game to remain simple click n play. Your thoughts and feedback were valuable. I'll look forward to more comments from other users too.


Thank You

[Alrounder80]

IMO, all that needs to be added to make this game complete would be the ability to play as Associate teams and the ability to change teams midway through a career save. There are many other little things that could be added but two points mentioned are the big ones I hope will be introduced in future versions.

[Sureshot]

I still don't get how adding a Indian Domestic League can be called a new Feature..In Fifa if they add the Korean League would that be considered a new feature?

EA Sports have a few more resources and sales than we do.

Comparisons to Football Manager are going to be inevitable (and not a bad thing), but I do think each game has a different approach to the Sports Management genre that works with each sport. I want to spend as much time as possible playing matches. A Test Match going down to the final hour, etc, will always be the most enjoyable aspect of the game.

I also think the football world and the cricket world have two very different relationships with the media which will impact on how games for each sport will represent them differently. Personally, I'm not too fussed about media in Cricket Captain, there are other priorities I'd like to see happen before that route is considered.

As Dave also said earlier, you're a captain more than a manager in Cricket Captain (with some exceptions). The micro-management aspects we have (historically or new for this year) are all fairly quick and they don't feel laborious to use. Plenty of thoughts on expanding this, but it's likely to stay easy to use and not become a chore.

There are many areas of the game that we can and will build on, the last couple of years creating the new interface and highlights engine will go a long way to helping Cricket Captain progress further, not just in these two areas.

Sureshot

[Graham_5000]

There are always improvements and changes you can make to games, including Cricket Captain. But I'd rather see changes that would affect gameplay, or add new things in, rather than changes that would maybe give you 5 minutes of media interaction.

I have more points, I'll edit this post should I feel motivated to carry on.

I agree with GrahamB and Dave. Gameplay is the most important thing.

It would be great if a bowler or batsman's settledness (if that's a word?) were to change according to events in the match. E.g. A Batsman might become less settled after losing his batting partner, being tied down unable to score, lbw shouts etc. Likewise a bowler could be unsettled by successfully attacking him. Creating pressure in matches is what makes cricket so exciting; a battle within a battle etc, so something along these lines in the future would be amazing.

In the meantime I am really enjoying the new game - it is fantastic.

Incidentally was there an update just now, as Steam seemed to be busy patching?

[Donners]

I usually go by the catches per match stat for keepers.

That doesn't seem a particularly useful measure of ability, and even less so for fielders.

I suppose the only way to do it would be to keep track of dropped catches vs held ones.

It seems odd to introduce an ability to train those skills while the player is left blind as to what ability the players already have.

[GrahamB]

That doesn't seem a particularly useful measure of ability, and even less so for fielders.

I suppose the only way to do it would be to keep track of dropped catches vs held ones.

It seems odd to introduce an ability to train those skills while the player is left blind as to what ability the players already have.

I didn't mention fielders, only keepers.

[Lanky]

One thing really distracts to me Why You have provide 18 Player selection Policy for any tour , when there is 15 Player selection Policy for each format of cricket

I've always thought this was the case incase of injuries. In real life you can pick replacements but in this if a player is injured you get the added 3 players from the squad at the start.