I honestly think the integrity of the game is compromised...

[clwalcott]

I just set New Zealand 609 to win (with England) in six and a half sessions and they made it comfortably with an hour and four wickets to spare. Absolutely ridiculous

[GrahamB]

To be honest, the fourth innings is my main area of concern as well.
If you set a target requiring less than around 4.5 runs per over, too often the opposition will get it no matter how large that target is or how bad the pitch conditions are. That's the impression that I get anyway.

[Rumblah]

What are your plans with bowling? Before making big statements maybe assess what you yourself are doing. Who are you bowling and for how long each spell? Are your bowlers decent and in form? What are your bowling and fielding plans.

Now, had you said that pitches are not deteriorating as fast as they might in real life, I might agree with you. However even then, most curators are attempting to create pitches that will last five days, so maybe the developers catered for that.

[clwalcott]

What are your plans with bowling? Before making big statements maybe assess what you yourself are doing. Who are you bowling and for how long each spell? Are your bowlers decent and in form? What are your bowling and fielding plans.

Now, had you said that pitches are not deteriorating as fast as they might in real life, I might agree with you. However even then, most curators are attempting to create pitches that will last five days, so maybe the developers catered for that.

Look, obviously I was competent enough to build a 608 run lead, I had my bowlers (Broad, Anderson, Footitt, Stokes, Ali) on second max aggression basically constantly as any Test team would with such a lead. Once in 140 years a team has made this score (in a timeless Test), the second highest fourth innings score ever is 454, it's totally unrealistic a team could chase down such a score, under any conditions.

[Graham_5000]

I just set New Zealand 609 to win (with England) in six and a half sessions and they made it comfortably with an hour and four wickets to spare. Absolutely ridiculous

That does sound like a crazy record for the opposition to break. Your tone isn't massively constructive though - the developers often tweak games when they patch them, and in the past I can remember the balance between bat and ball, FC run rates and indeed the balance between pace and spin being tweaked. I have mentioned the dominance of batting on another thread and suggested that in order to mitigate it, there should be more occasional (if that makes sense) bowler friendly conditions. Perhaps the effects of unsettled weather, cloudy and very cloudy weather could have a more pronounced effect? You're talking about day 4 & 5 pitch conditions though, so perhaps bounce needs to become more uneven from day 3/4 in Aus, SA, Eng, NZ etc and wear greater in Ind, SL, etc? Perhaps despite some of the high scores we sometimes see in a day, Test run rates are too high on pitches that are totally flat?

I am sure that Chris and Sureshot are looking at this sort of thing all the time though, as they have done in the past. The game is great, so let's constructively suggest improvements.

[kishorea]

Look, obviously I was competent enough to build a 608 run lead, I had my bowlers (Broad, Anderson, Footitt, Stokes, Ali) on second max aggression basically constantly as any Test team would with such a lead. Once in 140 years a team has made this score (in a timeless Test), the second highest fourth innings score ever is 454, it's totally unrealistic a team could chase down such a score, under any conditions.

Second max aggression means three slips, gully, silly point, forward short leg and silly mid-on. I'm not sure any Test team would set such an aggressive field for a batsman gone past a century, no matter what total you're defending.

But regarding fourth-innings chases in general, I have my peeves as well. I haven't lost with such a big lead, but losing after setting targets of 350 to 400 happens quite regularly.

Recently I had a rare succes in defending a target of 340 in a little over 3 sessions when the game seemed to have slipped away from me. The opposition were sitting pretty at 211/2 with less than a run-a-minute required. Even before the second wicket had fallen at 159, I had changed my field settings to 0 aggression, knowing very well this kind of scenario. They slipped to 283/6 and then 317 all out, going for big shots. Only after the 9th wicket fell leaving two tailenders at the crease did I increase the aggression from 0 to 4, since they were always within a run-a-minute.

It isn't entirely realistic as far as fourth innings chases go, but seems like different approaches do bring about different results.

[clwalcott]

That does sound like a crazy record for the opposition to break. Your tone isn't massively constructive though - the developers often tweak games when they patch them, and in the past I can remember the balance between bat and ball, FC run rates and indeed the balance between pace and spin being tweaked. I have mentioned the dominance of batting on another thread and suggested that in order to mitigate it, there should be more occasional (if that makes sense) bowler friendly conditions. Perhaps the effects of unsettled weather, cloudy and very cloudy weather could have a more pronounced effect? You're talking about day 4 & 5 pitch conditions though, so perhaps bounce needs to become more uneven from day 3/4 in Aus, SA, Eng, NZ etc and wear greater in Ind, SL, etc? Perhaps despite some of the high scores we sometimes see in a day, Test run rates are too high on pitches that are totally flat?

I am sure that Chris and Sureshot are looking at this sort of thing all the time though, as they have done in the past. The game is great, so let's constructively suggest improvements.

I'm not sure why such fields would be inappropriate defending a total nearly 200 runs higher than what has ever been chased down in Test history - I had ever reason to be fully aggressive and dismissive of the chances of losing. The bounce was uneven and pitch turning, as one would expect down the stretch in a Test. And as for my tone, I'm irritated at this break with realism in a game where realism is one of the key features. I'd love to see a patch to correct these sort of issues, of which it seems from other comments in this thread are quite common. If I have brought an issue to the attention of the developers through this thread and my incredulous, disappointed tone, surely that's the definition of constructive - I wouldn't be emotional about the issue if I didn't care for and enjoy the game and what to see it become the best it can be

[kishorea]

I'm not sure why such fields would be inappropriate defending a total nearly 200 runs higher than what has ever been chased down in Test history - I had ever reason to be fully aggressive and dismissive of the chances of losing. The bounce was uneven and pitch turning, as one would expect down the stretch in a Test.

Even though you're defending an impossible target on a deteriorating pitch, I think it makes sense to spread the field just a bit for a batsman who's in full flow. Just as it does in real life. If the batsman is comfortably pushing the ball into the huge gaps without taking any risks and keeping the score moving briskly, you would try to place a few fielders on the edge of the circle to stop the singles and break the momentum and draw the batsman into a false shot out of frustration.

[GrahamB]

Default fields should be good enough to guarantee realistic results (just as standard formations do in football management games). Many don't have the extra time or the desire to experiment with custom fields.

It could well have been that one of the game play changes in the latest patch has addressed this issue a litlle, but I don't know.

[kishorea]

Default fields should be good enough to guarantee realistic results (just as standard formations do in football management games). Many don't have the extra time or the desire to experiment with custom fields.

It could well have been that one of the game play changes in the latest patch has addressed this issue a litlle, but I don't know.

I didn't mean to advocate using custom fields. When a batsman is well set you can tighten things by simply reducing aggression bars from 5 to 3 and still have two slips, a short cover and a short leg.

[Chris Child]

We updated the FC/test match engine in the latest patch to change the balance between bat and ball slightly in favour of bowling. Was this score with the latest version (15.02)?The game is, however, based on probability and between the thousands of people playing several years of test cricket between them, the highly improbably is going to happen for a few people sometimes. We don't force anything to happen in the game, so if a batsman scores a very lucky 200 we don't force a collapse to make a particular result happen. You may also find that the wicket wasn't too bad. A road will still be a decent pitch by days 4 and 5. If the pitch was spinning bit you don't have a decent spinner it will still be playable. It's a very tough balance to get right of course and we're always working on this.

[GrahamB]

Thanks Chris. Appreciate your thoughtful response.

[clwalcott]

We updated the FC/test match engine in the latest patch to change the balance between bat and ball slightly in favour of bowling. Was this score with the latest version (15.02)?The game is, however, based on probability and between the thousands of people playing several years of test cricket between them, the highly improbably is going to happen for a few people sometimes. We don't force anything to happen in the game, so if a batsman scores a very lucky 200 we don't force a collapse to make a particular result happen. You may also find that the wicket wasn't too bad. A road will still be a decent pitch by days 4 and 5. If the pitch was spinning bit you don't have a decent spinner it will still be playable. It's a very tough balance to get right of course and we're always working on this.

I appreciate the measured response and can say that my experience generally has been fairly positive before this rage quit. To the best of my knowledge there has been a single patch for Icc15 and I have installed this.

Re fields, the argument for backing off over time Is not an unreasonable one, mccullum made 240 odd and once the kiwis passed about 480 I backed down to one or zero aggression to him and attacked down one end. But again, seriously 609 and I've seen enough cricket to know that simply being patient and waiting for wickets to fall with such a monstrous total Is the way to go. Nz were 4/151 at one point so I think blaming attacking fields when defending 608 is a bit weak tbh

[Chris Child]

If anyone could do this, McCullum could. His natural scoring rate is close to a run a ball and he's very highly rated. Do you know how many chances he gave in his innings (played & missed, catch chances etc.)?

[clwalcott]

If anyone could do this, McCullum could. His natural scoring rate is close to a run a ball and he's very highly rated. Do you know how many chances he gave in his innings (played & missed, catch chances etc.)?

Not exactly but I watch every ball highlights and remarkably little from either him, Williamson (170 odd) and Corey Anderson (83). I think from 4/151 to 6/609 (about four sessions) I think there were a couple of dropped chances (one for sure I remember by cook at short leg) and two lbw shouts that were turned down. I do remember explicitly thinking "these guys don't even LOOK like getting out" - as ridiculous as it is to think that about a video game lol. But as I Implied earlier, I like the game I think it's superior to cricket coach it's to main competition but although I do take the point about statistics and probability it Is tough to swallow.. especially when a few others in here have critical things to say about the fourth innings