Feature Requests

[powercord84]

Oh and just further to my previous point, batsmen currently seem to choose their own aggression to a certain extent, and it shouldn't be the case, it should be purely dictated by what aggression you set them at.

For example, if you bowl a team out for 90 in a T20 match, no matter what aggression you put your guys on, they'll have a stack of dot balls as they just leave them outside off and block. If you set them at 7 or 8, they should never be doing that (even if you only need to score at 3 an over, sometimes you want to get it done quickly so you get a good NRR boost).

[powercord84]

1. More batting options in addition to sliders, especially for limited overs games. I'd like to see options to "rotate the strike" and "look for the boundary." I find that batsmen play out too many dot balls when they're on less than six bars, or less than seven in T20. This is particularly noticeable when players first come in and play out too many dot balls, and particularly problematic in T20 - if they're on six bars they tend to score too slowly, seven or more and they're likely to get out straight away, often triggering a collapse.
2. Relating to point one, some players need to be consistently better at scoring quickly from the start of their innings. The choice in T20 is far too often to either score at less than a run a ball, or for most players to get out in single figures on seven bars. The match engine is generally alright, but far too often a good score is reliant on one or two players getting in and scoring big, with everyone else getting out in single figures. You rarely have a T20 innings where multiple players have cameos of 20-30.
3. The ability to see a pitch and weather forecast before you select your squad for a home test, or at least the ability to select a 13 man squad, and "release" one of the players a day before. You might want an extra spinner, seamer or batsman depending on the conditions.
4. An international calendar on domestic games when you're signing overseas players.It's good to know when players might be unavailable during the season.
5. Green pitches that are trickier on the first morning but gradually flatten out by the end of the first day,and are at their easiest to bat on by day 2-3.
6. Being able to select fielding positions from a drop-down menu rather than having to drag them into position.

I can't agree enough with most of that, but point 1 (bolded) in particular is huge. It drives me insane that having a player on 6 bars of agression in a T20 will still only average less than a run a ball. Anything 5 bars or higher should surely be looking to push for at least 7 an over. On the flip side, there's nothing more infuriating than seeing a player get run out when you've got them at zero bars (if anything, having them on zero seems to increase the run out likelihood).

You would have thought something like:
0 bars aggression - No shot offered unless the ball is either just outside off, or in line with the stumps. Striking at about 1 an over.
1 bar - Much the same with no shots being offered, but slightly more likely to try and work a straighter ball into space. Striking at about 1-2 an over.
2 bars - The odd should offered outside off, no lifted shots though, and looking to score at about 2-3 runs an over.
3 bars - Reasonable chance of a shot outside off, looking to score at 3 an over for most batters (aggressive and very aggressive batsmen should be looking for 4 or 5 an over)
4 - 5 bars - Aiming to rotate the strike every ball and pushing singles wherever possible. You'd expect at least 5 an over for everyone but defensive batsmen
6 - 7 bars - Anything loose should be attacked aggressively. More risky singles attempted. Sixes should start appearing at a reasonable rate. You'd expect at least 8 an over from everyone here.
8 bars - Swinging at absolutely everything, and looking for singles irrespective of how risky it might be. This really should only ever be used with one or two overs left in a match as wickets should fall very frequently at this level. They should never, ever, leave a ball or block it.

[Heisenberg]

In the custom match series mode can we please have an option where you can choose a team of players using the whole database available ?

The user could then create an all star xi game or pick a combined England and Australian team to play against an Indian and Sri Lankan xi. Would also allow the user to play the ECB North v South style game.

[bestie_96]

Couple of other things I've thought of - would be good to have some different options for players who don't play certain formats (Eoin Morgan pushing his FC average up to 42 while batting at 3 for Middlesex in the county championship is annoying) or at least prioritise certain ones (or just make Morgan worse!). Also not sure if it's the case currently that players can have substantially different ratings for formats - Morgan is the perfect example of a mediocre red ball player and a top-class international in LO cricket. Alastair Cook is of course the opposite. Cook I don't mind seeing plunder runs against me in domestic limited overs cricket because as he's showing now, he can do that (although he is available for Essex way too much in-game - I think he gets dropped by England pretty quickly plus there's no concept of England demanding rest for centrally contracted players - which yes, might be annoying but would also be more realistic) but there really should be an option for players who don't hit it in the air - Cook basically never hits a six in any format. Chris Rogers was the same - his one test 6 was a massive edge. Last point - again on limited overs - would be that it would be good if, in addition to having players who are openers only in some formats for players to be all-rounders only in white ball cricket. Scott Borthwick, Brett D'Oliveira, Steven Mullaney - these kind of guys are useful limited overs bowlers but just part timers with the red ball.

[bestie_96]

Think workload management could be done a bit better, as I always face Ben Stokes coming in at number 3. Maybe there could be some option for players' batting preferences beyond opening or not? It would be better not to see a specialist batsman with a v defensive mindset coming in at 7/8 with Stokes at 3.

I've also wondered about over rates. In real life, it's a big consideration when using spinners but in game teams often have all-seam attacks. Maybe if your over rate is too low too often you could be forced to sim the next game, or just have the captain banned (trouble would be people selecting a non-crucial captain as the role is irrelevant otherwise). Just feel like it would make it more realistic.

One other minor tweak is the coming in and bowling one over before lunch/close (I also don't seem to get 2 overs deducted for the changeover). Having it like in real life where that over will be bowled after lunch would appeal to me. It's the little things! And also being able to agree a draw when it's clearly meandering towards that would also save some futile sessions bowling part-timers!

[Sureshot]

Thanks for the feedback. You can resign the international captaincy in existing versions of Cricket Captain with the Resign Captaincy button in tour squad selection screen.

[TheRysingTyde]

Some items I'd like to see implemented:

1. The ability to "drop" or "gain" specific game types as captain (e.g. if I am captain of Somerset in all 3 formats and I get sick of t20, it'd be nice to be able to withdraw from that, just as it would be good to be able to "add" formats onto a captaincy)

Note: if you are a domestic captain and earn international captaincy, it'd be awesome if you could also pick what format(s) you wanted to go with as an international. E.g. you may do all 3 formats as a captain of Lancashire, but when you get the nod for England you may only want to do Tests

2. Billy Stanlake and Adam Zampa are woeful in the game - both are internationally capped now (and Zampa is a regular), and both are playing IPL 2017 (just a note). I've used Billy Stanlake in multiple games for Bulls and he legitimately bowls at around 55-70 runs per wicket in first-class.

3. The ability to "retire" from international captaincy (e.g. if you take it on after a successful period as a first-class coach and then, after 3 years, decide you don't want it anymore, it'd be great if you could drop it.

4. The ability to mould specialist bowlers and batters into all-rounders (or even part-timers, with a new section/diagram for that). Darren Stevens started out as a top-order batsman and now mostly holds his spot as a bowling all-rounder. He's had a huge change. So I guess, if a bowler hits X runs at Y average then they could be considered for a promotion. This can then drop back off if they stop scoring or bowling/taking wickets. I guess same theory with keepers or keeper-batsmen, but that'd require a lot of training too. It'd just make things more varied and you could ultimately hone and craft a side in your image and as required. Steve Smith was a leg-spinning all-rounder early on and now is the best Test batsman in the world, so I guess the same could work in reverse (e.g. if a player doesn't bowl much or have much success it could drop off and they'd thus focus more upon that new specialisation). Maybe even morph a pie-medium bowler into a darty off-spinner. Johan Botha did such. That stuff is hyper-interesting and would be great for the more obsessive fans (like me, who has owned every copy since 1998).

5. Those global domestic tournaments for t20 and List A would be sweet.

Just want to say - this is the best version of "skipper" in 8 years or more, I'm loving it, I'll be up to my 1,000th hour in the next month or so. A credit to the team, especially Chris Child and the tireless Sureshot.

[Blade007]

I know not many people use the export feature, but I have few request please:

1. Please increase the FileName Size a little
2. Please export the "Balls Faced" too, it is already showing on the screen where you export from.
3. Also export the partnership information, the fall of wicket is already there but not who was involved in it
4. Maybe export who the captain was

They should all be easy to do as you have all the information available at the time of export

[markkkkk]

The one thing I'd like if in CC17 you could sim games without having your team perform worse. I way prefer the managerial aspect of the game than actually playing and quite frankly don't have the time to play every individual 4 day game. However I have to as I don't like getting relegated from Divison 1.

[Raver]

Yes that's it - as reported by Rumblah.

[Sureshot]

Just to echo this. I completely agree, and have been struggling with this setup since the game's release. Would be good to fix the weather bug too.

Can you confirm by the weather bug you mean the issue with missing icons as reported here?

http://forum.childishdownloads.co.uk/forum/current-and-future-games/cricket-captain-2016/59846-cricket-captain-2016-bug-reports?p=60861#post60861

[Oli987]

When the forecast is different in the second session of a one day game, the weather shouldn't always change at the exact moment of the innings break. This is especially annoying when it's very cloudy when you're batting, but the clouds lift the moment the other team starts their innings.

[danielallum]

One thing that would be great is an option to 'add a new captain at any point during you current save. So if we had a save game where we were in 2022 and decided we wanted to manage a different international or domestic side then we could retire our current profile and start with a different team during that time period. It can get frustrating constantly having to start afresh when you want to manage different international or county side and you have to start a new game.

I think it would also be a big help to have the domestic competition of whichever international team you choose to manage made available to view without having to manage a domestic side. I have a particular England only save where I am in the stage where it is mostly regenerated players and not knowing which players are in division one and division two can make it difficult to fully assess who the best players are. Because logic should dictate it is going to be easier for bowlers to take wickets and batsmen to score runs in division two and in division one the runs the batsman makes are going be made against a better bowling attack and the bowlers wickets should be taken against better batsmen. Knowing which teams are in which division is crucial in terms of giving a full assessment of a player and that information isn't available without managing a county side.

Also, the training could be given more context for both batsmen and bowlers but especially so for bowlers. I feel the current three options of defensive bowling, aggressive bowling and accuracy training are a bit limited and lack context. If you stayed with the current options it may be useful to have some kind of least some kind of percentage value to which the player has mastered a certain skill relative to his overall ability. I see the problems with attributing values that dictate how good a player is but this would be a bit different it wouldn;t reflect his overall ability rather what he needs to work on in order to achieve his maximum ability.

Instead, I would say it could be more meaningful to expand the options as is such with batsmen. There could be a 'fast bowling' option, which would aim to increase the bowlers pace. A 'spin bowling' option which could specifically aim to work on how much a certain player turns the ball. A 'slower ball' option so all types of bowlers could work on their variation. Or a 'seam bowling' option in which they would try to improve their swing and seam skills. I don't know if that would be too complex for the match engine, but even if it wasn't truly and 100% accurate reflected in game, I feel it would give what you are doing more purpose and clarity and maybe the bowlers could have preferences and fast bowlers could be categorised and their preferences displayed as 'fast bowler, 'swing bowler' 'slower ball specialist' and spin bowlers could be differentiated in terms of your Ravi Jadeja, Michael Beer, Samuel Badree who vary their pace and don't necessarily turn the ball as much with the bowlers who turn the ball alot. Obviosuly good spinners can do both I just feel it would give the training a bit more meaning than it currently has.

All in all, I'm a big fan of the game and have been for years, I just think some small/minor changes can go a long way.

[Raver]

Been playing lots since the patch.

Playing in NZ - there's no greater curse than the minimum squad limit. I currently have 17 players, 180k in the bank, and the game insists that I should have 25 players due to the number of NZ contracted players in my team. However - I can't actually sign ANY players at all - I get the dreaded "we cannot allow you to make this offer" message...

This is really infuriating - firstly, as the NZ coach also, I can guarantee that some of these players don't need the contract and won't be getting selected - not that that's super relevant as I'd obviously then have to pay them.

Secondly, I'd rather run a smaller, higher quality squad - not be forced into signing dross to make up an arbitrary number. 20 or 21 would be enough and with 180k in the bank I could easily afford that.

Third point - no matter how much I spend on youth development - I always only get two youth players to choose from at the end of each season. This feels extremely arbitrary too... and at least if I was to be forced into signing youth players, I should have some sort of opportunity to get them in the area that I want - I don't need the 3 fast bowlers it often just dumps into my squad...

The factors above are basically killing longer term gameplay - I'm forced into a squad full of players that are never going to be good enough to be competitive, and as a result my team simply deteriorates.

Shame - as I love so much of the rest of the game. Keep up the good work - but a few tweaks would be lovely.

Just to echo this. I completely agree, and have been struggling with this setup since the game's release. Would be good to fix the weather bug too.

[Cam]

i think the Number 1 thing in this game that needs to be done, could even be a patch...

INTERNATIONAL CONTROLLED being able to CHOOSE YOUR PITCH
and spinning pitches have 2 levels, INDIAN SPINNING or Sydney Spinning,

Indian, you would pick 1 maybe 2 quicks
sydney you would pick 2 maybe 3 quicks the rest spinners

same with WACA SEAM or GABBA SEAM

WACA would give alot of pace and bounce
GABBA would swing alot,