Hi guys,
I've been working with Chris on trying to answer some common questions from the forum and other sources, along with some of my own feedback that I think would be good to get an answer on.
1) New domestic leagues have taken priority over new features like moving between teams in a save and an associate career mode, how much effort goes in to these new leagues?
A huge amount of effort has gone into the new leagues this year. A single player can now play for seven different teams in the same year. We need to make sure that there are no conflicts between the contracts of all these players and that the current series stats are added and cleared in the correct order for each player. With the huge number of special cases for this, it’s probably the most complex code that’s ever been included in Cricket Captain.
2) What would it take to get all leagues simulating at the same time, and is this likely soon?
It would be another layer of complexity again, but one of the reasons I spent so much time making sure this all worked correctly this year was so that we can simulate all the domestic competitions in full in all career modes in the future. I hope to do this in the 2018 version, but there is still a way to go to include fixtures correctly. Once we have this then a full career mode with movement between teams would be possible.
3) I think an associate career mode with promotion to a test side would be excellent, how difficult would this be?
The general policy is to keep the game as close to real life as possible. Currently, there is no clear mechanism for promotion and relegation for test teams. There is a big call for the international ranking system to be replaced by a league structure. If this becomes a reality we could extend it to include promotion for associate teams. So, one for the future, but no immediate plans.
4) What about adding an international fixture editor to the game?
Timetabling fixture lists without conflicts and errors is extremely complex. The call for this is often because lesser teams get fewer matches than the top teams, so it you take a low ranked team to the top of the table, you still only get a few tests. The may be less of an issue of the international leagues come into existence and force a more balanced schedule. One option might be to give maximum slots to the teams and allow the player to pick the mix of test/ODI/T20 within that period. A fully editable fixture list would be too bug prone.
5) The coaching system hasn’t changed in a while and feels stagnant, have you considered updating this, to perhaps make the coaching system apply general practice to all players (perhaps at a reduced % level to the existing system) and then you “buy” extra practice or technique sessions? Some have mentioned the idea of a help guide/assistant coach to guide you through this.
The assumption is that players receive general practice already and you are allocating extra sessions. I like the idea of advice from an assistant coach. E.g. a player has already reached his maximum potential for aggressive batting, so there is not point allocating extra training to this. Another option is to record the training sessions that have been allocated to a player during the current year.
6) We could use funds to buy a coach and physio and these have separate quality levels and could perhaps include retired players like they do in real life?
This is an extension that could be included in the future. I wrote some code for this a while ago which is used in the back end, but not displayed, so it should be possible and would add a level of interest to the contract section.
7) There are also some stats needed to support some of the current options in training, particularly in relation to the fielder training options, can these be added?
We have catches per match for fielders, but there is more we could do there. We discussed adding batting averages against spinners and against short pitched bowling etc. Currently, we can’t extract this information from the databases but we will continue working towards this.
8) What about new match options, like DRS and perhaps new batting controls, like a Rotate the strike button? It can be awkward to get this working with the aggression bars.
We’ve had some of these on our lists for a few years now, but they have never quite made the cut against other features. We’re hoping to get the changes to the graphic engine from Tick Tock we need for DRS next year. It would be nice to get this in. We discussed adding a guard option for batsmen (middle & off, middle& leg, etc.). Opinion was split of whether this was too much micro-management and would detract from the flow of the game (which could also be an issue with DRS). One option would be to have the batsman react to this automatically to counteract the 7-2 fields for very aggressive batting.
9) What about bowler preferences? Like new ball / old ball and conventional/reverse swing preferences? Maybe even to LHB and RHB batsman?
Another element of the database work we added this year was looking at bowler orders in the stats. To some extent these are deceptive as the best bowlers will generally bowl first for their team, so the orders do not necessarily indicate a new ball preference. We’ll look at this further. LHB/RHB is another element we will try to extract from the data. Some bowlers are clearly better against left-handers than others. Conventional/reverse swing would probably need to be added by hand.
10) Nigel/Sureshot would love to see rain-affected short format matches and think it would be very engaging for the user, but the AI for this would be very complicated with regards to getting the AI to score appropriately and chase targets?
The AI for setting and chasing targets should adapt automatically from our current algorithms. The complex elements are, choosing bowler orders for interrupted matches, and D/L calculations (including additions to the RR column in league tables). This is now a priority for the next version.
----
We'd love to hear your feedback on this and if there's any other questions then I'll see if we can answer them.
Regards,
Nigel
I've been working with Chris on trying to answer some common questions from the forum and other sources, along with some of my own feedback that I think would be good to get an answer on.
1) New domestic leagues have taken priority over new features like moving between teams in a save and an associate career mode, how much effort goes in to these new leagues?
A huge amount of effort has gone into the new leagues this year. A single player can now play for seven different teams in the same year. We need to make sure that there are no conflicts between the contracts of all these players and that the current series stats are added and cleared in the correct order for each player. With the huge number of special cases for this, it’s probably the most complex code that’s ever been included in Cricket Captain.
2) What would it take to get all leagues simulating at the same time, and is this likely soon?
It would be another layer of complexity again, but one of the reasons I spent so much time making sure this all worked correctly this year was so that we can simulate all the domestic competitions in full in all career modes in the future. I hope to do this in the 2018 version, but there is still a way to go to include fixtures correctly. Once we have this then a full career mode with movement between teams would be possible.
3) I think an associate career mode with promotion to a test side would be excellent, how difficult would this be?
The general policy is to keep the game as close to real life as possible. Currently, there is no clear mechanism for promotion and relegation for test teams. There is a big call for the international ranking system to be replaced by a league structure. If this becomes a reality we could extend it to include promotion for associate teams. So, one for the future, but no immediate plans.
4) What about adding an international fixture editor to the game?
Timetabling fixture lists without conflicts and errors is extremely complex. The call for this is often because lesser teams get fewer matches than the top teams, so it you take a low ranked team to the top of the table, you still only get a few tests. The may be less of an issue of the international leagues come into existence and force a more balanced schedule. One option might be to give maximum slots to the teams and allow the player to pick the mix of test/ODI/T20 within that period. A fully editable fixture list would be too bug prone.
5) The coaching system hasn’t changed in a while and feels stagnant, have you considered updating this, to perhaps make the coaching system apply general practice to all players (perhaps at a reduced % level to the existing system) and then you “buy” extra practice or technique sessions? Some have mentioned the idea of a help guide/assistant coach to guide you through this.
The assumption is that players receive general practice already and you are allocating extra sessions. I like the idea of advice from an assistant coach. E.g. a player has already reached his maximum potential for aggressive batting, so there is not point allocating extra training to this. Another option is to record the training sessions that have been allocated to a player during the current year.
6) We could use funds to buy a coach and physio and these have separate quality levels and could perhaps include retired players like they do in real life?
This is an extension that could be included in the future. I wrote some code for this a while ago which is used in the back end, but not displayed, so it should be possible and would add a level of interest to the contract section.
7) There are also some stats needed to support some of the current options in training, particularly in relation to the fielder training options, can these be added?
We have catches per match for fielders, but there is more we could do there. We discussed adding batting averages against spinners and against short pitched bowling etc. Currently, we can’t extract this information from the databases but we will continue working towards this.
8) What about new match options, like DRS and perhaps new batting controls, like a Rotate the strike button? It can be awkward to get this working with the aggression bars.
We’ve had some of these on our lists for a few years now, but they have never quite made the cut against other features. We’re hoping to get the changes to the graphic engine from Tick Tock we need for DRS next year. It would be nice to get this in. We discussed adding a guard option for batsmen (middle & off, middle& leg, etc.). Opinion was split of whether this was too much micro-management and would detract from the flow of the game (which could also be an issue with DRS). One option would be to have the batsman react to this automatically to counteract the 7-2 fields for very aggressive batting.
9) What about bowler preferences? Like new ball / old ball and conventional/reverse swing preferences? Maybe even to LHB and RHB batsman?
Another element of the database work we added this year was looking at bowler orders in the stats. To some extent these are deceptive as the best bowlers will generally bowl first for their team, so the orders do not necessarily indicate a new ball preference. We’ll look at this further. LHB/RHB is another element we will try to extract from the data. Some bowlers are clearly better against left-handers than others. Conventional/reverse swing would probably need to be added by hand.
10) Nigel/Sureshot would love to see rain-affected short format matches and think it would be very engaging for the user, but the AI for this would be very complicated with regards to getting the AI to score appropriately and chase targets?
The AI for setting and chasing targets should adapt automatically from our current algorithms. The complex elements are, choosing bowler orders for interrupted matches, and D/L calculations (including additions to the RR column in league tables). This is now a priority for the next version.
----
We'd love to hear your feedback on this and if there's any other questions then I'll see if we can answer them.
Regards,
Nigel
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