Cricket Captain 2024 - Wishlist of Changes

[FollowedOn]

Just copy and paste suggestions from the last few annual wishlist threads.

1. IRL youth prospects become star domestic and international players and don't get taken over by regens in 2 years.

This is definitely my biggest ongoing issue. Within 2-3 years teams like SA/England got overrun by regens, there should really be only 1, maybe 2 making domestic sides, every couple years one gets into the national team early.

That and selection consistency. Guys play one test, take 5 or score a 100 and never play again, people dropped despite averaging 40-50 etc. ruins the immersion

[ccisthebestgameintheworld]

End of season jobs page rather than offering random ones. I felt I rarely got offered international gigs from other countries.

A player history of awards. The international rankings in the personal page was a welcome addition last year. If a player wins a trophy at any level, would be nice to see when making signings. Perhaps a log of how many MoMs they've won?

Introduce player of season/tournament/series.

The ability to sign players during the season if you lose others to the 100/international/t20 tournos

A visual measurement on how a player is improving through technique coaching.

The ability to change what game modes you play during the game. i.e. add/remove t20, one day, first class

[hallmitchell]

Brilliant writing and suggestions. Please custom tournaments and surely we can have a suggestions for different white ball kits.

Every year there is a wishlist thread for the next edition. Drop your unrealistic pipedreams, minor tweaks and that one feature that was included over a decade ago and you can't believe hasn't been included since.

The Unrealistic

Women's Cricket
I think women's cricket has been one of the most talked about features over the last few editions. A World Cup, Ashes or WPL in the tournament mode would be a good start.

New Animations
The reverse sweep was an unexpected addition this year. The scoop could be added this year since it has become an almost textbook shot over the past few years. Maybe a diving animation for batsmen, a new catch animation for fielders or a bowler raising the ball for a 5fa?

Custom Tournaments
The only tournaments available are current editions of international tournaments. It would be great to have custom T20 comps and World Cups with custom teams.

Pitch Changes
Pitches seem very static at the moment. Graphically, they all look the same and they all play the same. Yes, you can pick a batter, seamer or spinner-friendly wicket but by day five, they end up the same anyway. I'd love to see grassy pitches, pitches that flatten out, pitches affected by humid/rainy conditions, etc.

Batting Gameplay
Batting has one adjustable slider and no strategy at the moment. Once a batsman is settled, you just hit autoplay until it's time to bowl, where you can change your line/length, customise fielders, rotate bowlers, and change aggression. I've previously mentioned a separate slider for running, which would give limited-over formats realistic options but toggles such as looking for gaps, leaving anything outside off, running two on weaker fielders' throws, etc. These additional strategies could be in a similar menu to the change bowler or change field menu.

Less Unrealistic Changes

Domestic ATG
At the moment you can pick ATG teams based on international teams. If you want a mixed team, you have a World XI pool of every single player in the CC database. This makes picking ATG teams based on domestic teams, especially T20 comps, very tedious and impossible to do without external programs. The workings for this are already there as I can filter the World XI database by English teams but not any other country. I'd love to create teams for domestic T20 teams and other domestic comps.

Drinks Breaks
There are a lot of minor features missing from CC that would add a lot to realism. The one that could have the biggest effect on gameplay is a drinks break. At the moment, CC is unbalanced in favour of batsmen. Massive scores can be accumulated with ease. A drinks break in the middle of a session/innings could recover stamina for bowlers and reduce settled-ness for batsmen similar to a session break. It's not uncommon to see a big partnership broken after a drinks break in real life.

Other Realism Additions
- mid-over lunch break when a wicket falls
- opposition nightwatchmen
-showing partnership milestones similar to individual milestones
- more variety in stadiums
- international players not flying home to play a four-day match in between an away Test and ODI series and somehow playing two matches at the same time
- international contracts are given out in international saves. This can mean they maintain extra training in the long gaps between series and ensure those players have a priority of being fit while playing in their domestic comp. My ODI squad should be able to bowl more than three overs in a row before getting injured since they used all of their stamina playing in the BBL.
- auctions for those comps that have them
- use existing players in PM XI and similar teams
- offer a draw handshake in the final session
- tour matches, intraclub matches, etc. for away tours to regain form
- target score for bonus points in related comps, similar to target score for D/L.

More Challenging Difficulty
While normal difficulty can start out challenging depending on what team you choose, it becomes easier as you build a strong squad and gain form. A higher level of difficulty would be a nice change of pace to constantly winning every series.

Simulate Innings
You can simulate a whole match but sometimes it would be nice to just simulate through to the next innings.

Database filters
I'll keep asking for adjustable filters until it finally happens. I'd like the option to see the best spinners available without having to scroll down the bottom of a massive list when sorting by bowling style and then wading through part-timers. Or just want somewhat recent results such as most runs in England in the last 5 years.

Auto 2nd XI
Make all unselected members of your domestic team play 2nd XI with one click rather than going through 15 players and adding the to the 2XI individually

Other Database Additions
The information available to domestic saves is available to international saves:
- End-of-year summary for international careers. Leading run scorers, etc for both your team and worldwide.
- Career summary that includes how many trophies you win, win/loss ratios against teams, total wins etc.
- Retirement announcements for international players.

World Cup Stats
World Cup and WTC stats and records, including runs, wickets, title wins, etc.
Tournament-specific career records such as looking at most runs in the BBL or most wickets taken in the IPL.
Expand selection of recorded stats such as 200s, 300s, hattricks, run outs, 4-wicket hauls (for T20s)
Total 4s and 6s count as well as %
Records for most international wickets/runs in a calendar year (domestic teams have this feature)
Batting stats filtered by batting position

Retirement Announcement
A heads-up would also be nice to have when players are going to retire too. A message on the contract screen along the lines of "S Boland has indicated they are considering retirement" would be a huge help in giving you the chance to be proactive and find a replacement in your squad. They wouldn't have to then retire but you know it's coming in the next few years and have the chance to train up a rookie or sign an established replacement. Especially when you get the shock retirement of one of your star players in their early 30s.


Actually Realistic Additions

Bazball
Re-tweak Bazball aggression. I think Bazball in its hyped-up form from 12 months ago is over. Individual players can be aggressive but no one mentions Bazball when Marsh and Head are scoring faster than Duckett and Stokes.

Named Grounds
Have the name on the ground somewhere on the scorecard.

Alternate ODI /T20 Kits
A lot of international teams have different kits for home/away/ODI/T20I matches. It'd be nice to see them used.

Do I expect any of these changes? Not really. Would I appreciate it if any changes (listed or otherwise) were included? Absolutely.

[Trevfromsussex&Oz]

Is there anyone else out there, that think there should be 2 CC games, CC2024 and CC ATG`s. The ATG`s game should revert back to the pre bazball set up, introducing more players from the 1950`s 60`s 70`s 80`s and 90`s, and the CC2024 , carry on in it`s present format without ATG`s.

Yes - Yes - Yes. I did suggest something like this about five years ago. I was informed there is no market!!

[hallmitchell]

Yes - Yes - Yes. I did suggest something like this about five years ago. I was informed there is no market!!

I would be up for a go fund me or something of that nature.

[ruby23]

Sureshot same font this year also?

[TomP]

Every year there is a wishlist thread for the next edition. Drop your unrealistic pipedreams, minor tweaks and that one feature that was included over a decade ago and you can't believe hasn't been included since.

The Unrealistic

Women's Cricket
I think women's cricket has been one of the most talked about features over the last few editions. A World Cup, Ashes or WPL in the tournament mode would be a good start.

New Animations
The reverse sweep was an unexpected addition this year. The scoop could be added this year since it has become an almost textbook shot over the past few years. Maybe a diving animation for batsmen, a new catch animation for fielders or a bowler raising the ball for a 5fa?

Custom Tournaments
The only tournaments available are current editions of international tournaments. It would be great to have custom T20 comps and World Cups with custom teams.

Pitch Changes
Pitches seem very static at the moment. Graphically, they all look the same and they all play the same. Yes, you can pick a batter, seamer or spinner-friendly wicket but by day five, they end up the same anyway. I'd love to see grassy pitches, pitches that flatten out, pitches affected by humid/rainy conditions, etc.

Batting Gameplay
Batting has one adjustable slider and no strategy at the moment. Once a batsman is settled, you just hit autoplay until it's time to bowl, where you can change your line/length, customise fielders, rotate bowlers, and change aggression. I've previously mentioned a separate slider for running, which would give limited-over formats realistic options but toggles such as looking for gaps, leaving anything outside off, running two on weaker fielders' throws, etc. These additional strategies could be in a similar menu to the change bowler or change field menu.

Less Unrealistic Changes

Domestic ATG
At the moment you can pick ATG teams based on international teams. If you want a mixed team, you have a World XI pool of every single player in the CC database. This makes picking ATG teams based on domestic teams, especially T20 comps, very tedious and impossible to do without external programs. The workings for this are already there as I can filter the World XI database by English teams but not any other country. I'd love to create teams for domestic T20 teams and other domestic comps.

Drinks Breaks
There are a lot of minor features missing from CC that would add a lot to realism. The one that could have the biggest effect on gameplay is a drinks break. At the moment, CC is unbalanced in favour of batsmen. Massive scores can be accumulated with ease. A drinks break in the middle of a session/innings could recover stamina for bowlers and reduce settled-ness for batsmen similar to a session break. It's not uncommon to see a big partnership broken after a drinks break in real life.

Other Realism Additions
- mid-over lunch break when a wicket falls
- opposition nightwatchmen
-showing partnership milestones similar to individual milestones
- more variety in stadiums
- international players not flying home to play a four-day match in between an away Test and ODI series and somehow playing two matches at the same time
- international contracts are given out in international saves. This can mean they maintain extra training in the long gaps between series and ensure those players have a priority of being fit while playing in their domestic comp. My ODI squad should be able to bowl more than three overs in a row before getting injured since they used all of their stamina playing in the BBL.
- auctions for those comps that have them
- use existing players in PM XI and similar teams
- offer a draw handshake in the final session
- tour matches, intraclub matches, etc. for away tours to regain form
- target score for bonus points in related comps, similar to target score for D/L.

More Challenging Difficulty
While normal difficulty can start out challenging depending on what team you choose, it becomes easier as you build a strong squad and gain form. A higher level of difficulty would be a nice change of pace to constantly winning every series.

Simulate Innings
You can simulate a whole match but sometimes it would be nice to just simulate through to the next innings.

Database filters
I'll keep asking for adjustable filters until it finally happens. I'd like the option to see the best spinners available without having to scroll down the bottom of a massive list when sorting by bowling style and then wading through part-timers. Or just want somewhat recent results such as most runs in England in the last 5 years.

Auto 2nd XI
Make all unselected members of your domestic team play 2nd XI with one click rather than going through 15 players and adding the to the 2XI individually

Other Database Additions
The information available to domestic saves is available to international saves:
- End-of-year summary for international careers. Leading run scorers, etc for both your team and worldwide.
- Career summary that includes how many trophies you win, win/loss ratios against teams, total wins etc.
- Retirement announcements for international players.

World Cup Stats
World Cup and WTC stats and records, including runs, wickets, title wins, etc.
Tournament-specific career records such as looking at most runs in the BBL or most wickets taken in the IPL.
Expand selection of recorded stats such as 200s, 300s, hattricks, run outs, 4-wicket hauls (for T20s)
Total 4s and 6s count as well as %
Records for most international wickets/runs in a calendar year (domestic teams have this feature)
Batting stats filtered by batting position

Retirement Announcement
A heads-up would also be nice to have when players are going to retire too. A message on the contract screen along the lines of "S Boland has indicated they are considering retirement" would be a huge help in giving you the chance to be proactive and find a replacement in your squad. They wouldn't have to then retire but you know it's coming in the next few years and have the chance to train up a rookie or sign an established replacement. Especially when you get the shock retirement of one of your star players in their early 30s.


Actually Realistic Additions

Bazball
Re-tweak Bazball aggression. I think Bazball in its hyped-up form from 12 months ago is over. Individual players can be aggressive but no one mentions Bazball when Marsh and Head are scoring faster than Duckett and Stokes.

Named Grounds
Have the name on the ground somewhere on the scorecard.

Alternate ODI /T20 Kits
A lot of international teams have different kits for home/away/ODI/T20I matches. It'd be nice to see them used.

Do I expect any of these changes? Not really. Would I appreciate it if any changes (listed or otherwise) were included? Absolutely.

This is excellent, particularly agree with tweaking the game engine, you could implement a bazball style tactic with the old engine by selecting v aggressive players and or batting with higher aggression and therefore more risk, which is how it works in reality. The engine didn't need to change as overall average test scoring rates haven't really changed that much.

[ICClover]

I’d like to have it where when you earn international captaincy, you can resign as a domestic captain.

[robmorton]

More bowler descriptions - such as yorker/bouncer specialist, seam or swing bowler, 'skiddy/heavy ball' bowler. I feel that's more important than knowing my no.11 is strong against Spin bowling

[Trevfromsussex&Oz]

Drinks Break - I remember from the 1980s either Hong Kong or Malaysian TV had adds on while an animation of a drinks cart crawled across the screen. At the moment we are restricted to 15 overs/hour, 90/day. Why not give the chance to speed up the over-rate? I remember Ian Chappell (Aust) and Steve Fleming (NZ) both unsettling opponents that way.

[GrahamB]

I'd like to be able to watch an entire game play out automatically in 3D, with a pause button if I have to leave the computer for a while.
Similar to how you can watch your games play out in 3D in other sports management games.

[CardboardBox]

I think the most important thing that they can do for any upcoming game is to improve team selection and particularly bowler rotation. This is the single worst thing about the game, I'm sick of bowlers being picked for their bowling, either bowling no overs or only a couple in a first-class game because they are rated below the other bowlers. Similarly, seamers automatically bowling the first 15 overs of a new ball leading to ridiculously long spells for bowlers and sometimes batsman who have never bowled, getting overs simply because they bowl medium pace. Team selection should dictate that balanced squads are selected, dependent on the conditions and it should not just follow some absurd direction like simply picking 7 batsmen, including a keeper and 4 bowlers. I'm sure it's a very complex process, but all things associated with this area are absolutely worth the time and energy. Similarly, it would be great if seamers could be separated in some way so that bowlers who never take the new ball, i.e. Neil Wagner from previous editions, aren't the leading new ball bowlers for their country. If a player is a handy bowler, they should get overs, rather than someone else bowling a ridiculous number of overs. Perhaps an additional layer to bowler fatigue could be dependent on what they've already bowled rather than just in that spell, with it regenerating perfectly every time.

Also, while a separate ATG game is not a bad idea, I continue to make the claim that the fantasy cricket is not a valuable addition to the game without a 2 player mode, unless the above is fixed and made incredibly realistic.

[Trevfromsussex&Oz]

Non-National ATG XIs. Too hard because so many ATGs played for more than one team - A few examples - D. Bradman NSW & SA, G. Pollock Eastern Province & Transvaal, V. Mankad West India, Nawanagar, Gujarat, Bengal, Bombay and a few others. Bob Willis Surrey & Warwicks.

[Hugh_Jars]

Id love to see the ability to sim to the outcome of a match mid-game. For example, if you're getting absolutely pummeled you can sim to the end. Id also LOVE to see the ability to sim a match session by session, or to the next wicket, and enter it during a break. Similar to the Big Ant games. I'm time poor and sim most my games because its just too tedious and time consuming playing every game. But being able to enter and leave a match whenever you want would be a game changer for me.

Id also like to see empty grounds for first class matches rather than packed stadiums.

[Hugh_Jars]

I'd like to be able to watch an entire game play out automatically in 3D, with a pause button if I have to leave the computer for a while.
Similar to how you can watch your games play out in 3D in other sports management games.

This would be awesome. An auto-play feature which also manages the game (selects bowlers and fields) and lets you jump in to watch/take over.