Regens

[Lynx54321]

I personally find that regens quickly take over the game (far too early) because they appear in high volumes and they're generated with very strong abilities too often as well.

This exacerbates an issue where real life young players seem to rarely develop properly causing them to quickly be left behind. It doesn't feel unusual for me to be seeing regens in the England squad by the end of the second season and by the third for a solid group of them to be getting capped.

I don't feel this part of the game has developed in years and it feels old fashioned now, players dont really seem to develop much, they seem to either be good or not be good and in the case of regens it's the latter too often.

Pretty much all the county squads in game now already contain several real life academy/rookie players in the 18-20 age range so in my opinion the regen influx into first teams isn't needed in the first or second season. The regens that are generated from the academy should not be first team ready as they just overtake the real life versions of that role already in squads.

My recommendations:

• Take a look at development curves, in real life young players develop quicker now compared to previously thanks to all the advances of coaching and sports science. With coaching real life young players in game should be breaking into first teams by the end of the first season and throughout the second season when they're approaching 19-20 or so.
• Regens can stay but the age when generated should basically be 16 or 17 only and they should be generated with much, much lower ability, perhaps you still get the odd star as in reality but that should be rare (and therefore feel more rewarding) and they should need at least 1 or 2 seasons coaching before they're good enough to breakthrough.

You'd then get a much more realistic conveyor belt effect going on where the real life youth players in squads develop first and become regulars with regens following later and afterwards. You'd also get a better challenge where you actually have to invest in coaching young players rather than magically have two first teamers drop in to the squad each season pretty reliably.

Bonus suggestion:

• Take base coaching slots down to 4 (-2) so you get 4-8 depending on investment but add youth coaching slots (can only be used on aged 21 or younger players) for each 10k invested in youth so you can get up to 4 of these taking total up to a max of 12 with full investment.

[Trevfromsussex&Oz]

It might be an idea for someone to check the age when a sample of Test players made their First class debuts. Australia post 1960 I would expect 20 average a little less in South Asia, more in England & New Zealand.

[Trevfromsussex&Oz]

It might be an idea for someone to check the age when a sample of Test players made their First class debuts. Australia post 1960 I would expect 20 average a little less in South Asia, more in England & New Zealand.

I've done a quick check of the age of First class debuts in two typical Australian seasons - 1998-99 22 debuts ages 19 (2) to 28 (2), 2004-05 23 debuts ages 17 (1) to 26 (2).

[Lynx54321]

I've done a quick check of the age of First class debuts in two typical Australian seasons - 1998-99 22 debuts ages 19 (2) to 28 (2), 2004-05 23 debuts ages 17 (1) to 26 (2).

Interesting Trev, I think if we want to confirm there is a trend towards younger debutants though we'd need to look at more than the two snapshots. Ideally we'd look at every season since 2004 or something when I'm guessing this code was set up.

[Wilted]

Looking at the number of games played by players who debuted that season would be a better measure of the impact of regens. In recent (non-COVID affected seasons) for example, 60 games in the 2019-20 Australian season were played by players who debuted that season. It was 59 games in 2022-23. The earliest year I could easily get data for was 2008-09 with 59 games.

The average number of games played by a debutant seems to be around four games in their debut season, with some playing up to six or seven. With 30 games in a Shield season, that means one first-year regen should be playing in each team every round in the first year regens appear. Of course, if you add in second and third years regens after a few seasons, then you will probably expect at least four regens per team in the third year of regens.

If we define first-year regen as a player who first appears in a squad, all debutants from the 2023-24 season would have been 'first-year regens' rather than uncapped rookies.

How well this matches up with CC, I have no idea. The easiest way would be to skip through an international career as Australia and see how many matches regens play in the first year they start appearing.

[Lynx54321]

Any thoughts Chris Child?

[Chris Child]

Just to let you know I'm looking at this. We had a range of problems caused by a fix to make West Indies teams more realistic. This had the knock on effect that the university teams in England and minor teams in Aus were generating players who could be signed and could be good. Massively increasing the youth player pool.

I like the idea of re-gens being younger. We do have big learning curves for youth players (and a range of different curves), but I think these would be more obvious if re-gens were coming through younger and would also mean they're not good enough to get into international teams until later (and might even never make he grade as people discard them before realising their full potential).

More to come on this when I've looked into it further.

[Lynx54321]

Thanks for the update Chris.

The regen/real life young player issue has felt really problematic to me for a few years so be great to see some changes.

Ten years ago Counties didnt carry squads as large but this year Somerset for example have:

G.Thomas, J.Thomas, Vaughan, Rew, Ogborne, Leonard, Baker, Heywood and as of today Hill who are all young first team players aged 18-21 or so with pro contracts.

Somerset shouldn't have regens overtaking these players in game, rather they should have them following them up as the next players off the academy taxi rank which spawning them with lower ability at 16 or 17 would enable.

[ZH8]

Chris Child A significant problem with regens is that players(regens) with different hand for different skills never appear. I have been requesting a solution to this issue since CC 17 or 18. Another major issue is the use of Test/FC bowlers by AI. Genuine bowlers with lower skills don’t get enough overs by the AI captain, while medium pacer wicketkeepers get overs.