2009 Features Requests

[Jim]

Why doesnt it show the pace of the balls? Seems like such a simple thing to do and would make the game much better.

[GrahamB]

Why doesnt it show the pace of the balls? Seems like such a simple thing to do and would make the game much better.

Yes - this would be a good feature.

[Jim]

Thanks, would be cool if you a new fast bowler and you could see how fast hes bowling or if you had like brett lee or shaib and you could try and break the world record lol.

[Chris Child]

2009 Features Requests

Thanks for all the comments. Great to see an active forum again. We'll address everything we can. It's not always possible to reply to every post, but this forum is read by the developers.

Can you use this thread for new features requests (in an effort to keep things in some sort of order).

Thanks,
Chris Child

[Blocky]

Comprehensive Player Attributes.

-For example, a numerical value assigned to things such as concerntration, timing, power, defense, offense, against spin, against pace, etc.

Comprehensive Player Editor

-Be able to build your own player, make him "godlike" if you feel the need, although not to be played in international, but even so.

Comprehensive scenario editor

-Be able to build scenarios and such

Other stuff

Domestic Cricket for other nations (Aus, NZ, etc)

Scheduling, like altering match schedules for nations

"Vice Captaincy" - have an option for your vice captain to tinker with field settings/adjust line and length of bowlers, etc.

[Blocky]

The reason for player/scenario editors and full attributes is long term playability (which your game has lots of, I must admit, but this would improve for more) and also knowing where your training actually does impact players.

If you've played Sega Football Manager, you know via their attributes increasing where your training has the impact.

Being able to edit players would give me the ability to merge Richard Hadlee with Martin Crowe and see how the kiwis would do in todays age, just allows for a lot of playability enhancements.

The Vicecaptaincy may be a "lazy" option but sometimes, all I want to do is get to the victory, change my bowling sure, change my batters aggression but having a vice captaincy option would be superb.

[Typical Stroke]

Cricket is a game of statistics but unfortunately there is not much statistics in the game.

[Blocky]

They say it's due to realism

But there is no way of SEEING improvement in players other than their scores/wickets taken. That isn't realistic to me, for reasons mentioned in another thread.

[Mongrel]

There really shouldn't be a reason to not have a player editor - lots of games have online versions and also data editors. It certainly adds the playability and is the main reason why I still bust out ICC2002 a lot because of the ability to edit stats and players.

I'd also like to see the domestic structures expanded. Not necessarily every domestic league; but it'd be great to expand to at least Australia and possibly RSA/India (I don't know much about them, but I'd imagine they'd have some appeal).

In any event, the overseas player structure is something that needs to be altered somewhat. In English county cricket, when an overseas player becomes unavailable they can pick replacements. Wouldn't mind seeing the ability to negotiate with elligible players to become Kolpaks and vice-versa (say RSA negotiating with Friedel de Wet to again become elligible for international selection). I don't understand the complete ins-and-outs of the Kolpak ruling, but it would add another element if introduced.

Possibly separate statistics for FC and List A cricket? Someone like Michael Vaughan who is a gem of a first class player and a poor limited over cricketer could be represented more realistically. The stats would generally be very similar, but in regens you could get the odd players who was a sensational one day player and a poor first class player and vice versa. Also the option of a mental block where someone might dominate at first class level and not be able to hack it in the international arena (i.e. Graeme Hick, Mark Ramprakash and Michael Bevan in tests)? Also, in an attempt to differentiate between the two forms of the game, I'd love to see different player statuses being applied to each version. Someone like Adam Gilchrist is an ODI opener but not a test opener - same as Luke Ronchi. In addition, Andrew Symonds bowls off-spin in ODIs and mediums in test cricket.

Also, one feature which couldn't be difficult to implement would be international retirements. Someone like Justin Langer, who still plays domestic cricket but not international cricket, will still play for Australia as there is no way to deal with this.

Could there be an option to take on international management but still simulate the leagues around the world? So I can become England manager and not take on a county - but still see county results? And/or Australian domestic if they were added?

Also, it would be good to see a realistic amount of domestic games played. In Australia, you can really only play a maximum of 10 FC and 10 List A games in a season - but you tend to see them play upwards of twenty of both.

A couple of smaller issues which could do with fixing:

• Domestic strike rates. Its a small point but its frustrating to see all players strike at fifty in FC and OD cricket when running the game as an international manager.
• Players actually playing domestic T20 cricket. Its been an issue since the introduction of T20 to the game, and will hopefully be ironed out in the next version.
• Something I suggested in the other thread was the option of part-time openers in much the same way you have part-time 'keepers. Therefore if an opener goes down injured mid-match - a part-time opener could open instead of the #3? Or you could designate back up opening batsman in the team selection screen in the event of an injury.

Its good to see that you are looking to make significant changes to the game - and if there is any help you need with stats or whatever to lighten the workload, I'm happy to help.

[Chris Child]

Abilities

Oops - meant to post this reply here...

In addition:
- Vice captain idea is nice
- Scenario editor - any more ideas in this area?
- New leagues and background matches etc. is being discussed - lots of issues with licensing etc, but it on the list.

-----

This is great. Really appreciate the ideas here.

Just to address one for now that seems to be generating some debate.

Player abilities - I've always said that you shouldn't be able to see these because you don't get that sort of information in real life. Half the fun of Cricket Captain is working out who your best players are. If you could just read off their abilities it would remove all that guess work and make the game pretty dull. Players have individual abilities for all sorts of things internally (such as test, ODI, one day etc.) and you get an impression of some of their strengths and weaknesses. Everything else you can get by watching the players play - just as you would in real life. Take note of the play & miss percentage; watch where they score their runs. Obviously it would be easy to make these all visible, but where's the fun in that? Would England have picked Rampracash for years if they knew he'd always freeze when he was playing a test match? I guess it's still debateable whether he's over that - the computer seems to want to give him a run this year...

Editor - this is related to the above. If you can see players’ abilities in the editor then that's the intrigue gone again. Also - the challenge is to take what you have and build them up through coaching etc. I think you'd get bored of 100% players pretty quickly and not play again. There is obviously scope for a limited editor which wouldn't ruin this (or the on-line game) and we've always had it on a "wish list". I can see a use for limited editors obviously, but we always have a limited budget for features and it's never quite hit my top priority.

There are lots of other points in this thread and they're all going on the "wish list".

[MarksNotts]

I remember a few years ago in one of the old versions when you had a pre season game against a university side, i would love to see this back, because as well as being realistic it also gives you an idea of whos in form and whos not before the first county game, as well as trying out youngsters ina first class conditions and so as to be able to allocate coaching points accordingly, perhaps a one day game and a 3 day game against a minor county or a university team.

[GrahamB]

I'd like to see test series with either three tests or five tests, not these horrible two test series that occur.

[Blocky]

Hi Chris

Thanks for taking time to answer our points! Very impressed by that and I'm glad that I've been buying this game since I first rented it out on Playstation many many years ago!

Scenario Editor - Being able to recreate the Windies/Aussie series with the tied match, or perhaps being able to choose an ATG England to play ATG Australia in a 5 match series, just allows us to go beyond the county/international game.

Player Editor/Revealing Player stats - you could keep intangibles unseen, things like how hard it is to motivate them but my point is this, I've captained and coached a few teams in my time and I know where my players are at, I know in the nets where they are improving and how good their game is becoming in certain areas and can apply technique coaching to areas that aren't.

The other legitimate reason for roster editing and revealing player stats is in times of database changes. I don't think I've ever seen Shane Bond do well in a season in your game, in fact, your game doesn't even think he's worthy of selection!

Tim Southee seems to be the new version of what Chris Martin was in games before, a pie chucker who the opposition spank around.

Brendan McCullum seems to think scoring 40 off of 120 is "normal" for him.

Things like this, little tweaks that you guys won't get around to because your game is HUGE compared to those of us who play our own countries. It also means we can share our rosters, etc... not to mention the aforementioned super player.

Other simulators have this ability and the ability to mask players strengths and weaknesses if the player prefers that. I understand that you may have reservations due to the online content of your game, with players being able to know exactly what stats their team has when playing another online player, but the trade off in playability and expansion is huge.

Also means the community can assist in database upgrades.

[Simbazz]

Things like this, little tweaks that you guys won't get around to because your game is HUGE compared to those of us who play our own countries. It also means we can share our rosters, etc... not to mention the aforementioned super player.

This is an amazingly good comment. I support Hampshire and could get the stats and player types correct, as, as most fans i believe i'm somewhat of an expert When i'm not, but we're fans! If i could correct Hampshire, someone could do the same for thier county and so on! It would mean the game is up to date and correct within a matter of weeks!

[muhammad saad]

"Bowling overs distribution" A perfect Idea to balance the game.

We all know that there are lack of allrounders who cannt bowl the real reason behind this is that the game automatically distributes the overs among the best 4 bowlers in the team when we skips a match and if we played an allrounder as our fifth bowler he probably end up bowling 2 or 3 overs without any wkt in 4 day game. The solution is easy we should have the option to to give orders which bowler should bowl more/less while skipping a match.

like

Harmison = we set 15%
Broad = 20%
Flintoff =20%
Panesar =30%
Collingwood 15%

Total =100%

In this way the game will automatically distributes the overs with above settings ,This will be the excellent edition to the game as this will really sort out the allrounder issue and this we can also help our bowling lineup by creating an batting allrounder (By giving particular batsman 15-20% probability to bowl in every 4 day game)