What We Would Like In ICC2011

[Chasjs]

I think it would be nice to develop the run-outs area of the game. Not all driect hits, throws to non-strikers end, possibly some decisions going to the third umpire, etc..

[El_Zigi]

Since we're talking about overthrows, how about throws coming in to the non-striker's end? There are so many times that that's the danger end, but the fielder always throws to the keeper.

Yes this is a problem and I'd say an important one too. I've noticed the opposition batsmen in recent matches I've played take ridiculous singles. Ridiculous singles made possible by the fact that the fielder always throws to the keepers end when it would be an easy run out at the non-strikers end. This one needs to be fixed definitely, but I wont hold my breath.

[Machinax]

Since we're talking about overthrows, how about throws coming in to the non-striker's end? There are so many times that that's the danger end, but the fielder always throws to the keeper.

[Sureshot]

Interesting, I like the idea of them existing in the game, but I think it's something that is more of an addition that we might do in the future.

[Phylos Fett]

How about the more unusual modes of dismissal, like hit wicket, and handling the ball? I know they don't come up that often in RL, but might be interesting to add.

I know I have mentioned overthrows before, so, in a similar vein, how about short runs? IE, that batsman runs 3, but is short on 1 of them, so gets 2 instead.

Just a couple of things that popped into my brain on the drive home from work...

[Jaypol]

Another stats Page ,
Batting
a Page which shows who has got to thousand runs quickest.
Also who has the highest number runs per season and overall.

Bowling
a Page which shows who has got to hundred wickets quickest.
Who took has taken the most wickest and has the best economy rate.
Leading wicket taker.

Fielding
Most catches, stumping and run outs.

should be for all formats of the game.

[Sureshot]

Where catches go is definitely something we are looking in to.

Re: Field Settings - The default ones are remarkably more complex than they actually look (not particularly efficient on how they work, but it is old code), they definitely need doing, but it's not just a case of moving fielders around and putting that new field as default, unfortunately. Due to the complexity of it and other issues we are looking at, it may be something that is pushed back to 2012.

[Isura]

New Default Field Settings

These are not realistic at all, especially for one day games. Standard one day field in the powerplay has deep men at 2 of fine leg, third man, or deep extra cover.

I've worked with custom fields a lot, and would be happy to setup a template of realistic default field settings. Let me know Sureshot, I've worked on field placings a lot in ICC series

[El_Zigi]

I too would love to see a big improvement in where catches are taken and off what kinds of shots. This would obviously then add to the variation in dismissals. I mean there really should be more catches at the likes of backward point or in the covers and not just from skyed shots but from middled shots, especially in OD games. I've seen skyed shots caught almost everywhere in the game but never any catches off middled shots or slightly mistimed shots which leaves a big hole in the game in my book. The default fields are the same for tests and OD cricket, almost always a short mid-wicket. When do we ever see a short mid in OD games. Very rarely indeed. This needs to be fixed. I don't mind seeing the odd catch being taken at short mid when playing a test and it does only seem to happen the odd time which is fine.

[Machinax]

One of the main things I hope is improved is where catches go/shots are hit. It's not quite realistic enough. Example, still too many catches go to short leg.

Yeah; it's strange seeing a short leg as a default fielding position throughout the innings, no matter how badly your bowlers are getting hit, because you know there's going to be a catch there sooner or later.

[Chasjs]

As much as I think the 3D match engine looks good I don't use it much anymore, only really retrospectively. It's just the spinners take too long to bowl and sometimes (although this is meant to be fixed) I swear I can still a delay before a wicket.

One of the main things I hope is improved is where catches go/shots are hit. It's not quite realistic enough. Example, still too many catches go to short leg.

Also, with regards to batting preferences why can't we have Orthodox/Unorthodox?

[Sureshot]

I'd say we're looking at most of those (the singles problem is something I've highlighted, but it may be one for 2012), so it has been discussed and some of it is in the 2011 design.

Shots - All depends on the animations we can get (along with hopefully proper umpire animations so we can do leg-bye/bye properly).

I know I'm biased, but the 2011 design is looking good to me.

[enigma]

As the developers are at work right now on ICC2011, even though I've posted features here & there, I thought I should assemble them & make a single post about features that are top-priority for me for ICC2011; don't mind if some of them are repeats, I guess that'd only demonstrate that there's more demand for them :

1) Budget - Please let us carry our remaining budget-money into the next year. Sometimes I've enough players or there aren't any good players in the pool, in that case I'd like to save my money for the next year. Money just "vanishing" isn't realistic.

2) Singles Bar - A MUST for ODs & T20s. Setting it higher, should result in batsmen taking more singles more frequently while chances of them getting runout also increase somewhat. The risk of runouts should be less for better runners (Bevan?) & more for bad-runners (Inzamam?) the higher the bar is set at.

3) Bowling-form & RPOs - Here, I'd made a suggestion about a dynamic system considering bowlers' economy-rates & other factors (near misses should count for something too) for calculating their bowling-form, I hope we'll be seeing something like that implemented.

4) 90-Overs-days - No more 100-110 overs days, there should be no more than 90 overs bowled in a day in the longer forms of the game.

5) Central Contracts - Award them based on domestic & international PERFORMANCES of players instead of skill-ratings so if my player is scoring hundreds or taking wickets for my county & for England then give him a contract instead of some 22-year-old who averages 25 with the bat or 35 with the ball just because he has better skill-ratings.

6) Super-regens & online cheating - Please kill the super-regens! Under current skill-ratings system, players average 50-60 in FC & Tests at batting-skill of 1700-1800 or so & bowlers average 20ish & a little less at bowling-skill of 500 or so & regens having skill-ratings any better than this is just unrealistic & they kill the fun & longevity of the game, I mean where's the challenge in beating teams just because you've regens with vastly superior ratings! Where's the fun in that when I can just win almost every match! The game becomes boring then.
If regens' skill-ratings are capped at certain levels (around about where you get FC & Test batting & bowling averages of 50-60 & 20ish respectively) then that'll significantly curtail online-cheaters' fun if the servers just started auto-banning online-teams with skill-ratings better than the capped levels as no such players would exist in a non-edited team.

7) Improvement in playing conditions & skill-ratings - Suggestions made here.

8) Pitches, spinners & spin-modifiers - It seems far too many pitches turn too often, it's realistic in sub-continent I guess but elsewhere? And spinners also seem to overperform so may be spin-modifiers need to be looked at.

9) Keeping & fielding stats - There must be stats like byes-given/overs-kept % & catches-dropped/catches-taken %
Here, I've also suggested about how fielding could be more specialised along with training for keepers & specialised fielding positions, etc.

10) Saving scorecards - Balls-faced should be saved in the saved scorecards. May be there should be an option to save the whole season or all matches of a specific forms in a season - FC, OD or T20

11) Retired players - Ability to save records of retired players is a must. May be at the end of each season, as players retire, ask the users if they want to save certain player(s)'s records. Also, most of the times players could tell us that they're going to to retire. Some should retire from one or two forms of the game & play on in others rather than giving up completely.

12) Shots - I know it's a "cosmetic" thing but still, may be include some better classical shots (at least in FC/Tests), rather than slogging that is shown right now, for gamers like me who often like to play ball-by-ball.

13) Man of the Match - Another "cosmetic" thing but it's extremely annoying that sometimes AI's MOTM decisions are really crazy so may be give us like 3 "reviews" every season to overturn (within reason of course) AI's choice of MOTM. Also, no. of MOTM should be recorded for each player.

14) Modes of dismissal - A lot more people should be getting out caught in the inner-ring or on the boundary, especially in OD & T20 as that's what happens in real-life.

15) More records - May be records for each year should be shown instead of just current, last year & last year+1. Plus, series records, records against teams - home & away.

[Phylos Fett]

I was thinking as I was playing (as I always do), and just thought that 2 additional "lengths" might be interesting - a bouncer and a yorker. I put the "lengths" in quotes because it might be better to have these as one off deliveries, rather than something you set for the entire over (bouncers especially, as they'll get you called for no-balls or wides if used too often).

This, in turn, got me thinking about the batsman's guard. At the moment, I assume that they bat with one foot on either side of the crease with a middle stump guard (I may be wrong - they may take guard based on their batting preference). It might be interesting if the batsman could take a different guard, and perhaps bat within the crease, or out of the crease.

Anyway, that's all I was thinking at the moment.

[enigma]

I could hardly believe my eyes but I had a game as Australia in ICC09 where Jaques retired hurt in the 1st Innings, and came out to bat - despite the supposed 'fracture' - in the 2nd! How rare is that?!! I assume if it can happen in ICC09, it can happen in the latest version too.

If that can happen then I wonder why the developers have never mentioned it on threads saying that should happen I don't know, may be they have & I just haven't happened to stumble upon any such posts. Anyways, if it's already there then its frequency needs to be increased a bit as we do see people coming back in real life when their team really needs it, although I'd still like to see the frequency of "got hit & out of X weeks" reduced a bit anyway.

I like El_Zigi's suggestion of sudden & small injuries happening during a match; for example, as Kallis pulled muscle or something in 3rd Test against India recently & then he didn't bowl but batted (& scored a wonderful 100 too). But again, this too needs to be a rare occurrence, especially with bowlers as one can make-up for one less batsman but losing a bowler in the usual 4-man-attack makes things very difficult.