I think cricket 24 is by far the best cricket game ever made and am overall happy with what we have but there are a lot of small things Iād like to see fixed or at least implemented for C26.
- More immersive cutscenes
The cutscenes in C24 are very limited, very repetitive and overall donāt add much in terms of value to the game.
I find myself skipping cutscenes often as they are just boring and uneventful overal. Particularly the post game interviews; the questions are extremely repetitive, as are the answers, they mean nothing, meaning players simply skim through them until they see the score card, and bugs where the people involved walk away through the wall or the camera angles are wrong are too frequent.
I would fix this by adding different interviewer models, more diverse conversations and to make it so that the answers given have an impact on the player or even the team (Sensible, constructive responses will improve reputation and poor responses may anger the interviewer, get boos or have negative impacts in future games).
Even news flashes depicting the accomplishments of the players or teams in relation to this could add another level of immersion to the game overall. Something similar to what we see in EAās football games even at a lower level would be nice.
- Realism in the field
I know I am far from the first person to complain about the lack of realism in the aiās reactions.
In terms of the fielders, the catches are all over the place. Inhumane and frankly impossible catches are taken on an almost regular basis where fielders dive much further than what should be possible, combined with their insane reaction time to complete these catches it just adds to the frustration of the game at times. Keepers are just as bad as the fielders with catches but they also save certain boundaries down the leg side and, on occasion, teleport back up to their feet enabling a very quick run out. With spin bowlers, the ai may choose to play a cut shot through the slips, and often this results in a wicket where the slip āteleportsā to the ball and takes the catch. Bowlers are also the worst of the fielders. I have seen countless caught and bowled chances that go to waste without even the smallest reaction from the bowler, or even just a ball travelling back at them, where they could save runs, but instead they do nothing and the ball phases through them. Iāve noticed a small issue with the keepers which is almost always the reason they can even get close to taking these ridiculous catches and itās that they effortlessly āglideā in the direction of the ball before diving. In addition, keepers will often make impossible jumps to catch the ball, beyond second slip in some cases. This motion often looks more like teleportation and they often donāt even look in the right direction.
Related to this: bowlers used to be good with runouts, but as of recently Iāve seen many run out opportunities go down due to extremely lack-luster throws that even frequently miss the stumps entirely. This occurs with the ai and with the mini game.
Fielders facing the wrong way when taking a catch or the ball being caught through the back of the hand also happens too often and takes away from the immersive replays.
Fielders standing outside the rope to take catches, leading to sixes where there shouldnāt be is repetitive and unrealistic, even if players would attempt to jump and tap the ball back would make the game more immersive. There have been attempts of this seen on occasion where fielders will look like theyāre about to catch the ball but drop the ball to save a boundary. To make this look more realistic would be great for the game.
Fielders facing the wrong direction or even throwing in the wrong direction when throwing the ball at the stumps leads to underwhelming game play; not only are these throws done with absurd reaction time, they are far more accurate than any real world cricketer and, like I said, just to have them face the correct way when making the throw all the time would be nice.
Fielders putting in more effort to save boundaries, or at least more consistently would lead to massive improvements. Fielders often jog behind the ball until it reaches the boundary or just straight up run in the opposite direction. More diving animations would improve this as well as a smarter ai.
The fielders ai is a big one, and probably the most complained about part of C24. Only 1 fielder will run after the ball at a time, and more often than not the fielder who ran after the ball initially will give up once it gets too far away (in some cases this isnāt even the case he or she just gives up seemingly for no reason) which triggers another fielder, often an outfielder in the same general area to ONLY THEN start running after it. This leads to far too many leaked runs and bland, repetitive gameplay.
Direct hits. They are FAR too common, and while yes, they do occur in real life and there have been some freakishly impressive direct hits irl, it is just never to the same consistency depicted in the game. Even by the infielders direct hits are too frequent, particularly when fielding at point or square leg where they only have 1 stump to aim at, they manage to hit the stumps 95% of the time. Giving the fielders a smarter ai to determine whether throwing the ball at the stumps is actually worth it, considering possible overthrows or if its even likely a throw will lead to a run out because more often than not the batsman are home well before the ball even leaves the fielders hand.
Fielders on occasion will simply refuse to catch the ball, letting it bounce right in front of them. When this happens it often happens several times due to the unrealistically consistent shot choices of the batsman (another issue). In modes where we are given the mini game to make a catch, even if you complete the mini game, the ball will bounce before the fielder and will not result in a wicket.
More realistic misfields would be a great addition to C26. A feature that IS in C24 that is good is the more consistent misfields by lower level players in club; however this can still be improved as some of these misfields are very poor such as failing to pick up the ball when it has stopped moving. An improvement Iāve actually seen across time is the higher frequency that the ball does not simply stop moving after a misfield but will fly away from the fielder after bouncing off them, often in a very realistic fashion. However this needs to occur more often where the ball is hit hard enough and bouncing unevenly, which usually, irl, results in the ball being slowed down but breaks far away from the fielder. In relation to this, Iād like to see more edges that actually travel THROUGH the slip cordon rather than a fielder reacting in impossible timing to stop the ball.
This would happen more often irl when the ball bounces before the slips. More dynamic misfields when fielders save boundaries by diving would be a nice touch, with the ball being flung away in the fielders effort, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not, like irl.
When bowling and the batsman hits the ball to the outfield, it is a far too frequent occurrence that the fielder will throw the ball highly inaccurately either to another fielder, giving the batters an extra run, or to absolutely nobody, resulting in 4 overthrows. I find that this happens most often due to a feature which pulls the bowler back towards the stump as a fielder prepares to throw a ball in to the stumps. This feature is flawed as the fielder does not follow the bowler and will either throw it to where the bowler was, often in the middle of the pitch, or to where the fielder āthinksā the bowler is running to, which is more often than not further than the bowler ends up travelling and overthrows result. To fix this, have the fielder throw to the stumps and get rid of the ai pulling the bowler there, allow for the semi-assisted and manual controls to let you move the bowler where you please.
Something Iāve seen pop up recently is 6ās being given as 6 AS they pass over the boundary line. This has led to many hits not displaying the distance and unsatisfactory gameplay. However this has affected further aspects of the game; some boundaries that, on replay, clearly bounce before the boundary and should be given 4, are for whatever reason given as 6. Another issue is sometimes the ball will pass the boundary rope and no runs are rewarded at all, instead, either a fielder will eventually touch the ball and carry it over, which alone is unrealistic, or in other circumstances, the ball will bounce back into play off the toblerone or the advertisement boards outside the boundary, allowing the fielder to field the ball and no boundary being given.
There are glitches where a fielder, often in the slip cordon, will attempt to throw the ball to the keeper, but instead of the keeper catching it, he will start walking backwards towards the stumps and no fielder will attempt to retrieve the ball until it is closer to them than the keeper. Fielders also let the ball come to them rather than going to it, leading to needless extra runs.
Run outs are a bit broken when controlling a fielder at the stumps as I will use the prompt (r1 and O or X theres no clear indication as to which combination is meant to do this) and the bowler will either do nothing at all, or attempt to hit the stumps but miss entirely. This also happens with the keeper.
The Pathirana bowling action is a bit broken. Not only does the model Pathirana (for Sri Lanka) bowl far slower than the irl player, but his action enables him to save just about anything that goes to him straight off the bat, too far in the opposite direction from this issue with every other bowler. This leads to straight drives being cut off and unrealistic run outs at the bowlers end.
The ability to communicate with your team as a captain or bowler is a must as strategies can be discussed. An example of this would be to tell a bowler, as the captain, to bowl in certain areas with a certain field set. At the very least have the bowler actually BOWL to his field as sometimes I will make a dramatic field change and they proceed to get hit for consecutive boundaries as they do not account for the changes.
Being told where to bowl by your captain would add depth, and vice versa as captain when talking to your bowlers.
Ai fielders often choose the wrong end to throw the ball to. The buttons to choose the end to throw to are also inconsistent. There should be 1, fixed button to throw to the keepers and and 1, fixed button to throw to the bowlers end.
More dynamic diving catches IN THE OUTFIELD would be a nice touch as this is generally only ever seen in the infield. Outfield diving catches at the moment are rare, which is fine, but they often look silly and unnecessary.
Fielders running backwards to take catches often just chase the ball despite it being within arms reach.
The keeper and fielders will often catch the ball before it hits the stumps when it would have resulted in a runout otherwise.
In relation to the issue with only a single fielder locking onto the ball at a time, often it is also the WRONG fielder, particularly someone beside the bowler when the bowler should have no problem collecting the ball. This leads to easy singles from the ai that should not happen otherwise.
Keepers or slip fielders will sometimes drop the ball off an edge for consecutive balls, often in combination with the batsman making the same mistake repetitively issue.
Fielders diving over the rope to make a catch, or even letting it go for 6 and diving to catch it off a rebound from the adervet boards AFTER already being given 6.
Fielders (bowler and keeper included) will more often than not wait for a throw IN FRONT of the stumps rather than from behind, eliminating the chance for a runout.
Prompting to bowl a slower ball, with the āslow ballā with X or the āslower deliveryā with L2 often does not seem to work at all. This is fine for lower level players as they are less skilled, but a 99 rated career playerās slow ball should be nearly flawless. Also if the bowler bowls 140-150km/h normally, 130-140 is not a slow ball. Anything at or below 120ish km/h is a slow ball. This obviously varys for slower bowlers.
I chose medium pace for my career player and yet Iāve been able to bowl up to 154km/h. Choosing medium pace should mean bowling between roughly 125-135km/h.
- Issues with batting
Batsman often play unrealistic shots where the ball may phase through the bat or even the bat phases through the ground. I have countless clips as examples on my playstation account. Batters stuttering at the crease or just plain standing outside the crease leading to silly, unsatisfying run outs are far too frequent.
It is often that I will middle a ball but get an edge regardless, or the ball just phases through the bat without contact. This may just be visual issues but it would be nice to have fixed regardless.
There are some instances where a yorker is bowled and the batter glances it, except the bat never comes into contact with the ball and in reality it should be either bowled or a plumb LBW. Again this is likely just a visuals issue but the batters ability to hit yorkers for runs get ridiculous in general. If the ball hits the toe end of the bat, it should not fly for 6.
Poorly timed shots almost always result in an edge. It is not like this irl. Irl, slow balls may be timed early and the ball is skied off the toe of the bat, not edged. Late shots should result in complete misses more often.
May have mentioned this under another point but the ball teleporting to the face of the bat when slog sweeps are played. The bat also tends to phase through the ground.
Mistimed sweep shots are extremely unforgiving. Not in the sense that they result in edges, thats fine and realistic, but that if I am slightly late, the animation is disproportionately late to the ball and I am almost always bowled as a result.
Batters stamina is inconsistent. Often I play test matches and my player remains at almost full stamina despite being out there for hours. Yes there are breaks, but in reality, players will begin to cramp up or tire, leading to false shots. A way to replicate this would to increase the tendency of edges as stamina decreases. This should be balanced however.
Dynamic player injuries would be nice. If my player gets struck in the head while batting, the physio and team should come out to perform concussion tests and, if severe enough, the player should retire hurt for the rest of the innings or until they are fit to come back on. Pulled muscles due to excessive bowling or running would add a valuable element to the game, requiring players to be more cautious when running and bowling.
Batter does not always dive when prompted to, leading to runouts.
LBW reviews should be more dynamic. Snicko/ultra edge is only ever used when a review for an edge occurs (spoken about in the next issue), whereas irl, the third umpire will check for any bat involved before requesting ball tracking. Hot spot is also never used for LBW. Going through the full review process would provide more immersive game play and more tension and excitement when reviews occur.
The ai never reviews for edges as the umpire gives it out 99.99% of the time. Reviewing edges is almost entirely useless and takes an important part of the game away which we see irl.
Ai appeals are completely broken. In balls where the batter has clearly hit it, they appeal. This ranges from small inside edges onto the pads, which is realistic and not a problem, but the problem is where the batter literally middles the ball, smashing it into his pad, often not even anywhere near on track to hit the stumps and the ai appeals. More dynamic appeals would be good too as irl, the team sometimes offers only a half appeal or even only a player or 2 when they are not sure.
The ai does not initially celebrate a wicket if it is a no ball, obviously unrealistic as there is never a scenario where everyone knows it was a foot no ball immediately. Umpires CHECKING for a no ball through third umpire after wickets would be good too as they are seemingly perfect at calling them.
Waist high no balls are not called by the umpire. While they are not common, the game does not register waist high as an illegal delivery. However I have only seen this from the aiās bowling and there is really no way to intentionally bowl a waist high no ball. I think being extremely early when releasing the ball should result in missing your length and, in extreme cases, bowling a no ball.
Being able to communicate with your partner as a batsman would offer intense immersion which is not currently something the game gives us. Telling the batter to play defensive and block out an over, rotate the strike, or slog would make the end of games more intense and feel more in control in some scenarios. Being told what to do by a higher order batsman should also be implemented. This would occur between overs.
The SS bat brand, to my knowledge, is not available when creating or editing a character. This and any other missing brands being added would be good.
The game does not let you review wides in the IPL. Having a temporary prompt to review in the corner would be good as there are often height wideās or leg side wides which are not called.
An option to have the camera follow the batsman as he runs and look towards the ball as it travels would be a nice touch.
Certain flick shots look glitchy, the ball does not go where they are aiming to hit it. For example, the batsman may be aiming for square or fine leg, but the ball goes to mid off. Edges are overly exaggerated in the sense that they travel too far from the line of the pitch, leading to countless boundaries.
A solid stadium which the ball can bounce off would lead to more realistic visuals. I believe this can be done with minimal lag as a complicated body is not required, simply one that roughly fits the overall shape and structure of the stadium. This is already present for some site screens.
This might be a long shot, but hitting a six into the crowd and seeing the spectators attempting to catch it would be amazing. Would allow for some pretty cool cutscene replays as well.
The off strike batsman will not attempt to move out of the way when the ball is hit in their direction. Irl, the batsman will make efforts by jumping over it or bending their body out of the way and falling to the ground. Batters USED TO also duck the same way umpires do when the ball is thrown in from the outfield, however this has not been a feature for quite some time. This came ducking animation should be used in some instances for offstrike batsman evading the ball being hit in their direction.
Ai batsman who are on 2 runs from 9 balls (example) when I come in to bowl should not have the confidence nor the coordination to hit 6 boundaries in a row when I come in to bowl.
Sometimes the game will register an edge despite the ball having clearly missed the bat. Or in other cases, the ball will be on course to miss the bat, but will teleport to the bat and register an edge last second.
Ai batsman when out lbw often play the complete wrong line, leading to unrealistic visuals.
I believe it is implemented for player satisfaction, but the way that an ai batsman will continue to miss the ball or continue to edge it when you almost get an lbw or a slip drops a catch (respectively) which will lead to an inevitable (and very unsatisfying) wicket.
Triple ideal batting feedback should be a perfect shot. There have been instances where I edge it regardless of how good my timing is. Similarly, I have received poor feedback for my batting input but hit a BIG six regardless, or the game will tell me my footwork was poor but visually nothing looks wrong.
More realistic ball speeds on hardest physics difficulty is noticeably absent. There are often multiple bowlers who bowl at different speeds but the game says they are the same, or the opposite when they are clearly very similar but are apparently different. Slow balls are also an issue. Anything less than 120km/h is visually MUCH slower than it is in reality.
At club level, batting collapses occur too often after the career player gets out.
Club players should bowl no faster than 130km/h. I see some bowling at high 140ās to 150km/h. Pace should be an acquired skill throughout the career.
Skills such as out swing, in swing and cutters should be acquired, not default.
Having unknown commentators at lower levels should be present. I have never seen Adam Gilchrist commentating a club match. Similarly, higher end commentators are also rarely present at state level such as sheffield shield. A more diverse range of commentators and commentator transcript overall would add a layer of depth to the game. Many people simply turn commentary off at the start of the game because it has a serious lack of variety and it is also often inaccurate (saying there was almost a runout and that the team needs to be making direct throws when there was really no runout opportunity at all). Hearing current players commentating lower level games would be cool (Like we saw with Mitchell Starc commentating a game his wife played in).
Why do I get kicked down the batting order despite performing well?
If I choose ābatting all rounderā I shouldnāt be put on for long bowling spells or used as a main bowler.
- Overall possible improvements
Having access to a leaderboard for world records, such as best figures in said format.
Fix the trophies. The ashes is not a shield. There are some competitions with the correct trophies but many are lacking. There should also be a special cutscene for the actual ashes at the beginning of the test.
Notifications when you cross certain mile stones like x runs or y wickets in certain formats or overall. These milestones could be implemented into news cutscenes.
The ability to start a career at any year you want (within a certain range) would allow players to level up a career player and be able to play with an international team we might see today by the time their character makes it to international.
Special cutscenes for making it to your international team, like the cap ceremony, would be great. This could include press conferences or team meetings which have been seen before (but removed?).
Player retirements seems completely absent. The average retirement age I see on average is about 37 years old. I see irl players in my career modes who at that state in time would be in their mid 40ās, which is technically possible, but highly unlikely. Having these retirements announced as well would add to this. Without this feature, when selecting a team, we see old (current irl) players who are rated extremely low but can still be selected.
Players getting injured more often with age should happen.
A trophy room?
The UI for Gujurat Titans makes reading the player names very difficult as the background is a very similar colour to the text.
Adding RCB to IPL and removing Bangalore Crowns.
Retro teams with teams/players from earlier decades.
Unlicenced players donāt look real and some licenced player models are bad and do not look like the real player at all.
Player of the series award?
Being paid to play in competitions? (+ accumulation of assets and being able to buy things like property?)
Earning sponsors and being paid by them? ( I have seen sponsors before although they didnāt work very well and didnāt appear to affect very much)
Cutscenes for reaching milestones? (Displaying the milestone on the screen at the stadium and having the commentators acknowledge it and the crowd applaud it, accompanied with a raise of the bat by the batsman as if he hit 50)
Being notified about breaking records and having them come up as topic of conversation in interviews.
Add narration to interviews.
More dynamic training, such as training with a team or coach for certain drills and getting narrated feedback for such.
Training cutscenes?
Change room cutscenes?
Walking out onto the ground cutscenes? (This is in the game but showing the batsman walk from the pavilion or through the members stand to get to the pitch would add some immersion)
Adding ex-players/recognisable faces to the crowd who might appear in brief cutscenes looking at the crowd?
Commentators box cutscenes?
Dynamic cutscenes with the toss?
Dynamic weather?
Dynamic pitch conditions that ACTUALLY affect the way the game is played.
I acknowledge that not all of these issues can be fixed with the budget and time available to make this game and there are some features I have requested which are too big of an ask but I would love to see at least some of the major fielding issues being fixed and some cutscenes that Iām not gonna feel inclined to skip everytime I see them. Thank you for giving us the best cricket game to date.