Coaching

[Lynx54321]

Agreed aggression coaching does work although I've once had it take 3 seasons of constant coaching to actually increase the players aggression.

At the moment the more aggressive a player is then the better they are which shouldn't be the case. I literally dont bother with very defensive players as they score so slowly they're just a ball and chain dragging my games towards a draw.

[Chris_]

I’ve tested quite a few things with coaching.

For general training I’ve had most success when players are under 25. Most players on that would gain a message each season saying they improved, some 2 or 3 times. What impact it’s had is hard to say though, given that players are supposed to naturally improve each year until their peak.

Specific training has mostly been simple but I have found it hard to change a second aspect after adjusting one. As an example I spent a few years trying to train a bunch of batsmen into neutral/no preferences. While the first step such as going from Strong Leg to Slight Leg might not take too long, I’ve had plenty of players simply not go any further. Similarly I’ve had players make an easy adjustment to line Preference but then have no further change when trying to adjust pace/spin or front/back. The same applies to adjusting one of the others first; it’s then seemed almost impossible to adjust line preference after. That could just be a coded limitation to make small player adjustments possible but prevent major style overhauls, which would make sense. It has changed the way I look for players though, as I have certain preference preferences!

I can only assume the general training has some small improvement when the message pops up, on top of the background squad training.

The whole preference/technique training does seem to act as a slider or balance, rather than a net ability gain. That’s just based on the interface having 5 listings for each of the 3 aspects (strong, slight, none, slight, strong). So going from Strong Pace to Slight Pace preference suggests the player gets a little less effective against pace bowling but a little more effective against spin. It seems to be zero sum in that way. I’m thinking there’s an overall batting ability rating in the database for a player and then the batting preferences modify how much of that ability rating is applied in different situations (eg. What’s being bowled to them). If it was a net gain system then I’d expect a different interface showing both sides of each (eg. an ability to train a batsman up to Strong Pace and Strong Spin, which we don’t have).

So I see general technique training as a small overall ability increase effective on under 25s and specific technique training for limited preference adjustment on players of all ages, but not for radically changing preferences.

Edit: I forgot to say that I also suspect players might just have a single hidden ability rating, which then gets modified by ratios for batting, bowling and catching. Why? I had a wicket keeper who was decent at his job. He rarely let byes past and caught most things. I wanted to improve his batting so put him on general batting training, with 2 improvement messages over the season. After that his catching went to hell - lots more byes and dropping simple looking catches he had no problems with before. I switched his training to catching and after 2 improvement messages on that he was back to performing as he did previously.

That makes me think there’s a hidden Batting / Bowling / Catching modifier that is applied to overall ability similar to how the batting preferences might work. It could just be coincidence but training general batting skill seemed to weaken my keeper’s catching, rather than just improve his batting.

It also makes me wonder if training general batting on a bowler would make his bowling weaker, not just make him a better batsman, and vice-versa.

Is all coaching just adjusting hidden sliders/modifier ratios rather than adding ability without making some other aspect weaker? Is raw ability gain only from natural background increase per year until reaching prime age?

[Lynx54321]

Chris Child Sureshot Still waiting on a response for this lads.

[Sureshot]

Chris Child Sureshot Still waiting on a response for this lads.

I've just sent Chris an email on this.

[Lynx54321]

Thanks Nige, that's great. Look forward to his response.

[bryce87]

Also when you give a player fielding training their batting/bowling goes to crap. Coaching is in dire need of an overhaul.

[hitthestump]

Also when you give a player fielding training their batting/bowling goes to crap. Coaching is in dire need of an overhaul.

In before response of "it's a lot of work"

To throw my experience into the ring - technique coaching seems to work for batsman aggression. Largely though it's a pointless gimmick which is further evidence of the lack of interest the devs have in improving the game for their customers. This terrible coaching system has been around for a decade with no changes, so unfortunately any overhaul is only going to happen in our dreams.

[Chris Child]

Sorry to take a while to get back to you on this. I'll try to answer the queries. I don't want to be too definitive in my answers as I want people to play the game, assuming things mirror real life (which we aim to do as much as possible) rather than playing the formulas.

- Players have abilities in a range of aspects of their play, so coaching their batting will not effect their fielding (positively or negatively).
- As players age there is a chance that their ability will improve every day. If they do improve it will be in a range depending on their age. Technique coaching shifts the improvement to the top of the range. For older players, they will start to deteriorate, and technique training will lessen the impact of the deterioration. Players in good form will also tend towards to the top of the improvement range (to a lesser extent than technique training).
- You can only change a player's natural aggression by one type, so if a normal aggression player has been coached to aggressive then they can't be increased further to very aggressive.
- Changes to aggression etc. are more likely to happen when a player is younger.
- Openers have increased ability against the new ball, which is balanced by less ability against the older ball. If you an opener who bats at no. 6 in your team you might want to train them to be a middle order batman as they are generally not facing the new ball.

Hope that helps.

Chris

[Lynx54321]

Sorry to take a while to get back to you on this. I'll try to answer the queries. I don't want to be too definitive in my answers as I want people to play the game, assuming things mirror real life (which we aim to do as much as possible) rather than playing the formulas.

- Players have abilities in a range of aspects of their play, so coaching their batting will not effect their fielding (positively or negatively).
- As players age there is a chance that their ability will improve every day. If they do improve it will be in a range depending on their age. Technique coaching shifts the improvement to the top of the range. For older players, they will start to deteriorate, and technique training will lessen the impact of the deterioration. Players in good form will also tend towards to the top of the improvement range (to a lesser extent than technique training).
- You can only change a player's natural aggression by one type, so if a normal aggression player has been coached to aggressive then they can't be increased further to very aggressive.
- Changes to aggression etc. are more likely to happen when a player is younger.
- Openers have increased ability against the new ball, which is balanced by less ability against the older ball. If you an opener who bats at no. 6 in your team you might want to train them to be a middle order batman as they are generally not facing the new ball.

Hope that helps.

Chris

Hey Chris, really appreciate the reply. So am I right in saying that having a player on technique training is never wasted time? Even if I dont get the pop up on my news screen then that player is still slowly improving?

If so what does the news item denote?

[Chris Child]

Technique training is always useful. For older players there's no news item to say they've improved, but the training will stop them getting worse. For younger players they are still improving even if there is no news item. The new items happens when they've passed a threshold.

[Lynx54321]

Nice thanks for that Chris. I'd perhaps suggest it needs a nudge to be slightly more effective, in 40 odd seasons across various counties I'm yet to bring an existing youth/fringe player through into a first team regular despite extensive use of technique training.

[sambha87]

it will be good if we can see an indicator based on technique coaching as well. just like we see the coaching affect doing the regular coaching. please fix ASAP.