I’m a strong advocate for making the game as manual as possible. AFL 23 introduced manual kicking, and it’s great to see AFL 26 build on that with manual handballing. Giving players more control raises the skill ceiling and rewards practice and precision.
Right now, marking feels too easy. If it were made fully manual, it would challenge players more and bring much-needed depth to contests. I seriously Hate it when your player gets PULLED into a marking position - like it is so obvious and just jarring
Kicking for goal—both on the run and from set shots—is far too forgiving. This simplicity is a major reason the game can feel unchallenging overall.
While improving AI will understandably take time, removing the training wheels from core mechanics like marking and goalkicking would immediately raise the game’s difficulty and better reflect the skill and nuance of real AFL.
I’ve just popped them into the sliders thread now. As mentioned previously, I still get a really great contest out of top 4 teams, but any other team is 100+ easily
i would love that too - we might be touching on one of the things that we don’t fully understand or appreciate.
e.g - not saying I’m right - but if we had full control I think next would come the feedback that the action would feel unnatural. With a narrow zone BA would hear standing in the wrong place by one pixel is too unforgiving. With a wider zone they would hear that getting the exact same animation while standing in a different place is unrealistic.
This issue could be flagged as early as their own testing, which could be fixed by having a wider range of marking dynamics, with more frames and so on. Essentially more complexity.
Which in turn becomes a question of dev time and where the focus is. For 26 it was (I think) making sure that all their earlier commitments were addressed while beginning to build the next version of the game.
Irrespective of how much I got right there, I think the most important thing is having a viable franchise with a stable future. It appears to be the case and I’m confident that as long at BA continue to be a Melbourne based company there is a decent future ahead.
Yeah I agree for all that stuff to come in, my big one is the rolling ball physics of the game. Currently you can have a forward handball into space (especially 15-20m) away from boundary line/ goal line and it just picks up speed and rolls over.
need the ball to bounce at random angle depending on position of the ball
Wet - skids on or stops still
dry - bounces more
I think if that were to come in too it would add a bit more to the game
This is a real big one. The more random the play the harder it gets. Just imagine a stoppage hitout being slapped to the ground and your player misjudging the bounce and runs under it, leading to an attack for the ai. So many more endless scenarios with something like this
honestly dialling down the magnetism to a bare minimum would be all i ask for - i know that it cant be completely off cause that is just a receipe for disaster and takes lots of coding and dev work - but yeah that sense of completely losing control of your player as he/she is dragged into position is just like wth
The occasional beach ball physics of the ball is also something BA needs to take a look at.
I wonder if big ant are going to delegate a new “Afl 26 community rep” just made up a job title for it who can overlook and still engage with us in this forum, JNT was a gun but has bigger fish to fry now with rugby 25.
Would be good to know where the game sits moving forward in regards to new gameplay enhancements etc. It’s in a great spot just don’t want all the good momentum to stop.
Is it just me or does the AI not kick enough behinds?
The last few games I’ve played against the computer they haven’t kicked more than 4 behinds for the whole game. Not very realistic conversion rates
In Premiership Challenge, what do people think is an appropriate punishment for quitting the game?
And maybe, how could this be balanced by bonuses when playing out a game against a higher-tier player, or against a higher-quality team, even if you lose?
I’m pretty good at the game (as arrogant as that sounds!)… but I’m not the best and still get beaten. But even when getting smashed I’ll play out the full game.
But often I come up against stacked sides but unskilled gamers… and as soon as I start beating them by a few goals, they quit.
Currently there’s only a 10 point punishment on the next game if you quit (I’ve seen this when my internet drops me out of a game).
Should it be more?
Should there be more incentive to play out the game? (a larger Match Complete bonus)
How about playing a better player or higher skilled team? (Ladder Differential currently, but no bonus for Overall Team Rating)
I’d be willing for BA to be a bit ruthless in this act.
-10 Premiership point reduction up to maybe -50 (5 games) then issue a matchmaking ban of 30 minutes
There should be a default drop out win bonus 2000xp 2000fp or something like that
I said a few weeks back i’m not actually playing PT premiership mode this season as the overall season rewards were pretty average, i’d like to see a bit more rewards similar do the diamond pack season 1 for (rank 1+2) even though i pulled a sapphire
I probably would have those diamond packs 100% diamond pull for the effort of getting to those ranks
Only problem is the freaking NBN. We’ll be doing some gamers dirty.
Until BA can build the ability to reconnect to a current game, this will be turning x% of gamers away.
If anyone thinks that we’re talking about a tiny fraction of players, consider yourself lucky. Drop outs are a living hell that impact a significant % of people I work with.
Very tough one,especially if the person at the other end is ‘yanking the cable’ or switching off the modem to quit. Also given the games are peer to peer connection the quality of the game is only as good as the ‘worst’ connection.
The complexities of getting a good connection are effected by so many variables. A wired connection that prioritises the gaming traffic is the absolute minimum you should really have before you play p2p and even then things can still get in the way, NBN as @Archer_11 said, can be flakey very often! Other examples of things that can effect it are - playing on WIFI, others in your house streaming movies etc.., time of day - the list goes on really.
I’m sure there’s a percentage of people that come here to complain about the online experience are playing with very poor connections
That said - I wonder whether a combination of things would help with the inevitable quitters.
I do like the idea of leaning more towards rewarding the person who stays yet still impose some punishment on the quitter.
Some ideas -
Bonus for completing a game, extra bonus if you build a streak of completed games.
Show a ‘Reliability Rating’ in the lobby that takes into account completed & non completed games (this gives you the chance to back out and look for another match up)
A time penalty if you quit, ie - when you go back into the lobby, you are forced to wait longer to get the next match up.
One of the match up criteria being matching poor reliability with poor reliability.
I’m pretty sure that AFL LIVE implemented some sort of penalty for quitters although it’s that long ago I can’t quite remember. (Maybe it was a time penalty, I think there was also a randomised point in the match where the game was awarded to the person that didn’t quit?) I can definitely recall there being a way in the leaderboards to see how reliable a player was (it was after a match though).
Some great ideas! And yeah, the juggle of bad internet or sporadic micro-outages versus actually quitting can be tough.
I like @Archer_11’s idea of a reconnection time… like pause and give 30 seconds to reconnect… max of 5 times a game (so people don’t exploit it).
Then there’s pause menu quitting, which would be detectable and punishable…
App quit or Console Switch off, harder to determine that was it… but a streak bonus for completed games is a great idea and could combat that!
If you have a power outage, well you’ll just build that streak back up when power comes back online.
I would like to see further bonuses for player a higher ranked player or a higher rated team, so there’s still point to sticking it out when getting smashed (plus that streak bonus).
If we can get the rejoin feature working, the rage quitter can be presented with one final warning when they try and join a new game - also an opportunity for the game to explain to them the (possible) reward if they rejoin for a shellacking, and the penalty for quitting the game one final time.
I really like a traffic light style system next to the player name and the algorithm pairing quitters together. Maybe that could be one ‘reward’ for rejoining a game - it will move the player back towards a green rating.
I also like any thinking towards rewarding the losing player who hangs on for thumping - margin brackets are problematic for obvious reason. Maybe the ‘award’ can be based on the score worm - they may not win a quarter, but do they slow the rate of scoring or keep the FF under ten goals and so on.
That’s a good consolation prize. I mean, what if they quit in the last quarter? It’s enough to turn anyone away from online competitive. The mode could be already loaded in the background as well, otherwise how are our teammates functioning. I remember old AFL games where you could set one controller back to the middle and you were playing the AI. Set both and you’re watching a simulated game. So it can’t be rocket science in relative terms.
Another benefit of this approach is that you can’t game the system - random people aren’t going to join and quit specifically for the purpose of giving a total stranger an easier run. I like it!
I still like the option to rejoin though. Maybe there’s a system that can do both.
Side note - drop outs are the main reason I don’t play online. I get time for about two games a day so making level 40 is pretty tight. The risk isn’t worth it. But if you were assured to earn XP similar to offline that would change everything.
who can overlook and still engage with us in this forum, JNT was a gun but has bigger fish to fry now with rugby 25.