Hi @MattW - I also think we can step it up a bit, slowing down the kicks does not happen in real life, I like your suggestion of pressing the LT that will enable you to change the the direction more. While without pressing LT it will be more of a straight up or forward kick, do I understand it correctly? I think we will just have to see how this work. But then we also need more time on the kick, so we need to bring in the option to drop a kicker in the pocket, for this to work better.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the info on the logo creator. Can manage expectations at least 
As for the kicking, I do not play online at all for any game and this wonât change for Rugby Union, so I can not offer anything about accounting for that style of play.
All I know is, you should be able to aim a kick in rugby union. Whether you want to drop that kick short of the fullback or over the top of them should be options to you. Tactical kicking is a major part of the sport and as it currently stands there is no way anyone can place a precise tactical kick with any sort of regularity as you can in Rugby Union. It is just flick in the general direction and hope. Without slowing the game down I do not see how you can get the kicker enough time on the ball to make these kicks.
The LT option is worth a trial at least, if you were concerned about it being too complex for some you could leave the kicking as it is and only make the kicking âtighten upâ when you hold down the LT? That way kicking as it stands is not affected and remains simple for online but the option to be more precise is there for someone to use with that LT modifier if they choose to? Maybe too hard to do backwards like that 
this is why I am not a Dev.
Gameplay is going to be tough to manage if the entire game is coming from an online perspective. Online is essentially an arcade style of play. Rugby Union is not an arcade style of sport though.
Appreciate the time and the context around why it is in its current state and offering a possible solution (Though sounds like offline may just have to suck it up). Look forward to seeing what the team implement.
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Good step forward, game is more usable, but still not massively enjoyable as an experience.
Rucks really do need fixing, as they are pretty awful at present - the entire mechanic just needs an overhaul, but I assume that will come in time.
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Dude get out of here with this attitude, thereâs a reason why itâs only on PC to simplify things. No point doing console versions when the codes constantly changing. Theyâre clearly listening to feedback and responding to criticism, youâre adding nothing to the conversation or development of the game. All your points have been brought up and are getting worked on.
When the game actually releases judge it then but for now the whole point is to have the community help provide feedback and hopefully push the game in the correct direction. Itâs going to be a long time until this game is ready so no point judging it as a final release now
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Consoles can not support Early Access. As simple as that it has been said before and explained. We cannot test and undo things on console.
Silenced for breaking a number of rules.
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Your statement is your own opinion. I know of a couple of console gamers that have purchased EA. I am one of them. Where is your stats to show that console gamers know more about Rugby than PC players? It was a useless assumption. If you are keen to give your inputs, get a PC and get onboard with EA. The developers are entitled to choose how they want to roll out a game.
Regarding kicks in play, currently, an indicator moves across the ground indicating where the ball will land.
Perhaps an alternative visual aid, to help get kicks away faster while informing where it will land, can include a line connecting to this circle? A line, flat on the ground that indicates distance and angle by changing colour, or having a numerical value showing estimated distance, will help make split-second decisions easier.
Alternatively, this could be indicated by a cone/triangle originating from the kicker which grows the longer the button is held down. This can be wider, or narrower, based on the players kicking stats. A fly-half would have a narrow cone/triangle, and a Prop would have a much wider cone/triangle, indicating that the ball may land anywhere within that range.
Below is an example of a passing line used in FIFA games, which might help with the decision-making when kicking.
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I feel a slow down would be alright in online. It would also make charging down kicks more interesting, as it it in most rugby games itâs very hard to aim your player for a charge down, a slight slow down would make this easier. On another note, having watched videos of rugby challenge 4, the only thing that game seems to have got right is the camera going right behind the player for kicking making it slightly harder to perfectly target a kick. Maybe the higher a playerâs kicking, the more the game slows down and the less zoomed the camera is, allowing for slightly longer targeting window with it being less likely to be charged down.
Some sort of non linear timing scale would be cool.
1 kicking - 1 second in game time, 100% game speed
50 kicking - 0.85 second in game time, 75% game speed
100 kicking - 0.6 seconds in game time, 50% game speed
These values are slightly random but it means that a higher skilled kicker will be able to kick faster in game time, but will still have a longer window to aim. Would allow more kicking in play but prevent every player being able to kick perfectly (especially when combined with the camera angle).
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This is a great idea IMO.
Also, just flagging an issue Iâve noticed - when I concede a scrum penalty (which is every time), and the opposition kick for touch, I get the line out for some reason.
Iâve also run into the maul issue where it never comes out and you just need to push it back over the dead ball to get anything to happen - the clock also freezes during this
Having issues after goal line drop outs - players donât catch the ball after kick and everyone stands around the ball watching. Only option is to quit the game
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Wanted to jump in on this. Hopefully ive understood everyones points correctly, otherwise this will be a long reply about nothing 
For me the open play kicking sensitivity issue is more in relation to the responsiveness between how much you move the analogue stick compared to the impact that has on your target direction in game.
I actually find the speed the circle travels on the ground away from the kicker to be a decent pace for the game.
The issue i find is there is no possibility of small adjustments.
So for example;
Lets say you have a player stood in the very middle of the pitch and you are playing on side camera. You want to go for a 50:22 kick to the bottom left corner. A good starting point is push the analogue stick to a 7 oâclock position on your controller, and hold down kick, you will likely get the ball in to the opponents 22. However if you accidentally apply too much power and you know you are going to kick the ball straight out, you may want to move the analogue stick to the 8 oâclock position knowing the power will stay the same but that way you are aiming slightly further up the field, and may actually get the ball to land in the opponents 5m channel.
A higher skilled player should be able to make that correction in the time available currently in the game to get a kick away.
The issue is where in most rugby games, that change from moving the stick from 7 oclock to the 8 oclock position would simply adjust the kick by a few meters.
Whereas in Rugby 25, that same small correction seems to change the target from kicking to the corner to kicking directly at the posts, which is like a 50m switch from what you intended.
I think theres some ideas to be tested.
- I know lots of people mention looking at other rugby games for inspiration. But Rugby 22 had a really good level of sensitivity for positioning where you want a kick to go, and higher skilled players can really punish with well targetted kicks, even with the attrocious online connection that game has. I dont think there would be any issue with seeing if you can allign Rugby 25s kicking sensitivity value to a similar level Rugby 22 had.
- Ive mentioned it before, but having a trajectory line showing the players kick direction is very helpful visually. In Rugby 25, once you begin an open play kick your eyes track the landing circle accross the pitch. However the landing circle is completely disconnected from the player, so while you follow the circle, you stop watching your own player to see if they are about to get tackled. Adding a trejectory line (even something small attached to the player) would help with allowing a player to interpret a kick direction better, and higher skilled players will get muscle memory for amount of power needed, and at the point knowing the direction quicker by just looking at the player is more useful than following the circle.
- Another option when focusing on the players time for a kick is to look at Rugby 2011, on Easy and medium difficulty. On those difficulties, they have an offside line at rucks that your players physically cant cross, until the ball is played. And if you mis-time the run hoping to sack the flyhalf, your players will slow down and turn around to get back onside giving the other kicker even more time, and punishing you for trying to rush off the line early. Something like that implemented at ruck and set pieces on lower difficulties could slow down the AI from rushing your kicker, giving the player more time to kick, and prepare them for online play.
I personally hate any aspect of a rugby game where time itself slows down. Or players do something in slow motion mid game. So personally wouldnt be a fan of time slowing down for a kick, especially in multiplayer where kicking will probably be a larger part of the game.
I do think things will improve naturally once the ability to drop a player in the pocket becomes available, just to give more time to the kicker. My own favourite option would be to reduce the sensitivity of moving the kick direction. Maybe even add in the settings a slider for âkick sensitivtyâ similar to how FPS games having aiming sensitivity, and allow players to test it themselves to find what sensitivity value they like the best. Could even be done during EA and we give you our favourite settings, and they become different defaults on release?
I also like @Valhalla_Vagabond idea of that sensitvity scaling with the stats of the player themselves. The higher kicking stats your kicker has the better the control and sensitivty of the kicking direction you have. That way when you start with a 50 rated fly half in your club, the kicking is trickier, but then you work your way up to international 1st choice, you can feel the difference in how much more control they have over their kicking, and you as the player can have a sense of progression in your team.
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I donât like the idea of the camera switching to behind the kicker if you want to kick in play, if your camera is further back it shouldnât switch to a first person type view just because you select to kick. But if I am playing from a far behind camera or broadcast style camera ⌠I want it to stay in that camera when kicking. Would be great for close behind camera option though.
I do like Dragons idea of a trajectory line. I assumed this would naturally be included at some point so didnât mention it I like the option of reducing sensitivity for the angle. That seems intuitive enough. Having a trajectory line with that will also show the distance of the kick, ideally powered up by the time the button is held down so you can stop the kick at the depth you want it.
2 Likes
Oh god, i couldnt think of a worse idea than the camera switching to a first person view for a kick or looking over thier shoulder. That would be very immersion breaking
Small camera adjustments may enhance it (again as someone who plays on side camera i can only really talk from that perspective). In Rugby 2011 the camera would slowly zoom in when in rucks. But if you went for a kick, the camera would slowly zoom out to reveal more pitch and you could judge long distance kicks better. It was very subtle and didnt distract from the gameplay. But i agree I wouldnt want a large camera change just because you select a kick.
Would be interested to see how different people feel about an available kicking arc aswell. Personally im not a fan of how restrictive the available box kick arc is currently in Rugby 25, i think you should be able to kick wider.
I wonder if you adjusted the sensitivity of the aiming bar. If you could limit a players kicking arc to a 90° angle infront of them. So if you stood facing the posts you could target most of the field, but turning the player would also change the limit for how far sideways you can kick. So you would also have to bare in mind the players direction, and how that would impact your kick.
It would be more realistic, because players in real life need to turn their body to where to kick. But the timing on not getting tackled by the AI would have to be improved first. Along with players recieving passes and not facing the way you want.
2 Likes
So long as the trajectory line isnât 100% accurate (it shouldnât account for variables like crosswind with a high level of accuracy etc) and reduces in accuracy the further the kick is based on player stats. Using a splay or having the circle reticule grow the more the kick is powered up will help with this. The last thing we want is to be able to be able to kick aggressively knowing exactly where the ball will land (I mean, thatâd be great in real life!).
Another option could be a power-up vs accuracy bar, like you see in FIFA when taking a shot at goal. This would need to be balanced with distance too, however, so unsure how helpful it would be (plus the small window to get a kick away already does this to an extent).
1 Like
Yeah, I personally quite like the idea of the landing circle already included in Rugby 25, and when you kick the ball can land somewhere inside that circle but not exactly in the middle. Think thats balanced with the further you kick the larger the circle grows.
I would also say the trajectory line shouldnt include variables like Wind, or maybe even if you go too much power and slice the ball. I think the trajectory should be treated as the âperfect lineâ you want. The landing circle whould show where it could land given perfect conditions. And then variables like wind and rain are applied mid air so you cant get a kick bang on.
It could then be applied to the other idea of the players stats coming in to play. Maybe kick accuracy not only impacts the sensitivity of the trajectory, but could also make the landing circle smaller for higher rated players, giving you better accuracy by having better players in the team. But all players should still have some sort of circle rather than landing bang on the trajectory line every time.
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Just a thought on the âslow-downâ for kicks. Could there be as a simple solution to enable it for single player and disabling it for multiplayer. I may be one of the minority but sure there is more of me not just on the forum. I prefer single player and actually do not care for any online play functionality, that tends to drive me away from playing the game. The community hub is great but that is as far as some players need.
Also on the in real life a slow down doesnât happen for a kick. It is a valid point however it is also quicker to target a kick in real life than with controller. If you listen to some of the masters of sports they speak as if the game slows down for them. It may not be so far fetched to get slow down kicks. 
4 Likes
There seems to be a game crash on Fan Hub occurring when searching for all Teams on Fan Hub by date or rating. Not sure if this is applying to everyone.
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The update is a lot better but still not where it needs to be. I say this because the last three games i played, i was unable to finish the game due to glitches.
Bugs i experienced:
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From a kick off the ball landed but no one was able to pick it up. Basically it froze and I couldnt do anything. I had to restart he game but happened in the second game as well so to this day i havent been able to complete a full game yet.
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Opposition player randomly runs into touch with the ball in hand for no reason. Again, this never happens.
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Inconsistencies with the 50/22. Its the same when I do it and the opposition as well. Im well aware of the 50/22 rules so its not something im getting wrong, but lineouts is often given to the wrong team. Hopefully just a quick fix.
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After i gave a penalty away, opposition tapped and broke the line but i was unable to tackle him. Changed over to my fullback but regardless who i picked, if i pressed the tackle button, nothing would happen. No attempt would be made. Then the opposition player runs into the dead ball area without scoring a try.
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After a lineout, during the maul stage, my whole backline shifts across to the other side of the field leaving a gap the size of Africa. Unsure why this as I cant seem to stop it from happening. They need to stay in line connected to the maul.
Would like to see some of the following though:
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Better Ref/TMO decisions - Often a try is scored but TMO or ref wont give it. Will like to see more details around this where its clearly held up or clearly no try so TMO or ref can make the right call or when it is scored then a try is given. Would be nice to be able to make this more realistic.
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Will be nice to be able to have more penalties in the game. As much as i love a fast flowing game, I would also like to take those 3 points on offer. Red/Yellow cars should also be introduced.
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I think someone has mentioned this before but player fatigue. The more tired the player is, the more likely he is to be injured. Lets us make or force the changes using the bench etc. Also players who sustain serious injuries shouldnât be available for selection the following week.
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For some reason a player making a break will stop to embrace the tackle from behind or the side. I can appreciate it from someone tackling from the front but will nice to see them keep going so its more of a chase down and would like to see those side on tackles more.
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No time for my play maker to kick the ball. Every time i pass to him, the Defence shut him down. Would be nice to slow the game down so slightly so it buys him time to kick the ball when the button is pressed. Its that or the kick button doesnt work because i cant get him to kick the ball.
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More crowd involvement. When a players breaks the line or scores a try, will be nice for the crowd to cheer louder in those instances.
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More realistic grass or playing pitches but I might be getting a little ahead of myself, hopefully its a work in progress.
The upgrade is better but hopefully the next one can address all the issues. And hopefully I can actually finish a game for once haha!
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Hello Big Aunty,
-improved support runners: not really. Sure theyâre a bit more aggressively keeping up with ball carrier, but too often run ahead of the ball carrier so we canât pass to the support runner in the gap cause he is in front of the ball carrier.
Now that support runners are a bit closer, the fact that you pass randomly to either one or the other is even more flagrant, still a pain.
Passing still hazardous even though some support runners are closer, when i want to pass to the closest to the ball carrier by tapping the pass button, sometimes i will pass to a support runner behind even though the closest player next to me was perfectly placed and should have received the ball.
Last pass to the winger still goes to touch even if the runner is well placed.
Rucks are still a mess, number 9 comes when he wants, players replacing him at scrum half just stand there behind the ruck for a few seconds before picking up the ball to pass it.
Still get the bug where the SH doesnât pass the ball to the blind side like i asked him and decides to pass to the open side instead.
-Improved graphics = well i wish i could confirm, Iâve always played in highest setting but now the game lags and frame rate drops so i have to lower the graphic settings to be able to play fluidly. Iâm playing on a laptop, Intel(R) Core⢠i5-10300H CPU @ 2.50GHz , 16 Go Ram
A lot of player markers still missing when the controlled player isnât on screen (kick chase for example). Still some very bothering camera switches after the scrum. Clearly a lot of redundant issues reported and never addressed.
Running still feels very heavy and unnatural, direction changes not sharp enough.
Mauls are horrible, and players unresponsive for a few seconds after the maul so really annoying in defense.
Passing and running feel way too random, lack of precision in the controls.
Player, team, and logo editor: no idea, not my stuff. Iâm just waiting for licensed top 14 and world cup
All in all there is some undeniable improvement for sure, but the game is still missing sooooo much (rules, team management, effective mauls and lineoutsâŚ) and the few good things that are in the game still need a lot of work to make it happen. I tend to realize that i enjoyed playing it more when it was in really poor shape cause i had high hopes for the future of the game. Now that more and more pieces are coming together and working poorly, i can barely go through a whole game because of how boring the game feels. If we canât have a good simulation, please at least let it be fun !
Cheers, keep up the great work !
My suggestions to fix the logo creator would be to add a slider to adjust the size of the shapes and letters rather than trying to move all tge points of articulation. My other thought was just to try and simplify the controls a little bit. Obviously these are just suggestions and I donât know how hard it would be to add these in as I know the team are putting blood sweat and tears into making the best rugby game possible.