Wanted to chuck my 2 cents in. Overall, current update has been much better than update 1.
So many things fixed so lots of positives.
Positives:
Fixed issue on dropouts, every drop out working well (camera does still have an odd dip mid ball flight but atleast players do catch the ball)
Passes to support runners working well, can all be selected, and even find it easy now to switch the side you are passing to mid run which previously has been tricky.
Simulate button working flawlessly now in the championships.
scrum half arriving at far more rucks, experiencing much less the issue where no one passed the ball from a ruck
really prefer the new player marker visuals to show stamina bar and also the amount of kicking power, much better than the old visual.
logo creator no longer crashing (I know apparently this one was exclusively somehow only my issue, but glad its fixed)
Overall everything mentioned in the patch notes is pretty bang on.
Future progression
Balls dropping during passing, is happenning quite frequently, which just kills the pace of the game, not sure what causes that to happen. Happens whether a normal pass or a targetted pass. Very frustrating when it happens to a support player and costs you a try.
Issue with players running away from the maul returned, so looking forward to that being fixed
Issue with match clock stopping completely during entire length of a maul
Mauls can be pushed indefinitely and never told to use it.
Experiencing an issue with penalties awarded that the penalty is awarded before the action happens. You can go back in the replay and it shows the full action happenning. Happenned in recent video on my channel in a high tackle. Somehow the game anticipates the tackle happenning and shows the ref blowing whistle before seeing it happen in real time. Going forwards as penalties progress, might need a timing adjustment of 2-3 seconds afterwards as if the ref is taking his time to make the decision or if a TMO makes the call in his ear. Would also be good to see Advantage implemented to the game at some point.
Negatives Experienced in this update
Game visuals will freeze while referee awards a penalty, and will continue once the animation for ref blowing whistle would normally end
Experiencing a lot more occasions where a scrum half will pass the ball over the ruck to your opponents. This seems to primarily happen when you use target select, but the 9 doesnt play, so you press to normal pass, and the 9 just chucks it over the ruck.
AI bullet passing to the fullback before being tackled. Nice to see the AI getting those offloadds, but there is like 50% chance it the first pass gets thrown to the full back who is miles away and bullets to his hand, not sure why that player is a priority pass target.
still experiecing crashes, cant seem to pinpoint what the issue is. Have had one on a counter ruck success, 1 from a maul landing, 1 just in open play and breaking the line, and 1 from the AI after performing a âbump offâ successfully.
Nobody catching kick offâs. doesnt matter if AI or my own team, ball seems to need to bounce the majority of the time before someone catches it.
Have experiened and issue when the AI kick a penalty to touch, the camera will show a random section of the pitch and I as the player make the decision of how many players are invovled at the next lineout on behalf of the AI, and then carries on as normal.
Broader point on the rucking as a lot of people are talking about it. Ive also been playing on hardest difficulty, and counter rucking is tricky. BUT im playing on hardest difficulty and expect the counter rucking harder, but understand frustrations because the mechanics are a bit finicky.
tip for everyone struggling, avoid using the Y tackles, going for B has a much higher success rate and your player gets to the ruck quicker. After making the tackle, make sure you press Y button first before adding players to the ruck. Y is basically a counter ruck button, and seems to work better if you press Y before the players get added. Other than that, a successful counter ruck requires you to have more players in the ruck than your opponent (which makes sense tbf), but the AI does get 3 players in very quick very often so it can become very inconsistent.
B tackle all the time, and press Y after a successful tackle before adding players at EVERY ruck, to increase your turnover numbers going forwards.
However, fully agree it is frustrating to play a whole half and not get any if the AI is on point.
Something that could be good going forwards would be BigAntâs own system of âgame momentumâ, similar to Rugby 2011. In Rugby 2011 successfully getting consecutive tackles that stopped the oppenents making ground or even them losing meters, would add to the momentum bar which was above the teams names on the scoreboard.
That bar being more in your favour meant you were more likely to win a turnover even as the lower rated team. Or could also force a penalty against the other team for hands in the ruck (which felt very immersive, because it felt like the team performing an illegal action because you were putting them under so much pressure.)
Something similar might help when it comes to online play, because it rewards solid defence, and may force your oppnent to kick if not making ground. Whereas at the minute for online play, i can see rucks being dominated by 1 person every match based button pressing speed to input recognition, because 2 human players will always fully commit to every ruck, so wont be short manned allowing a counter ruck.
Overall, EA4 Interim 2 is a positive update, game back to being playable on my end (if you exclude the 4 or 5 random crashes that I cant replicate), and we now having working support runners which is a nice addition to the attack in the game. Not sure if we have any more interim updates left before EA5, but if the dropped ball issue can be fixed then the support players will be implemented very well.
I will give that try in the rucks and see if it helps.
On the topic of momentum, I think that is one of the best ideas I have heard for rewarding both attack and defense.
I also think it will soften the blow for not being able to turn the ball over because the opposition is being rewarded from the momentum gained from making it past the gain line and making line breakâs.
Just make sure isolated players can still punished.
On a side note good job with your update videos. I have enjoyed watching them.
Thats a really good point about the isolated players. Again, Rugby 2011 had such a good system for it with the X button QTE. That basically acted as a jackal for an immediate turnover if a player didnt have support players to ruck.
So if a player made a line break they would make huge meters, they would gain a large chuck of momentum on the momentum bar. But if you can make the tackle, you were able to punish the great attack with great defence and ripping a turnover.
Everything was very balanced, for player vs player games.
Didnt always work with AI on hardest difficulty, they could take the ball even when you had players waiting to get in the ruck. And against the AI you could cheese it a bit if you were good enough in defence by letting them run through and getting the tackle with your fullback knowing you would get the QTE.
But obviously the gameâs over 10 years old now, jm sure a similar but modernised system would have less exploits.
Agree with the momentum bar! I know Rugby 06 had the same (maybe 08 aswell?) and it would also be boosted by home advantage etc.
It would be good for it to adjust based on win percentage throughout a season (ie: it starts higher if youâre on a winning streak) or start lower if your team has multiple injuries/captain is injured during the game.
There are lots of fun variables that could be included. Having a little notification before jumping into a match showing what âmomentum boostsâ or âmomentum lossesâ your team is experiencing would be great. A better team could accumulate momentum more easily, but an average team, or team with multiple injuries could fluctuate more too.
Agreed, I think a momentum bar is vital for the game and for online play especially, currently the games will be a ruckfest online and will hardly be playable but with momentum introduced it could add a new dynamic altogether.
That camera thing is a problem on MOST stadia - have mentioned this a lot over this EA period. Been collating a list of what needs to be moved where as I see each stadium land in-game, but from a pure Prem standpoint this is where âcamera 1â is positioned.
Main Camera ABOVE the Tunnel/Dugout, facing Stands
Saracens (StoneX Stadium/technically Barnet Copthall Stadium without sponsorship)
Sale (Salford Stadium)
Gloucester (Kingsholm)
Exeter (Sandy Park)
Northampton (Franklinsâ Gardens)
Bristol (Ashton Gate)
Leicester (Welford Road)
Harlequins (The Stoop and Twickenham Stadium when added)
Bath (The Rec)
Main Camera in Stand, Facing Tunnel/Dugout
Newcastle (Kingston Park)
Also, a minor quibble on the âteams outâ cutscene, traditionally the away team come onto the field first, then the home team - in-game at the minute itâs the other way round (home first then away).
Game passing seems to be improved, still canât get through a game without crashing, seems to crash more often when pressing macros. Have the developers explained the rucking system? Rucking just seems all over the place and very random, what is the rucking mechanism? Without a good rucking mechanism it feels like a Rugby League game, the heart of a good rugby game is a good rucking system, knowing when to commit to the ruck , knowing when to jackle, knowing when to risk holding on to the ball to give your rucking team mates to support in the ruck. Come on guys, have faith in Big Ant because I have enjoyed their rugby games tremendously, and Ross is pretty good about implementing features we really like. A good rucking system and ability to have control of manually sending 1- 5 players into a ruck manually creates a lot of strategy in the game. Everything else in the game needs some tunning but the rucking system must be improved (overhauled), to establish a good Rugby Union game.
This patch definitely has brought in a lot of random crashes.
Crashes occur randomly on the field doing various things with or without having ball possession.
Itâs almost impossible to complete a full game.
I also had a game crash by simply pressing the highlights button at halftime or full time.
I have stopped trying to play any matches for the last few days due to this.
Passing and offloading has improved.
Offside penalties also seem to be more NRL or League focused by the referee if a player is not in the defence line quickly and not involved in the actual ruck area. I even had offside penalties against me because the Ai offloaded or passed a distance backwards and I had players still running forward back to the defensive line.
Thanks for every update the game is getting better inch by inch.
Some updates i would like to see that will make the game better and more smooth:
Tackle animations: This is an area that has been improved in earlier updates but i still feel that there is only a few tackle animations and most of them is animations that makes you loose ground when you attack. This kills your momentum when attacking (i would like to see more variations of animations that allows you to gain more momentum and ground in attacking)
Ruck animations: The ruck animation needs a rework. It feels like a mini scrum forming. In a real rugby game you can gain little ground at the ruck. With players rucking over the ball or clearing defending players it moves the actual ruck forwards witch helps you gain momentum.
Support playes: This has been improved but when passing to players they loose momentum when slowing down to catch the ball. Playes should run at the same speed or slightly slower than the ball carrier to stay within the range of a supporting line if needed and need to catch the ball with momentum. Sometimes it feels like if the supporting players starts to follow the ball carrier a bit to late.
Player positioning: this area has not been drastically improved but i think you are waiting for the actual update that will introduce set plays and then this will be improved. But here is an option to help with this update. Apart from set playe options at the moment the game is developed to pass to the closest player from the ruck. But what if there is always a option to pass to a âpodâ system or to the back line. So, there should always be forward players availible close to the ruck to pass to and then the fly half on one side with the backline following. So when you play a game and you press RB or LB to pass it will always pass to the closest player which is a forward but at the side where the flyhalf is involved on one side when you pass towards the side where the flyhalf is lined up the forwads automatically runs forward and the ball is passed behind their back to the flyhalf with the backline following. But you will always have a option to pass to whom you want by holding down RB and choose to the player you want to pass.
Think its a broader problem with playing on the Stadium.
Just tested it, and crashes for me too. It also crashes if you put the 2 teams against each other as just AI.
It also happens at all times of day, not just dusk.
It also happens when playing as any other team as long as both sides are the 2 same teams.
So tested with 2 random teams and crashes again.
Only similarity in all the tests is the Montevideo Stadium, so stadium myst just be broken.
@JNT_BA@MattW
Just wondering, is there a reason, why the away team doesnât have the player names on the screen?
If I play a game as the home team the game always shows my player names which is really useful. But the AI side is always abscent.
I thought it may have been because the AI maybe never technically select a single player and so the game wouldnt know who to display. But The screenshot above is from a match of AI vs AI and it does show the home sideâs player names correctly, so must be able to work with an AI team.
Then the screenshot below, is from me playing as the away side vs AI, and if im the away team I have the player names correctly shown, and so do the AI still as the home team.
Not sure if its just something missed in the EA process, but think it would be a great HUD feature to have both teams players shown no matter which side you are playing as. And can be useful from a gameplay perspective to know who your player is running against, when you cant see shirt numbers, such as a winger going up against a prop, you know its worth trying to run around the outside to outpace. Whereas if its winger vs winger it might be better to kick over the top.
Steam Deck brings in its own issues and nuances. While we do try to make sure it is running in a decent state at this moment device compatibility isnât exactly something we focus on really intently. When it comes to how settings are stored that device is very different and doesnât have full support for settings as its going to need an overhaul. Unfortunately there is no ETA on those changes for Steam Deck while we work on the game overall.
Thanks for the reply! Yeah, I understand that it is not a focus for you at this point, I am happy that it runs well on deck apart from that minor error.
Likde how the crowd chants when playing a game.
Would like to see in the future Pacifc teams do they traditional dance
ALL BLACKS-Haka
FIJI- The Ciba
TONGA-Sipi Tau
Somoa- The Siva Tau
as far the game is pretty good can see Big Ants plan of developing the game step by step with Patch updates
Ruck needs big improvement,not fluent at all looks robotic.
Commentator a bit off scripture and not excting,need more commentaries.
The penalties and laws needs to implemented in every part of the game where needed
