Hey guys, wanted to jump in and drop my 2 cents, know im very late to the party with this one due to being absent for a lot of december and didnt want to post anything until I had put a good few games in to the patch.
Ive gone through the feed, a lot of stuff has already been said and some people made some great points. So ill try no to go over the same bit, and more give a personal experience based response because most people have covered a lot of things I wanted to point out.
*editing my own intro a bit here after writing the full thing, because theres plenty to rant about and all sounding pretty negative going back through it all. But full love to @JNT_BA and @MattW for being the ones who end up being the ones dealing with all the responses. Nothing directed at either of you, understand plenty of people are working hard. Hopefully something throughout the ranting can be useful to take to the rest of the team
On the whole for me EA7 really has me wanting to bang my head against the desk. Im really hoping EA7 is a stepping stone for large improvements in EA8, that releasing on their own would be too jarring to existing players or something.
Overall experience has been pretty negative and just want to give some thoughts.
Tutorials
- For me the tutorials just dont do their job, my experience with them has been crashes and cant even complete them (as I included in my EA7 video and know you guys are already aware of)
- The ones that do work dont get the point accross to me at all. The tackling and rucking ones barely work. The ruck steal tutorial only shows that you ever need to press the X button in order to steal the ball. But at no point says you need to press B to add the player to the ruck first. You also have the option available to press Y for tackler contest, but the tutuorial is for the Steal, pressing Y doesnt do anything, so why is it available to be pressed and shown in the bottom left corner? When pressing Y in the tutorial I have huge frame rate drops. A lot of the time the AI can also beat you to the ruck so you cant get it anyway.
- ruck pushover - whole tutorial is way too short most of the time it ends before you can complete the animation, or sometimes just resets and no way to no if you did it correctly. Players still stand at the ruck like mannequins most of the time and the AI get in to the ruck first. But even if they dont get in a ruck, the tutorial ends before your guys get in to turn it over, its just terrible.
- Scrum - The scrum one is actually pretty decent at explaining all of the buttons. But its just a wall of text. Its a tutorial, why not have the game pause each time a new set of buttons needs to be pressed with a pop up explaining the new buttons, so players understand the timing better. The tutorial still struggles with the scrum fundementals in the game too that it can be so punishing and collapse for very little reason.
- Lineouts - Just feels unpolished. Every time you are forced to watch the AI kick to touch, followed by watching 2 full animations of the linout being set up before actually getting to the bit you as the player interact with. Both the lineout pass and the linout maul tutorials allow the player to select the wrong button for each tutorial “pass button during mauls” “maul button during passing” and just brings the tutorial to an abrupt halt with no explanation. Why even let the player press the buttons if they cant be used?
In both sections you cannnot even play the lineout to completion, in both cases the player lands with the ball and nothing happens. Both are identical to a new player and do not do their job of teaching a new player when to use the options or what happens at the end of the linout. You also dont get ot practics defensive lineouts and stealing linouts stuill isnt in the game. I also have huge frame rate drops to single figures whenever i press any lineout option. - Mauls - Maul totorial is “just hold RT” litterally nothing else, thats not a tutorial, no explanation on how a maul is formed, how can you as the player form one, that YOU NEED to use B to add players. Just hold RT for 5 seconds and the tutuorial is over. Why not have the turotials plays from the linout, select a maul, watch the maul get created and then go from start to finish.
Overal the tutuorials really come accross as an afterthought, like there wasnt enough in the Major Update for it to feel major so they were just just stuck on before EA& released and added to the patch notes.
New place kicking mechanics
New kicking mechanics feel completely lost to me. EA1-EA6 kicks were bad due to their simplicity. So certainly something to work on. I think a lot of people do like the addition of the analog stick as with Rugby 20 and Rugby 22.
But this new kicking is just so inconsistent, you line up the trajectory line, through the middle of the posts, yet the kick goes outside of the posts.
You charge full power, and the ball flies outside the stadium, you use 90% power, ball makes it 2m off the kicking tee. I dont change anything I do on any kick during a game, some go through, some go insanely wide, some sail, some fall off the tee. Its completely inconsistent and just ends up being the frustrating broken mess. AI is kicking with Tighthead Props with better consistency than my Flyhalf. I would love to jump in to a tutorial to know what im doing wrong, but playing the tutorial crashes the game.
The patch notes also state the reason for the change was to make them “more challenging”. It does acheive that, because it feels like I as the player have no control over the end result, rolling th edice everytime. The reason people complained about the simplicity of the kicking was not from the button pressing. But it was because of the full trajectory line that perfectly showed where your kick was going. Which is still in the game? the only difference in the kicking is you now push the stick instead of holding a button, that might be 1% morechallenging, but the mechanic itself is way too basic because of teh trajectory line. Rugby 20/22 has it good with whichever way you point the stick is where the ball was heading, and a small line appearing after you kick so you know where you aimed it. I think this game needs to move more towards that, while also fixing the consistency from the tee. Or go back to button and look at older rugby games that use QTE and the speed of the QTE is based on the players kicking stat so even veteran playres can get caught off guard if using a lower rated kicker.
Tactics System
- Again for me really unfortunately, huge let down from what that title suggests. Tactics added of switching youre forward spread barely changes between all selections, and none of them make any match easier or harder. 100% put it as wide and that way your wingers standa better chance.
Defensive tactics also have no impact. Set up for kick defence, but the AI kick in to miles of green space because my winger may still not catch the ball, or might just be stood still.
There are no attacking tactics. The thing it seems like everyone wants it to have a player specifically drop in the pocket to give you more kicking time, but no way to make it work. No set plays to make different games feel unique.
Improved Gameplay
Probably the biggest area to still talk about, is a thing that becoming disapointing with the Major Updates, is it doesnt feel like there is and major steps forward in the gampley itself from one EA to another. Not a problem for the minor patches, but with the Major ones, seeing big changes would be great.
EA7 has changes… but they all seem to be a step backwards, or changes seem like things no one is asking for.
-
Kicking off controls - Biggest one that stood out to me this update was the way you kick off. all the controls now seem inverted, which doesnt make sense, you now push the stick away from you to kick closer, and pull the stick towards you to kick further. The kicking trajectory arc is now also basically locked and you just adjust it a bit. I havent seen anyone mention they wanted controls inverted, and the arc now feel so much more restrictive and robotic, and not like kicking the actual action of kicking a rugby ball.
-
Mauls from kick off - Actually really like that players now lift all over the park from a kick off, however every time they do, it always turns in to a maul, even if the player is tackled, they levitate back to their feet and a maul gets formed. That following maul also 90% of the time forces you to carry the ball with the scrum half whether you want to or not.
-
QOL Issues - My biggest gripe over the EA process is annoying or experience damaging issues not being fixed, and making their way from EA5-7. Biggest contender loads of people are talking about it the AI’s bump off exploit, follwed by them becomming invincible from tackles. It was maybe the worst thing for me in EA6 but it isnt fixed and actually feels worse in EA7.
-
AI also still spam offloads constantly which just feels unrealistic.
-
AI still kick penalties to touch in a bizarre way, they kick the ball like 100m in the air but only make about 5m of territory rather than sticking it in the corner and having a great position.
-
Lineout possession still comepletely wrong most of the time when the ball goes out, ball being awarded to wrong team, 50:22’s not being awarded. Lineouts being taken from the wrong place when kicked out on the full from 22.
-
Mauls still dont mean anything, no way to score a try from a maul directly, just holding down RT until you get bored.
-
Still cant steal opponents lineouts.
-
Players vanishing from cutscenes
-
AI still using forwards to kick penalty conversions
-
This is a post in front of most walk on tunnels the players have to run through
-
Still no collision with posts
-
Scrums still collapse because you hit the QTE at 98% rather than 100%
-
AI player names STILL completely disapear once you touch the ball and never come back, this has been a thing since EA2, i cant believe its still broken 5 months later
And thats just ones I can think of from the top of my head that all existed in EA6, and are now just in EA7.
EA7 also brought a bunch of new ones including
- Lighting around Hair
- Players Grubber Kicking the ball backwards when running at full speed
- Players grubber kicking the ball when you havent touched the button.
- Players passing the ball to nobody and it just bouncing in to touch even though player was available.
- Players litterally running backwards with the running forwards animation.
- All players spawn in a ball during conversions and after half time.
- So many high tackles! But i dont have any control over when they happen, but theres so many.
- Incorrect Team logos from old tournament saves (I know ive already told you about this, but worth adding to the list)
I know its all pretty “ranty” but these are the sort of things that if they can be fixed from 1 EA version to aother the QoL would really improve, and makes the game more enjoyable because you notice the progression. When they carry over even after a “Major Update” its very hard to not just focus on those existing issues and feel like progression has stagnated. (even though im sure from a game dev standpoint theres probably way bigger things you want to focus on and these may be after thoughts). Just remember how much everyone lost their minds over how much better the grass looked once it got updated for EA6, those things make a big difference
Stability improvement
- nope… just crashes everywhere, for all manor of things, running, tackling, kicking, trying to play a tutorial.
Frate rate drops during tutorial are ever present.
Time to stop being miserable, ill mention positives.
Team management
Really glad its finally in the game, being able to change players is great, all seems to work smoothly but still missing a couple of things for me.
- Choice of players limited in positions i.e 2 hookers on the bench, or a 4-4 split is just something you dont really see in rugby (but im sure that will improve as more players get added)
- Cant change lineup before match or during half time? Seems really weird as thats almost the best time as theres a natural pause in the game/
- Need some dedicated cinematics to show tired players coming off the pitch and new players coming on to the field.
Quicksub Menu
On the face of it, really like the concept, have used other similar ones in other sporting games, for a first shot its ok. But could do with a bit of a rethink in how players are selected. Personally I think quick subs should be purely for a “like-for-like” position. I.e scrumhalf for a scrumalf and you just confirm the swap. Or if players can play multiple positions you select between 1 or 2 players. If there is no player for that posistion available I dont think you should be allowed to change the player in quick menu, and should have to pause and look at full team roster. I believe injuries are in the game (but ive never seen it) but i think an injury cinemetic would also be a great time to have something visual on screen while at the same time allowing you to quick sub an injured player off to not break emersion.
New things added
-
Couple of new things added ive been really enjoying. Pyrotechnics are great, all that sort of stuff adds so much to a match, few stadiums have positioning issues with the fireworks hitting the posts. I would also say to have a look at some of the international stadiums for their layouts, such as the principality has theirs run along a touch line, rather than to on to the middle of the pitch
-
Tackle animations, have seens loads more tackle animations since playing more of EA7 and theres some really big tackles that look great. I wish the Y tackle worked better. None of mine land at all. But watching the AI do them looks really great. Got a video up on the channel playing Leinster and Hugo Keenan had 2 try saving tap tackles, and it looked great. If that can be more consistent for you as the player too, that would be great.
Overall EA7 has not had the same step up that EA6 had for me. A lot of issues not fixed. New issues arising. New things added to the game for the most part dont feel great, dont work, or feel rushed. And the tutorials especially just feel like theyve been squeezed in as opposed to being looked at as how a brand new player would need them to work to experience the game for the first time.
Reading the FAQ and comment sections im noticing a lot of people are feeling like the EA7 major update hasnt brought any major progression to the game.
EA8 next, hopefully were looking at some of the 6 nations teams being added. I know a lot of people arent happy with larger areas of the game like rucking and so on and will be a priority for BigAnt but would like to see some of the QoL issues that I listed fixed too, because those are the things that people playing and testing through the EA process will notice a lot when playing game after game after game.
