Here are some of my thoughts of how to make this game improve:
Lighting - First things first is the lighting, when you’re playing a night time match it looks like there’s orange fog which makes it hard to see and doesn’t look right. I love the glares of the sun in some shots which makes the game look wonderful but when it switches back to the normal camera angle you can notice the orangy fog again. Also the shading from the stadiums is nice but it’s definitely way too dark/way too much and needs to be improved. Also when it’s night in some shots it looks like the players have eyeliner on. When you choose the night time game, it’s more in the late afternoon and not at night which doesn’t make sense. Night time should be pitch black sky with the floodlights on the pitch instead of a late afternoon looking type with orange fog. The day time lighting is great, not much to improve apart from the shadows.
Rucking - The rucking in this game is very delayed once a player is on the ground it takes about 2-3 seconds for the other players to bridge over the ruck. The tackler contest never works unless your on attack and you don’t put anyone in the ruck, I think the tackler or the closest person to the ruck should be able to quickly try and jackal/contest for the ball and then if an opponent comes they either will smash you out of the way or won’t be able to smash you out of the way depending on your strength. Also I think there needs to be different ruck animations like a box kick one where a half-back tells a forward to latch onto the back of the ruck (holding the other players t-shirt otherwise the defenders can come up and tackle the half-back) and tells them to stick their leg out as far as they can so it’s harder for the opponents to charge down the kick like a realistic box kick in real life. Another one could be the tackler is trapped in the ruck and cant get out which either resolves in a penalty or he’s just there and the ball is free and the half back can use it. Another one could be when a player is tackled you can put the ball on the ground let go of it then get up and pick the ball back up and run off, obviously It would be way too good to have the mechanic in every ruck so maybe you only get the option to do that move when your tackled on your stomach as that would makes it more realistic because if your on your back you’re obviously not gonna be able to use that move. There should be a counter ruck animation as well, if there’s less opponents in the ruck there’s more of a chance you can counter ruck which would be very handy. I don’t know if this is too hard to code in or put in but maybe if a player is trying to clear the ruck out he accidently tackles with his shoulder into another player’s head resulting in a red card or a yellow card. When a player tackles another player the player that makes the tackle stands up and goes back to the defense line which is realistic in some cases but in most cases players mainly stay in the ruck trying to jackal the ball or counter ruck by pushing through. When the opposition contests the ball in the ruck and gets it they stand still for a second which stops the momentum. I think there should be different animations for rucks as the animation for the ruck now is decent but it has no intensity and no counter rucking etc, and also looks like their starting up a scrum. Also as soon as the players go into the ruck the half back picks the ball up immediately which doesn’t give anytime to think. When you go for a pick and go with the half-back it teleports you back to the ruck and then lets you leave. I think adding pick and go’s in the future would be very good as it builds up momentum and intensity.
Tackling - Tackling is very disappointing at the moment, most of the tackles are from rugby league live 4 which is a different type of tackling game compared to union. League you can get away with high shots but in union you cant and alot of the tackle animations are high. There needs to be animations from the defense tackling from the waste either pushing the attack backwards or letting the attacker fall over you. The right stick diving tackle is very bad at the moment, if you use it most of the time the person with the ball stops and 3 seconds later they drop the ball for the defenders to pick up (the diving animation doesn’t even show, and even the commentators say, “ohhh what a ankle tap”). Just like in RLL4 how if you press down on your right analog stick it dumps the player, I feel like this should be added in or some sort of this as it gives intensity to the play. I see how you guys are using the RLL4 of just standing in the way of the defender and it should auto tackle but it’s not working, you may get the odd time where it would work but it just seems like the AI is doing most of the defending. When you make a break and you’re close to a defender they will teleport to you and tackle you which means going through gaps is very hard. Also when the diving tackle works the player teleports then teleports into an animation of them dragging the player down from the ankles. The tackles are very rugby league style and are too high they need to be lowered. Also if you’re in your in goal the opponents can’t tackle you.
Kicking - Kicking is pretty good in this game, the conversions are pretty easy and simple which could be improved but is really good for now. I think there should be more conversion kicking animations instead of the improved RLL4 one. The grubber kick and chip kick are nice. Sometimes when I hold X to kick it the option doesn’t come up, but that can be fixed. I feel like there should be an option to fake kick the ball, like you holding X and then you see an opponent then you do a dummy pass (which I don’t think is in the game yet?) which activates a animation of the defender to do like a jumping charge down but misses the guy as he faked the kick. A lot of different ideas for kicking, but for now the kicking is good.
Line-outs - Me personally, I think the animation of the line-out is great but moves too fast. I think the players jump up, collect the ball and pass it to the scrum-half too quickly. I’d like to see the line-out mechanic slowed down. But the animation is really good, just a bit too fast. I’ve never been able to steal a line-out before so not sure if you can, I feel like you need to be able to steal line-outs because imagine you’re defending your line with 1 minute to go and you can’t steal the line-out to win the game. So I’m not sure if you can or not but me personally I haven’t been able to steal.
Side Stepping - I think there needs to be more side stepping animations, you’ve got the 360 one and the RLL4 side stepping, me personally I think there needs to be better animations.
Passing - The passing is pretty decent, but is a little bit fast and you still get those floating balls as well. There needs to be improvement on the running on to the ball as when I pass the ball the player stops and then goes which allows the defender to catch up. For example from a line-out I would pass the ball all the way to the wing but because I can’t run onto the ball I’m not able to get past the defenders even if I spread the ball, also the way the defenders teleport to tackle you if your in range of them ruins the play as well, so if your winger is open and you pass it to him the defender will teleport to him and tackle him even though the attacker had so much space, also not being able to run onto the ball effects that as well. When you’re in the ruck and you hold the bumpers (RB/LB) sometimes it wont show the options and when you let go of RB/LB the game glitches and awards a penalty to the opposition. In RLL4 when you use a set play and hold either RB/LB the player would run onto the ball which makes it a lot better to attack from. I think this should be implemented into Rugby 25 as in RLL4 when you double tap RB/LB it does a short ball, I think this would be really good to have in Rugby 25. When you go to pass the ball by pressing RB or LB it sometimes switches to another player which is annoying. I make a break and then it’s just the full back, I’ve got my winger on the right of me who has so much space to go and score a try but because you can run onto the ball the winger stops catches and then gets tackled, so we really need running onto the ball.
Set-Plays - Set-plays are very important to have a good game as that’s how you break the line, get through defense from scrums/line-outs/mauls, so I do think you guys will add set plays later on but here’s some examples of some, having a cross-kick set play would be good as if the opponent doesn’t have a player marker the winger you should be able to use a cross kick set play just like in RC4. There should be back-door/front-door to trick defenders and open up gaps. There needs to be pod systems with the fly-half or full-back or center behind the pod getting ready for a back-door from the pod or the pod just crashing it in, also when the pod is going into contact the players on his left and right could bind up and help push him gaining a few meters. There are a lot more ideas on what set plays to do but I trust in Big Ant to deliver good set-plays for us to enjoy and break the line with. From the RLL games there’s a lot you can use in this game as in the option runners, dummy runners etc.
Defense Structure - Having different types of defensive structure would be great as it would make every team different.
Attack Structure - Looking at in real life attack structures you can try and implement that into the game, example like having a ruck then you have a pod system, the fly half behind the pods with another pod next to the fly half to pass to them to crash it in or pass out back to the center or full-back to either attack the line or kick the ball. Attack structures like this will really help the game out. Having this is really important as that’s how you beat the defense in real life.
Try Scoring - When I press A to score and a defender attempts to tackle me everything stops and then my player just runs out, so that needs to be fixed. The animations of scoring the tries are pretty good but could be improved. To score tries you can just run your player to the left or right and then wait for a gap to open up and go through just like in RLL4 I feel like this needs to be improved but not teleporting the defender to tackle him like it already does.
Scrums - Scums are good although I feel like you should be able to keep pushing forward when you have momentum to be able to receive a penalty. The animation of the scrum is really sick and I love it.
Kit - The kit’s are very nice and good, but the socks? There needs to be low socks, high socks, one sock up and one sock down. Not too sure why the referee’s have low socks when in real life they all wear high socks. I’m hoping it’s just not in this Early Access and will be added in later. There should be inclusions of sport skins, like the long sleeve skins, calf skins like Rieko Ioane wears, and short arm skins like Aaron Smith wears. I like how you have the compression shorts as that helps the kits look nice but having those skins options would really make the kits look nice, also if there is a player career mode we can use those options in that mode. No headgear? I’m guessing that will be coming out in another EA release as well as head bandages etc. Other than that I think all the kits look perfect to how they do in real life.
Mauls - Not sure if mauls are in the game, I know the line-out one is but if there isn’t I think there should be a maul from a tackler holding the player up resolving in a scrum feed to the defender.
Penalty’s / Knock Ons - There aren’t any high tackle penalty’s when most of the tackling animation are high tackles, there needs to be more penalties also from my experience only the AI opposition has had a penalty. Never had a knock on happen so we’re gonna need that too. Needs to be yellow and red cards. More intercepts, in the settings you can add sliders so you can make the AI defenders/attackers harder to play against and also increase the chance of getting an intercept or a knock on just like in RC4. Anyway to add penalty tries?
Player Switching - In RLL4 you hold either RB or LB and then hold your right analog stick to the right or left depending on which player you want, I think this would be a good feature in this game.
Charge Down - There’s no attempt to be able to charge down? So I’m hoping you are able to charge down in the future unless it is too broken.
Positioning - The positioning needs to be improved, my forwards are playing full back sometimes which is because to contest for the ball you need to press Y which is also to select your fullback so maybe changing to button to select your fullback to pressing like RB/LB at the same time will help stop that. The scrum-half is barely at the ruck playing scrum-half sometimes he’s on the wing. In RLL4 you can change defense formations so including that would be great as you can choose to either have both wingers back or in the defense line. Also get some way to get your fly half in the pocket so you can clear the kick. In RLL4 you pressed I think RB/LB to pass to your kickers so something like that would be really helpful.
Additional Stuff - Obviously focus on the gameplay first but near the end I think everyone would like to see sponsor boards on those screens on the stadiums, paint on the grass of sponsors, camera crew behind the in goal taking photos and videos of the game. Security guards with the orange vest, fire when players come onto the field or when a team scores a try. Flags in the crowd could be a great shout, that will add more to the crowd and to the atmosphere. Speaking of atmosphere I love what you guys did with that, the chants etc is a really good start to building the intensity from the crowd. I’m hoping the anthems are going to be in this game as well as the haka etc.
Overall I think this game is promising, once all the ideas from us rugby fans are put into the game it will become the best rugby game to this date. Sorry for this long essay but I thought I’d give my thoughts on what to improve and make the game better. Cheers.
kicked or passed at times it really sounds like a “Tennis Ball” 
and seems unrealistic. If you could please consider improving this aspect.
