Launch (EA1) Patch 2 Notes

Rugby 25
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Hi Ross and Team,

Thanks for the patch. My feedback having played a few games:

Positives;

  • The scrum half gets to the ruck now a lot quicker (I’m sure it’s something that will be looked at in future updates, but will there be logic so it doesn’t always have to be number 9 who goes for the ball?)
  • Seemed to be a lot easier to steal from rucks and works a lot better (didn’t notice myself accidentally kicking the ball away). Noticed myself getting steals where it made sense e.g. having made a tackle out wide and my players got to the ruck quicker
  • Didn’t have as many issues with forward passes (but have noticed a new bug as per below)

Negatives;

  • Can’t figure out how to do offloads. Feel like there was a couple of moments where it made sense and I was hitting the pass button but nothing happened
  • Some passes are still very floaty, slowing the game down or resulting in interceptions
  • Had one incident where my player was tackled from behind, and a ruck failed to form.
  • Unfortunately, when it comes to passing, I’m now experiencing an almost game breaking bug where passes are not going to a receiver and are going backwards 40 - 50 metres and often out the back of the scoring area. At first I thought it was moments I was throwing bad passes but it has also happened on a lot of passes where it seems there’d be no reason for it to happen
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Just so we’re clear with these updates. The things mentioned specifically in the notes are what we have targeted. With things not mentioned, while other things may help them, may not have been specifically targeted in each update as the team works hard to get some specific things done. It’s a staged process which means doing one update, seeing how it goes seeing how it affects other things seeing how everyone goes, look into what else can be updated.

While we see all the reports and issues please keep that coming. The things specifically mentioned in the notes will be the best-directed feedback for each update while the team works on other things. We are certainly aware of the things that have been reported even from the initial launch.

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Full spec system, freezes all the time, goes to steam page mostly after a steal, contested tackle, or offensive move the game crashes, happens within 10 minutes of play, before the game was ever patched could at least get through a 15-minute game, the patch talk about offload, I have not seen even one, and have tried on every single phase. Developers need to explain what the thought process at rucks are, not sure what is going on, tried binding, contest tackle, steal, in what sequence can you do these, is it long press or single presses, does bind tap 1 bind bind only 1 or supposed to, because sometimes I get 1 binding sometimes, I get 3 binding with one tap. Not sure if is designed that way or a bug? Please explain the controls, so we know how to properly test. I have seen some pretty good-looking clear outs at ruck, just not sure how to do. And 80% of the time end up kicking the ball away after a jackal or steal is successful. Seems like may be a good system hidden there, just got to work out the bugs, and have instructions on how it is supposed to work. Many times, on passes the ball goes flying across the whole field totally crazy, the whole length of the pitch.

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Here is my ***feedback from the patch

  • Improved Kicking
    In-play kicks have been adjusted along with tuning of trajectories across all kick types. A dedicated button (A) has been implemented for Up and Under kicks.

*** Positives: The fact a separate bomb button has been enabled and Kick trajectory for punts seem to be improved.
Negatives: The dedicated A button for bombs just feels like a floaty punt and does not have anywhere enough hang time to make the kicks actually contestable, which is the sole purpose of this type of kick. Also the targeting UI is not fit for purpose. You cannot aim well enough in the limited time on the ball this game already forces. The bomb would feel better assigned to X and the punt to A button in my opinion. The A button also can cause you to do a bomb in the end goal instead of diving early for the try now, which was not the best surprise, though amusing.

  • Improved Offloads
    Standard pass buttons may be used to offload in the early stages of a tackle. Note that offloads are more likely than standard passes to deviate from the target. This is an area on which we are hoping to get feedback to ensure we have balanced this correctly.

***Positives: The fact they are being included.
Negatives: I am yet to be able to do one. In RLL4 these were way too hard to pull off. I know some people have managed it post patch but apparently when they have it is aimless. Sounds like it needs to have a bigger window and be easier to achieve.

  • Improved Scrum Half ruck join speed
    The halves will attend rucks quicker to use the ball. The Ruck mechanic is still being worked on in response to feedback, this area of the game will have further improvement in future updates.

***Positives: The half back does get to rucks faster and enables faster play of the ball.
Negatives: The targeted passing in this game seems to be a huge part in unlocking defences. At the moment however the support players take far too long to get into any sort of cohesive position. When they do, the targeted button selection doesn’t appear half of the time. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern in where an A selection or B selection will stand every time either. So these options should be present at every ruck.

  • Corrected Rule implementation
    Correction of some rules not implemented correctly, including the positioning of the lineout after free kicks to touch and ensuring defensive touchdowns are treated correctly.

***Positive: 5m scrums appear in more correct places.
Negatives: When I pressed A to dive for a try my player did an in end goal bomb, resulting in a contested catch. After winning the catch the defence was awarded a free kick 5 metres out from their line? Which they then kicked to touch and I was given the throw. Did not seem right to me unless there is some new rule change?

  • Corrected unintentional forward passes
    The logic for selecting a pass target when tapping LB/RB has been adjusted to avoid a small percentage of scenarios where the ball would be passed well forward to a teammate out of the ruck.

***Positives: These do seem less regular.
Negatives: These are still happening on occasion and now seem to travel further and with more force. If something was done to ensure opposition close to the ruck were not selected as targets this needs to be expanded.

  • Stability improvements
    A number of reported game stability issues have been rectified in this update, our support team thanks you! Please keep these reports coming through as they are encountered via https://early.bigant.com/

***Positives: This is being addressed and drop kicks no longer cause crashes for me.
Negatives: Attempting cross field bombs has caused crashes (Or just coincidence) I am now also getting the game stop all players from doing anything at a ruck. So rather than crashes I am being forced to quit the game anyway. Probably not linked but just noting in case.

Overall I feel the passing and kicking have been affected negatively over the two patches. Passing needs to be given back its speed a little, almost every pass is now floaty and any work you are doing on running lines is being countered by the fact players need to now stand and wait for passes to arrive. These players need momentum and the passes need to arrive in time for them to retain that.

The kicking already took too long to complete with a punt. Now it seems you need to fill the bar even longer. Although I do not mind this if it stays, the mechanism itself seems good and the penalty for overpowering a kick has been well levelled … the kicker has to have more time on the ball. Whether this is achieved by a slower defensive line or a slowed time effect idk. But it needs something.

The game seems less broken with crazy bugs, that is a positive. But it isn’t certain what path this gameplay is taking. It doesn’t play or feel like rugby at the moment. Hopefully you have somethings hidden up your sleeves that will drop in on a major patch and it will all be a bit more coherent and make sense.

Roll on major Patch #1.

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I found rugby 08 online to download man i loved this game so much as a kid haha hopefully this game gets to this level at launch after the EA

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Still worried about the rll4 bugs and animations that are supposedly slipping through according to ross. Are these actually placeholders or are these being overhauled in a major patch?

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The new update fixed the rucks somewhat. Much faster than it was before so that is good to see.

Offloads are pretty cool as I have been able to get some decent offloads in to score tries.

MAJOR ISSUES STILL…

• The passing is better but the Support Runners are always in AWFULL positions. Please work on improving the positioning of Support Runners.

• If you eventually get a support Runner next to you or something like that, and you press RB/LB to pass, the ball does not go to them. Sometimes it even just gets YEETED backwards to your goal line.

• Passing ball projectile has a tendency to get YEETED to the back of the field as mentioned above. Needs to be fixed.

• Tackling animations are still VERY MUCH Rugby League like.

• Formations and Set plays would be amazing (assuming they are still coming later on). Because currently everyone just stands in random places.

• No9 takes the ball from the ruck at least 30% of the times, the rest it is the closest player available.

• When you Sidestep / Fend off a tackle, sometimes animation just breaks or stops dead. And you lose momentum of speed.

• Attempting a quick play of the Scrum Half (or whoever is in the position to pass from the ruck, which again is almost never No9), always gets stuck. Like I saw a very good gap to run from No9 off the ruck, attempted it and he just started running, got stuck, went backwards to the ruck and then was able to continue running, losing all of the momentum and having a defender close the gap.

Keep up the Good Work!!

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It’s not anything to do with the RLL4 engine - there are no RLL4 bugs in Rugby 25.

There is placeholder animation that has been used when there was not a suitable Rugby animation found - these will be removed (many already have been).

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One thing that you can do to speed up the gameplay improvements is to expose some parameters regarding gameplay directly as options in the game(like RC/FIFA sliders).

Ideally you could have a general game sliders option and then add the possibility to assign each team specific sliders that would overwrite the general sliders(for example Fiji sliders would favor offloads & quickplay, Italy’s sliders would favor kicking, France sliders would favor running the ball with their crazy counterattacks, etc, or whatever the user decides.) this is something not even FIFA has. :smiley:

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Hi Ross and BigAntStudios
First of all thank you for the early access of Rugby 25, I have been enjoying it, I think it’s a big improvement in a few ways from previous rugby games I’ve played of course there is still plenty more improvements needed in place which I am glad you can give feedback to make it the most successful rugby game out there, and as a student of gaming design, and coding I do appriciate the time you have given while working with this game and the feedback!!
The few suggestions in feedback for improvement in the gameplay is

-The box kicking does need a bit of work on, when you kick it does not go far enough, and the way the scrum half kicks it is also quite weird, maybe this depends on kicking it fast if you’re in a hurry to kick but I would like if the kicking motion was improved a little and the box kicking distance!
-There is still some issues when kicking towards the touch-line, the ball is trying to stay in rather than go out, might be a little glitch but really needs work on.
-Tackling also needs improvement, when I try tackling all I am seeing is players flying all around the place and missing so many tackles and it isn’t really realistic, it looks weird, like they’re sliding across the floor when they miss a tackle. If you could fix this it would be great, just a little slip there. Tackling is not all bad there are some good tackling motions which I have noticing which don’t look too bad, it’s just the times where players are always missing tackling does not look the greatest. I don’t mind 1 player missing a tackle but seeing 5 different players missing tackles looks silly!
-Scoring try dives glitch, I have noticed a lot when you are being chased towards the try line and when you dive I notice after you put the ball down after diving a player tackles you back up to your feet and back to the ground again, I think it’s a small, minor glitch but it does need to be improved whenever a player tries tackling you when you are on the ground after scoring a try I’ve seen it happen quite a bit and it was also happening in Rugby Challenge 4 which is entirely a different game different company etc…
This is all the feedback I have for now so hope this is okay)
Thank you for reading if you had the time

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A few frustrating games later, I’ve gound some more cons unfortunately.

Bullet passes into touch are getting really frustrating.

Kicking (punt) has become almost impossible. It worked before, why ‘fix’ it?

Manual tackling is worse than before, so many missed tackles. This wasn’t the case in patch 1.

Had this glitch a few times where none of my players were picking up a loose ball with no opponent in sight, then walking up and down several times before seeing opponent run away with the ball and score. So frustrating!

Ballcatcher standing still is becoming really annoying.

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I was just thinking, set the directional buttons on the controller (the arrows) to set your next move, so while the ruck is happening, you can quickly press up, down, left or right to set your next faze of attack, and similarly select your defensive setup and have the players quickly get in position. This would also realistically then make the time longer before you use the ball from the ruck, while the line sets, forcing the ref to call “use-it” after a few seconds.

Example would be, up arrow to set the fly half deep for the kick. Down arrow to set close runners with the forward, with pods, right arrow to set back line for running with dummy/support runners, and left arrow for something else.

In defense, you could use up arrow to set for opposition kick, down arrow for close defense, right arrow for wide defense and left arrow for something else.

Once you select one of the options, it remains on that option until you select another one, so it sets to that option.

Also, another point, the controls seem very slow/delayed/unresponsive. The game should register the exact moment you press the button, so that when doing different moves, with kicks or offloads, it can be executed and the gameplay runs smoothly.

Starting at ruck time, as soon as the player goes to ground, the closest one or two support players should go in to defend the ball, steal or counter ruck, then scrum half goes in immediately and waits until you have set your faze and are ready to pass. Once ball is passed, whilst ball is in the air, you should already be able to press the button for the next move, whether pass, offload or kick (like a grubber through the line), and as soon as the ball is caught, the action is executed. This allows for faster/smoother gameplay, WITHOUT speeding up the mechanics. The speed of the mechanics is pretty good at this stage.

I hope it makes sense. If I pass to fly half who runs at pace, and the backline players are in the correct positions (another fix), then I can immediately pass to 12, who then immediately puts through a grubber to the touch line for my wing to pick up, and although the mechanics are not sped up, the actions are sped up, and I am able to give instruction on the next move while the ball is still in the air.

Thanks

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Just a quick note to say thanks for the feedback. The dev team and myself are reading every post, you are all helping make the game better and will make a difference.

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Quick question was motion capture used for this game, if not I think it could help with some of the animations that are currently not being seen in the game such as hand offs, try scoring, passing and offloads.

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Are you sure you are getting offloads, what level are you playing on? You are the first I have seen mention seeing offloads. Have played on medium level, have yet to see 1 offload. Maybe on easy, then can be done easier? I am hoping there are better offloads then RLL4, I like RLL4 but disliked the offloads in that game. Both Rugby 22 and Rugby challenge series have good offloads and hopefully Rugby 25 will to. The thing is the AI has got to be smart to react to offloads otherwise will be to easy to score. So maybe there looking to improve the AI defense to allow more offloads?

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I’m not 100% sure about this because on my side most animations still looks like rll especially with tackling and scoring tries

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Hi everyone ,

I appreciate the efforts of Big Ant to update teams with updates for generic player appearances. It looks more realistic based on their cultural backgrounds and geographical location within the world. It definitely makes the game more enjoyable and immersive.
They look good. ( I just included two screenshots examples below)s

I have been busy with submitting tickets with video evidence for various bugs mentioned and some new ones I have identified. I will give more feedback at a later stage this weekend on the patch update.

I just want to say in my personal opinion that I am the believer that a good rugby video games needs photogrammetry/licensing and good gameplay. So I totally support the efforts of Big Ant to achieve a lot of face scans of players and working hard on the gameplay. Both are important and I appreciate your hard work to improve these in the future and add the photogrammetry content from around the world with teams and licensed competitions.
I also motivated to contribute to player creation on Fanhub to help if we don’t get all the players for teams and I was a big contributor in the past on previous titles of rugby video games. I would usually create a lot of players for team depth and younger players not in full time squads for my own campaigns and share the players to the community.

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Hello to the entire Big Ant team and thank you for taking our feedback on the game.

I would like to provide feedback on the last minor update.

Positive:

  • the scrum half is faster
  • the kicks are better really and less powerful therefore more realistic.
  • Passing has been improved but there is still room for improvement.

Now here is my feedback that could perhaps help improve the gameplay.

Rucks (Defense):

  • Improved the speed of scraping when defending. The ruck phases are faster but we feel that the advantage is for the team which has the ball.

  • Try to add, perhaps, a second player who can come and scratch the ball when the tackler is on the ground and the support for the attack is slow.

  • Have the possibility of being able to counter kicks from the scrum half on the edges of the ruck.

Attack :

  • Add different ways to attack and organize your line (maybe with the directional cross); depth, pods or fly half.

-Improve offloads because there are still too few.

  • Improve the use a fend off because it is not very usable at the moment.

  • Add a marker to know where the ball will land after a kick.

Other improvements:

  • The 15 should be in the line during the attack but it is never in its correct position in defense (the V behind with the numbers 11 and 14 is not present during the opponent’s kicks ).

  • Bug of players getting stuck on the field.

  • Bug that no longer allows tackling.

  • create tackle animations for rugby XV.

  • Mauvaka as a wingman instead of a tailback (it makes me laugh but oh well lol)

  • Player teleportation bug

  • Not enough aerial duels on return kicks.

  • Possibility of making pass repeats by pressing LB or RB twice.

  • Improved lawn modeling.

  • the scrum half must always follow the ball to be at the exit of the rucks (if he is tackled another player takes over)

  • More depth for the attack line, addition of a button to put a shooter very deep to be able to kick because we cannot free ourselves at the moment.

  • Maybe slow down the game speed by 25% (to see if it’s not too slow for passes etc.)

Thank you in any case for listening to my post.

Good luck to you and have a good day.

French calla

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I only ask because the side steps and hand offs (where the player stops then carrys on moving) and Floaty passes are all things that happened identically in rll4, the random floaty passes were one of the most annoying things about rll4 and its happening in this again

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I’ve noticed a improvement with the number 15. There is an issue when we are in defense.

when we have a ruck we use Y to tackle contest … alright ! But this is the same button to select the number 15 so i think there is a remapping to thinking of this !