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 opponentās 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 itās not too slow for passes etc.)
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
Iāve 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 ā¦ alright ! But this is the same button to select the number 15 so i think there is a remapping to thinking of this !
The game start to be better with the two patches. I have played 30 hours on the game. There is again a lot of work but we re on the right way. I ve seen a problem on the turnovers in the rucks. It s always props and hooker who made the turnovers. Never other player. It will be good if other view cam are added, with a broadcast TV view with zoom sliders. And so, add penaltys and rules. I think so, conversion kick is too easy , i have never failed one. It s not realistic. The best conversion system is madden NFL, do the same system will be good. I m sure this game will be the best ever rugby game. Thank for this game, and take your time to make the best rugby game video never released.
Bugs
Several of them. Iāve had crashes all over, almost impossible to play. Funny enough it only happens when I play with āunlicensedā teams. Game just hangs and crashes during rucks, some tackles etc.
Passing
I love the system thatās currently being implemented. There is a bug that the passing buttons doesnāt really show always e.g. pass to X, Y, Z, A etc. Ensure they are always on. Thereās also some issues where the pass is being made, Iām controlling the next player already. This needs to be fixed. I think there is a lot of potential in the current system and once the positioning is sorted and the player having some control around the POD system, line depth, width there will be some epic plays and might even replace set moves, although can still be added. I like what was mentioned previously having the directional buttons control the set phases etc. and in team settings control the pod systems and positioning. I would have left arrow trigger a floating menu where LB, RB is used to just select the set play.
Rucks
Faster and improved, I like the rucking system tho. Iād have some settings to control how much players are usually auto commited. I think its fair to only be able to steal the ball if youāve made the tackle. Iāve had some epic clutch steals on my 5m line.
Iām not adding much others as I believe most of the comments have them already, tackling is much better, you HAVE to use LT in most instances to get the tackle accurate.
Strange my crashes more with France vs Australia, License teams then not licensed.
Does everyone get a strange one step animation forward when you take the ball from the ruck? Doesnāt matter which way I try to move, even backwards. It will do a little one step forward. That delays quick ball.
Iāve already provided feedback on the rucks and passing so Iāll keep this to things that have changed specifically.
Offloads rarely happen because all tackle animations are high. Most tackles should be waist height.
Kicking is too slow and weak. Itās better to clear with a drop goal just now. The amount of time to power up a drop goal Vs a Punt/up and under should be reversed.
Up and unders are only more lifted punts, itās nearly impossible to challenge for them.
feel kicking in play is a struggle at this time. I think we need aāSlow motionā mode when about to kick any sort of kick during play. The Ai defence line easily moves too quickly and I canāt get time to position and kick a bomb, box kick or tactical kick. The issue too is that the attack lines have no adjustable line or depth to move the depth of the line for the playerās to position themselves. But I am happy we have a new button to use a Bomb kick.
-Passing - Itās ok but still has issues. Sometimes holding the pass button and looking for players based on the pass button options to press doesnāt always hit the intended player when pressing the specific button, it goes to another player. Some offloads travel forward or float but not all.
Player models with skin colour and cultural heritage are a good improvement. I still feel the bodies for some players are a bit lanky or too athletic looking for some N8 or Flankers, Props but hopefully we can adjust bodies or get future scanned players looking more like they do in real life. Perhaps an adjustable weight ( KG ) body size appearance tool could make some forwards look more bulky as in RLL4 in player creator/ editor.
The Lock forwards look generally good with bodies but some in real life can look very thick and bulky such as heavy Locks such as Will Skelton and Le Roux Roets as examples.
Hitting the defence line with a shoulder charge by pressing up on right stick. At the moment on medium Difficulty I am struggling a bit to do this maybe done it only 2 times, but it might be based on a specific player attributes and if I am using a forward which is good dynamic. Sometimes I canāt see which player I clearly running with the camera as it is far away at the moment with that type of view but the name appearing in bottom corner is helpful. I think pods will help in the future to decide on when to use the shoulder charge based on my players /forwards positioned.
I canāt think of too much more at the moment. Lots of good feedback has already been provided by everyone on a range of things. Thanks for listening and all your hard work. Will wait for next patch.
Sorry for my many messages at the moment I post a lot but I want to help you with the development.
I noticed several things this morning (made in France lol)
First of all :
Change the key to push in the rucks which is the same aue key to select number 15. As a result, 15 no longer takes the back of the field if the opponent kicks and it is number 4.5 or 8 who recovers the ball.
Passing bugs, my scrum half makes a pass to the opponent.
Coming out of rucks when I want to choose the player to make the pass the buttons are not always displayed.
For the tackles! (redoing a complete animation would require too much work I think for the teams already busy with our feedback) Why not take the tackle animation that we do with the joysticks but reduce the intensity to have tackles on the legs more faithful to the rugby XV? It would just be necessary for the player not to throw himself but to bend down (recovery of the animation when a player comes into a ruck) with the aim of tackling with the joystick? This could be a solution I think.
Kicks are too uneven (Ramos hits as hard as Aldritt for example) Why not keep the striking force before the update for 10 and 15 by reducing the power before the update by 15%?
For 9 25% less (time to adjust the characteristics of each player)
For 12, 13, 11 and 14 we can put 35% less
and from 1 to 8 reduce the strike force by 15% on the current update.
For the attacking passing line there are players sometimes in the momentum who overtake the ball carrier which is annoying for building your attack (solution with the depth of the line)
I still donāt know how to win my aerial duels.
Thank you really to the whole team, I hope my post wonāt bother you.
Weird more players have not mentioned this, it is a fairly disrupting animation, and definitely kills the flow of the game. I think if they fix this, game will most defiantly flow better. Should be on the priority list. It seems like there is a good unique Rugby game in there, thanks to the developers for working with us to make it the best game Rugby game, hopefully:).(Even if does take a little while).
Hi everyone, unfortunately since the second patch itās becoming very difficult to actually complete a game as most of the time during a match the game will crash back to the desktop. Other times the players just become unresponsive and the match doesnāt progress. If there are log files or anything that can be retrieved let me know and I will forward them to the dev team. I have a few thoughts on gameplay as well but Iāll will hold off on those for the moment as I would rather get the crashes looked into first.
I do not have any issues with game crashes at all since patch 2.
I do however have a bug whereby whenever there is a 2 v 1 clearout from my side the game hangs and you cannot complete the turnover. No input outside of the right stick dive button seems to do anything after this point.
I have attached a screenshot of the state of play when the bug occurs.
I donāt know if some one already said something for this, but seems to miss an option to let a 10 or a kicker to stay in place in order to make a pass 9-10 and then make a long kick
I few things work really well in FIFA that I think must be employed by a rugby. FIFAās Jockeying as a defensive player works so well. Essentially if you run full speed into a tackle attempt and a player skills you, you miss the tackle. This is how it must be in rugby. Defending must take some skill.
With the passing. In most rugby games, passing is terrible. To enable the option to hit any of the potential targets Iāve always thought why doesnāt rugby involve using the direction toggle incorporated with passing power for the distance. It may look ugly at first until players master it. But at least then it might open up more options for more skilled players. It works a charm in FIFA, and if you suck at it, you can always choose the assisted passing setting.
Just an idea really.
Lastly. I was playing Rugby 22 last night. And tbf that game is actually really good and didnāt need to much changing to become great. If rugby 22 had rugby 25s graphics and detail, with enhanced gameplay, it would be cracking. Why on earth did they choose to go with RLL4 mechcanics? And is it possible to employ all of rugby22s rucks and tackling animations. That would be a darn sight better than rugby 25 as it stands.
Hey guys, havent found the time to be able to sit down and give a full breakdown again for this version so ill give you some bullet point thoughts from some hours with the new patch.
Come accross some new issues that ive never seen before and might be worth looking in to.
Players getting classed as being in touch, even though they are 5m in field (not sure if in the new patch the circle around your selected player is acting as the hit box for the player to be in touch.)
AI passing the ball with the strength of Hercules! Ive seen so may passes fly accross the full width of the pitch, and tonight experienced the AI pass the ball backwards from my 5m line, and the ball didnt touch the ground until well beyond the half way line, and never lost momentum, and just kept bouncing all the way in to their own dead ball area. (seems to be when the AI is attempting to do the āhold down pass and select playerā passing mechanic but i dont know if that mechanic has an actual technical name.
^^ also as a result of the above pass going dead, the rule result was a scrum to me back on my own 5m line, as opposed to a scrum to me on THEIR 5m line for them knocking the ball over their own dead ball line.
Had a player score a try while not actually having the ball, player did the passing action while I tackled with the analog stick, but tackle not complete. Pass was never given, but player next to them dived over the try line without the ball and scored, and celebrated.
Drop out Law incorrect - I accidentally kicked the ball in to touch from a goal line drop out, and the game awarded the AI a penalty, to win the game. Whereas actual law should be a scrum or a lineout.
Far more crashes in the game, the majority seem to stem from winning a counter ruck turnover, and also whenever playing against Spain for some reason.
Hardest Difficulty AI cheating - Played a few games on the hardest difficulty and the AI is just able to do things my players cannot do. Have noticed the abilty for the AI to spam the sidestep action repeatedly and for some reason they just walk through tackles. They also seem to track my passes before they are complete. I can have a 3 on 1, and the defender will know the millisecond I press the pass button and charge at the correct player im passing to, even if there is a closer player, making any meter gain exceptionally difficult, because they always know what you are doing before the action is even complete.
Camera orientation - mentioned before, but a new one popped up, playing on side camera vs an opponents scrum is really hard to work with. If your opponent wins the scrum the camera is fixed behind their scrum, and when they pass the ball out the camera rotates back to the side view, however throughout the transition the way the game interprets which way you are running changes even if you dont move the stick. Making defending an opponent 5m attacking scrum on hard difficulties and impossibilty to stop from scoring a try in 1 pass. Camera orientation and the way its incorporated in a game from the players perspective really needs to be looked at when it comes to every set piece, ive got nearly 20 hours in the game and still cant guess what the camera will switch to, let alone new players picking up the game.
kicking at posts from the halfway line very often has the referee standing infront of the camera making it really hard to see the posts.
i am still noticing forward passes from lineouts, the first pass after the scrum half often gets thrown forwards if you just play a standard pass.
Side step issue on side camera. Havnt fully tested this, but I think all of the right analog stick actions are wrong if you play in side camera. It says side step is left/right but on side camera its Up/Down. So im guessing the action is tied to the orientation of the player with the ball and not the controller in your hand. Not a massive issue, but labels in the control menu need to be able to update depending on what camera the player chooses.
PROS
ruck speed and scrum half getting to the ruck is much faster.
im noticing far more turnovers at ruck time becomming available which is fun
new character models for generic players is a huge bonus
im loving the player choice passing system. Once player momentum, positioning and player depth are sorted, I think you guys are on to a winner for the most intricate passing system in any rugby game, that will make online games extreamly fun.
enjoy having a seperate kicking button for up and unders, but they always feel like they go too far, and for some reason players slow down even when you kick shallow and dont seem to compete. I also think a button swap to X for up and under and A for punting would be a great quality of life choice to fit in with players experience from other rugby games.
Queries
In a game tonight, the AI was kicking towards posts, and they were able to curl the ball to the right to get it through the posts. Ive played with pretty much every team, and pressed every button when kicking but cant get that trajectory to change from curling to the left (as every kicker seems to be right footed). How come the AI can change the way the ball curves and can we change that as the player. Wind doesnt seem to effect the conversions, so im not sure how its possible. (have got a video clip i can supply if you want)
Contestable ball catch. When the ball is kicked high from kick off or up and under a ring appears where the ball is landing, and half the circle is red to kind of symbolise my player could jump for it. How does this mechanic work? Sometimes im the only one in the circle and miss the ball, sometimes both players jump and no one catches it, sometimes both jump and I catch it even though AI is in a better position, sometimes players dont jump. I tested different buttons to see if I as the player need to make the player jump but cant find any consitsency. Some clarity on how it works in a training menu, or just as a section in the controls would be useful for new players.
Looking forward to see what the next patch will bring. Really excited to see what will change in the fluidity of the game once the ability to change line depth and width is added, and the passing player slection is made more consistant.
Shoutout to David an Alec, I had a look in the credits to find out who is involved with the sound team. Im still thouroughly enjoying the music inclusion in the menus and in game. One of the things thats been solid thoughout the Early access, I havnt come accross anything music or sound effects wise that ive found jarring or out of place. Great work, and hope they take it up another gear for the full release. Get some chants from the crowd depending on the teams/stadium, get some extra rugby ambience sounds when if different areas of the menus, or when doing player customisation.
Iāve not seen this one reported anywhere yet - what stadium are you playing at?
This feels like it is a consensus among feedback so far to swap these around. I suppose if thereās any strong X button punt fans, speak up now?
Right now we donāt want to introduce any controls options, first as we want to work out a default that feels very natural to as many people as possible - plus it makes it clearer in EA when people say āI pressed the A button and this happenedā when getting feedback, knowing that we donāt need to check settings as well.
If we being honest right now the only thing you dont need to change itās the scrum this is the best part of the game, the fact that we have to hook and have a good timing to not make the scrum fall or turn this is really great. For the rest of the game everything has to be reworked but itās really nice to see that you listen to us. Iād say the lineout are pretty enjoyable too the only thing that miss is the options to make a maul. Hereās a link from a video i make too see things that could be a good addition for the game if you want to have a look. Good luck.
