I hope if that happens your players get banned and stripped of all awards 
thats brutal, possible retribution for you belting them all in AFL26 office comps? 
@JNT_BA
Thinking of starting a petition for a Hyper-Realistic Spectator Mode.
Wouldnāt it be great to work a minigame job all day, sit in traffic on the way to the game and miss the first bounce, pay $15 for a plastic cup of Carlton Dry with the daily earnings and then leave the match after the final siren while watching Danielās Donuts change their signs to show the winning teamās jam-filled donuts onscreen?
Might have to be a Marvel-exclusive bonus at the end after my beloved Saints play.
Nah but fr; insanely pumped for 26.
Essendon fans continue catching strays 
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Need Garry Moorcroft in game taking the hanger over Johnson
more articles, nice
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All the talk of new game modes and realism in career / management, I think itās time for a brain dump. For me the top three on the wishlist are:
- Improvements in AI
- more realistic player support around packs (e.g. team mates help stop the ball and hold the play up or peeling off for a handball)
- reining in some of the quirkier player movements (e.g. forwards running to the far side boundary when looking for a pass; defenders peeling off 100% of the time and making unrealistic attempts to intercept or tackle - the back flanker running towards the opposition wingman when there has been a turnover is the best example of this)
I assume thereās a laundry list of things BA would like to do internally so I wonāt kill myself trying to think of an exhaustive list. The headline request is āmore realistic AIā.
(want to briefly mention that I think BA have done a great job here with 23 and itās one of the strengths that is too readily overlooked by detractors. Remember tap-kick-mark-goal? Bit of a bugbear of mine that gains here are taken for granted).
- Connected to but separate to above - ability to direct players not in your direct control.
The AI wonāt always do what is in your head automagically, and there will be times you want them to stay on their man or peel off for a wide receive. It would be great if we could do this ourselves as a direction or request instead of moving control to the AI player and hoping the player closer to the ball that you were controlling does the right thing. Which doesnāt work a lot of the time anyway as control reverts back to the ball carrier when they take possession.
Examples of this type of control I can think of:-
- option to force multiple players to punch at once (improves chances but riskier when it hits the deck)
- option to do the complete opposite - have AI players nearby stay man on man
- just like we have a button to have the player āautomaticallyā run to the ball, have a button so that surrounding AI defenders stay on their man
This reduces the load for the AI scripts to somehow always be doing the right thing in the players head.
To implement this system we need an extra button - best determined by the Developers but I would consider calling a spade a spade and combining the tackle button with the ārun to the ballā button - how often do you find yourself holding down both when you donāt have possession? Pretty sure I do it the majority of the time. This change frees up a button use which could instead be allocated to being held down while a ātactical strategyā button is selected. e.g. when not in possession, holding R1 enables tactical plays mapped to the four main buttons - stay on man, peel off, assist with tackle and Iām sure weāll think of a fourth. Perhaps one day you could have a library of set plays that you model offline and assign before a game, something aspirational for a game in future. Acknowledge that we already have a version of this, Iām talking about something far more specific an direct.
- General gameplay improvements
There have been some gameplay quirks or gaps that I hope will get picked up and resolved as part of the AFL 26. For me these are:-
- HTB when kicking too close to the man on the mark - Iām all for ignoring zones and ridiculous 50m penalties, but the game treating the kicking action as play on when you havenāt stepped off the line is a consistent source of frustration. Itās not the rule and it wonāt break the game to fix it.
- ball physics around packs - itās too easy to kick a 50m shot at goal in the middle of traffic. If you kick the ball with a player standing directly in front of you it should bounce off them. Acknowledge you could take this too far and make the game frustrating but as it stands it feels like there are no player physics when kicking for goal unless there has been a successful smother action - a bit of realism would help here.
- similar to above, we need more nuance when a lower stat player is trying to tackle a higher stat one. There are too many scenarios where you feel powerless to stop a goal despite multiple defenders surrounding the ball carrier.
- again connected to the above, code around who has āpermissionā to pick up the ball or receive a handpass needs fine tuning. I get that clearances are important, but sometimes it feels a little to obvious that the game is managing a rule around who is āallowedā to have the ball when trying to clear it from a pack.
- more animation frames around failure. This is most obvious during contest marking situations, and sometimes the animation is great, but a lot of the time succeeding at something and failing at something is visually identical. The most noticeable example is a failed tackle where a player seems to skate on the ground for half a second and nothing happens - this is most easily triggered when tackling from behind.
- more realistic spays. You still can get some pretty crazy 30m-40m kicks off while being tackled (which ironically often donāt count as a mark on the other end despite the physics suggesting it was a clear kick).
Canāt wait for 26!
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Donāt worry will confirm if they use any of my guernseys
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Got the ball rolling tbf
You reckon we will get anymore news today ?
I hope on to the forums for the first time today a couple of minutes ago and I see there was 55 texts, so there has been lots of new stuff
We must read what mighty Ross Said on new AFL 26 -
https://x.com/cricket24_game/status/1917813476137001084?s=46
Just want to give a shout out to Sharpy who is reading this forum as well a few desks away. 
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AFL26 promises to deliver an array of gameplay enhancements including single player career mode, improved in match marking and goal kicking mechanisms, interchange management, Hall of Fame, general game play elevated and more, plus new greats of the game available in a refreshed Pro Team Mode.
absolutley love the sound of this
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Guys prediction is Trailer to be out as soon as the bombers kick their first goal tonight
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North is always a hard watch against us. For some reason they usually play out of their skin. So glad Iām working. 
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As an Essendon supporter myself, the bombers end up just winning (5-20pts) or we get flogged
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Name a team who doesnāt play out of their skin against us 
Weāre just not a feared team unfortunately so everyone believes they can beat us and get up and about as soon as they see the Dons on the fixture
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So, maybe Iām reading too much into those screenshotsā¦ (Iām sure Iām not the only one!).
Questions come to mind like āare they in-game screenshots?ā and āwhat spec PC were they taken from?āā¦ but Iām sure weāre all hoping the game looks this good on each of our platforms (PS5 for me).
From what I can see, the detail and lighting looks improvedā¦ but also compared to AFL 23ā¦
The AFLW screenshot has
- players in the background pushing/jostling. Maybe no more running through each other like ghosts?
- a left foot kick while being tackled (AFL 23 only had this animation with right foot kicksā¦ so the ball teleported to the opposite foot half way through the animation).
The speccy one looks like a new animation? Or is it the Heeney one from that leaked trailer?
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