Rucks Deep Dive
The three actions that occur most in a rugby match are: passes, tackles, and rucks. If a rugby video game gets these wrong, it will result in a poor quality product.
Rugby 25, for now, has two elements for defensive rucks and one element for attacking rucks:
Defensive rucks:
- Jackling
- Clear Outs
Attacking rucks:
- Securing the ball
In terms of securing the ball, it works pretty well. However, it would really benefit the player to be able to add or remove players and increase or decrease the jeopardy of not successfully securing the ball. This is also exacerbated by the aesthetical issue that every single ruck looking like a rugby league scrum (more on that in a moment).
Defensive rucks:
- Jackling - this is currently almost impossible to perform. Either the defensive player is outnumbered before the ruck is even formed (which, understandably is likely at the majority of rucks) - or, as is the big issue, the defensive player doesn’t instantly join the ruck and start jackling in time due to lagging/delay in response of the player. This leaves the user feeling frustrated as there is almost no chance of successfully contesting a jackal that results in a turnover (either ball ripped, or a ‘holding on’ penalty).
- Clear outs - in real life, a successful clearout is down to two possible causes - 1) Technique of the defensive player(s); or 2) More defensive numbers = more strength/mass/power to push back the attacking team. I can see that the latter is intended in the game, but not executed well. It is impossible to add more than 3 players to increase strength/mass/power and increase possibility of a clear out. Right now, clearouts seem totally random as to when they occur. This could allude to point 1), technique - which is fine if so - but in reality, most clearouts occur because of point 2) than point 1).
Aesthetics:
From an immersion point of view, the way the rucks currently look does not leave me feeling like I am playing a rugby game. The look very much like they are, in fact, scrums from Rugby League - 3 on 3 with straight body positions. A ruck will be more fluid in the body positions players will find themselves in, and also a lot more pushing (and leg and hip flexing).
Additions:
Attack - Add or remove players.
- ‘Add’ reduces jeopardy of losing a ruck, but leaves few passing options.
- ‘Remove’ increase jeopardy of losing the ball
Defense - Add or remove players
- ‘Add’ increase probability of a turnover via clear out, but also increases jeopardy as leaving gaps in the line if the attacking team gets the ball out and starts passing.
- ‘Remove’ decreases probability of a turnover via clear out, but also reduces jeopardy as less gaps in the line for the attack to exploit.
Holding On penalties - if it were possible to add more defensive players to a ruck, then this could be a trigger for increasing risk of a holding on penalty being called.
I am unsure, now that the game is released, if any of the above points can be actioned, but if they could - it would drastically improve the game, along with tightened-up passing and tackle animations (removing all traces of rugby league tackle animations).