After the second patch, a little bit of a relief. The game is considerably better with the Feb 14 patch, particularly rucking, winning a fair amount of rucks on defense now. Now, in saying this, it still needs lots of work and tuning, it seems like there is a decent system in there, but needs considerable work. The clearing out on the rucks seems to work ok now, just not sure when you can do what, would be nice if the developers could explain the intentions behind the rucking system, so that we can manage the 3 buttons , bind, steal, contest better. The area that needs most work is the isolated tackle contest tackle and steal, this needs to happen quicker, and varied depending on the tackle/ruck stat of the player, the push over contest is working ok.
Some tips for rucking, it seems if you do a standing tackle by holding the left shoulder button for side jockey you have a better chance at a steal, I think depending on how the tackle goes, its either better to, bind and contest tackle, or bind and steal or bind , contest and steal, or contest and steal. Its like every tackle animation has a better combination depending on how you tackle the offensive player, at least it seems that way. When you do attempt to do the standing tackle, you do have a better chance at the offensive player putting a successful fend on you, (risk vs reward) standing tackle sets you up for the steal in the ruck better but your more susceptible to the fend. The other thing that would help is the ability to add 2 more players to the ruck for a total of 5 on rare occasions, when there is an even contest in the ruck with 2-3 players , the first to press bind 1-2 for some extra players to be added for the push over and possession of the ball. It seems like that could be implemented in a future patch. With patch 2, you can at least play the game, needs much improvement but patch 2 helped a lot. Again, some relief with second patch, so letās see what Feb 18 patch will bring us. Thats why with all critiquing I have been doing about the rucks, I still have confidence that Big Ant will make some big improvements in this game. And for that I will help support by purchasing on a second system. I have faith, because of their past history in support for released game through patches.
On a good note, they need work, but the scrums seem to be fun and add the element of being penalized if you donāt push right. Something that was lacking in other rugby games.