Following the new patch, there is a small but noticeable improvement in the AI’s ball play. It is however still pretty much school boy level tactics. The AI is still afraid of space and exploiting glaringly obvious overlaps. I’m praying that a plan is being developed for a tactical kicking game where the AI can really focus on playing a territorial battle, whether it be 50-22s, up and unders, grubbers and kicks behind to force you to scramble. As it stands, all they do is box kick. I’m having some fun overall, but the AI is still very rarely scoring.
The rucks are ok for me. It’s just the players sometimes take to long to bind.
I’m neutral on the reduced speed of the forwards. On the one hand it adds a bit of strategy, but on the other hand, players like Ben Earl and Henry Pollock show that perhaps the backrow should be given an exception because they are certainly no slouches. i have no problems with the front row and locks, because it was ridiculous going the length of the field with joe marler ffs haha
There is a minor passing bug, which results in some passes being flung out to touch.
The mauls need to be harder too, but really the team need to keep focusing on the AI for now.
The fly half NEEDS to be available for first receiver on all occasions, unless he is buried in a ruck. When i hold the pass button its a bit frustrating when he is not selected. Please please look into this.
I’ve maintained since EA that this can easily be the best every rugby game and it is slowly getting there. If we can just focus all efforts on making the AI a challenge that will really help. Thats where the replay value will really hold up
Final thing. i didn’t realise that you could actually edit international squads in the career. Why can’t this then be done outside of career mode? it makes no sense.
The Forwards not being nearly quick enough to rucks.
11-14 not joining the rucks
the Flankers waiting for other forwards to arrive
The forwards now being slightly too slow overall
isn’t likely to be coming this week unfortunately.
I like the change in pace. However, i dont understand why player position and bmi are currently being used to modify player speed. But im a rugby brain that plays video games. Maybe that makes sence to video game developers.
This new forwards are priority to rucks isnt working for me. On hardest against a good side, im having to commit 5 to most rucks, if a forward carries, then im am effectively left with only 2 forwards in play. This isnt even enough to form a pod (if they were properly implemented). This means i then have 5 forwards just trundling back and forth going from ruck to ruck. Its pointless using a 1331 forward setup if this is how it works. I like that forwards are priorized, however i think we need a 2 button system. Nearest player and forwards. Rugby challenge had similar with the quick and strong binds. Plus, go back to 3 in a ruck. Most cases in actual rugby you have one player clear and one player secure and that would be it. A 3rd is only really used if its being contested.
I followed the afl23 release and it was a shambles, BA did get it to a playable state in the end. But from what i have seen afl26 is pretty good. Looks like they learnt alot. Maybe the next rugby installment will be the game we want. This is their first attempt at a union game.
BMI, is the word we use internally. Unfortunately in this case Matt didn’t check with me to see if it would be confusing. It’s not the literal BMI scale which I know very well is not accurate but unfortunately still used in many cases. We do not know the BMI of every player.
BMI is just the variable we use for a weighted scale. We also have thousands of players in the game. Sometimes the things we scale are player wide.
Don’t focus on the word “BMI” just really think of it as a weight/body type scale of number.
Yep, hope so. FIFA has been releasing every year for over 30 years. The main problem with rugby games is after 3-4 games they stop releasing or the developer changes.
Rugby 08 was the 4th (and last) in the EA series that started with rugby 2004.
Hello, I bought the game on Steam three months ago and I’ve finally been enjoying playing since the last update. The update has put the game in the right direction.
I think the 5-man ruck is a bad idea, but now that it’s implemented, you could improve it based on inputs, as suggested above.
I discovered that we can change our defense and attack with the right and left arrow keys. Apparently, this was implemented some time ago, but you haven’t communicated about it, which is a shame because I wish I had known about it sooner.
Tonight 5 of us started a local multiplayer competition.
There was another bug which happened more than once. After full time, one side was running with the ball and the whistle blew and it was all of a sudden full time. In all instances, no one was in the process of tackling the ball carrier and he hadn’t spilled it or any other situation.
The other players all had played the game many times (maybe 15-20 games average) and hadn’t played the game since the latest patch though. They all felt that the forwards were at some times pitifully slow to rucks and agreed with the logic that 11, 12, 13 & 14 should be joining the ruck immediately, whilst 9, 10 & 15 not so much.
I noticed in the games others were playing that forwards were getting noticeably slower yet by the last 20mins of the games.
Do like the direction the games going, just think the forwards need to be a tad Quicker, and backs need to be allowed to join the mauls too if their nearest
The defence drifts towards the ruck aiming for the attacker’s outside shoulder instead of the complete opposite. I am not very familiar with rugby league and this could be another inherited feature from RLL but it clearly doesn’t work for union, where the gaps are normally outside and the defence moves from the ruck towards the touchline.
Actually when you change player the computer automatically selects the player in the outside shoulder of the atacker rather than the inside. In my case this sometimes results in me pulling the defender away and creating a gap. This needs to change.
It would also be great to see more frequent knock-on, specially after passes coming from late offloads, that come out wobbly. Also more high tackles.
It is a bit more challenging to score now, which is good, but AI is still not good enough to score themselves.
As I did in RLL4, adjusted speeds according to position or exceptions* such as players renowned for blitzing speed in those positions:
Props: 40-50 (60)
Edge forwards/hookers: 50-60 ( 70)
Outside backs: 60-70 (*80)
Speed Freaks: 90- 99
This can give feel of true disparity between slower and faster players, creating attacking opportunities and ways to open up the match… but as I have said with fatigue I would like it to effect and reduce these caps as players become more fatigued in the match. The proportionality of how much it is reduced and affects the player behaviour and likeliness of injury or error needs to be balanced.
This happened to a few of us playing last night. Checked the replay and it was a forward in my defensive line. Playing on Side-Cam I was trying to pull him down the screen and he literally resisted and drifted up screen away from the attacking player I was trying to aim him at. Perhaps he was trying to join an old ruck. This game has so many bugs and it seems like the last patch introduced a couple of new ones.
Totally agree, player selection is always a battle to get someone useful !
Agree, no way near do they pass enough or logically. For example, AI could have a 3 man overlap on one side and they will pass it the other way. Also, the AI could make a break down the wing but they will just stay alongside the line as opposed to cutting in, making it easy to put them into touch. Lots of logic has to be created, as of now we have 0.
@JNT_BA
Can you please ask the team whether it would be possible to increase the height of the box kick.or at least give us a option to kick a normal box kick that would be aimed at getting territory(for example a kick to touch) and then a option for a higher box kick where your players can chase down the kick to compete for it in the air. We see plenty of high box kick in real rugby that it feels like it’s really something that’s missing in this game. Thank you!
The big problem at the moment with passing is that they don’t have the right first receiver taking the ball. The first receiver should mostly be the flyhalf but not limited to him. Regardless of who is the receiver, he basically stand way too deep with better options either side at the moment. They should position the first ball receiver next to the ruck, about 5m away on either sides of the ruck. I have had much cleaner ball to my backline when I did it this way. And whenever the AI did pass to the correct first receiver in this position I’m referring to, they did string together much better passes. Currently forwards are positioned in that area mostly where the receiver should be.
@Tdrcv63 agree and the ridiculous thing is that we had what you mention all the way back in Early Access 2 but they messed around with things so much that the offensive line is now a complete mess. If you go back and watch some videos from EA2 there is plays where the ball is passed to the front forward in the pod, he hits the tackle and the two supporting forwards hit the ruck first. There’s also examples of pods passing out the back to a looping 10 or 12. All this just disappeared from EA3 onwards
