Well… in contrast to my experience on PC yesterday, i booted up the xbox after work to see how it faired (version ID is v1.0.3423, not sure if that was the version meant to be out yesterday or today’s hotpatch ID)
And I had a game… that was fun.
France vs Australia Hardest 5 minute halves.
Final score 42-28.
- AI brought real intensity, saw quite a few really nice choices of passes that picked put the player running a clean line through a gap in my defensive line. Actually saw about 4 “set play” set of passes and worked around me. AI even performed Box kicks that felt tactical, bouncing in to my 5m line while my fullback wasnt there.
- Box kicking direction been corrected so pushing further away makes the kick go further, so now inverted from the PC version which was an immediate complaint by me yesterday, glad thats fixed (just need to invert the kick offs now and @JNT_BA wont have to listen to me complain about it any more
) - AI actually played off a lineout, didnt just go for the maul, actually went to 9, then on to a crash ball 12 carry that caused me all sorts of problems to defend.
- AI slotted 2 beautiful 50/22’s against me. (Did feel like AI have the ability to kick perfect long range kicks within milliseconds of recieving the pass, which obviously a human player cant do, so pretty unfair, but atleast they took the kick) but from seeing others feedback, seems like i might have had many less kicked against me, could easily see how having 10 in a match against you would be frustrating, especially as players dont always pick up loose ball, so you dont have the ability to cover them well.
- AI made 4 subs accross the match without injuries forcing them.
- Didnt have a single incident of ball getting stuck in a maul or ruck.
- AI took tactical defensive box kicks in their own 22 to clear their lines.
Had to actually sit up in the chair and focus on the game rather than walk over tries, or just put the controller down knowing they were going to “hand off” all the way to a try.
Issues still remaining.
- Scrum half can still clip through the ruck by being pushed by arriving forwards and kicks the ball out of the ruck.
- AI offloads are off the scale the repeat patter of “handoff 1st tackler, offload on second tackle” is leading to some outrageous offloads to players i didnt even know they could pass to. It doesnt even feel like a target pass, more like them playing the offload HAS to be recieves by the next nearest player.
- couple of target passes being thrown to ground and bouncing along the ground to touch
- issue with commiting 0 players to a ruck. The game seems to expect you to put in a minimum of 3. So if you put 0 in a ruck, a lot of the time the tacklers stand offside waiting for you to add them in the ruck, but because you dont they stand offside and give away a penalty even though you arent playing as them, and just simply didnt compete at the ruck to keep more people in your defensive line.
Hopefully its not a one off match, because other peoples feedback on here sounds like a much worse experience than what ive had today, ill play a couple more games over the evening.
I also found out today, that the dummy pass option if times correctly activates the sidestep animation and beating a defender. I didnt know that was a thing. I feel like that may actually be a better system than having the action on the analog stick, because it takes a lot more finesse and timing than just flicking a stick.
Oh also, name cards at the bottom of the screen still dont work… ill mention it every time, because i still dont see how thats broken.
But playing the match as France on the xbox. Not only were opponents name card not on screen. But 0 of my own players had their names at all? Not in open play, not scoring a try, not when scoring a conversion. So somehow they may have gone further backwards, than alrwady broken
EDIT
Game 2 had another fun game. Wales vs New Zealand, 5 min halves hardest. 28-7
Most of what I mentioned above still applies.
- New Zealand actually run an inside switch set play which means you have to defend really tight which is fun.
- Did have a ball stuck in a Maul, so not completely fixed.
- Have Evidence AI 50/22 is actually a cheat. One of their players was mid sidstep animation when punting the ball for a 50/22, so it feels like a pre determined kick, before they receive the ball and can override any of their actions. They scored five 50/22s against me, and 2 of them the ball actually just phased through my player rather than it charging down.
- High tackles are back aswell though, havnt seen one of them in a long time
Couple of other bits noticed.
- Penalty Kicks , the label for applying power with Y still says “kick off” over the button as I assume its brought over from the dropout/kick off set piece. Could change to “punt” or something as its not really a kick off.
- AI knocked a ball dead after I kicked the ball and it bounced behind their try line. Resulted in a 5m scrum to me. But result should be a dropout. As the ball was taken over the try line by my action, even though it was their fault the ball went dead.
- might also be specific to xbox version. But quite a few issues with momentum after getting a loose ball, either by a catch or picking the ball up. Both me and the AI seem to need to stand still for a second after getting the ball before running. Wouldve got a brilliant crossfield try, ball bounced off the ground perfectly to chest height to my guy running on to the bounce, but once he got it, he stopped dead, then started building up his sprint again which was enough to be caught by a defender that didnt stand a chance.
But overall, this feels much more enjoyable than what I played on PC yesterday.
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