@MrBacon, love all the points you raise, the differentiation of look and stats between players is vital for overall feel of the game. The players also look very similar in their body shape - Union is for all shapes and sizes, which this isn’t yet portraying but arguably get the game play right before the art element is what’s needed. All other points 2-8 make total sense and (for the Devs) i concur with these thoughts for their trending.
After 2 - 5 times going backwards in the tackle (behind the gainline) a team would have “lost their momentum” and usually look for a kick of some description, especially at the top level.
The offside in defence needs a look at, I have been able to stand in the passing channel / fully offside when defending (which I have done a lot of) and not draw an offside penalty, which is funny for a time, then gets a little silly - think the Italians against England in the 6N game a few years back.
Lionmaul, AI single pass and rucks, 100% agree need modifying. Sliders would be a great addition, but if the game can be made effective for all levels through the difficulty selection, sliders wouldn’t necessarily be needed?
@FilthyBandit, YES! Could make these element enforced above a certain level / difficulty? Make it alterable in the game settings? So that those learning the game or that aren’t regular gamers / rugby fans arent put off by not understanding why button mashing isn’t working? But those subtleties would improve the feel of the game.
BonnotXV, agree with you that there are a lot of areas which need adjusting, but the foundation is there, it holds promising shoots from a gamers perspective.
Definitely needs the ability to enter a defensive and offensive strategy for a team, set starting positions in attacking shape, set running lines, pod structure. Like the fact the forward’s field split and defensive pressure can be adjusted with the D-pad in game, which still doesnt make much difference with the whole stats not seemingly being that well employed at the moment, but having ability to set strategy before a game starts and tweak in-game will be a marked improvement.
BA Team - the comparisons are probably getting annoying to games which you may not have developed. Probably easier to take mechanics from AFL 23 or RLL 4 and apply them to Rugby 25. That being said, if you are able to take the “good bits” out of the other historical Union games and combine it with your licencing and sports video games knowledge then Big Ant will be able to firmly add the Rugby Union society to their roster of games - firmly hitting the Ross Symons vision - “What we decided to do, because my passion is sport, outside of [video] games, and so we thought, “Sport is renewable. There’s always a sequel. There’s always another season.”” It doesnt need saying, buuuuuut: gamers can be a fickle but loyal bunch, think of the success of Fifa vs Pro Evo Soccer, get it right and we will all flock back for more and more, get it wrong and it’ll be Tennis and Cricket dev (this thread knows which is the best of those 3 sports). We are wishing and willing you to succeed! We all want you to create a game where we ask ourselves “Where did those last 2 hours go!?”, not “What is going on here?” We all have faith you will do it, keep up the good development, early days since release, big up Big Ant.
